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diff --git a/35995-h/35995-h.htm b/35995-h/35995-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7c379a --- /dev/null +++ b/35995-h/35995-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,11149 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of William Blake, by Algernon Charles Swinburne</title> + <style type="text/css"> + + p {margin-top: .75em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: .75em;} + + body {margin-left: 12%; margin-right: 12%;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right; font-style: normal;} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {text-align: center; clear: both;} + + hr {width: 33%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; clear: both;} + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + .giant {font-size: 200%} + .huge {font-size: 150%} + .big {font-size: 125%} + + .blockquot {margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .poem {margin-left:15%;} + .note {margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%;} + + .right {text-align: right;} + .center {text-align: center;} + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .smcaplc {text-transform: lowercase; font-variant: small-caps;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + a:link {color:#0000ff; text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:#6633cc; text-decoration:none} + + .spacer {padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em;} + + ins.correction {text-decoration:none; border-bottom: thin solid gray;} + + .hang {margin-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;} + + .verts {margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%;} + + hr.full { width: 100%; + margin-top: 3em; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + height: 4px; + border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */ + border-style: solid; + border-color: #000000; + clear: both; } + pre {font-size: 85%;} + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, William Blake, by Algernon Charles Swinburne</h1> +<pre> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: William Blake</p> +<p> A Critical Essay</p> +<p>Author: Algernon Charles Swinburne</p> +<p>Release Date: May 2, 2011 [eBook #35995]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILLIAM BLAKE***</p> +<p> </p> +<h4>E-text prepared by the Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (<a href="http://www.pgdp.net">http://www.pgdp.net</a>)<br /> + from page images generously made available by<br /> + Internet Archive/American Libraries<br /> + (<a href="http://www.archive.org/details/americana">http://www.archive.org/details/americana</a>)</h4> +<p> </p> +<table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff;margin: 0 auto;" cellpadding="10"> + <tr> + <td valign="top"> + Note: + </td> + <td> + Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive/American Libraries. See + <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/williamblakecrit00swinrich"> + http://www.archive.org/details/williamblakecrit00swinrich</a> + </td> + </tr> +</table> +<p> </p> +<p><strong>Transcriber’s Note:</strong></p> +<p>Text with a faint gray underscore indicates the site of a correction. +Hover the cursor over the underscored text and the nature of the +correction should appear.</p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> + +<p><a name="frontis" id="frontis"></a></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/frontis_tmb.jpg" alt="" /><br /> +<a href="images/frontis.jpg"><small>Larger Image</small></a></div> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p class="center"><span class="giant"><span class="smcap">William Blake.</span></span></p> +<p class="center"><span class="big">A Critical Essay.</span></p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center">BY<br /> +<span class="big">ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.</span></p> +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/title.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="center">“<i>Going to and fro in the Earth.</i>”</p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center">WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM BLAKE’S DESIGNS IN FACSIMILE,<br /><i>COLOURED AND PLAIN</i>.</p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center">LONDON:<br />JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN, PICCADILLY.<br />1868.<br />[<i>All rights reserved.</i>]</p> + + +<p> </p><p> <a name="title" id="title"></a></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/title2_tmb.jpg" alt="WILLIAM BLAKE. A CRITICAL ESSAY." /><br /> +<a href="images/title2.jpg"><small>Larger Image</small></a></div> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span></p> +<h2>DEDICATION.</h2> + +<p class="center"><span class="huge">To WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI.</span></p> + +<p>There are many reasons which should make me glad to inscribe your name +upon the forefront of this book. To you, among other debts, I owe this +one—that it is not even more inadequate to the matter undertaken; and to +you I need not say that it is not designed to supplant or to compete with +the excellent biography of Blake already existing. Rather it was intended +to serve as complement or supplement to this. How it grew, idly and +gradually, out of a mere review into its present shape and volume, you +know. To me at least the subject before long seemed too expansive for an +article; and in the leisure of months, and in the intervals of my natural +work, the first slight study became little by little an elaborate essay. I +found so much unsaid, so much unseen, that a question soon rose before me +of simple alternatives: to do nothing, or to do much. I chose the latter; +and you, who have done more than I to serve and to exalt the memory of +Blake, must know better how much remains undone.</p> + +<p>Friendship needs no cement of reciprocal praise; and this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a></span> book, dedicated +to you from the first, and owing to your guidance as much as to my +goodwill whatever it may have of worth, wants no extraneous allusion to +explain why it should rather be inscribed with your name than with +another. Nevertheless, I will say that now of all times it gives me +pleasure to offer you such a token of friendship as I have at hand to +give. I can but bring you brass for the gold you send me; but between +equals and friends there can be no question of barter. Like Diomed, I take +what I am given and offer what I have. Such as it is, I know you will +accept it with more allowance than it deserves; but one thing you will not +overrate—the affectionate admiration, the grateful remembrance, which +needs no public expression on the part of your friend</p> + +<p class="right">A. C. SWINBURNE.</p> + +<p><i>November, 1866.</i></p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p> +<h2>CONTENTS.</h2> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table"> +<tr><td colspan="2"> </td><td align="right"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#I_LIFE">I.</a></td><td>—LIFE AND DESIGNS</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#II_LYRICAL_POEMS">II.</a></td><td>—LYRICAL POEMS</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_85">85</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#III_THE_PROPHETIC_BOOKS">III.</a></td><td>—THE PROPHETIC BOOKS</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_185">185</a></td></tr></table> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span></p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span></p> +<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.</h2> + +<p>[In justice to the fac-similist who has so faithfully copied the following +designs from Blake’s works, the publisher would state they were made under +somewhat difficult circumstances, the British Museum authorities not +permitting tracing from the copies in their possession. In every case the +exact peculiarities of the originals have been preserved. The colouring +has been done by hand from the designs, tinted by the artist, and the +three illustrations from “Jerusalem” have been reduced from the original +in folio to octavo. The paper on which the fac-similes are given has been +expressly made to resemble that used by Blake.]</p> + + +<table width="60%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table"> +<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#frontis"><span class="smcap">Frontispiece.</span></a></td> + <td>Gateway with eclipse. A reduction of plate 70; from “<span class="smcap">Jerusalem</span>.”</td></tr> +<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#title"><span class="smcap">Title-page.</span></a></td> + <td>A design of borders, selected from those in “<span class="smcap">Jerusalem</span>” (plates 5, 19, &c.), with minor details from “<span class="smcap">Marriage of Heaven and Hell</span>,” and “<span class="smcap">Book of Thel</span>.”</td></tr> +<tr><td valign="top">P. <a href="#Page_199">200</a>.</td> + <td>Title from “<span class="smcap">The Book of Thel</span>.”</td></tr> +<tr><td valign="top">P. <a href="#Page_204">204</a>.</td> + <td>Title from “<span class="smcap">Marriage of Heaven and Hell</span>.”</td></tr> +<tr><td valign="top">P. <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</td> + <td>Plate 8, from the <span class="smcap">Same</span> (selected to show the artist’s peculiar method of blending text with minute design).</td></tr> +<tr><td valign="top">P. <a href="#Page_225">224</a>.</td> + <td>The Leviathan. From “<span class="smcap">Marriage of Heaven and Hell</span>.”</td></tr> +<tr><td valign="top">P. <a href="#Page_258">258</a>.</td> + <td>From “<span class="smcap">Milton</span>.” Male figures; one in flames.</td></tr> +<tr><td valign="top">P. <a href="#Page_276">276</a>.</td> + <td>Female figures. A reduction of Plate 81 from “<span class="smcap">Jerusalem</span>.”</td></tr> +<tr><td valign="top">P. <a href="#Page_281">282</a>.</td> + <td>Design with bat-like figure. A reduction of Plate 33 from “<span class="smcap">Jerusalem</span>.”</td></tr></table> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span></p> +<h2>LIST OF AUTHORITIES.</h2> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table"> +<tr><td align="right">1.</td><td><span class="smcap">Life of William Blake.</span> By Alexander Gilchrist. 1863.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">2.</td><td><span class="smcap">Poetical Sketches.</span> By W. B. 1783.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">3.</td><td><span class="smcap">Songs of Innocence.</span> 1789.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">4.</td><td><span class="smcap">The Book of Thel.</span> 1789.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">5.</td><td><span class="smcap">The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.</span> 1790.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">6.</td><td><span class="smcap">Visions of the Daughters of Albion.</span> 1793.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">7.</td><td><span class="smcap">America: a Prophecy.</span> 1793.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">8.</td><td><span class="smcap">Songs of Experience.</span> 1794.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">9.</td><td><span class="smcap">Europe: a Prophecy.</span> 1794.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">10.</td><td><span class="smcap">The First Book of Urizen.</span> 1794.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">11.</td><td><span class="smcap">The Book of Ahania.</span> 1795.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">12.</td><td><span class="smcap">The Song of Los.</span> 1795.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">13.</td><td><span class="smcap">Milton: a Poem in Two Books.</span> 1804.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">14.</td><td><span class="smcap">Jerusalem, an Emanation of the Giant Albion.</span> 1804.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">15.</td><td><span class="smcap">Ideas of Good and Evil.</span> (<span class="smcaplc">MS.</span>)</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">16.</td><td><span class="smcap">Tiriel.</span> (<span class="smcaplc">MS.</span>)</td></tr></table> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> +<p class="center"><a name="I_LIFE" id="I_LIFE"></a><span class="giant">WILLIAM BLAKE.</span></p> + +<p class="note">Tous les grands poëtes deviennent naturellement, fatalement, critiques. Je +plains les poëtes que guide le seul instinct; je les crois incomplets. +Dans la vie spirituelle des premiers, une crise se fait infailliblement, +où ils veulent raisonner leur art, découvrir les lois obscures en vertu +desquelles ils ont produit, et tirer de cette étude une série de préceptes +dont le but divin est l’infáillibilité dans la production poétique. Il +serait prodigieux qu’un critique devînt poëte, et il est impossible qu’un +poëte ne contienne pas un critique.—<span class="smcap">Charles Baudelaire.</span></p> + +<p> </p> +<h2>I.—LIFE AND DESIGNS.</h2> + +<p>In the year 1827, there died, after a long dim life of labour, a man as +worthy of remark and regret as any then famous. In his time he had little +enough of recognition or regard from the world; and now that here and +there one man and another begin to observe that after all this one was +perhaps better worth notice and honour than most, the justice comes as +usual somewhat late.</p> + +<p>Between 1757 and 1827 the world, one might have thought, had time to grow +aware whether or not a man were worth something. For so long there lived +and laboured in more ways than one the single Englishman of supreme and +simple poetic genius born before the closing years of the eighteenth +century; the one man of that date fit on all accounts to rank with the old +great names. A man perfect in his way, and beautifully unfit for walking +in the way of any other man. We have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> now the means of seeing what he was +like as to face in the late years of his life: for his biography has at +the head of it a clearly faithful and valuable likeness. The face is +singular, one that strikes at a first sight and grows upon the observer; a +brilliant eager, old face, keen and gentle, with a preponderance of brow +and head; clear bird-like eyes, eloquent excitable mouth, with a look of +nervous and fluent power; the whole lighted through as it were from behind +with a strange and pure kind of smile, touched too with something of an +impatient prospective rapture. The words clear and sweet seem the best +made for it; it has something of fire in its composition, and something of +music. If there is a want of balance, there is abundance of melody in the +features; melody rather than harmony; for the mould of some is weaker and +the look of them vaguer than that of others. Thought and time have played +with it, and have nowhere pressed hard; it has the old devotion and desire +with which men set to their work at starting. It is not the face of a man +who could ever be cured of illusions; here all the medicines of reason and +experience must have been spent in pure waste. We know also what sort of +man he was at this time by the evidence of living friends. No one, artist +or poet, of whatever school, who had any insight or any love of things +noble and lovable, ever passed by this man without taking away some +pleasant and exalted memory of him. Those with whom he had nothing in +common but a clear kind nature and sense of what was sympathetic in men +and acceptable in things—those men whose work lay quite apart from +his—speak of him still with as ready affection and as full<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> remembrance +of his sweet or great qualities as those nearest and likest him. There was +a noble attraction in him which came home to all people with any fervour +or candour of nature in themselves. One can see, by the roughest draught +or slightest glimpse of his face, the look and manner it must have put on +towards children. He was about the hardest worker of his time; must have +done in his day some horseloads of work. One might almost pity the poor +age and the poor men he came among for having such a fiery energy cast +unawares into the midst of their small customs and competitions. Unluckily +for them, their new prophet had not one point they could lay hold of, not +one organ or channel of expression by which to make himself comprehensible +to such as they were. Shelley in his time gave enough of perplexity and +offence; but even he, mysterious and rebellious as he seemed to most men, +was less made up of mist and fire than Blake.</p> + +<p>He was born and baptized into the church of rebels; we can hardly imagine +a time or scheme of things in which he could have lived and worked without +some interval of revolt. All that was accepted for art, all that was taken +for poetry, he rejected as barren symbols, and would fain have broken up +as mendacious idols. What was best to other men, and in effect excellent +of its kind, was to him worst. Reynolds and Rubens were daubers and +devils. The complement or corollary of this habit of mind was that he +would accept and admire even small and imperfect men whose line of life +and action seemed to run on the same tramway as his own. Barry, Fuseli, +even such as Mortimer—these were men he would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> allow and approve of. The +devils had not entered into them; they worked, each to himself, on the +same ground as Michael Angelo. To such effect he would at times prophesy, +standing revealed for a brief glimpse on the cloudy and tottering height +of his theories, before the incurious eyes of a public which had no mind +to inhale such oracular vapour. It is hard to conjecture how his opinions, +as given forth in his <i>Catalogue</i> or other notes on art, would have been +received—if indeed they had ever got hearing at all. This they naturally +never did; by no means to Blake’s discouragement. He spoke with authority; +not in the least like the Scribes of his day.</p> + +<p>So far one may at least see what he meant; although at sight of it many +would cover their eyes and turn away. But the main part of him was, and is +yet, simply inexplicable; much like some among his own designs, a maze of +cloudy colour and perverse form, without a clue for the hand or a feature +for the eye to lay hold of. What he meant, what he wanted, why he did this +thing or not that other, no man then alive could make out. Nevertheless it +was worth the trying. In a time of critical reason and definite division, +he was possessed by a fervour and fury of belief; among sane men who had +disproved most things and proved the rest, here was an evident madman who +believed a thing, one may say, only insomuch as it was incapable of proof. +He lived and worked out of all rule, and yet by law. He had a devil, and +its name was Faith. No materialist has such belief in bread and meat as +Blake had in the substance underlying appearance which he christened god +or spectre, devil or angel, as the fit took him; or rather as he saw it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> +from one or the other side. His faith was absolute and hard, like a pure +fanatic’s; there was no speculation in him. What could be made of such a +man in a country fed and clothed with the teapot pieties of Cowper and the +tape-yard infidelities of Paine? Neither set would have to do with him; +was he not a believer? and was he not a blasphemer? His licence of thought +and talk was always of the maddest, or seemed so in the ears of his +generation. People remember at this day with horror and pity the +impression of his daring ways of speech, but excuse him still on the old +plea of madness. Now on his own ground no man was ever more sane or more +reverent. His outcries on various matters of art or morals were in effect +the mere expression, not of reasonable dissent, but of violent belief. No +artist of equal power had ever a keener and deeper regard for the meaning +and teaching—what one may call the moral—of art. He sang and painted as +men write or preach. Indifference was impossible to him. Thus every shred +of his work has some life, some blood, infused or woven into it. In such a +vast tumbling chaos of relics as he left behind to get in time +disentangled and cast into shape, there are naturally inequalities enough; +rough sides and loose sides, weak points and helpless knots, before which +all mere human patience or comprehension recoils and reels back. But in +all, at all times, there is the one invaluable quality of actual life.</p> + +<p>Without study of a serious kind, it is hopeless for any man to get at the +kernel of Blake’s life and work. Nothing can make the way clear and smooth +to those who are not at once drawn into it by a sincere instinct of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> +sympathy. This cannot be done; but what can be done has been thoroughly +and effectually well done in this present biography.<small><a name="f1.1" id="f1.1" href="#f1">[1]</a></small> A trained skill, +an exquisite admiration, an almost incomparable capacity of research and +care in putting to use the results of such long and refined labour, no +reader can fail to appreciate as the chief gifts of the author: one who +evidently had at once the power of work and the sense of selection in +perfect order. The loss of so admirable a critic, so wise and altogether +competent a workman, is a loss to be regretted till it can be replaced—a +date we are not likely to see in our days. At least his work is in no +danger of following him. This good that he did is likely to live after +him; no part of it likely to be interred in his grave. For the book, +unfinished, was yet not incomplete, when the writer’s work was broken +short off. All or nearly all the biographical part had been ably carried +through to a good end. It remained for other hands to do the editing; to +piece together the loose notes left, and to supply all that was requisite +or graceful in the way of remark or explanation. With what excellent care +and taste this has been done, no one can miss of seeing. Of the critical +and editorial part there will be time to speak further in its own place. +All, in effect, which could be done for a book thus left suddenly and +sadly to itself, has been done as well as possible; no tenderness of +labour grudged, no power and skill spared to supply or sustain it. So that +we now have it in a fair and sufficient form, and can look with reasonable +hope for this first critical Life of Blake and selected edition of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> his +Works to make its way and hold its place among the precious records and +possessions of Englishmen.</p> + +<p>What has been once well done need not be tried at again and done worse. No +second writer need now recapitulate the less significant details of +Blake’s life: space and skill wanting, we can but refer readers to the +complete biography. That the great poet and artist was a hosier’s son,<small><a name="f2.1" id="f2.1" href="#f2">[2]</a></small> +born near Golden Square, put to school in the Strand to learn drawing at +ten of one Pars, apprenticed at fourteen to learn engraving of one Basire; +that he lived “smoothly enough” for two years, and was then set to work on +abbey monuments, “to be out of harm’s way,” other apprentices being +“disorderly,” “mutinous,” and given to “wrangling;” these facts and more, +all of value and weight in their way, Mr. Gilchrist has given at full in +his second and third chapters, adding just enough critical comment to set +the facts off and give them their proper relief and significance. His +labours among Gothic monuments, and the especial style of his training as +an engraver, left their marks on the man afterwards. Two things here put +on record are worthy of recollection: that he began seeing visions at +“eight or ten;” and that he took objections to Ryland (a better known +engraver than Basire), when taken to be apprenticed to him, on a singular<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> +ground: “the man’s face looks as if he will live to be hanged:” which the +man was, ten years later. But the first real point in Blake’s life worth +marking as of especial interest is the publication of his <i>Poetical +Sketches</i>; which come in date before any of his paintings or illustrative +work, and are quite as much matters of art as these. Though never printed +till 1783, the latest written appears to belong to 1777, or thereabouts.</p> + +<p>Here, at a time when the very notion of poetry, as we now understand it, +and as it was understood in older times, had totally died and decayed out +of the minds of men; when we not only had no poetry, a thing which was +bearable, but had verse in plenty, a thing which was not in the least +bearable; a man, hardly twenty years old yet, turns up suddenly with work +in that line already done, not simply better than any man could do then; +better than all except the greatest have done since: better too than some +still ranked among the greatest ever managed to do. With such a poet to +bring forward it was needless to fall back upon Wordsworth for excuse or +Southey for patronage. The one man of genius alive during any part of +Blake’s own life who has ever spoken of this poet with anything like a +rational admiration is Charles Lamb, the most supremely competent judge +and exquisite critic of lyrical and dramatic art that we have ever had. +All other extant notices down to our own day, even when well-meaning and +not offensive, are to the best of our knowledge and belief utterly futile, +incapable and valueless: burdened more or less with chatter about +“madness” and such-like, obscured in some degree by mere dullness and +pitiable assumption.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>There is something too rough and hard, too faint and formless, in any +critical language yet devised, to pay tribute with the proper grace and +sufficiency to the best works of the lyrical art. One can say, indeed, +that some of these earliest songs of Blake’s have the scent and sound of +Elizabethan times upon them; that the song of forsaken love—“My silks and +fine array”—is sweet enough to recall the lyrics of Beaumont and +Fletcher, and strong enough to hold its own even beside such as that one +of Aspatia—“Lay a garland on my hearse”—which was cut (so to speak) out +of the same yew; that Webster might have signed the “Mad Song,” which +falls short only (as indeed do all other things of the sort) of the two +great Dirges in that poet’s two chief plays; that certain verses among +those headed “To Spring,” and “To the Evening Star,” are worthy even of +Tennyson for tender supremacy of style and noble purity of perfection; but +when we have to drop comparison and cease looking back or forward for +verses to match with these, we shall hardly find words to suit our sense +of their beauty. We speak of the best among them only; for, small as the +pamphlet is (seventy pages long, with title-page and prefatory leaf), it +contains a good deal of chaff and bran besides the pure grain and sifted +honeymeal. But these best things are as wonderful as any work of Blake’s. +They have a fragrance of sound, a melody of colour, in a time when the +best verses produced had merely the arid perfume of powder, the twang of +dry wood and adjusted strings; when here the painting was laid on in +patches, and there the music meted out by precedent; colour and sound +never mixed together into the perfect scheme of poetry. The texture of +these songs<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> has the softness of flowers; the touch of them has nothing +metallic or mechanical, such as one feels in much excellent and elaborate +verse of this day as well as of that. The sound of many verses of Blake’s +cleaves to the sense long after conscious thought of the meaning has +passed from one: a sound like running of water or ringing of bells in a +long lull of the wind. Like all very good lyrical verse, they grow in +pleasurable effect upon the memory the longer it holds them—increase in +relish the longer they dwell upon the taste. These, for example, sound +singularly plain, however sweet, on a first hearing; but in time, to a +reader fit to appreciate the peculiar properties and merits of a lyric, +they come to seem as perfect as well can be:</p> + +<p class="poem">“Thou the golden fruit dost bear,<br /> +I am clad in flowers fair;<br /> +Thy sweet boughs perfume the air,<br /> +And the turtle buildeth there.<br /> +There she sits and feeds her young:<br /> +Sweet I hear her mournful song;<br /> +And thy lovely leaves among,<br /> +There is love, I hear his tongue.”</p> + +<p>The two songs “To Memory,” and “To the Muses” are perhaps nearer being +faultless than any others in the book. This last especially should never +be omitted in any professedly complete selection of the best English +lyrics. So beautiful indeed is its structure and choice of language that +its author’s earlier and later vagaries and erratic indulgences in the +most lax or bombastic habits of speech become hopelessly inexplicable. +These unlucky tendencies do however break out in the same book which +contains such excellent samples of poetical sense and taste; giving<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> +terrible promise of faults that were afterwards to grow rank and run riot +over much of the poet’s work. But even from his worst things here, not +reprinted in the present edition, one may gather such lines as these:</p> + +<p class="poem">“My lord was like a flower upon the brows<br /> +Of lusty May: ah life as frail as flower!<br /> +My lord was like a star in highest heaven,<br /> +Drawn down to earth by spells and wickedness;<br /> +My lord was like the opening eye of day;<br /> +But he is darkened; like the summer moon<br /> +Clouded; fall’n like the stately tree, cut down:<br /> +The breath of heaven dwelt among his leaves.”</p> + +<p>Verses not to be despised, when one remembers that the boy who wrote them +(evidently in his earlier teens) was living in full eighteenth century. +But for the most part the blank verse in this small book is in a state of +incredible chaos, ominous in tone of the future “Prophetic Books,” if +without promise of their singular and profound power or menace of their +impenetrable mistiness, the obscurity of confused wind and cloud. One is +thankful to see here some pains taken in righting these deformed limbs and +planing off those monstrous knots, by one not less qualified to decide on +such minor points of execution than on the gravest matters of art; +especially as some amongst these blank verse poems contain things of quite +original and incomparable grandeur. Nothing at once more noble and more +sweet in style was ever written, than part of this “To the Evening Star”:</p> + +<p class="poem">“Smile on our loves; and while thou drawest round<br /> +The sky’s blue curtains, scatter silver dew<br /> +On every flower that closes its sweet eyes<br /> +In timely sleep. Let thy west wind sleep on<br /> +The lake: <i>speak silence with thy glimmering eyes,<br /> +And wash the dusk with silver</i>.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>The two lines, or half lines, which make the glory of this extract +resemble perfectly, for vigorous grace and that subtle strength of +interpretation which transfigures the external nature it explains, the +living leader of English poets. Even he has hardly ever given a study of +landscape more large and delicate, an effect of verse more exquisite and +sonorous. Of the “Spring” we have already said something; but for that +poem nothing short of transcription would be adequate. The “Autumn,” too, +should hardly have been rejected: it contains lines of perfect power and +great beauty, though not quite up to the mark of “Spring” or “Summer.” +From another poem, certainly not worthier of the place it has been +refused, we have extracted two lines worth remembering for their terseness +and weight of scorn, recalling certain grave touches of satire in Blake’s +later work:</p> + +<p class="poem">“For ignorance is folly’s leasing nurse,<br /> +And love of folly needs none other’s curse.”</p> + +<p>All that is worth recollection in the little play of “Edward the Third” +has been here reproduced with a judicious care in adjusting and rejecting. +Blake had probably never seen the praiseworthy but somewhat verbose +historical drama on the same subject, generously bestowed upon Shakespeare +by critics of that German acuteness which can accept as poetry the most +meritorious powers of rhetoric. His own disjointed and stumbling fragment, +deficient as it is in shape or plan or local colour, has far more of the +sound and savour of Shakespeare’s style in detached lines: more indeed +than has ever been caught up by any poet except one to whom his editor has +seized<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> the chance of paying tribute in passing—the author of “Joseph and +his Brethren;” a poem which, for strength of manner and freshness of +treatment, may certainly recall Blake or any other obscurely original +reformer in art; although we may not admit the resemblance claimed for it +on spiritual grounds to the works of Blake, in whose eyes the views taken +by the later poet of the mysteries inherent in matters of faith or +morality, and generally of the spiritual side of things, would, to our +thinking, probably have appeared shallow and untrue by the side of his own +mystic personal creed. In dramatic passion, in dramatic character, and in +dramatic language, Mr. Wells’ great play is no doubt far ahead, not of +Blake’s work only, but of most other men’s: in actual conception of things +that lie beyond these, it keeps within the range of common thought and +accepted theory; falling therefore far short, in its somewhat over +frequent passages of didactic and religious reflection, of much less +original thinkers than Blake.</p> + +<p>One other thing we may observe of these “Sketches;” that they contain, +though only in the pieces rejected from our present collection, sad +indications of the inexplicable influence which an early reading of the +detestable pseudo-Ossian seems to have exercised on Blake. How or why such +lank and lamentable counterfeits of the poetical style did ever gain this +luckless influence—one, too, which in after years was to do far worse +harm than it has done here—it is not easy to guess. Contemporary vice of +taste, imperfect or on some points totally deficient education, may +explain much and more than might be supposed, even with regard to the +strongest untrained intellect; but on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> the other hand, the songs in this +same volume give evidence of so rare a gift of poetical judgment, such +exquisite natural sense and art, in a time which could not so much as +blunder except by precedent and machinery, that such depravity of error as +is implied by admiration and imitation of such an one as Macpherson +remains inconceivable. Similar puzzles will, however, recur to the student +of Blake’s art; but will not, if he be in any way worthy of the study, be +permitted for a minute to impair his sense of its incomparable merits. +Incomparable, we say advisedly: for there is no case on record of a man’s +being quite so far in advance of his time, in everything that belongs to +the imaginative side of art, as Blake was from the first in advance of +his.</p> + +<p>In 1782 Blake married, it seems after a year or two of engaged life. His +wife Catherine Boucher deserves remembrance as about the most perfect wife +on record. In all things but affection, her husband must have been as hard +to live with as the most erratic artist or poet who ever mistook his way +into marriage. Over the stormy or slippery passages in their earlier life +Mr. Gilchrist has passed perhaps too lightly. No doubt Blake’s aberrations +were mainly matters of speech or writing; it is however said, truly or +falsely, that once in a patriarchal mood he did propose to add a second +wife to their small and shifting household, and was much perplexed at +meeting on one hand with tears and on all hands with remonstrances. For +any clandestine excursions or furtive eccentricities he had probably too +much of childish candour and impulse; and this one hopeful and plausible +design he seems to have sacrificed with a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> good grace, on finding it +really objectionable to the run of erring men. As to the rest, Mrs. +Blake’s belief in him was full and profound enough to endure some amount +of trial. Practically he was always, as far as we know, regular, +laborious, immaculate to an exception; and in their old age she worked +after him and for him, revered and helped and obeyed him, with an +exquisite goodness.</p> + +<p>For the next eighteen years we have no continuous or available record +under Blake’s own hand of his manner of life; and of course must not +expect as yet any help from those who can still, or could lately, remember +the man himself in later days. He laboured with passionate steadiness of +energy, at work sometimes valueless and sometimes invaluable; made, +retained, and lost friends of a varying quality. Even to the lamentable +taskwork of bad comic engravings for dead and putrescent “Wit’s Magazines” +his biographer has tracked him and taken note of his doings. The one thing +he did get published—his poem, or apology for a poem, called “The French +Revolution” (the first of seven projected books)—is, as far as I know, +the only original work of its author worth little or even nothing; +consisting mainly of mere wind and splutter. The six other books, if +extant, ought nevertheless to be looked up, as they can hardly be without +some personal interest or empirical value, even if no better in +workmanship than this first book. During these years however he produced +much of his greatest work; among other things, the “Songs of Innocence and +Experience,” and the prophetic books from “Thel” to “Ahania;” of all which +we shall have to speak in due time and order. The notes on Reynolds and +Lavater, from which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> we have here many extracts given, we must hope to see +some day printed in full. Their vivid and vigorous style is often a model +in its kind; and the matter, however violent and eccentric at times, +always clear, noble, and thoughtful; remarkable especially for the +eagerness of approbation lavished on the meanest of impulsive or fanciful +men, and the fervour of scorn excited by the best works and the best +intentions of others. The watery wisdom and the bland absurdity of +Lavater’s axioms meet with singular tolerance from the future author of +the “Proverbs of Hell;” the considerate regulations and suggestions of +Reynolds’ “Discourses” meet with no tolerance at all from the future +illustrator of Job and Dante. In all these rough notes, even we may say in +those on Bacon’s Essays, there is always a bushel of good grain to an +ounce of chaff. What is erroneous or what seems perverse lies for the most +part only on the surface; what is falsely applied is often truly said; +what is unjustly worded is often justly conceived. A man insensible to the +perfect manner and noble matter of Bacon, while tolerant of the lisping +and slavering imbecilities of Lavater, seems at first sight past hope or +help; but subtract the names or alter the symbols given, and much of +Blake’s commentary will seem, as it is, partially true and memorable even +in its actual form, wholly true and memorable in its implied meaning. +Again, partly through ingrained humour, partly through the rough shifts of +his imperfect and tentative education, Blake was much given to a certain +perverse and defiant habit of expression, meant rather to scare and offend +than to allure and attract the common<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> run of readers or critics. In his +old age we hear that he would at times try the ironic method upon +objectionable reasoners; not, we should imagine, with much dexterity or +subtlety.</p> + +<p>The small accidents and obscure fluctuations of luck during these eighteen +years of laborious town life, the changes of residence and acquaintance, +the method and result of the day’s work done, have been traced with much +care and exhibited in a direct distinct manner by the biographer. Nothing +can be more clear and sufficient than the brief notices of Blake’s +favourite brother and pupil, in character seemingly a weaker and somewhat +violent <i>replica</i> of his elder, not without noble and amiable qualities; +of his relations with Fuseli and Flaxman, with Johnson the bookseller, and +others, whose names are now fished up from the quiet comfort of obscurity, +and made more or less memorable for good or evil through their connection +with one who was then himself among the obscurest of men. His alliance +with Paine and the ultra-democrats then working or talking in London is +the most curious episode of these years. His republican passion was like +Shelley’s, a matter of fierce dogmatic faith and rapid assumption. Looking +at any sketch of his head and face one may see the truth of his assertion +that he was born a democrat of the imaginative type. The faith which +accepts and the passion which pursues an idea of justice not wholly +attainable looks out of the tender and restless eyes, moulds the eager +mobile-seeming lips. Infinite impatience, as of a great preacher or +apostle—intense tremulous vitality, as of a great orator—seem to me to +give his face the look<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> of one who can do all things but hesitate. We need +no evidence to bid us believe with what fervour of spirit and singleness +of emotion he loved the name and followed the likeness of freedom, +whatever new name or changed likeness men might put upon her. Liberty and +religion, taken in a large and subtle sense of the words, were alike +credible and adorable to him; and in nothing else could he find matter for +belief or worship. His forehead, largest (as he said) just over the eyes, +shows an eager steadiness of passionate expression. Shut off any single +feature, and it will seem singular how little the face changes or loses by +the exclusion. With all this, it is curious to read how the author of +“Urizen” and “Ahania” saved from probable hanging the author of the +“Rights of Man” and “Age of Reason.” Blake had as perfect a gift of ready +and steady courage as any man: was not quicker to catch fire than he was +safe to stand his ground. The swift quiet resolution and fearless instant +sense of the right thing to do which he showed at all times of need are +worth notice in a man of such fine and nervous habit of mind and body.</p> + +<p>In the year after Paine’s escape from England, his deliverer published a +book which would probably have been something of a chokepear for the +<i>conventionnel</i>. This set of seventeen drawings was Blake’s first series +of original designs, not meant to serve as merely illustrative work. Two +of the prophetic books, and the “Songs of Innocence,” had already been +engraved; but there the designs were supplementary to the text; here such +text as there was served only to set out the designs; and even these +“Keys” to the “Gates of Paradise,” <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>somewhat of the rustiest as they are, +were not supplied in every copy. The book is itself not unavailable as a +key to much of Blake’s fitful and tempestuous philosophy; and it would +have been better to re-engrave the series in full than to give random +selections twisted out of their places and made less intelligible than +they were at first by the headlong process of inversion and convulsion to +which they have here been subjected.</p> + +<p>The frontispiece gives a symbol of man’s birth into the fleshly and +mutable house of life, powerless and painless as yet, but encircled by the +likeness and oppressed by the mystery of material existence. The +pre-existent spirit here well-nigh disappears under stifling folds of +vegetable leaf and animal incrustation of overgrowing husk. It lies dumb +and dull, almost as a thing itself begotten of the perishable body, +conceived in bondage and brought forth with grief. The curled and clinging +caterpillar, emblem of motherhood, adheres and impends over it, as the +lapping leaves of flesh unclose and release the human fruit of corporeal +generation. With mysterious travail and anguish of mysterious division, +the child is born as a thing out of sleep; the original perfect manhood +being cast in effect into a heavy slumber, and the female or reflective +element called into creation. This tenet recurs constantly in the +turbulent and fluctuating evangel of Blake; that the feminine element +exists by itself for a time only, and as the shadow of the male; thus +Space is the wife of Time, and was created of him in the beginning that +the things of lower life might have air to breathe and a place to hide +their heads; her moral aspect is Pity. She suffers through the lapse of +obscure and painful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> centuries with the sufferings of her children; she is +oppressed with all their oppressions; she is plagued with all the plagues +of transient life and inevitable death. At sight of her so brought forth, +a wonder in heaven, all the most ancient gods or dæmons of pre-material +life were terrified and amazed, touched with awe and softened with +passion; yet endured not to look upon her, a thing alien from the things +of their eternal life; for as space is impredicable of the divine world, +so is pity impredicable of the dæmonic nature. (See the “First Book of +Urizen.”) For of all the minor immortal and uncreated spirits Time only is +the friend of man; and for man’s sake has given him Space to dwell in, as +under the shadow and within the arms of a great compassionate mother, who +has mercy upon all her children, tenderness for all good and evil things. +Only through his help and through her pity can flesh or spirit endure life +for a little, under the iron law of the maker and the oppressor of man. +Alone among the other co-equal and co-eternal dæmons of his race, the +Creator is brought into contact and collision with Space and Time; against +him alone they struggle in Promethean agony of conflict to deliver the +children of men; and against them is the Creator compelled to fight, that +he may reach and oppress those whose weakness is defended by all the +warring hands of Time, sheltered by all the gracious wings of Space.</p> + +<p>In the first plate of the “Gates of Paradise,” the woman finds the child +under a tree, sprung of the earth like a mandrake, which he who plucks up +and hears groan must go mad or die; grown under the tree of physical life, +which is rooted in death, and the leaf of it is poisonous,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> and it bears +as fruit the wisdom of the serpent, moral reason or rational truth, which +invents the names of virtue and vice, and divides moral life into good and +evil. Out of earth is rent violently forth the child of dust and clay, +naked, wide-eyed, shrieking; the woman bends down to gather him as a +flower, half blind with fierce surprise and eagerness, half smiling with +foolish love and pitiful pleasure; with one hand she holds other children, +small and new-blown also as flowers, huddled in the lap of her garment; +with the other she plucks him up by the hair, regardless of his deadly +shriek and convulsed arms, heedless that this uprooting of the mandrake is +the seal of her own death also. Then follow symbols of the four created +elements from which the corporeal man is made; the water, blind and +mutable as doting age, emblem of ignorant doubt and moral jealousy; the +heavy melancholy earth, grievous to life, oppressive of the spirit, type +of all sorrows and tyrannies that are brought forth upon it, saddest of +all the elements, tightest as a curb and painfullest as a load upon the +soul: then the air wherein man is naked, the fire wherein man is blind; +ashamed and afraid of his own nature and its nakedness, surrounded with +similitudes of severance and strife: overhung by rocks, rained upon by all +the storms of heaven, lighted by unfriendly stars, with clouds spread +under him and over; “a dark hermaphrodite,” enlightened by the light +within him, which is darkness—the light of reason and morality; evil and +good, who was neither good nor evil in the eternal life before this +generated existence; male and female, who from of old was neither female +nor male, but perfect man without division of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> flesh, until the setting of +sex against sex by the malignity of animal creation. Round the new-created +man revolves the flaming sword of Law, burning and dividing in the hand of +the angel, servant of the cruelty of God, who drives into exile and debars +from paradise the fallen spiritual man upon earth. Round the woman (a +double type perhaps at once of the female nature and the “rational truth” +or law of good and evil) roar and freeze the winds and snows of +prohibition, blinding, congealing, confusing; and in that tempest of +things spiritual the shell of material things hardens and thickens, +excluding all divine vision and obscuring all final truth with +solid-seeming walls of separation. But death in the end shall enlighten +all the deluded, shall deliver all the imprisoned; there, though the worm +weaves, the Saviour also watches; the new garments of male and female to +be there assumed by the spirit are so woven that they shall no longer be +as shrouds or swaddling-clothes to hamper the newly born or consume the +newly dead, but free raiment and fair symbol of the spirit. For the power +of the creative dæmon, which began with birth, must end with death; upon +the perfect and eternal man he had not power till he had created the +earthly life to bring man into subjection; and shall not have power upon +him again any more when he is once resumed by death. Where the Creator’s +power ends, there begins the Saviour’s power; where oppression loses +strength to divide, mercy gains strength to reunite. For the Creator is at +most God of this world only, and belongs to the life which he creates; the +God of this world is a thing of this world, but the Saviour or perfect man +is of eternity, belonging to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> spiritual life which was before birth +and shall be after death.</p> + +<p>In these first six plates is the kernel of the book; round these the +subsequent symbols revolve, and toward these converge. The seventh we may +assume to be an emblem of desire as it is upon earth, blind and wild, glad +and sad, destroying the pleasures it catches hold of, losing those it lets +go. One Love, a moth-like spirit, lies crushed at the feet of the boy who +pursues another, flinging his cap towards it as though to trap a +butterfly; startled with the laugh of triumphant capture even at his lips, +as the wingless flying thing eludes him and soars beyond the enclosure of +summer leaves and stems toward upper air and cloud. To the original sketch +was appended this quotation from Spenser, Book 2, Canto 2, v. 2:</p> + +<p class="poem">“Ah luckless babe, born under cruel star,<br /> +And in dead parents’ baleful ashes bred;<br /> +Full little weenest thou what sorrows are<br /> +Left thee for portion of thy livelyhed.”</p> + +<p>Again, Youth, with the bow of battle lifted in his right hand, turns his +back upon Age, and leaves him lamenting in vain remonstrance and piteous +reclamation: the fruit of vain-glory and vain teaching, ending in +rebellion and division of spirit, when the beliefs and doctrines of a man +turn against him and he becomes at variance with himself and with his own +issue of body or of soul. In the ninth plate, men strive to set a ladder +against the moon and climb by it through the deepest darkness of night; a +white segment of narrow light just shows the sharp tongue of precipitous +land upon which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> they are gathered together in vain counsel and effort. +This was originally a satirical sketch of “amateurs and connoisseurs,” +emblematic merely of their way of studying art, analyzing all great things +done with ready rule and line, and scaling with ladders of logic the +heaven of invention; here it reappears enlarged and exalted into a general +type of blind belief and presumptuous reason, indicative also of the +helpless hunger after spiritual things ingrained in those made subject to +things material; the effusion and eluctation of spirits sitting in prison +towards the truth which should make them free. In the tenth plate, the +half-submerged face and outstretched arm of a man drowning in a trough of +tumbling sea show just above the foam, against the glaring and windy +clouds whose blown drift excludes the sky. Perhaps the noble study of sea +registered in the Catalogue as No. 128 of the second list was a sketch for +this design of man sinking under the waves of time. Of the two this sketch +is the finer; a greater effect of tempest was never given by the work of +any hand than in this weltering and savage space of sea, with the aimless +clash of its breakers and blind turbulence of water veined and wrinkled +with storm, enridged and cloven into drifting array of battle, with no +lesser life visible upon it of man or vessel, fish or gull: no land beyond +it conceivable, no heaven above it credible. This drawing, which has been +reproduced by photography, might have found a place here or later in the +book. In the eleventh plate, emblematic of religious restraint and the +severities of artificial holiness, an old man, spectacled and +strait-mouthed, clips with his shears the plumes of a winged boy, who +writhes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> vainly in a passionate attempt at self-release, his arm hiding +his face, his lithe slight limbs twisting with pain and fear, his curled +head bent upon the curve of his elbow, his hand straining the air with +empty violence of barren agony; a sun half risen lights up the expansion +of his half-shorn wings and the helpless labour of his slender body. The +twelfth plate continues this allegory under the type of father and sons, +the vital energy and its desires or passions, thrust down into +prison-houses of ice and snow. Next, man as he is upon earth attains for +once to the vision of that which he was and shall be; his eyes open upon +the sight of life beyond the mundane and mortal elements, and the chains +of reason and religion relax. In the evening he travels towards the grave; +a figure stepping out swiftly and steadily, staff in hand, over rough +country ground and beside low thick bushes and underwood, dressed as a man +of Blake’s day; a touch of realism curious in the midst of such mystical +work. Next in extreme age he passes through the door of death to find the +worm at her work; and in the last plate of the series, she is seen +sitting, a worm-like woman, with hooded head and knees drawn up, the +adder-like husk or shell of death at her feet, and behind her head the +huge rotting roots and serpentine nether fibres of the tree of life and +death: shapes of strange corruption and conversion lie around her, and +between the hollow tree-roots the darkness grows deep and hard. “I have +said to corruption, thou art my father; to the worm, thou art my mother +and my sister.” This is she who is nearest of kin to man from his birth to +his death:</p> + +<p class="poem"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> +“Weaving to dreams the sexual strife,<br /> +And weeping over the web of life.”</p> + +<p>I have given thus early a rough and tentative analysis of this set of +designs, rather than leave it to find a place among the poems or +prophecies, because it does in effect belong rather to art than poetry, +the verses being throughout subordinate to the engravings, and indeed +scarcely to be accounted of as more than inscriptions or appendages. It +may however be taken as being in a certain sense one of the prophetic or +evangelic series which was afterwards to stretch to such strange lengths. +In this engraved symbolic poem of life and death, most of Blake’s chief +articles of faith are advanced or implied; noticeably, for example, that +tenet regarding the creative deity and his relations to time and to the +sons of men. Thus far he can see and no farther; for so long and no longer +he has power upon the actions and passions of created and transient life. +Him let no Christians worship, nor the law of his covenant; the written +law which its writer wept at and hid beneath his mercy-seat; but instead +let them write above the altars of their faith a law of infinite +forgiveness, annihilating in the measureless embrace of its mercy the +separate existences of good and evil. So speaks Blake in his prologue; and +in his epilogue thus:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p><i>To the Accuser, who is the God of this World.</i></p> + +<p>Truly, my Satan, thou art but a dunce,<br /> +And dost not know the garment from the man;<br /> +Every harlot was a virgin once,<br /> +Nor canst thou ever change Kate into Nan.<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span><br /> +Though thou are worshipped by the names divine<br /> +Of Jesus and Jehovah, thou art still<br /> +The Son of Morn in weary night’s decline;<br /> +The lost traveller’s dream under the hill.</p></div> + +<p>Upon the life which is but as a vesture, and as a vesture shall be +changed, he who created it has power till the end; appearances and +relations he can alter, and turn a virgin to a harlot; but not change one +individual life to another, reverse or rescind the laws of personality. +Virtue and vice, chastity and unchastity, are changeable and perishable; +“they all shall wax old as doth a garment:” but the underlying individual +life is imperishable and intangible. All qualities proper to human nature +are inventions of the Accuser; not so the immortal prenatal nature, which +is the essence of every man severally from eternity. That lies beyond the +dominion of the God of this world; he is but the Son of Morning, that +having once risen, will set again; shining only in the darkness of +spiritual night; his light is but a light seen in dreams before the dawn +by men belated and misled, which shall pass away and be known no more at +the advent of the perfect day.</p> + +<p>All these mystical heresies may seem turbid and chaotic; but the legend or +subject-matter of the present book is transparent as water, lucid as +flame, compared to much of Blake’s subsequent work. The designs, even if +taken apart from their significance, are among his most inventive and +interesting. They were done “for children,” because, in Blake’s mind, the +wise innocence of children was likeliest to appreciate and accept the +message involved in them; “for the sexes,” that they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> might be at once +enlightened to see beyond themselves, and enfranchised from the bondage of +pietism or materialism. Interpreted according to Blake’s intention, the +book was a small leaf or chapter of the inspired gospel of deliverance +which he was charged to preach through the organs of his art; a gospel not +easily to be made acceptable or comprehensible.</p> + +<p>Of the prophetic books produced about this time we shall not as yet speak; +nor have we much to say of the next set of designs, those illustrative of +“Young’s Night Thoughts,” which were done, as will be surmised, on +commission. Power, invention, and a certain share of beauty, these designs +of course have; but less, as it seems to me, of Blake’s great qualities +and more of his faults or errors than usual. That the text which serves as +a peg to hang them on, or a finger-post to point them out, is itself a +thing dead and rotten, does not suffice to explain this; for Blake could +do admirable work by way of illustration to the verse of Hayley.</p> + +<p>This name brings us to a new and singular division of our present task. +During the four important years of Blake’s residence at Felpham we can +trace his doings and feelings with some fulness and with some confidence. +They were probably no busier than other years of his life; but by a happy +accident we hear more concerning the sort of labour done. In August 1800 +Blake moved out of London for the first time; he returned “early in 1804.”</p> + +<p>Hayley’s patronage of Blake is a piece of high comedy perfect in its way. +The first act or two were played out with sufficient liking on either +side. “Mr. Hayley acts<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> like a prince” towards “his good Blake,” not it +seems in the direct way of pecuniary gifts or loans, but in such smaller +attentions as he could easily show to the husband and wife on their first +arrival close at hand. It must be remarked and remembered that throughout +this curious and incongruous intercourse there is no question whatever of +obligation on Blake’s part for any kindness shown beyond the equal offices +of friend to friend. It is for “Mr. Hayley’s usual brotherly affection” +that he expresses such ready gratitude. That the poor man’s goodwill was +genuine we need not hesitate to allow; but the fates never indulged in a +freak of stranger humour than when it seemed good to their supreme caprice +to couple in the same traces for even the shortest stage a man like Hayley +with a man like Blake, and bracket the “Triumphs of Temper” with the +“Marriage of Heaven and Hell.”</p> + +<p>England, with a deplorable ingratitude, has apparently forgotten by this +time what her Hayley was once like. It requires a certain strength of +imagination to realise the assured fact that he was once a “greatest +living poet;” retrospection collapses in the effort, and credulity loses +heart to believe. Such, however, was in effect his profession; he had the +witness of his age under hand and seal to the fact, that on the death of +his friend Cowper the supreme laurels of the age or day had fallen by +inheritance to that poet’s accomplished and ingenious biographer. There is +something pathetic and almost piteous in his perfect complacency and his +perfect futility. A moral country should not have forgotten that to Mr. +Hayley, when at work on his chief poem, “it seemed to be a kind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> of duty +incumbent on those who devote themselves to poetry to render a powerful +and too often a perverted art as beneficial to life and manners as the +limits of composition and the character of modern times will allow.” +Although the ages, he regretted to reflect, were past, in which poetry was +idolized for <i>miraculous effects</i>, yet a poem intended to promote the +cultivation of good humour, and designed to unite the special graces of +Ariosto, of Dante, and of Pope, might still be of service to society; or, +he added with a chaste and noble modesty, “if this may be thought too +chimerical and romantic by sober reason, it is at least one of those +pleasing and innocent illusions in which a poetical enthusiast may be +safely indulged;” who will deny it?</p> + +<p>This was the patron to whom Flaxman introduced Blake as an available +engraver, and, on occasion, a commendable designer. Hayley was ready +enough to cage and exhibit among the flock of tame geese which composed +his troop of swans this bird of foreign feather; and until the eagle’s +beak and claws came into play under sharp provocation, the Felpham coop +and farmyard were duly dignified by his presence and behaviour as a “tame +villatic fowl.” The master bantam-cock of the hen-roost in person +fluttered and cackled round him with assiduous if perplexed patronage. But +of such alliances nothing could come in the end but that which did come. +“Mr. H.,” writes Blake in July 1803 to Mr. Butts, his one purchaser (on +the scale of a guinea per picture), “approves of my designs as little as +he does of my poems. I have been forced to insist on his leaving me, in +both, to my own self-will; for I am determined to be no longer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> pestered +with his genteel ignorance and polite disapprobation. His imbecile +attempts to depress me only deserve laughter.” Let a compassionate amateur +of human poultry imagine what confusion must by this time have been +reigning in the poor hen-roost and dove-cote of Eartham! Things, however, +took some time in reaching the tragic pitch of these shrill discords. For +months or years they appear to have run through various scales of very +tolerable harmony. Blake, in the intervals of incessant engraving and +occasional designing, was led by his good Hayley into the greenest +pastures of literature and beside the stillest waters of verse; he was +solicited to help in softening and arranging for public inspection the +horrible and pitiful narrative of Cowper’s life; he was prevailed upon to +listen while Hayley “read Klopstock into English to Blake,” with what +result one may trust he never knew. For it was probably under the sting of +this infliction that Blake scratched down in pencil a brief lyrical satire +on the German Milton, which modern humanity would refuse to read in public +if transcribed; although or because it might be, for grotesque case and +ringing breadth of melodious extravagance, a scrap saved from some +tattered chorus of Aristophanes, or caught up by Rabelais as the fragment +of a litany at the shrine of the <i>Dive Bouteille</i>. Let any man judge, from +the ragged shred we can afford to show by way of sample, how a sight or +handling of the stuff would have affected Hayley;</p> + +<p class="poem">“The moon at that sight blushed scarlet red,<br /> +The stars threw down their cups and fled,<br /> +And all the devils that were in hell<br /> +Answered with a ninefold yell.<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span><br /> +Klopstock felt the intripled turn,<br /> +And all his bowels began to churn;<br /> +And his bowels turned round three times three,<br /> +And locked in his soul with a ninefold key;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span></span><br /> +Then again old Nobodaddy swore<br /> +He never had seen such a thing before<br /> +Since Noah was shut in the ark,<br /> +Since Eve first chose her hell-fire spark,<br /> +Since ’twas the fashion to go naked,<br /> +Since the old Anything was created;<br /> +And<span class="spacer"> </span>*<span class="spacer"> </span>*<span class="spacer"> </span>”</p> + +<p>Only in choice Attic or in archaic French could the rest be endured by +modern eyes; but Panurge could hardly have improved on the manner of +retribution devised for flaccid fluency and devout sentiment always +running at the mouth.</p> + +<p>For the rest, when out of the shadow of Klopstock or Cowper, Blake had +enough serious work on hand. His designs for various ballads of Hayley’s, +strays of sick verse long since decomposed, were admirable enough to +warrant a hope of general admiration. This they failed of; but Blake’s +head and hands were full of other work. “Miniature,” he writes to Mr. +Butts, “is become a goddess in my eyes.” He did not serve her long; but +while his faith in her godhead lasted he seems to have officiated with +some ardour in the courts of her temple. He speaks of orders multiplying +upon him, of especial praise received for proficiency in this style of +work; not, we may suppose, from any who had much authority to praise or +dispraise. It is impossible to imagine that Hayley knew a really great +work of Blake’s when he saw it; a clever comminution of great power must +have seemed to him the worthiest use of it; whereas the design and the +glory of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> Blake was to concentrate and elevate his talent: all he did and +all he touched with profit has an air and a savour of greatness. In +miniature and such things he must probably have worked with half his heart +and less than half his native skill or strength of eye and hand.</p> + +<p>There is a certain pathos in the changes of tone which come one by one +over Blake’s correspondence at this time. All at first is sunlit and +rose-coloured. “The villagers are not mere rustics; they are polite and +modest. Meat is cheaper than in London; but the sweet air and the voices +of winds, trees, and birds, and the odours of the happy ground, make it a +dwelling for immortals.” This intense and eager pleasure in the freshness +of things, this sharp relish of beauty in all the senses, which must needs +run over and lapse into sudden musical expression, will recall the +passages in Shelley’s letters where some delight of sound or sight +suddenly felt or remembered forces its way into speech, and makes music of +the subservient words. “Work will go on here with God-speed. A roller and +two harrows lie before my window.” This passion for hints and types, +common to all men of highly toned nerves and rapid reflectiveness of +spirit, was not with Blake a matter of fugitive impulse or casual +occasion. In his quietest moods of mind, in his soberest tempers of fancy, +he was always at some such work. At this time, too, he was living at a +higher strain of the senses than usual. So sudden a change of air and +change of world as had come upon him filled his nerves and brain at every +entrance with keen influences of childlike and sensitive satisfaction. +Witness his first sweet and singular verses to Flaxman and to Butts—“such +as Felpham produces<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> by me, though not such as she produces by her eldest +son,” he remarks, with some reason; that eldest son and heir of every Muse +being her good Hayley. Witness too the simple and complete pleasure with +which he writes invitations and descriptions, transcribes visions and +experiences. Probably too in some measure, could we trace the perfect +relation of flesh with spirit and blood with brain, we should find that +this first daily communion with the sea wrought upon him at once within +and without; that the sharp sweetness of the salted air was not without +swift and pungent effect; that the hourly physical delight lavished upon +every sense by all tunes and odours and changes and colours of the +sea—the delight of every breath or sound or shadow or whisper passing +upon it—may have served at first to satiate as well as to stimulate, +before the pressure of enjoyment grew too intense and the sting of +enjoyment too keen. Upon Blake, of all men, one may conjecture that these +influences of spirit and sense would act with exquisite force. It is +observable that now, and not before, we hear of visions making manifest to +him the spiritual likeness of dead men: that the scene of every such +apocalypse was a sea-beach; the shore of a new Patmos, prolific as was the +first of splendid and enormous fancies, of dreams begotten and brought +forth in a like atmosphere and habit of mind.<small><a name="f3.1" id="f3.1" href="#f3">[3]</a></small> Now too the illimitable +book of divine or dæmonic revelation called<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> “Jerusalem” was dictated by +inspiration of its authors, who “are in eternity:” Blake “dares not +pretend to be any other than the secretary.” Human readers, if such indeed +exist beyond the singular or the dual number, will wish that the authors +had put themselves through a previous course of surgical or any other +training which might have cured a certain superhuman impediment of speech, +very perplexing to the mundane ear; a habit of huge breathless stuttering, +as it were a Titanic stammer, intolerable to organs of flesh. “Allegory,” +the too obedient secretary writes to his friend, “addressed to the +intellectual powers, while it is altogether hidden from the corporeal +understanding, is my definition of the most sublime poetry.” A better +perhaps could not be given; as far that is as relates to the “spirit of +sense” which is to be clothed in the beautiful body of verse; but when +once we have granted the power of conception, the claims of form are to be +first thought of. It is of small moment how the work thus done may strike +the heavy ear of vulgarity or affect the torpid palate of prurience; +against mere indolence or mere misconstruction it is waste of time to +contrive precautions or rear defences; but the laws and the dues of art it +is never permissible to forget. It is in fact only by innate and +irrational perception that we can apprehend and enjoy the supreme works of +verse and colour; these, as Blake indicates with a noble accuracy, are not +things of the understanding; otherwise, we may add, the whole human world +would appreciate them alike or nearly alike, and the high and subtle +luxuries of exceptional temperaments would be made the daily bread of the +poor and hungry; the <i>vinum dæmonum</i> which now<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> the few only can digest +safely and relish ardently would be found medicinal instead of poisonous, +palatable instead of loathsome, by the run of eaters and drinkers; all +specialties of spiritual office would be abolished, and the whole +congregation would communicate in both kinds. All the more, meantime, +because this “bread of sweet thought and wine of delight” is not broken or +shed for all, but for a few only—because the sacramental elements of art +and poetry are in no wise given for the sustenance or the salvation of men +in general, but reserved mainly for the sublime profit and intense +pleasure of an elect body or church—all the more on that account should +the ministering official be careful that the paten and chalice be found +wanting in no one possible grace of work or perfection of material.</p> + +<p>That too much of Blake’s written work while at Felpham is wanting in +executive quality, and even in decent coherence of verbal dress, is +undeniable. The Pythoness who delivers these stormy and sonorous oracles +is at once exposed and hampered as it were by her loose and heavy raiment; +the prophetic robe here slips or gapes, there muffles and impedes; is now +a tatter that hardly hides the contorted limbs, and now an encumbrance +that catches or trips up the reeling feet. Everything now written in the +fitful impatient intervals of the day’s work bears the stamp of an +overheated brain and of nerves too intensely strung. Everything may well +appear to confirm the suggestion that, as high latitudes and climates of +rarefied air affect the physical structure of inhabitants or travellers, +so in this case did the sudden country life, the taste and savour of the +sea, touch sharply<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> and irritate deliciously the more susceptible and +intricate organs of mind and nature. How far such passive capacity of +excitement differs from insanity; how in effect a temperament so sensuous, +so receptive, and so passionate, is further off from any risk of turning +unsound than hardier natures carrying heavier weight and tougher in the +nerves; need scarcely be indicated. For the rest, our concern at present +shall still be mainly with the letters of this date; and by their light we +may be enabled to see light shed upon many things hitherto hopelessly +dark. As no other samples of Blake’s correspondence worth mention have +been allowed us by the jealousy of fate and divine parsimony, we must be +duly grateful and careful in dealing with all we have; gathering the +fragments into commodious baskets, and piecing the shreds into available +patchwork.</p> + +<p>These letters bear upon them the common stamp of all Blake’s doings and +writings; the fiery and lyrical tone of mind and speech, the passionate +singleness of aim, the heat and flame of faith in himself, the violence of +mere words, the lust of paradox, the loud and angry habits of expression +which abound in his critical or didactic work, are not here missing; +neither are clear indications wanting of his noblest qualities; the great +love of great things, the great scorn of small men, the strong tenderness +of heart, the tender strength of spirit, which won for him honour from all +that were honourable. Ready even in a too fervent manner to accept, to +praise, to believe in worth and return thanks for it, he will have no man +or thing impede or divert him, either for love’s sake or hate’s. Small +friends with feeble counsels to suggest must learn<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> to suppress their +small feelings and graceful regrets, or be cleared out of his way with all +their powers to help or hinder; lucky if they get off without some label +of epigram on the forehead or sting of epigram in the flesh. Upon Hayley, +as we may see by collation of Blake’s note-book with his letters, the lash +fell at last, after long toleration of things intolerable, after “great +objections to my doing anything but the mere drudgery of business,” (as +for instance engraving illustrations to Hayley’s poems designed by +Flaxman’s sister—not by his wife, as stated at p. 171 of the “Life” by +some momentary slip of a most careful pen), “and intimations that if I do +not confine myself to this I shall not live. This,” adds Blake, “has +always pursued me. You will understand by this the source of all my +uneasiness. This from Johnson and Fuseli brought me down here, and this +from Mr. H. will bring me back again.” In a sharper mood than this, he +appended to the decent skirts of Mr. Hayley one of the best burlesque +epigrams in the language:—</p> + +<p class="poem">“Of Hayley’s birth this was the happy lot:<br /> +His mother on his father him begot.”</p> + +<p>With this couplet tied to his tail, the ghost of Hayley may perhaps run +further than his own strength of wind or speed of foot would naturally +have carried him: with this hook in his nose, he may be led by “his good +Blake” some way towards the temple of memory.</p> + +<p>What is most to be regretted in these letters is the wonderful tone of +assertion respecting the writer’s own pictures and those of the great +Italian schools. This it would be difficult enough to explain, dishonest +to overlook, easy to ridicule, and unprofitable to rebuke. All<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> that need +be said of this singular habit of Blake’s has been said with admirable +clearness and fairness in the prefatory note to the prose selections in +Vol. II. Higher authority than the writer’s of that note no man can have +or can require. And as Blake’s artistic heresies are in fact mere +accidents—the illegitimate growth of chance and circumstance—we may be +content to leave them wholly to the practical judgment and the wise +charity of such artists as are qualified to pass sentence upon the +achievements and the shortcomings of this great artist. Their praise can +alone be thoroughly worth having; their blame can alone be of any +significance: and in no other hands than theirs may we safely leave the +memory and the glory of a fellow-labourer so illustrious as Blake.</p> + +<p>Other points and shades of character not less singular it is essential +here to take notice of. These are not matters of accident, like the errors +of opinion or perversities of expression which may distort or disfigure +the notes and studies on purely artistic matters; they compose the vital +element and working condition of Blake’s talent. From the fifth to the +tenth letter especially, it becomes evident that the writer was passing +through strange struggles of spirit and passionate stages of faith. As +early as the fourth letter, dated almost exactly a year later than the +first written on his arrival at Felpham, Blake refers in a tone of regret +and perplexity to the “abstract folly” which makes him incapable of direct +practical work, though not of earnest and continuous labour. This action +of the nerves or of the mind he was plainly unable to regulate or modify. +It hurries him while yet at work into “lands of abstraction;” he “takes +the world with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> him in his flight.” Distress he knows would make the world +heavier to him, which seems now “lighter than a ball of wool rolled by the +wind;” and this distress material philosophies or methodical regulations +would “prescribe as a medicinal potion” for a mind impaired or diseased +merely by the animal superflux of spirits and childlike excess of +spiritual health. But this medicine the strange and strong faculty of +faith innate in the man precludes him from taking. Physical distress “is +his mock and scorn; mental no man can give; and if Heaven inflicts it, all +such distress is a mercy.” It is not easy, but it is requisite, to realise +the perpetual freshness and fulness of belief, the inalterable vigour and +fervour of spirit with which Blake, heretic and mystic as he may have +been, worshipped and worked; by which he was throughout life possessed and +pursued. Above all gods or dæmons of creation and division, he beheld by +faith in a perfect man a supreme God. “Though I have been very unhappy, I +am so no longer. I am again emerged into the light of day; I still (and +shall to eternity) embrace Christianity, and adore Him who is the express +image of God.” In the light of his especial faith all visible things were +fused into the intense heat and sharpened into the keen outline of vision. +He walked and laboured under other heavens, on another earth, than the +earth and the heaven of material life:</p> + +<p class="poem">“With a blue sky spread over with wings,<br /> +And a mild sun that mounts and sings;<br /> +With trees and fields full of fairy elves<br /> +And little devils who fight for themselves;<br /> +With angels planted in hawthorn bowers,<br /> +And God Himself in the passing hours.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>All this was not a mere matter of creed or opinion, much less of +decoration or ornament to his work. It was, as we said, his element of +life, inhaled at every breath with the common air, mixed into his veins +with their natural blood. It was an element almost painfully tangible and +actual; an absolute medium or state of existence, inevitable, +inexplicable, insuperable. To him the veil of outer things seemed always +to tremble with some breath behind it: seemed at times to be rent in +sunder with clamour and sudden lightning. All the void of earth and air +seemed to quiver with the passage of sentient wings and palpitate under +the pressure of conscious feet. Flowers and weeds, stars and stones, spoke +with articulate lips and gazed with living eyes. Hands were stretched +towards him from beyond the darkness of material nature, to tempt or to +support, to guide or to restrain. His hardest facts were the vaguest +allegories of other men. To him all symbolic things were literal, all +literal things symbolic. About his path and about his bed, around his ears +and under his eyes, an infinite play of spiritual life seethed and swarmed +or shone and sang. Spirits imprisoned in the husk and shell of earth +consoled or menaced him. Every leaf bore a growth of angels; the pulse of +every minute sounded as the falling foot of God; under the rank raiment of +weeds, in the drifting down of thistles, strange faces frowned and white +hair fluttered; tempters and allies, wraiths of the living and phantoms of +the dead, crowded and made populous the winds that blew about him, the +fields and hills over which he gazed. Even upon earth his vision was +“twofold always;” singleness of vision he scorned and feared as the sign +of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> mechanical intellect, of talent that walks while the soul sleeps, with +the mere activity of a blind somnambulism. It was fourfold in the +intervals of keenest inspiration and subtlest rapture; threefold in the +paradise of dreams lying between earth and heaven, lulled by lighter airs +and lit by fainter stars; a land of night and moonlight, spectral and +serene. These strange divisions of spirit and world according to some dim +and mythologic hierarchy were with Blake matters at once serious and +commonplace. The worlds of Beulah and Jerusalem, the existence of Los god +of Time and Enitharmon goddess of Space, the fallen manhood of Theotormon, +the imprisoned womanhood of Oothoon, were more to him even than +significant names; to the reader they must needs seem less. This monstrous +nomenclature, this jargon of miscreated things in chaos, rose as by nature +to his lips, flowed from them as by instinct. Time, an incarnate spirit +clothed with fire, stands before him in the sun’s likeness; he is +threatened with poverty, tempted to make himself friends of this world; +and makes answer as though to a human tempter:</p> + +<p class="poem">“My hands are laboured day and night<br /> +And rest comes never in my sight;<br /> +My wife has no indulgence given<br /> +Except what comes to her from heaven;<br /> +We eat little, we drink less;<br /> +This earth breeds not our happiness.”</p> + +<p>He beheld, he says, Time and Space as they were eternally, not as they are +seen upon earth; he saw nothing as man sees: his hopes and fears were +alien from all men’s; and upon him and his the light of prosperous days +and the terrors of troubled time had no power.</p> + +<p class="poem"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> +“When I had my defiance given<br /> +The sun stood trembling in heaven;<br /> +The moon, that glowed remote below,<br /> +Became leprous and white as snow;<br /> +And every soul of man on the earth<br /> +Felt affliction and sorrow and sickness and dearth.”</p> + +<p>In all this we may see on one side the reflection and refraction of outer +things, on the other side the projection of his own mind, the effusion of +his individual nature, throughout the hardest and remotest alien matter. +Strangely severed from other men, he was, or he conceived himself, more +strangely interwoven with them. The light of his spiritual weapons, the +sound of his spiritual warfare, was seen, he believed, and was heard in +faint resonance and far reverberation among men who knew not what such +sights and sounds might mean. If, worsted in this “mental fight,” he +should let “his sword sleep in his hand,” or “refuse to do spiritual acts +because of natural fears and natural desires,” the world would be the +poorer for his defection, and himself “called the base Judas who betrays +his friend.” Fear of this rebuke shook and wasted him day and night; he +was rent in sunder with pangs of terror and travail. Heaven was full of +the dead, coming to witness against him with blood-shedding and with +shedding of tears:</p> + +<p class="poem"><span style="margin-left: 14em;">“The sun was hot</span><br /> +With the bows of my mind and with arrows of thought.”</p> + +<p>In this spirit he wrought at his day’s work, seeing everywhere the image +of his own mood, the presence of foes and friends. Nothing to him was +neutral; nothing without significance. The labour and strife of soul in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> +which he lived was a thing as earnest as any bodily warfare. Such +struggles of spirit in poets or artists have been too often made the +subject of public study; nay, too often the theme of chaotic versifiers. A +theme more utterly improper it is of course impossible to devise. It is +just that a workman should see all sides of his work, and labour with all +his might of mind and dexterity of hand to make it great and perfect; but +to use up the details of the process as crude material for cruder +verse—to invite spectators as to the opening of a temple, and show them +the unbaked bricks and untempered mortar—to expose with immodest violence +and impotent satisfaction the long revolting labours of mental +abortion—this no artist will ever attempt, no craftsman ever so perform +as to escape ridicule. It is useless for those who can carve no statue +worth the chiselling to exhibit instead six feet or nine feet of shapeless +plaster or fragmentary stucco, and bid us see what sculptors work with; no +man will accept that in lieu of the statue. Not less futile and not less +indecent is it for those who can give expression to no great poem to +disgorge masses of raw incoherent verse on the subject of verse-making: to +offer, in place of a poem ready wrought out, some chaotic and convulsive +story about the way in which a poet works, or does not work.</p> + +<p>To Blake the whole thing was too grave for any such exposure of spiritual +nudity. In these letters he records the result of his “sore travail;” in +these verses he commemorates the manner of his work “under the direction +of messengers from heaven daily and nightly, not without trouble or care;” +but he writes in private and by pure<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> instinct; he speaks only by the +impulse of confidence, in the ardour of faith. What he has to say is said +with the simple and abstract rapture of apostles or prophets; not with the +laborious impertinence and vain obtrusion of tortuous analysis. For such +heavy play with gossamer and straws his nature was too earnest and his +genius too exalted. This is the mood in which he looks over what work he +has done or has to do: and in his lips the strange scriptural language +used has the sincerity of pure fire. “I see the face of my Heavenly +Father; He lays His hand upon my head, and gives a blessing to all my +work. Why should I be troubled? why should my heart and flesh cry out? I +will go on in the strength of the Lord; through hell will I sing forth His +praises; that the dragons of the deep may praise Him, and that those who +dwell in darkness and in the sea-coasts may be gathered into His kingdom.” +So did he esteem of art, which indeed is not a light thing; nor is it +wholly unimportant to men that they should have one capable artist more or +less among them. How it may fare with artisans (be they never so +pretentious) is a matter of sufficiently small moment. One blessing there +assuredly was upon all Blake’s work; the infinite blessing of life; the +fervour of vital blood.</p> + +<p>In spite however of all inspiration and of all support, sickness and +uncongenial company impeded his hours of labour and corroded his hours of +repose. A trial on the infamous charges of sedition and assault, brought +by a private soldier whose name of Scholfield was thus made shamefully +memorable, succeeded finally in making the country unendurable to him. It +must be said here of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> the hapless Hayley that he behaved well in this time +of vexation and danger: coming forward to bail “our friend Blake,” and +working hard for the defence in a tumultuous and spluttering way: he +“would appear in public at the trial, living or dying,” and did, with or +without leave of doctors, appear and speak up for the accused. Blake’s +honourable acquittal does not make it less disgraceful that the charge +should at all have been entertained. His own courage, readiness of wit, +and sincerity of spirit are fully shown in the letter relating this short +and sharp episode in his quiet life. Some months later he returned to +London once for all, and once for all broke off relations with Felpham: +commending, it may be hoped, Hayley to the Muses and Scholfield to the +halberts.</p> + +<p>Having read these letters, we are not lightly to judge of Blake as of +another man. Thoughts and creeds peculiar to his mind found expression in +ways and words peculiar to his lips. It was no vain or empty claim that he +put forward to especial insight and individual means of labour. If he +spoke strangely, he had great things to speak. If he acted strangely, he +had great things to do. “Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because +the Lord descended on it in fire.” Let the tree be judged by its fruit. If +the man who wrote thus had nothing to do or to say worth the saying or the +doing, it may fairly be said that he was mad or foolish. The involving +smoke, here again, implied the latent fire. Where the particles of dust +are mere hardened mud, where the cloud is mere condensing fog hatched from +the stagnation of a swamp, one may justly complain of the obstruction and +the obscurity. There is here indeed too much of mist,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> but it is at least +clear; the air that breeds it is high, the moisture that feeds it is pure. +This man had never lived in the low places of thought. In the words of a +living poet,<small><a name="f4.1" id="f4.1" href="#f4">[4]</a></small> whose noble verses are worthy to stand thus near Blake’s +own—</p> + +<p class="poem">“He had seen the moon’s eclipse<br /> +By the fire from Etna’s lips,<br /> +With Orion had he spoken,<br /> +His fast with honey-dew had broken.”</p> + +<p>His dialect was too much the dialect of a far country; but it was from a +far country that he came, from a lofty station that he spoke. To a poet +who has given us so much, to an artist who has done great things to such +great purpose, we may give at least some allowance and some toleration. +The distance is great which divides a fireside taper from the eclipsed +moon on Etna. Rules which are useful or necessary for household versifiers +may well be permitted to relax or even to dissolve when applied to one who +has attained to see with unblinded eyes and to speak with adequate words +of matters so far above them.</p> + +<p>The next point noticeable by us in the story of Blake’s life is his +single-handed duel with Cromek and Stothard; and of this we need not wish +to speak at much length. The engraver, swift and sharp in all his +dealings—never scrupulous, insolent sometimes, and always cunning—had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> +an easy game to play, and played it without shame; not even taking the +trouble to hide his marked cards or to load his dice in private. In spite +or in consequence of this rapacity and mendacity,<small><a name="f5.1" id="f5.1" href="#f5">[5]</a></small> Cromek was evidently +of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> some use to Blake. And even for the exercise of these special talents +he is perhaps not to be blamed; the man did but work with such qualities +as he had; did but put out to use his natural gifts and capacities. But +that he should have done this at Blake’s expense is and must remain +unpardonable: and therefore he must be left to hang with the head +downwards from the memorial gallows to which biography has nailed him; a +warning to all such others to choose their game more warily. A<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> tradesman +who, by their own account, swindled Blake and robbed Scott can hardly +expect to be allowed safe harbourage under the compassionate shelter of +complete oblivion or behind the weather-tight screen of simple contempt. +It may be worth while to condense the evidence as to his dealings with +Blake and Stothard. One alone of these three comes out clear from the +involved network of suspicious double-dealing. In the matter of the +engravings to Blair, Cromek had entrapped and cheated Blake from the +first. In the matter of the drawing from Chaucer, he had gone a step +further down the steep slope of peculation. After the proposal to employ +Schiavonetti, Blake might at once have thrown him over as a self-detected +knave. He did not; and was accordingly plundered again in a less dexterous +and a more direct manner. It is fortunate that the shameful little history +has at last been tracked through all its scandalous windings by so keen an +eye and so sure a hand as Mr. Gilchrist’s. Two questions arise at first +sight; did Cromek give Blake a commission for his design of the +“Pilgrims”? did Stothard, when Cromek proposed that he should take up the +same subject, know that the proposal was equivalent to the suggestion of a +theft? Both these questions Blake would have answered in the affirmative; +and in his dialect the affirmative mood was distinct and strong. Further +evidence on the first head can be wanted by no one of decent insight or of +decent candour. That Cromek, with more than professional impudence, denied +the charge, is an incident in the affair neither strange nor important. +The manner of his denial may be matched<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> for effrontery with the tone of +his insolent letter to Blake on the subject of the designs to Blair. With +the vulgarities and audacities, the shifts and the doubles of this +shuffling man of prey, no one need again be troubled. That a visitor +caught with the spoons in his pocket should bluster, stammer, and grin as +he pleads innocence or affects amazement, is natural and desirable; for +every word and gesture, humble or shameless, incoherent or intrepid, +serves to convict him twice over. Undoubtedly he saw Blake’s sketch, tried +to conjure it into his pocket, and failed; undoubtedly, finding that the +artist would not again give up his work to be engraved by other hands, he +made such approach to an honest offer as was compatible with his +character; undoubtedly also he then made money in his uncleanly way out of +the failure by tossing the subject to another painter as a bait. No man +has a right to express wonder that Blake refused to hold Stothard +blameless. It is nothing whatever to the purpose that, while Cromek’s +somewhat villainous share in the speculation was as yet under cover, Blake +may have bestowed on Stothard’s unfinished design his friendly counsel and +his frank applause. After the dealer’s perfidy had been again bared and +exposed by his own act, it was, and it is yet, a stretch of charity to +suppose that his associate was not likewise his accomplice. And the manner +of Stothard’s retort upon Blake, when taxed by him with unfair dealing, +was not of a sort qualified to disperse or to allay suspicion. He charged, +and he permitted Cromek to charge, the plundered man with the act of +plunder. Even though we, who can now read the whole account without +admixture of personal feeling, may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> acquit Stothard of active or actual +treachery, as all must gladly do who remember how large a debt is due from +all to an artist of such exquisite and pleasurable talent, it is hopeless +to make out for him a thoroughly sufficient case. The fellowship of such +an one as Cromek leaves upon all who take his part at least the suspicion +of a stain. All should hope that Stothard on coming out of the matter +could have shown clean hands; none can doubt that Blake did. That on +Stothard’s part irritation should have succeeded to surprise, and rancour +to irritation, is not wonderful. If he was indeed injured by the fault of +Cromek and the misfortune of Blake, it would doubtless have been admirably +generous to have controlled the irritation and overcome the rancour; but +in that case the worst that should be said of him is that he did not adopt +the noblest course of action possible to him. Admitting this, he is not +blameable for choosing to throw in his lot with Cromek; but we must then +suppose not merely that Cromek had abstained from any avowal of his +original treachery, but that Stothard was unhappily able to accept in good +faith the bare assertion of Cromek in preference to the bare assertion of +Blake. If we believe this, we are bound to admit no harsher feeling than +regret that Cromek should so have duped and blinded his betters; but in +common fairness we are also bound to restrict the question within these +limits. For Stothard a door of honourable escape stands open; and all must +desire rather to widen than to narrow the opening. No one can wish to +straiten his chance of acquittal, or to inquire too curiously whether +there be not a pretext for closing the door that now stands ajar. But for +the rest,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> it is simply necessary to choose between Blake’s authority and +Cromek’s; and to consider this alternative seriously for a moment would be +at once an act of condescension towards Cromek and of impertinence towards +Blake, equally unjustifiable on either side. It is possible that Blake was +not wronged by Stothard; it is undeniable that he was wronged through him. +It is probable that Stothard believed himself to be not in the wrong; it +is certain that Blake was in the right.<small><a name="f6.1" id="f6.1" href="#f6">[6]</a></small></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>About the close of this quarrel, and before the publication of Blake’s +designs to Blair as engraved for Cromek by Schiavonetti, a book came out +which would have deserved more notice and repaid more interest than has +yet been shown it. The graceful design by Blake on its frontispiece is not +the only or even the chief attraction of Dr. Malkin’s “Memoirs of his +Child.” The writer indeed treads ponderously and speaks thickly; but there +is extant no picture at once so perfect and so quaint of a purely +childlike talent. Even supreme genius, which usually has a mind now and +then to try, has never given us the complete and vivid likeness which a +child has for once given of himself. Even Shakespeare, even Hugo, even +Blake, has not done this. The husky dialect of his father suffices to +express something; and the portrait is significant and pleasant, +reproducing as it does the solid grace and glad gravity proper to +children; a round and bright figure, with no look of over-training or +disease. But the child’s own scraps and scrawls contain the kernel and +jewel of the book. His small drawings are certainly firmer, clearer, more +inventive than could have been looked for in a six-year-old artist. Any +slight imitative work in a child implies the energy which impels invention +in a man. His little histories and geographies are delightful for +illogical sequence of events and absurd coherence of fancy. Only a child +could have invented and combined such unimaginable eccentricities of +innocence. The language and system of proper names strongly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> recall +Blake’s own habits of speech. The province of Malleb and the city of +Tumblebob are no unfit abodes for Hand and Hyle, Kwantok and Kotope. The +moral polity of Allestone is not unlike that which prevails among the +Emanations “who in the aggregate are called Jerusalem.” The pamphlet, +condensed and compressed into a form more thoroughly readable, would be +worth republishing.</p> + +<p>It seems probable that the verses following were written by Blake about +this time, as Mr. Gilchrist refers the design of the “Last Judgment,” +executed on commission for Lady Egremont, to the year 1807. They are +evidently meant to match the beautiful dedication of the designs to Blair, +which were not brought out till the next year. Less excellent in +workmanship, they are not less important by way of illustration. The +existence of some mythical or symbolic island of Atalantis, where the arts +were to be preserved as in paradise, now walled round or washed over by +the blind and bitter waters of time, was a favourite vision with Blake. At +a first reading some of these verses seemed to refer to the subsequent +series of designs from Dante; but there is no evidence of any such later +commission as we must in that case take for granted.</p> + +<p class="poem">“The caverns of the grave I’ve seen,<br /> +And these I showed to England’s queen;<br /> +But now the caves of Hell I view,<br /> +Who shall I dare to show them to?<br /> +What mighty soul in beauty’s form<br /> +Shall dauntless view the infernal storm?<br /> +Egremont’s Countess can control<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>The flames of hell that round me roll.<br /> +If she refuse, I still go on,<br /> +Till the heavens and earth are gone;<br /> +Still admired by noble minds,<br /> +Followed by Envy on the winds.<br /> +Re-engraved time after time,<br /> +Ever in their youthful prime,<br /> +My designs unchanged remain;<br /> +Time may rage, but rage in vain;<br /> +For above Time’s troubled fountains,<br /> +On the great Atlantic mountains,<br /> +In my golden house on high,<br /> +There they shine eternally.”</p> + +<p>Blake was always looking westward for his islands of the blest. All +transatlantic things appear to have a singular hold upon his fancy. +America was a land of misty and stormy morning, struck by the fierce and +fugitive fires of intermittent war and nascent freedom. In a dim confused +manner, he seems to mix up the actual events of history with the formless +and labouring legends of his own mythology; or rather to cast +circumstances into the crucible of vision, and extract a strange amalgam +of metals unfit for mortal currency and difficult to bring to any test.</p> + +<p>In 1808 the illustrations to “Blair’s Grave” appeared, and found some +acceptance; a success on which the shameful soul of Cromek fed exultingly +and fattened scandalously. The ravenous gamester had packed his cards from +the first with all due care, and was able now to bluster without fear as +he had before swindled without shame. Twenty pounds of the profits fell to +the share of the designer for some of the most admirable works extant in +that line. The sweetness and vivid grace of these designs are as +noticeable as the energy and rapidity of imagination implied by them. Even +in Blake’s lifetime their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> tender and lofty beauty drew down some +recognition; and incautious criticism, as it praised them, forgot that the +artist was not dead yet. The generous oversight was afterwards amply and +consistently redeemed. For the moment it was perhaps not wonderful that +even so much excellence should obtain something of mistrustful admiration. +The noble passion and exaltation of spirit here made visible burnt its way +into notice for a time; and Cromek was allowed to claim applause for his +invention of Blake. We will choose two designs only for reference. None +who have seen can well forget the glorious violence of reunion between +soul and body, meeting with fierce embraces, with glad agony and rage of +delight; with breasts yearning and eyes wide, with sweet madness of +laughter at their lips; the startled and half-arisen body not less divine +already than the descending soul, though the earth clings yet about his +knees and feet, and though she comes down as with a clamour of rushing +wind and prone impulse of falling water, fresh from the stars and the +highest air of heaven. But for perfect beauty nothing of Blake’s can be +matched against the design of the soul departing; in this drawing the body +lies filled as it were and clothed with the supreme sleep of flesh, no man +watching by it; with limbs laid out and covered, with eyelids close; and +the soul, with tender poise of pausing feet, with painless face and sad +pure eyes, looks back as with a serene salutation full of pity, before +passing away into the clear air and light left at the end of sunset on +heaven and the hills; where outside the opened lattice a soft cold land of +rising fields and ridged moorland bears upon it the barren<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> beauty of +shadow and sleep, the breath and not the breeze of evening. The sweet and +grave grace of this background, with a bright pallor in the sky and an +effect upon field and moor of open air without wind, brings with it a +sense as of music.</p> + +<p>A year later Blake advertised and opened his exhibition; which he was +about as qualified to manage as little Malkin might have been. Between +anger, innocence, want of funds and sense of merit, he would assuredly +have ruined a better chance than he ever had. With the exception of his +<i>Canterbury Pilgrims</i>, the choice of pictures and designs for exhibition +seems to have been somewhat unhappy.<small><a name="f7.1" id="f7.1" href="#f7">[7]</a></small> The admirable power and high +dramatic quality of that singular but noble picture, the latent or +superincumbent beauty which corrects and redeems its partial ugliness, the +strong imagination and the fanciful justice of the entire work, were +invisible to all but such spectators as Charles Lamb; if indeed there were +ever another capable of seeing them to such purpose. Whatever portion of +the like merit there may have been in the other works exhibited was still +more utterly lost upon the few who saw them at all; for of these we have +scarcely any record beyond Blake’s own. One journal alone appears to have +noticed the exhibition. An angry allusion of Blake’s to some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> assault of +the <i>Examiner</i> newspaper upon his works and character has been hitherto +left unexplained, presumably through a not irrational contempt. That Blake +may be cleared from any charge of perversity, a brief account of the +quarrel is here appended. Contemptible as are both the journeyman writer +and his poor day’s work, they have been found worth tracking down on +account of the game flown at.</p> + +<p>In the thirtieth number of the <i>Examiner</i> (August 7th, 1808) there is a +review (signed R. H.) of the <i>Blair’s Grave</i>, sufficiently impudent in +manner and incapable in matter to have provoked a milder spirit than +Blake’s. Fuseli’s prefatory note is cited with a tone of dissentient +patronage not lightly to be endured; “none but such a visionary as Mr. +Blake or such a frantic (<i>sic</i>) as Mr. Fuseli could possibly fancy,” and +so forth; then follows some chatter about the failures of great poets, +“utter impossibility of representing <i>Spirit</i> to the eye” (except by means +of italic type), “insipid,” “absurd,” “all the wise men of the East would +not possibly divine,” “<i>small</i> assistance of the title” (italics again), +“how are we to find out?” (might not one reply with Thersites, “Make that +demand of thy Maker?”), “how absurd,” “more serious censure,” “most +heterogeneous and serio-fantastic,” “most indecent,” “appearance of +libidinousness,” “much to admire, but more to censure,” and all the +common-places of that pestilent old style which, propped on italics and +points of exclamation, halts at every sentence between a titter, a shrug, +and a snarl. Schiavonetti also “has done more than justice” to Blake, and +Blair and his engraver are finally<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> bidden to divide the real palm. Who +this reviewer was, no man need either know or care; but all may now +understand the point of Blake’s allusion. Next year however the real +batteries were opened. It is but loathsome labour to shovel out this +decomposed rubbish from the catacombs of liberal journalism; but if thus +only we can explain an apparently aimless or misplaced reference on the +great artist’s part, it may be worth while to throw up a few spadefuls.</p> + +<p>This second article bears date September 17th, 1809, No. 90 of the +<i>Examiner</i>, and is labelled “Mr. Blake’s Exhibition.” The contributor has +already lapsed from simple fatuity into fatuity compound with scurrility. +Blake here figures as “an unfortunate lunatic, whose personal +inoffensiveness secures him from confinement, and consequently of whom no +public notice would have been taken, if he was not” (the man’s grammar +here goes mad on its own account, but what then?) “forced on the notice +and animadversion of the <i>Examiner</i> in having been held up” (the case by +this time is fairly desperate) “to public admiration;” such is the +eccentricity of human error. The <i>Blair</i> of last year “was a futile +endeavour <i>by</i> bad drawings to represent immateriality <i>by</i> bodily +personifications,” and so forth; once again, “the tasteful hand of +Schiavonetti,” one regrets to remember, was employed to bestow “an +exterior charm on deformity and nonsense. Thus encouraged, the poor man” +(to wit, Blake) “fancies himself a great master, and has painted a few +wretched pictures, some of which are”—any one may finish that for the +critic. The catalogue is “a farrago of nonsense, unintelligibleness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> +(<i>sic</i>), and egregious vanity.” Stothard and the irrepressible +Schiavonetti are of course held up in contrast to the “distempered brain” +which produced Blake’s <i>Pilgrims</i>. The picture of <i>The Ancient Britons</i> +“is a complete caricature; the colour of the flesh is exactly like hung +beef.” Here we will pull the man up short and have done with him. He +shirks a signature this time; and whether or no he were the same as last +year’s critic, those may find out who care.</p> + +<p>“Arcadiæ pecuaria rudere dicas;” would not one say that this mingling bray +and howl had issued through the throat and nostril of some one among the +roving or browsing cattle of our own daily or weekly literature, startled +at smelling some incongruous rose in his half-eaten thistle-heap? Such +feeders were always one in voice and one in palate: it were waste of wood +and iron to cudgel or to prod them. Even when their clamour becomes too +intolerably dissonant we may get out of hearing and solace our vexed ears +and spirits with reflection on that axiom of Blake’s, which, though +savouring in such a case of excessive optimism, we will strive to hope is +true:</p> + +<p class="poem">“The bleat, the bark, bellow, and roar,<br /> +Are waves that beat on Heaven’s shore.”</p> + +<p>This was not Blake’s only connexion or collision with the journals of his +day. An adverse notice of Fuseli had excited him to more direct reprisals +than the attack upon himself now did. The <i>Monthly Magazine</i> for July 1st, +1806 (vol. xxi. pp. 520, 521), contains the following letter, which is now +first unearthed and seems worth<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> saving. It is not without perversities; +neither is it wanting in vigour and fervour of thought.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="center">“<span class="smcap">To the Editor of the ‘Monthly Magazine.’</span></p> + +<p>“<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—My indignation was exceedingly moved at reading a criticism in +<i>Bell’s Weekly Messenger</i> (25th May) on the picture of Count Ugolino, +by Mr. Fuseli, in the Royal Academy Exhibition; and your magazine +being as extensive in its circulation as that paper, and as it also +must from its nature be more permanent, I take the advantageous +opportunity to counteract the widely-diffused malice which has for +many years, under the pretence of admiration of the arts, been +assiduously sown and planted among the English public against true +art, such as it existed in the days of Michael Angelo and Raphael. +Under pretence of fair criticism and candour, the most wretched taste +ever produced has been upheld for many, very many years; but now, I +say, now its end has come. Such an artist as Fuseli is invulnerable, +he needs not my defence; but I should be ashamed not to set my hand +and shoulder, and whole strength, against those wretches who, under +pretence of criticism, use the dagger and the poison.</p> + +<p>“My criticism on this picture is as follows: ‘Mr. Fuseli’s Count +Ugolino is the father of sons of feeling and dignity, who would not +sit looking in their parent’s face in the moments of his agony, but +would rather retire and die in secret while they suffer him to +indulge his passionate and innocent grief, his innocent and venerable +madness, and insanity, and fury, and whatever paltry cold-hearted +critics cannot, because they dare not, look upon. Fuseli’s Count +Ugolino is a man of wonder and admiration, of resentment against man +and devil, and of humiliation before God: prayer and parental +affection fills the figure from head to foot. The child in his arms, +whether boy or girl signifies not (but the critic must be a fool who +has not read Dante, and who does not know a boy from a girl); I say, +the child is as beautifully drawn as it is coloured—in both, +inimitable; and the effect of the whole is truly sublime, on account +of that very colouring which our critic calls black and heavy. The +German-flute colour, which was used by the Flemings (they call it +burnt bone), has [? so] possessed the eye of certain connoisseurs, +that they cannot see appropriate colouring, and are blind to the +gloom of a real terror.</p> + +<p>“The taste of English amateurs has been too much formed upon pictures +imported from Flanders and Holland, consequently our countrymen are +easily brow-beat on the subject of painting; and hence it is so +common to hear a man say, ‘I am no judge of pictures;’ but, O +Englishmen! know that every man ought to be a judge of pictures, and +every man is so who has not been connoisseured out of his senses.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>“A gentleman who visited me the other day said, ‘I am very much +surprised at the dislike which some connoisseurs show on viewing the +pictures of Mr. Fuseli; but the truth is, he is a hundred years +beyond the present generation.’ Though I am startled at such an +assertion, I hope the contemporary taste will shorten the hundred +years into as many hours; for I am sure that any person consulting +his own eyes must prefer what is so supereminent; and I am as sure +that any person consulting his own reputation, or the reputation of +his country, will refrain from disgracing either by such ill-judged +criticisms in future.</p> + +<p class="right">“Yours, <span class="smcap">Wm. Blake</span>.”</p></div> + +<p>This ready championship, erratic and excessive as it may be, is not less +characteristic of the man than is that outspoken violence which helped to +make his audience often deaf and unfriendly. The letter, as we said, did +not happen to turn up in time for insertion in any niche of the <i>Life</i> or +<i>Appendix</i>: it will not seem a valueless windfall if read by the light of +the Catalogue, the Address, and other notes on art embalmed in the second +volume.</p> + +<p>No part of Blake’s life was nobler in action or is yet worthier of study +than the period of neglected labour and unbroken poverty which followed. +Much of the work done is now, it appears, irretrievably lost. New friends +gathered about him as the old ones died out; for indeed all men capable of +seeing the beauty of greatness and goodness were drawn at once to such a +man as he was. Violent and petulant as he may have seemed on some rare +occasions of public protest, he endured all the secret slights and wants +of his latter life with a most high patience, and with serene if not +joyous acceptance of his fate. Without brute resignation, nay with keen +sense of neglect shown and wrong done, he yet laboured gladly and without +ceasing. Sick or well, he was at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> work; his utmost rest was mere change of +labour. To relax the intense nerve or deaden the travailing brain would +have been painful and grievous to him. Fervent incessant action was to him +as the breath of every moment, the bread of every day. His talk was eager +and eloquent; his habits of life were simple and noble, alike above +compassion and beyond regret. To all the poor about him—and among the +poor he had to live out all his latter days of life—he showed all the +supreme charities of courtesy. From one or two things narrated of him, we +may all see and be assured that a more perfect and gentle excellence of +manner, a more royal civility of spirit, was never found in any man. +Fearless, blameless, and laborious, he had also all tender and exquisite +qualities of breeding, all courteous and gracious instincts of kindness. +As there was nothing base in him, so was there nothing harsh or weak. This +old man, whose hand academicians would not take because he had to fetch +his own porter, had the habit and spirit of the highest training. He was +born a knight and king among men, and had the great and quiet way of such. +To say that he was not ashamed or afraid of his poverty seems an +expression actually libellous by dint of inadequacy. Fear and shame of any +base kind are inconceivable of him. The great and sleepless soul which +impelled him to work and to speak could take no taint and no rest in this +world. Conscious as he was of the glory of his gift and capacity, he was +apparently unconscious how noble a thing was his own life. The work which +he was able and compelled to perform he knew to be great; that his manner +of living should be what it was, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> seems to have thought but simple. +“Few,” his biographer has well said, “are so persistently brave.” But his +was the supreme valour which ignorantly assumes and accepts itself. It was +natural to him not to cease from doing well or complain of faring ill, as +it is natural to a soldier not to turn tail. That he should do great +things for small wages was a condition of his life. Neither, with all his +just and distinct self-assertion, did he assume any special credit for +this. He did not ask for more of meat and drink, more of leisure or +praise; he demanded only such recognition as might have enabled him to do +more work and greater while strength and sight were left in him. That +neglect, and the necessities of mere handiwork involved by neglect, should +thus shorten his time and impair his capacity for higher labours, he did +at times complain, not without an audible undertone of scornful and +passionate rebuke. “Let not that nation,” he says once, “where less than +nobility is the ‘reward,’ pretend that Art is encouraged by that nation.” +There was no angry prurience for fame or gold underlying such complaints.</p> + +<p>His famous drawings, burlesque or serious, of visionary heads are +interesting chiefly for the evidence they give of Blake’s power upon his +own mind and nerves, and of the strong and subtle mixture of passion with +humour in his temperament. Faith, invention, and irony are here mingled in +a rare and curious manner. The narrow leer of stolid servile vigour, the +keen smirk of satisfied and brutish achievement, branded upon the +grotesque face of the “Man who built the Pyramids,” implies a good satire +on workmen of base talent and mean success.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> Several others, such as “The +Accusers” and the celebrated “Ghost of a Flea,” are grotesque almost to +grandeur, and full of strength and significance. More important than +hundreds of these are the beautiful designs to Virgil—or to Phillips. +Reproduced at page 271 of Vol. I. with the utmost care and skill, they +have of course lost something by the way; enough remains, and would remain +had less favour been shown them, to give great and keen pleasure. In the +first, the remote sweet curve of hill against a sky filled with evening, +seen far above the rows of folded sheep, may recall a splendid former +design in the “Blair.” In the second, which perhaps has lost more than any +in course of transference, the distance of winding road and deepening +gorge, woods and downs and lighted windy sky, is among the noblest +inventions of imaginative landscape. Highest of all in poetical quality I +should class the third design. Upon the first two, symbolic as they are of +vision and of pilgrimage, the shadow of peace is cast like a garment; rest +lies upon them as a covering. In the third, a splendour of sweet and +turbulent moonlight falls across blown bowed hedgerows, over the gnarled +and labouring branches of a tough tortuous oak, upon soft ears of laid +corn like long low waves without ripple or roll; every bruised blade +distinct and patient, every leaf quivering and straightened out in the +hard wind. The stormy beauty of this design, the noble motion and passion +in all parts of it, are as noticeable as its tender sense of detail and +grace in effect of light. Not a star shows about the moon; and the dark +hollow half of her glimmering shell, emptied and eclipsed, is faint upon +the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> deep air. The fire in her crescent burns high across the drift of +wind. Blake’s touch in this appears to me curiously just and perfect; the +moon does not seem to quail or flicker as a star would; but one may feel +and see, as it were, the wind passing beneath her; amid the fierce +fluctuation of heaven in the full breath of tempest, blown upon with all +the strength of the night, she stands firm in the race of winds, where no +lesser star can stand; she hangs high in clear space, pure of cloud; but +no likeness of the low-hung labouring moon, no blurred and blinking planet +with edges blotted and soiled in fitful vapour, would have given so +splendid a sense of storm as this white triumphal light seen above the +wind. Small and rough as these half-engraved designs may be, it is +difficult to express in words all that is latent, even all that is +evident, in the best of them. Poets and painters of Blake’s kind can put +enough into the slightest and swiftest work they do to baffle critics and +irritate pretenders.</p> + +<p>Friends, as we have said, were not wanting to Blake in his old age; to one +of them we owe, among other more direct obligations, an inestimable debt +for the “Illustrations to Job,” executed on his commission. Another worthy +of notice here was, until our own day called forth a better, the best +English critic on art; himself, as far as we know, admirable alike as a +painter, a writer, and a murderer. In each pursuit, perhaps, there was a +certain want of solid worth and fervour, which at times impeded or +impaired the working of an excellent faculty; but in each it is evident +there was a noble sense of things fair and fit; a seemliness and +shapeliness of execution,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> a sensitive relish of excellence, an exquisite +aspiration after goodness of work, which cannot be overpraised. With pen, +with palette, or with poison, his hand was never a mere craftsman’s. The +visible vulgarities and deficiencies of his style went hardly deeper than +the surface. Excess of colour and levity of handling have not unjustly +been charged against him; he does not seem to have always used the +material on hand, whether strychnine or mere ink, to the best purpose; his +work has a certain crudity and violence of tone; his articles and his +crimes are both too often wanting in the most delightful qualities of +which finished art is capable; qualities which a more earnest man of +lesser genius might have given them. The main object in both seems wrong, +or at best insufficient; in the one case he looked less to achievement +than to effect; in the other he aimed rather at money-getting than at +enjoyment; which is the more deplorable, as a man so greatly gifted must +have been in every way fitted to apprehend, to relish, and to realize all +noble and subtle pleasure in its more vigorous forms and in its more +delicate sense. What he has done however is excellent; and we need not +inquire with a captious ingratitude whether another could have done +better: that meaner men have since done worse, we know and lament. Too +often the murderer is not an artist; and the converse defect is no doubt +yet more unhappily frequent. On all accounts we may suppose that in days +perhaps not remote a philosophic posterity, mindful that the harvest of +art has few reapers worthy of their hire, and well aware that what is +exalted must also be exceptional, will inscribe with due honour upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> the +list of men who have deserved well of mankind the name of Wainwright. +Those who would depreciate his performance as a simple author must +recollect that in accordance with the modern receipt he “lived his poems;” +that the age prefers deeds to songs; that to do great things is better +than to write; that action is of eternity, fiction of time; and that these +poems were doubtless the greater for being “inarticulate.” Remembering +which things, the sternest critic will not deny that no kaiser or king +ever “polished his stanza” to better purpose with more strenuous will.</p> + +<p>What concerns us at present is, that there grew up between Blake and +Wainwright an intimacy not unpleasing to commemorate. An artist in words, +in oils, and in drugs, Wainwright had an exquisite power of recognition, +and a really noble relish of all excellence. No good work came in his way +but he praised it with all his might. The mixture of keen insight with +frank pleasure, innate justice of eye with fresh effusion of enjoyment, +gives to his papers on art a special colour or savour which redeems the +offences of a tricked and tinselled style. Clearly too he did what he +could for Blake in the way of journalism; but a super-editorial thickness +of hide and head repelled the light sharp shafts loosed from a bow too +relaxed by too unsteady a hand. It is lamentable that the backstroke of a +recalcitrant hoof should have broken this bowman’s arm when it might have +done good service. Help shown to Blake about this time, especially help of +the swift efficient nature that Wainwright would have given, might have +been infinitely important; it was no light thing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> to come so near and yet +fall short of. Exposition of the beloved “Song of Jerusalem,” adequate at +least on the side of pure art, would assuredly have given the great old +man pleasure beyond words and beyond gold. This too he was not to have. +There are men set about the ways of life who seem made only to fulfil the +office of thorns; it is difficult for retrospection to observe that they +have done anything but hurt and hinder the feet of higher men. Doubtless +they have had their use and taken their pleasure. These have left no +trace; we can still see the scars they made on the hand and the fragments +they rent from the cloak of a great man as he passed by them. A little of +the honour which he has lately received would have been to Blake in his +life a great and pleasant thing to attain; praise of his work now leaves +an after-taste of bitterness on the lips which utter it. His work, not +done for wages, hardly repaid with thanks, we can touch and handle and +remark upon as ability is given us; “nothing can touch him further.” Those +who might have done what we would give much to do left it undone. And even +to men who enjoy such power to do and such wisdom to choose greatly as +were the inheritance of Blake it is not a thing worth no regret to have +been allowed upon earth no comprehension and no applause. He had a better +part in life than the pleasure that comes of such things; but these also +he might have had. He would not come down to chaffer for them or stoop to +gather them up from unclean or unsafe ground; but they might have been +laid at his feet freely and with thanks; which they never were.</p> + +<p>Foiled as he had been in his good purpose, the critic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> at least won full +gratitude from the gentle and great nature of his friend, who repaid him +in a kingly manner with praise worth gold. One may hope that a picture +painted by Wainwright and commended by Blake will yet be traced somewhere, +in spite of the singular fate which hung upon so much of their lives, and +which still obscures so much of their work. At least its subject and +quality should be sought out and remembered. But for the strange collision +with social laws which broke up his life and scattered his designs, it +might also be hoped that some other relics of Wainwright would be found +adrift in manuscript or otherwise, and a collection of his stray works be +completed and published, with an adequate notice of his life, well weeded +of superfluous lamentations, duly qualified to put an end to perversion +and foolish fancies, clear of deprecation or distortion, just, sufficient, +and close to the purpose. Few things would be better worth doing by a +competent editor.</p> + +<p>Even of the “Inventions to the Book of Job,” as far as I know, no especial +notice was taken. Upon these, the greatest of all Blake’s designs, such +noble exposition has now at length been bestowed that further remark may +henceforward well be spared. This commentary has something of the stately +beauty and vigorous gravity of style which distinguish the work spoken of. +Blake himself, had he undertaken to write notes on his designs, must have +done them less justice than this. The perfect apprehension and the perfect +representation of the great qualities which all men, according to their +capacity, must here in some degree perceive, give to these notes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> a value +beyond that of mere eloquence or of mere sympathy. The words chosen do not +merely render the subject with fluency and fitness; they attain a +choiceness and exaltation of expression, which give to the writing much of +the character of the designs. Whether or not from any exceptional aptitude +in the material, these designs are more lucid and dramatic in effect than +perhaps any of Blake’s works. His specialties of belief or sentiment +hardly show in this series at all; except perhaps in the passionate and +penitent character which seems here to supplant the traditional divine +look of patience and power. The whole work has in it a vibration as of +fire; even the full stars and serene lines of hill are set in frameworks +of fervent sky or throbbing flame. But for the most part those intense +qualities of sleepless invention which in many of Blake’s other works +impel him into fierce aberration and blind ecstasy, through ways which few +can tread and mists which few can pierce, are now happily diverted and +kept at work upon the exquisite borders and appendages. In these there is +enough of fiery fancy and tender structure of symbol to employ the whole +wide and vivid imagination of the artist. And throughout the series there +is a largeness and a loftiness of manner which sustain the composition at +the height of the poem. In the highest flights of spiritual passion and +speculation, in the subtle contention with fate and imperious agony of +appeal against heaven, Blake has matched himself against his text, and +translated its sharp and profound harmonies into a music of design not +less adorable.</p> + +<p>Those who have read with any care or comprehension<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> the excellent chapters +on Blake’s personal life will regret, not it may be without a keen +suppressed sense of vain vexation, that the author did not live to get +sight of the letters which have since been found and published. They will +at least observe with how much reason the editor of the <i>Life</i> has desired +us to notice the close and complete confirmation given by that +correspondence to the accuracy of these chapters. No tribute more valuable +could be devised to the high sincerity, the clear sagacity, the vigorous +sense of truth and lucid power of proof, which have left us for the first +time an acceptable and endurable portrait of Blake. All earlier attempts +were mere masses of blot and scratch, evidently impossible and false on +the face of them, and even pitifully conscious that they could not be +true, not being human. The bewildered patronage, fear, contempt, goodwill +and despair which Blake had excited among those hapless biographers have +left in their forlorn failures a certain element of despicable pathos. We +have now, thanks to no happier chance, but solely to the strenuous ability +and fidelity of a man qualified to study and to speak upon the matter, a +trustworthy, perspicuous, and coherent summary of the actual facts of +Blake’s life, of the manner in which he worked, and of the causes which +made his work what it was.</p> + +<p>Among these late labours of Blake the “Dante” may take a place of some +prominence. The seven published plates, though quite surprisingly various +in merit, are worth more notice than has yet been spared them. Three at +least, for poetical power and nobility of imaginative detail, are up to +the artist’s highest mark.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> Others have painted the episode of Francesca +with more or less of vigour and beauty; once above all an artist to whom +any reference here must be taken as especially apposite has given with the +tenderest perfection of power, first the beauty of beginning love in the +light and air of life on earth, then the passion of imperishable desire +under the dropping tongues of flame in hell. To the right the lovers are +drawn close, yearning one toward another with touch of tightened hands and +insatiable appeal of lips; behind them the bower lattice opens on deep +sunshine and luminous leaves; to the left, they drift before the wind of +hell, floated along the misty and straining air, fastened one upon another +among the fires, pale with perpetual division of pain; and between them +the witnesses stand sadly, as men that look before and after. Blake has +given nothing like this: of personal beauty and special tenderness his +design has none; it starts from other ground. Often as the lovers had been +painted, here first has any artist desired to paint the second circle +itself. To most illustrators, as to most readers, and (one might say) to +Dante himself, the rest are swallowed up in those two supreme martyrs. +Here we see, not one or two, but the very circle of the souls that sinned +by lust, as Dante saw it; and as Keats afterwards saw it in the dream +embalmed by his sonnet; the revolution of infinite sorrowing spirits +through the bitter air and grievous hurricane of hell. Through strange +immense implications of snake-shaped fold beyond fold, the involved chain +of figures that circle and return flickers in wan white outline upon the +dense dark. Under their feet is no stay as on earth; over their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> heads is +no light as in heaven. They have no rest, and no resting-place: they +revolve like circles of curling foam or fire. The two witnesses, who alone +among all the mobile mass have ground whereon to set foot, stand apart +upon a broken floor-work of roots and rocks, made rank with the slime and +sprawl of rotten weed and foul flag-leaves of Lethe. Detail of drawing or +other technical work is not the strong point of the design; but it does +incomparably well manage to render the sense of the matter in hand, the +endless measured motion, the painful and fruitless haste as of leaves or +smoke upon the wind, the grey discomforted air and dividing mist. Blake +has thoroughly understood and given back the physical symbols of this +first punishment in Dante; the whirling motion of his figures has however +more of blind violence and brute speed than the text seems to indicate: +they are dashed and dragged one upon another like weed or shingle torn up +in the drift of a breaking sea: overthrown or beaten down, haled or +crushed together, as if by inanimate strength of iron or steam: not moved +as we expect to see them, in sad rapidity of stately measure and even time +of speed. The flame-like impulse of idea natural to Blake cannot +absolutely match itself against Dante’s divine justice and intense innate +forbearance in detail; nor so comprehend, as by dint of reproduction to +compete with, that supreme sense of inward and outward right which rules +and attunes every word of the <i>Commedia</i>.</p> + +<p>Two other drawings in this series are worth remark and praise; the sixth +and seventh in order. In the sixth, Dante and Virgil, standing in a niche +of rifted rock faced<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> by another cliff up and down which a reptile crowd +of spirits swarms and sinks, look down on the grovelling and swine-like +flocks of Malebolge; lying tumbled about the loathsome land in hateful +heaps of leprous flesh and dishevelled deformity, with limbs contorted, +clawing nails, and staring horror of hair and eyes: one figure thrown down +in a corner of the crowded cliff-side, her form and face drowned in an +overflow of ruined raining tresses. The pure grave folds of the two poets’ +robes, long and cleanly carved as the straight drapery of a statue, gain +chastity of contrast from the swarming surge and monstrous mass of all +foulest forms beneath, against the reek of which both witnesses stop their +noses with their gowns. Behind and between, huge outlines of dark hill and +sharp curves of crag show like stiffened ridges of solid sea, amid heaving +and glaring motion of vapour and fire. Slight as the workmanship is of +this design also, alien as is perhaps its structure of precipice and +mountain from the Dantesque conception of descending circles and narrowing +sides, it has a fiery beauty of its own; the background especially, with +its climbing or crawling flames, the dark hard strength and sweep of its +sterile ridges, seen by fierce fits of reflected light, washed about with +surf and froth of tideless fire, and heavily laden with the lurid languor +of hell. In the seventh design we reach the circle of traitors; the foot +of the passenger strikes against one frost-bound face; others lie +straight, with crowned congealing hair and beard taken in the tightening +rivets of ice. To the right a swarm of huge and huddled figures seems +gathering with moan or menace behind a veil of frozen air, a mask of +hardening vapour; and from each<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> side the bitter light of ice or steel +falls grey in cruel refraction. Into the other four designs we will not +enter; some indeed are too savagely reckless in their ugly and barren +violation of form or law, to be redeemed by even an intenser apprehension +of symbol and sense; and one at least, though with noble suggestions +dropped about it, is but half sketched in. In that of the valley of +serpents there is however a splendid excess of horror and prodigal agony; +the ravenous delight of the closing and laughing mouths, the folded +tension of every scale and ring, the horrible head caught and crushed with +the last shriek between its teeth and the last strain upon its eyelids, in +the serrated jaws of the erect serpent—all have the brand of Blake upon +them.</p> + +<p>These works were the last he was to achieve; out of the whole Dantesque +series, seven designs alone have ever won their way into such notice as +engraving could earn for them. The latest chapters of Blake’s life are +perhaps also the noblest. His poverty, if that word implies anything of a +destitute or sordid way of living, seems to have grown and swollen +somewhat beyond its actual size in the dim form of report. Stories have +come to hand of late, which, being seemingly accurate in the main, though +not as yet duly fixed in detail or date, remove any such ground of fear. +They do better; they bring proof once again of the noble charity, the +tender exaltation of mind, the swift bounty of hand, which would have made +memorable a man meaner in talent. Once, it is said, he lent £40 to some +friend in distress, which friend’s wife, having laid out most of her +windfall in dress, thought Mrs. Blake might like to see <i>that</i> by way of +change for her husband’s money.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> Once too they received into their lodging +(into which does not yet seem certain) a young student of art, sick and +poor, who died some time after upon their hands. These things, and such as +these, we know dimly. One or two such deeds, seen through such dull vague +obstruction, in the midst of so many things forgotten, should be taken to +imply much. How few we know of, it is easy to say; how many there must +have been, it is not easy. This also may be remembered, that the man so +liberal when he had little might once have had much to give, and would not +take it at the price. It is recorded on the authority of a personal +friend, that some proposal had once been made to “engage Blake as teacher +of drawing to the royal family”; a proposal declined on his part from no +folly or vulgarity of prepossession, but from a simple and noble sense of +things reasonable and right. For once, it is also said, some samples of +his work were laid before the king, not then, unluckily, in his +strait-waistcoat; “Take them away!” spluttered the lunatic—not quite as +yet “blind, mad, despised, and dying,” as when Byron and Shelley embalmed +him in corrosive rhymes; not all of these as yet. But as a great man then +alive and yet living<small><a name="f8.1" id="f8.1" href="#f8">[8]</a></small> has well asked—“What mortal ever heard Any good +of George the Third?” Blake’s MSS. contain an occasional allusion +expressive of no ardent reverence for the person or family of that insane +Dagon, so long left standing as the leaden rather than brazen idol of +hypocrites and dunces. As to the arts, it was well for Blake to keep clear +of the patron of West. All he ever got from government was the risk of +hanging, or such minor penalty as that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> equitable time might have +inflicted on seditious laxity of speech and thought.</p> + +<p>In smaller personal matters, Blake was as fearless and impulsive as in his +conduct of these graver affairs. Seeing once, somewhere about St. Giles’s, +a wife knocked about by some husband or other violent person, in the open +street, a bystander saw this also—that a small swift figure coming up in +full swing of passion fell with such counter violence of reckless and +raging rebuke upon the poor ruffian, that he recoiled and collapsed, with +ineffectual cudgel; persuaded, as the bystander was told on calling +afterwards, that the very devil himself had flown upon him in defence of +the woman; such Tartarean overflow of execration and objurgation had +issued from the mouth of her champion. It was the fluent tongue of Blake +which had proved too strong for this fellow’s arm: the artist, doubtless, +not caring to remember the consequences, proverbial even before Molière’s +time, of such interference with conjugal casualties.</p> + +<p>These things, whenever it was that they happened, were now of the past; as +were many labours of many days, to be followed by not many more. Among a +few good friends, and not without varieties of changed scene and company, +Blake drew daily nearer to death. Of all the records of these his latter +years, the most valuable perhaps are those furnished by Mr. Crabb +Robinson, whose cautious and vivid transcription of Blake’s actual speech +is worth more than much vague remark, or than any commentary now possible +to give. A certain visible dislike and vexation excited by the mystic +violence of Blake’s phrases, by the fierce simplicity of his mental +bearing, have not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> been allowed to impair the excellent justice of tone +and evident accuracy of report which give to these notes their singular +value. In his correspondence, in his conversation, and in his prophecies, +Blake was always at unity with himself; not, it seems to us, actually +inconsistent or even illogical in his fitful varieties of speech and +expression. His faith was large and his creed intricate; in the house of +his belief there were many mansions. In these notes, for instance, the +terms “atheism” and “education” are wrested to peculiar uses; education +must mean not exactly training, but moral tradition and the retailed +sophistries of artificial right and wrong; atheism, as applicable to +Dante, must mean adherence to the received “God of this world”—that +confusion of the Creator with the Saviour which was to Blake the main rock +of offence in all religious systems less mystic than his own; being +indeed, together with “Deism,” the perpetual butt of his prophetic slings +and arrows. All this, however, we must leave now for time to enlighten in +due course as it best may; meanwhile some last word has to be said +concerning Blake’s life and death.</p> + +<p>To a life so gentle and great, so brave and stainless, there could be but +one manner of end, come when and how it might; a serene and divine death, +full of placid ardour and hope unspotted by fear. Having lived long +without a taint of shame upon his life, having long laboured without a +stain of falsehood upon his work, it was no hard task for him to set the +seal of a noble death upon that noble life and labour. He, it might be +said, whom the gods love well need not always die young; for this man died +old in years at least, having done work enough<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> for three men’s lives of +strenuous talent and spirit. After certain stages of pain and recovery and +relapse, the end came on the second Sunday in August 1827. A few days +before he had made a last drawing of his wife—faithful to him and loving +almost beyond all recorded faith and love. Forty-five years she had cloven +to him and served him all the days of her life with all the might of her +heart; for a space of four years and two months they were to be divided +now. He did not draw her like, it appears: that which “she had ever been +to him,” no man could have drawn. Of her, out of just reverence and +gratitude that such goodness should have been, we will not say more. All +words are coarse and flat that men can use to praise one who has so +lived.<small><a name="f9.1" id="f9.1" href="#f9">[9]</a></small> It has been told<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> more than once in print—it can never be told +without a sense of some strange and sweet meaning—how, as Blake lay with +all the tides of his life setting towards the deep final sleep, he made +and sang new fragments of verse, the last oblations he was to bring who +had brought so many since his first conscience of the singular power and +passion within himself that impels a man to such work. Of these songs not +a line has been spared us; for us, it seems, they were not made. In +effect, they were not his, he said. At last, after many songs and hours, +still in the true and pure presence of his wife, his death came upon him +in the evening like a sleep.<small><a name="f10.1" id="f10.1" href="#f10">[10]</a></small></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>Only such men die so; though the worst have been known to die calmly and +the meanest bravely, this pure lyric rapture of spirit and perfect music +of sundering soul and body can only be given to these few. Knowing nothing +of whence and whither, the how and the when of a man’s death we can at +least know, and put the knowledge to what uses we may. In this case, if we +will, it may help us to much in the way of insight and judgment; it may +show us many things that need not be wrought up into many words. For what +more is there now to say of the man? Of the work he did we must speak +gradually, if we are to speak adequately. Into his life and method of work +we have looked, not without care and veneration; and find little to +conclude with by way of comment. If to any reader it should not by this +time appear that he was great and good among the chief of good and great +men, it will not appear for any oration of ours. Most funeral speeches +also are cheap and inconclusive. Especially they must be so, or seem so, +when delivered over the body of a great man to whom his own generation +could not even grant a secure grave. In 1831 his wife was buried beside +him: where they are laid now no man can say: it seems certain only that +their graves were violated by hideous official custom, and their bones +cast<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> out into some consecrated pit among other nameless relics of poor +men. It might not have hurt them even to foresee this; but nevertheless +the doers of such a thing had better not have done it. Having missed of a +durable grave, Blake need not perhaps look for the “weak witness” of any +late memorial. Such things in life were indifferent to him; and should be +more so now. To be buried among his nearest kin, and to have the English +burial service read over him, he did, we are told, express some wish; and +this was done. The world of men was less by one great man, and was none +the wiser; while he lived he was called mad and kept poor; after his death +much of his work was destroyed; and in course of time not so much as his +grave was left him. All which to him must matter little, but is yet worth +a recollection more fruitful than regret. The dead only, and not the +living, ought, while any trace of his doings remains, to forget what was +the work and what were the wages of William Blake.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="II_LYRICAL_POEMS" id="II_LYRICAL_POEMS"></a>II.—LYRICAL POEMS.</h2> + +<p>We must here be allowed space to interpolate a word of the briefest +possible comment on the practical side of Blake’s character. No man ever +lived and laboured in hotter earnest; and the native energy in him had the +property of making all his atmosphere of work intense and keen as +fire—too sharp and rare in quality of heat to be a good working element +for any more temperate intellect. Into every conceivable channel or byway +of work he contrived to divert and infuse this overflowing fervour of +mind; the least bit of engraving, the poorest scrap or scratch of drawing +or writing traceable to his hands, has on it the mark of passionate labour +and enjoyment; but of all this devotion of laborious life, the only upshot +visible to most of us consists in a heap of tumbled and tangled relics, +verse and prose mainly inexplicable, paintings and engravings mainly +unacceptable if not unendurable. And if certain popular theories of the +just aims of life, duties of an earnest-minded man, and meritorious nature +of practical deeds and material services only, are absolutely correct—in +that case the work of this man’s life is certainly a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> sample of deplorable +waste and failure. A religion which has for Walhalla some factory of the +Titans, some prison fitted with moral cranks and divine treadmills of all +the virtues, can have no place among its heroes for the most energetic of +mere artists. To him, as to others of his kind, all faith, all virtue, all +moral duty or religious necessity, was not so much abrogated or superseded +as summed up, included and involved, by the one matter of art. To him, as +to other such workmen, it seemed better to do this well and let all the +rest drift than to do incomparably well in all other things and dispense +with this one. For this was the thing he had to do; and this once well +done, he had the assurance of a certain faith that other things could not +be wrong with him. As long as two such parties exist among men who think +and act, it must always be some pleasure to deal with a man of either +party who has no faith or hope in compromise. These middle-men, with some +admirable self-sufficient theory of reconciliation between two directly +opposite aims and forces, are fit for no great work on either side. If it +be in the interest of facts really desirable that “the poor Fine Arts +should take themselves away,” let it be fairly avowed and preached in a +distinct manner. That thesis, so delivered, is comprehensible, and +deserves respect. One may add that if art can be destroyed it by all means +ought to be. If for example the art of verse is not indispensable and +indestructible, the sooner it is put out of the way the better. If +anything can be done instead better worth doing than painting or poetry, +let that preferable thing be done with all the might and haste that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> may +be attainable. And if to live well be really better than to write or paint +well, and a noble action more valuable than the greatest poem or most +perfect picture, let us have done at once with the meaner things that +stand in the way of the higher. For we cannot on any terms have +everything; and assuredly no chief artist or poet has ever been fit to +hold rank among the world’s supreme benefactors in the way of doctrine, +philanthropy, reform, guidance, or example: what is called the artistic +faculty not being by any means the same thing as a general capacity for +doing good work, diverted into this one strait or shallow in default of a +better outlet. Even were this true for example of a man so imperfect as +Burns, it would remain false of a man so perfect as Keats. The great men, +on whichever side one finds them, are never found trying to take truce or +patch up terms. Savonarola burnt Boccaccio; Cromwell proscribed +Shakespeare. The early Christians were not great at verse or sculpture. +Men of immense capacity and energy who do seem to think or assert it +possible to serve both masters—a Dante, a Shelley, a Hugo—poets whose +work is mixed with and coloured by personal action or suffering for some +cause moral or political—these even are no real exceptions. It is not as +artists that they do or seem to do this. The work done may be, and in such +high cases often must be, of supreme value to art; but not the moral +implied. Strip the sentiments and re-clothe them in bad verse, what +residue will be left of the slightest importance to art? Invert them, +retaining the manner or form (supposing this feasible, which it might be), +and art has lost nothing. Save the shape, and art will take care of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> +soul for you:<small><a name="f11.1" id="f11.1" href="#f11">[11]</a></small> unless that is all right, she will refuse to run or +start at all; but the shape or style of workmanship each artist is bound +to look to, whether or no he may choose to trouble himself about the moral +or other bearings of his work. This principle, which makes the manner of +doing a thing the essence of the thing done, the purpose or result of it +the accident, thus reversing the principle of moral or material duty, must +inevitably expose art to the condemnation of the other party—the party of +those who (as aforesaid) regard what certain of their leaders call an +earnest life or a great acted poem (that is, material virtue or the mere +doing and saying of good or instructive deeds and words) as infinitely +preferable to any possible feat of art. Opinion is free, and the choice +always open; but if any man leaning on crutches of theory chooses to halt +between the two camps, it shall be at his own peril—imminent peril of +conviction as one unfit for service on either side. For Puritanism is in +this one thing absolutely right about art; they cannot live and work +together, or the one under the other. All ages which were great enough to +have space for both, to hold room for a fair fighting-field between them, +have always accepted and acted upon this evident fact. Take the +Renaissance age for one example; you must have Knox or Ronsard, Scotch or +French; not both at once; there is no place under reformers for the +singing of a “Pléiade.” Take the mediæval period in its broadest sense; +not to speak of the notably heretical and immoral Albigeois with their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> +exquisite school of heathenish verse, or of that other rebellious +gathering under the great emperor Frederick II., a poet and pagan, when +eastern arts and ideas began to look up westward at one man’s bidding and +open out Saracenic prospects in the very face and teeth of the +Church—look at home into familiar things, and see by such poems as +Chaucer’s <i>Court of Love</i>, absolutely one in tone and handling as it is +with the old Albigensian <i>Aucassin</i> and all its paganism,<small><a name="f12.1" id="f12.1" href="#f12">[12]</a></small> how the +poets of the time, with their eager nascent worship of beautiful form<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> and +external nature, dealt with established opinion and the incarnate +moralities of church or household. It is easy to see why the Church on its +own principle found it (as in the Albigensian case) a matter of the +gravest necessity to have such schools of art and thought cut down or +burnt out. Priest and poet, all those times through, were proverbially on +terms of reciprocal biting and striking. That magnificent invention of +making “Art the handmaid of Religion” had not been stumbled upon in the +darkness of those days. Neither minstrel nor monk would have caught up the +idea with any rapture. As indeed they would have been unwise to do; for +the thing is impossible. Art is not like fire or water, a good servant and +bad master; rather the reverse. She will help in nothing, of her own +knowledge or freewill: upon terms of service you will get worse than +nothing out of her. Handmaid of religion, exponent of duty, servant of +fact, pioneer of morality, she cannot in any way become; she would be none +of these things though you were to bray her in a mortar. All the battering +in the world will never hammer her into fitness for such an office as +that. It is at her peril, if she tries to do good: one might say, +borrowing terms from the other party, “she shall not try that under +penalty of death and damnation.” Her business is not to do good on other +grounds, but to be good on her own: all is well with her while she sticks +fast to that. To ask help or furtherance from her in any extraneous good +work is exactly as rational as to expect lyrical beauty of form and flow +in a logical treatise. The contingent result of having good art about you +and living in a time of noble writing or painting may no doubt be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> this; +that the spirit and mind of men then living will receive on some points a +certain exaltation and insight caught from the influence of such forms and +colours of verse or painting; will become for one thing incapable of +tolerating bad work, and capable therefore of reasonably relishing the +best; which of course implies and draws with it many other advantages of a +sort you may call moral or spiritual. But if the artist does his work with +an eye to such results or for the sake of bringing about such +improvements, he will too probably fail even of them. Art for art’s sake +first of all, and afterwards we may suppose all the rest shall be added to +her (or if not she need hardly be overmuch concerned); but from the man +who falls to artistic work with a moral purpose, shall be taken away even +that which he has—whatever of capacity for doing well in either way he +may have at starting. A living critic<small><a name="f13.1" id="f13.1" href="#f13">[13]</a></small> of incomparably delicate insight +and subtly good sense, himself “impeccable” as an artist, calls this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> “the +heresy of instruction” (<i>l’hérésie de l’enseignement</i>): one might call it, +for the sake of a shorter and more summary name, the great moral heresy. +Nothing can be imagined more futile; nothing so ruinous. Once let art +humble herself, plead excuses, try at any compromise with the Puritan +principle of doing good, and she is worse than dead. Once let her turn +apologetic, and promise or imply that she really will now be “loyal to +fact” and useful to men in general (say, by furthering their moral work or +improving their moral nature), she is no longer of any human use or value. +The one fact for her which is worth taking account of is simply mere +excellence of verse or colour, which involves all manner of truth and +loyalty necessary to her well-being. That is the important thing; to have +her work supremely well done, and to disregard all contingent +consequences. You may extract out of Titian’s work or Shakespeare’s any +moral or immoral inference you please; it is none of their business to see +after that. Good painting or writing, on any terms, is a thing quite +sufficiently in accordance with fact and reality for them. Supplant art by +all means if you can; root it out and try to plant in its place something +useful or at least safe, which at all events will not impede the noble +moral labour and trammel the noble moral life of Puritanism. But in the +name of sense and fact itself let us have done with all abject and +ludicrous pretence of coupling the two in harness or grafting the one on +the other’s stock: let us hear no more of the moral mission of earnest +art; let us no longer be pestered with the frantic and flatulent +assumptions of quasi-secular clericalism willing to think the best of all +sides, and ready even, with <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>consecrating hand, to lend meritorious art +and poetry a timely pat or shove. Philistia had far better (always +providing it be possible) crush art at once, hang or burn it out of the +way, than think of plucking out its eyes and setting it to grind moral +corn in the Philistine mills; which it is certain not to do at all well. +Once and again the time has been that there was no art worth speaking of +afloat anywhere in the world; but there never has been or can have been a +time when art, or any kind of art worth having, took active service under +Puritanism, or indulged for its part in the deleterious appetite of saving +souls or helping humanity in general along the way of labour and +progress.<small><a name="f14.1" id="f14.1" href="#f14">[14]</a></small> Let no artist or poet listen to the bland bark of those +porter dogs of the Puritan kingdom even when they fawn and flirt with +tongue or tail. <i>Cave canem.</i> That Cerberus of the portals of Philistia +will swallow your honey-cake to no purpose; if he does not turn and rend +you, his slaver as he licks your hand will leave it impotent and palsied +for all good work.</p> + +<p>Thus much it seemed useful to premise, by way of exposition rather than +excursion, so as once for all to indicate beyond chance of mistake the +real point of view taken during life by Blake, and necessary to be taken +by those who would appreciate his labours and purposes. Error on this +point would be ruinous to any student.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> No one again need be misled by the +artist’s eager incursions into grounds of faith or principle; his design +being merely to readjust all questions of such a kind by the light of art +and law of imagination—to reduce all outlying provinces, and bring them +under government of his own central empire—the “fourfold spiritual city” +of his vision. Power of imaginative work and insight—“the Poetic Genius, +as you now call it”—was in his mind, we shall soon have to see, “the +first principle” of all things moral or material, “and all the others +merely derivative;” a hazardous theory in its results and corollaries, but +one which Blake at all events was always ready to push to its utmost +consequences and defend at its extreme outworks. Against all pretensions +on the part of science or experimental reasoning to assume this post he +was especially given to rebel and recalcitrate. Whether or no he were +actually prepared to fight science in earnest on its own pitched field—to +dispute seriously the conquest of facts achieved by it—may be +questionable; I for one am inclined to disbelieve this, and to refer much +of his verbal pugnacity on such matters to the strong irregular humour, +rough and loose as that of children, and the half simple half scornful +love of paradox, which were ingrained in the man. For argument and proof +he had the contempt of a child or an evangelist. Not that he would have +fallen back in preference upon the brute resource of thaumaturgy; the +coarse and cheap machinery of material miracle was wholly insufficient and +despicable to him. No wonder-monger of the low sort need here have hoped +for a pupil, a colleague, or an authority. This the biographer has acutely +noted,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> and taken well into account; as we must all do under pain of waste +time and dangerous error. Let this too be taken note of; that to believe a +thing is not necessarily to heed or respect it; to despise a thing is not +the same as to disbelieve it. Those who argue against the reality of the +meaner forms of “spiritualism” in disembodied life, on the ground +apparently that whatever is not of the patent tangible flesh must be of +high imperishable importance, are merely acting on the old ascetic +assumption that the body is of its nature base and the soul of its nature +noble, and that between the two there is a great gulf fixed, neither to be +bridged over nor filled up. Blake, as a mystic of the higher and subtler +kind, would have denied this superior separate vitality of the spirit; but +far from inferring thence that the soul must expire with the body, would +have maintained that the essence of the body must survive with the essence +of the soul: accepting thus (as we may have to observe he did), in its +most absolute and profound sense, the doctrine of the Resurrection of the +Flesh. As a temporary blind and bar to the soul while dwelling on earth, +fit only (if so permitted) to impede the spiritual vision and hamper the +spiritual feet, he did indeed appear to contemn the “vegetable” and +sensual nature of man; but on no ascetic grounds. Admitting once for all +that it was no fit or just judge of things spiritual, he claimed for the +body on its own ground an equal honour and an equal freedom with the soul; +denying the river’s channel leave to be called the river—refusing to the +senses the license claimed for them by materialism to decide by means of +bodily insight or sensation <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>questions removed from the sphere of sensual +evidence—and reserving always the absolute assurance and certain faith +that things do exist of which the flesh can take no account, but only the +spirit—he would grant to the physical nature the full right to every form +of physical indulgence: would allow the largest liberty to all powers and +capacities of pleasure proper to the pure bodily life. In a word, +translated into crude practical language, his creed was about this: as +long as a man believes all things he may do any thing; scepticism (not +sin) is alone damnable, being the one thing purely barren and negative; do +what you will with your body, as long as you refuse it leave to disprove +or deny the life eternally inherent in your soul. That we believe is what +people call or have called by some such name as “antinomian mysticism:” do +anything but doubt, and you shall not in the end be utterly lost. Clearly +enough it was Blake’s faith; and one assuredly grounded not on mere +contempt of the body, but on an equal reverence for spirit and flesh as +the two sides or halves of a completed creature: a faith which will allow +to neither license to confute or control the other. The body shall not +deny, and the spirit shall not restrain; the one shall not prescribe doubt +through reasoning; the other shall not preach salvation through +abstinence. A man holding such tenets sees no necessity to deny that the +indulged soul may be in some men as ignoble as the indulged body in others +may be noble; and that a spirit ignoble while embodied need not become +noble or noticeable by the process of getting disembodied; in other words, +that death or change need not be expected to equalize the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> unequal by +raising or lowering spirits to one settled level. Much of the existing +evidence as to baser spiritual matters, Blake, like other men of candid +sense and insight, would we may suppose have accepted—and dropped with +the due contempt into the mass of facts worth forgetting only, which the +experience of every man must carry till his memory succeeds in letting go +its hold of them. Nothing, he would doubtless have said, is worth +disputing in disproof of, which if proved would not be worth giving thanks +for. Let such things be or not be as the fates of small things please; but +will any one prove or disprove for me the things I hold by warrant of +imaginative knowledge? things impossible to discover, to analyze, to +attest, to undervalue, to certify, or to doubt?</p> + +<p>This old war—not (as some would foolishly have it defined) a war between +facts and fancies, reason and romance, poetry and good sense, but simply +between the imagination which apprehends the spirit of a thing and the +understanding which dissects the body of a fact—this strife which can +never be decided or ended—was for Blake the most important question +possible. He for one, madman or no madman, had the sense to see that the +one thing utterly futile to attempt was a reconciliation between two sides +of life and thought which have no community of work or aim imaginable. +This is no question of reconciling contraries. Admit all the implied +pretensions of art, they remain simply nothing to science; accept all the +actual deductions of science, they simply signify nothing to art. The +eternal “Après?” is answer enough for both in turn. “True, then, if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> you +will have it; but what have we to do with your good or bad poetries and +paintings?” “Undeniably; but what are we to gain by your deductions and +discoveries, right or wrong?” The betrothal of art and science were a +thing harder to bring about and more profitless to proclaim than “the +marriage of heaven and hell.” It were better not to fight, but to part in +peace; but better certainly to fight than to temporize, where no +reasonable truce can be patched up. Poetry or art based on loyalty to +science is exactly as absurd (and no more) as science guided by art or +poetry. Neither in effect can coalesce with the other and retain a right +to exist. Neither can or (while in its sober senses) need wish to destroy +the other; but they must go on their separate ways, and in this life their +ways can by no possibility cross. Neither can or (unless in some fit of +fugitive insanity) need wish to become valuable or respectable to the +other: each must remain, on its own ground and to its own followers, a +thing of value and deserving respect. To art, that is best which is most +beautiful; to science, that is best which is most accurate; to morality, +that is best which is most virtuous. Change or quibble upon the simple and +generally accepted significance of these three words, “beautiful,” +“accurate,” “virtuous,” and you may easily (if you please, or think it +worth while) demonstrate that the aim of all three is radically one and +the same; but if any man be correct in thinking this exercise of the mind +worth the expenditure of his time, that time must indeed be worth very +little. You can say (but had perhaps better not say) that beauty is the +truthfullest, accuracy the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> most poetic, and virtue the most beautiful of +things; but a man of ordinary or decent insight will perceive that you +have merely reduced an affair of things to an affair of words—shifted the +body of one thing into the clothes of another—and proved actually +nothing.</p> + +<p>To attest by word or work the identity of things which never can become +identical, was no part of Blake’s object in life. What work it fell to his +lot to do, that, having faith in the fates, he believed the best work +possible, and performed to admiration. It is in consequence of this belief +that, apart from all conjectural or problematic theory, the work he did is +absolutely good. Intolerant he was by nature to a degree noticeable even +among freethinkers and prophets; but the strange forms assumed by this +intolerance are best explicable by the singular facts of his training—his +perfect ignorance of well-known ordinary things and imperfect quaint +knowledge of much that lay well out of the usual way. He retained always +an excellent arrogance and a wholly laudable self-reliance; being +incapable of weak-eyed doubts or any shuffling modesty. His great +tenderness had a lining of contempt—his fiery self-assertion a kernel of +loyalty. No one, it is evident, had ever a more intense and noble +enjoyment of good or great works in other men—took sharper or deeper +delight in the sense of a loyal admiration: being of his nature noble, +fearless, and fond of all things good; a man made for believing. This +royal temper of mind goes properly with a keen relish of what excellence +or greatness a man may have in himself. Those must be readiest to feel and +to express unalloyed and lofty <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>pleasure in the great powers and deeds of +a neighbour, who, while standing clear alike of reptile modesty and +pretentious presumption, perceive and know in themselves such qualities as +give them a right to admire and a right to applaud. If a man thinks meanly +of himself, he can hardly in reason think much of his judgment; if he +depreciates the value of his own work, he depreciates also the value of +his praise. Those are loyallest who have most of a just self-esteem; and +their applause is best worth having. It is scarcely conceivable that a man +should take delight in the real greatness or merit of his own work for so +pitiful and barren a reason as merely that it <i>is</i> his own; should be +unable to pass with a fresh and equal enjoyment from the study and relish +of his own capacities and achievements to the study and relish of another +man’s. A timid jealousy, easily startled into shrieks of hysterical malice +and disloyal spite, is (wherever you may fall in with it) the property of +base men and mean artists who, at sight of some person or thing greater +than themselves, are struck sharply by unconscious self-contempt, and at +once, whether they know it or not, lose heart or faith in their own +applauded work. To recognize their equal, even their better when he does +come, must be the greatest delight of great men. “All the gods,” says a +French essayist, “delight in worship: is one lesser for the other’s +godhead? Divine things give divine thanks for companionship; the stars +sang not one at once, but all together.” Like all men great enough to +enjoy greatness, Blake was born with the gift of admiration; and in his +rapid and fervent nature it struck root and broke<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> into flower at the +least glimpse or chance of favourable weather. Therefore, if on no other +ground, we may allow him his curious outbreaks of passionate dispraise and +scorn against all such as seemed to stand in the way of his art. Again, as +we have noted, he had a faith of his own, made out of art for art’s sake, +and worked by means of art; and whatever made against this faith was as +hateful to him as any heresy to any pietist. In a rough and rapid way he +chose to mass and sum up under some one or two types, comprehensible at +first sight to few besides himself, the main elements of opposition which +he conceived to exist. Thus for instance the names of Locke and Newton, of +Bacon and Voltaire, recur with the most singular significance in his +writings, as emblems or incarnate symbols of the principles opposite to +his own: and when the clue is once laid hold of, and the ear once +accustomed to the curious habit of direct mythical metaphor or figure +peculiar to Blake—his custom of getting whole classes of men or opinions +embodied, for purposes of swift irregular attack, in some one +representative individual—much is at once clear and amenable to critical +reason which seemed before mere tempestuous incoherence and clamour of +bodiless rhetoric. There is also a certain half-serious perversity and +wilful personal humour in the choice and use of these representative +names, which must be taken into account by a startled reader unless he +wishes to run off at a false tangent. After all, it is perhaps impossible +for any one not specially qualified by nature for sympathy with such a +man’s kind of work, to escape going wrong in his estimate of Blake; to +such excesses of paradox did the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>poet-painter push his favourite points, +and in such singular attire did he bring forward his most serious +opinions. But at least the principal and most evident chances of error may +as well be indicated, by way of warning off the over-hasty critic from +shoals on which otherwise he is all but certain to run.</p> + +<p>It is a thing especially worth regretting that Balzac, in his +Swedenborgian researches, could not have fallen in with Blake’s +“prophetic” works. Passed through the crucible of that supreme +intellect—submitted to the test of that supple practical sense, that +laborious apprehension, so delicate and so passionate at once, of all +forms of thought or energy, which were the great latent gifts of the +deepest and widest mind that ever worked within the limits of inventive +prose—the strange floating forces of Blake’s instinctive and imaginative +work might have been explained and made applicable to direct ends in a way +we cannot now hope for. The incomparable power of condensing apparent +vapour into tangible and malleable form, of helping us to handle air and +measure mist, which is so instantly perceptible whenever Balzac begins to +open up any intricate point of physical or moral speculation, would here +have been beyond price. He alone who could push analysis to the verge of +creation, and with his marvellous clearness of eye and strength of hand +turn discovery almost to invention; he who was not “a prose Shakespeare” +merely, but rather perhaps a Shakespeare complete in all but the lyrical +faculty; he alone could have brought a scale to weigh this water, a sieve +to winnow this wind. That wonderful wisdom, never at fault on its own +ground, which made him not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> simply the chief of dramatic story, but also +the great master of morals,<small><a name="f15.1" id="f15.1" href="#f15">[15]</a></small> would not have failed of foothold or +eyesight even in this cloudy and noisy borderland of vision and of faith. +Even to him too, the supreme student and interpreter of things, our +impulsive prophet with his plea of mere direct inspiration might have been +of infinite help and use: to such an eye and brain as his, Blake might +have made straight the ways which Swedenborg had left crooked, set right +the problems which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> mesmerism had set wrong. As however we cannot have +this, we must do what share of interpreter’s work falls to our lot as well +as we can.</p> + +<p>There are two points in the work of Blake which first claim notice and +explanation; two points connected, but not inseparable; his mysticism and +his mythology. This latter is in fact hardly more in its relation to the +former, than the clothes to the body or the body to the soul. To make +either comprehensible, it is requisite above all things to get sight of +the man in whom they became incarnate and active as forces or as opinions. +Now, to those who regard mysticism with distaste or contempt, as +essentially in itself a vain or noxious thing—a sealed bag or bladder +that can only be full either of wind or of poison—the man, being above +all and beyond all a mystic in the most subtle yet most literal sense, +must remain obscure and contemptible. Such readers—if indeed such men +should choose or care to become readers at all—will be (for one thing) +unable to understand that one may think it worth while to follow out and +track to its root the peculiar faith or fancy of a mystic without being +ready to accept his deductions and his assertions as absolute and durable +facts. Servility of extended hand or passive brain is the last quality +that a mystic of the nobler kind will demand or desire in his auditors. +Councils and synods may put forth notes issued under their stamp, may +exact of all recipients to play the part of clerks and indorse their paper +with shut eyes: to the mystic such a way of doing spiritual business would +seem the very frenzy of fatuity; whatever else may be profitable, that (he +would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> say) is suicidal. And assuredly it is not to be expected that +Blake’s mystical creed, when once made legible and even partially +coherent, should prove likely to win over proselytes. Nor can this be the +wish or the object of a reasonable commentator, whose desire is merely to +do art a good turn in some small way, by explaining the “faith and works” +of a great artist. It is true that whatever a good poet or a good painter +has thought worth representing by verse or design must probably be worth +considering before one deliver judgment on it. But the office of an +apostle of some new faith and the business of a commentator on some new +evangel are two sufficiently diverse things. The present critic has not +(happily) to preach the gospel as delivered by Blake; he has merely, if +possible, to make the text of that gospel a little more readable. And this +must be worth doing, if it be worth while to touch on Blake’s work at all. +What is true of all poets and artists worth judging is especially true of +him; that critics who attempt to judge him piecemeal do not in effect +judge him at all, but some one quite different from him, and some one (to +any serious student) probably more inexplicable than the real man. For +what are we to make of a man whose work deserves crowning one day and +hooting the next? If the “Songs” be so good, are not those who praise them +bound to examine and try what merit may be latent in the +“Prophecies”?—bound at least to explain as best they may how the one +comes to be worth so much and the other worth nothing? On this side alone +the biography appears to us emphatically deficient; here only do we feel +how much was lost, how<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> much impaired by the untimely death of the writer. +Those who had to complete his work have done their part admirably well; +but here they have not done enough. We are not bound to accept Blake’s +mysticism; we are bound to take some account of it. A disciple must take +his master’s word for proof of the thing preached. This it would be folly +to expect of a biographer; even Boswell falls short of this, having +courage on some points to branch off from the strait pathway of his +teacher and strike into a small speculative track of his own. But a +biographer must be capable of expounding the evangel (or, if such a word +could be, “dysangel”) of his hero, however far he may be from thinking it +worth acceptance. And this, one must admit, the writers on Blake have upon +the whole failed of doing. Consequently their critical remarks on such +specimens of Blake’s more speculative and subtle work as did find favour +in their sight have but a narrow range and a limited value. Some clue to +the main character of the artist’s habit of mind we may hope already to +have put into the reader’s hands—some frayed and ravelled “end of the +golden string,” which with due labour he may “wind up into a ball.” To +pluck out the heart of Blake’s mystery is a task which every man must be +left to attempt for himself: for this prophet is certainly not “easier to +be played on than a pipe.” Keeping fast in hand what clue we have, we may +nevertheless succeed in making some further way among the clouds. One +thing is too certain; if we insist on having hard ground under foot all +the way we shall not get far. The land lying before us, bright with fiery +blossom and fruit,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> musical with blowing branches and falling waters, is +not to be seen or travelled in save by help of such light as lies upon +dissolving dreams and dividing clouds. By moonrise, to the sound of wind +at sunset, one may tread upon the limit of this land and gather as with +muffled apprehension some soft remote sense of the singing of its birds +and flowering of its fields.</p> + +<p>This premised, we may start with a clear conscience. Of Blake’s faith we +have by this time endeavoured to give the reader some conception—if a +faint one, yet at least not a false: of the form assumed by that faith +(what we have called the mythology) we need not yet take cognizance. To +follow out in full all his artistic and illustrative work, with a view to +extract from each separate fruit of it some core of significance, would be +an endless labour: and we are bound to consider what may be feasible +rather than what, if it were feasible, might be worth doing. Therefore the +purpose of this essay is in the main to deal with the artist’s personal +work in preference to what is merely illustrative and decorative. Designs, +however admirable, made to order for the text of Blair, of Hayley, or of +Young, are in comparison with the designer’s original and spontaneous work +mere extraneous by-play. These also are if anything better known than +Blake’s other labours. Again, the mass of his surviving designs is so +enormous and as yet (except for the inestimable <i>Catalogue</i> in Vol. 2 of +the <i>Life</i>) so utterly chaotic and unarrangeable that in such an element +one can but work as it were by fits and plunges. Of these designs there +must always be many which not having seen we cannot judge; many too on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> +which artists alone are finally competent to deliver sentence by +authority. Moreover the supreme merits as well as the more noticeable +qualities merely special and personal of Blake are best seen in his mixed +work. Where both text and design are wholly his own, and the two forms or +sides of his art so coalesce or overlap as to become inextricably +interfused, we have the best chance of seeing and judging what the workman +essentially was. In such an enterprise, we must be always duly grateful +for any help or chance of help given us: and for one invaluable thing we +have at starting to give due honour and thanks to the biographer. He has, +one may rationally hope, finally beaten to powder the rickety and flaccid +old theory of Blake’s madness. Any one wishing to moot that question again +will have to answer or otherwise get over the facts and inferences so +excellently set out in Chap. xxxv.: to refute them we may fairly consider +impossible. Here at least no funeral notice or obsequies will be bestowed +on the unburied carcase of that forlorn fiction. Assuming as a reasonable +ground for our present labour that Blake was superior to the run of men, +we shall spend no minute of time in trying to prove that he was not +inferior. Logic and sense alike warn us off such barren ground.</p> + +<p>Of the editing of the present selections—a matter evidently of most +delicate and infinite labour—we have here to say this only; that as far +as one can see it could not have been done better: and indeed that it +could only have been done so well by the rarest of happy chances. Even +with the already published poems there was enough work to get through; for +even these had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> suffered much from the curiously reckless and helpless +neglect of form which was natural to Blake when his main work was done and +his interest in the matter prematurely wound up. Those only who have dived +after the original copies can fully appreciate or apprehend with what +tenderness of justice and subtlety of sense these tumbled folds have been +gathered up and these ragged edges smoothed off. As much power and labour +has gone to the perfect adjustment of these relics of another man’s work +as a meaner man could have dreamed only of expending on his own. Nor can +any one thoroughly enter into the value and excellence of the thing here +achieved who has not in himself the impulsive instinct of form—the +exquisite desire of just and perfect work. Alike to those who seem to be +above it as to those who are evidently below, such work must remain always +inappreciable and inexplicable. To the ingeniously chaotic intellect, with +its admirable aptitude for all such feats of conjectural cleverness as are +worked out merely by strain and spasm, it will seem an offensive waste of +good work. But to all who relish work for work’s sake and art for art’s it +will appear, as it is, simply invaluable—the one thing worth having yet +not to be had at any price or by any means, except when it falls in your +way by divine accident. True however as all this is of the earlier and +easier part of the editor’s task, it is incomparably more true of the +arrangement and selection of poems fit for publishing out of the priceless +but shapeless chaos of unmanageable MSS. The good work here done and good +help here given it is not possible to over-estimate. Every light slight +touch<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> of mere arrangement has the mark of a great art consummate in great +things—the imprint of a sure and strong hand, in which the thing to be +done lies safe and gathers faultless form. These great things too are so +small in mere size and separate place that they can never get praised in +due detail. They are great by dint of the achievement implied and the +forbearance involved. Only a chief among lyric poets could so have praised +the songs of Blake; only a leader among imaginative painters could so have +judged his designs; only an artist himself supreme at once in lordship of +colour and mastery of metre could so have spoken of Blake’s gifts and +feats in metre and colour. Reading these notes, one can rest with +sufficient pleasure on the conviction that, wherever else there may be +failure in attaining the right word of judgment or of praise, here +certainly there is none. Here there is more than (what all critics may +have) goodwill and desire to give just thanks; for here there is +authority, and the right to seem right in delivering sentence.</p> + +<p>But these notes, good as they are and altogether valuable, are the least +part of the main work. To the beauty and nobility of style, the exquisite +strength of sifted English, the keen vision and deep clearness of +expression, which characterize as well these brief prefaces as the notes +on <i>Job</i> and that critical summary in the final chapter of the <i>Life</i>, one +need hardly desire men’s attention; that splendid power of just language +and gift of grace in detail stand out at once distinguishable from the +surrounding work, praiseworthy as that also in the main is; neither from +the matter nor the manner can any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> careful critic mistake the exact moment +and spot where the editor of the poems has taken up any part of the +business, laid any finger on the mechanism of the book. But this work, +easier to praise, must have been also easier to perform than the more +immediate editorial labours which were here found requisite. With care +inappreciable and invaluable fidelity has the editing throughout been +done. The selection must of necessity have been to a certain degree +straitened and limited by many minor and temporary considerations; +publishers, tasters, and such-like, must have fingered the work here and +there, snuffing at this and nibbling at that as their manner is. For the +work and workman have yet their way to make in the judicious reading +world; and so long as they have, they are more or less in the lax limp +clutch of that “dieu ganache des bourgeois” who sits nodding and +ponderously dormant in the dust of publishing offices, ready at any jog of +the elbow to snarl and start—a new Pan, feeding on the pastures of a fat +and foggy land his Arcadian herds of review or magazine:</p> + +<p class="poem"><span style="margin-left: 9em;"><ins class="correction" title="enti ge pikros">ἐντὶ γε πικρός,</ins></span><br /> +<ins class="correction" title="kai hoi aei drimeia chola poti rhini kathêtai">καὶ οἱ ἀεὶ δριμει̑α χολὰ ποτὶ ῥινὶ +κάθηται.</ins></p> + +<p>Arcadian virtue and Bœotian brain, under the presidency of such a +stertorous and splenetic goat-god, given to be sleepy in broadest noonday, +are not the best crucibles for art to be tried in. Then, again, thought +had to be taken for the poems themselves; not merely how to expose them in +most acceptable form for public acceptance, but how at the same time to +give them in the main all possible fullness of fair play. This too by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> +dint of work and patience, still more by dint of pliable sense and taste, +has been duly accomplished. Future editions may be, and in effect will +have to be, altered and enlarged: it is as well for people to be aware +that they have not yet a final edition of Blake; that will have to be some +day completed on a due scale. But for the great mass of his lyrical verse +all there was to do has been done here, and the ground-plan taken of a +larger building to come. These preliminaries stated, we pass on to a rapid +general review of those two great divisions which may be taken as resuming +for us the ripe poetry of Blake’s manhood. Two divisions, the one already +published and partially known, the other now first brought into light and +baptized with some legible name; the <i>Songs of Innocence and Experience</i>, +and the <i>Ideas of Good and Evil</i>. Under this latter head we will class for +purposes of readier reference as well the smaller MS. volume of fairly +transcribed verses as the great mass of more disorderly writing in verse +and prose to which the name above given is attached in a dim broad scrawl +of the pencil evidently meant to serve as general title, though set down +only on the reverse page of the second MS. leaf. This latter and larger +book, extending in date at least from 1789 to (August) 1811, but +presumably beyond the later date, is the great source and treasure-house +from which has been drawn out most of the fresh verse and all of the fresh +prose here given us: and is of course among the most important relics left +of Blake.</p> + +<p>First then for the <i>Songs of Innocence and Experience</i>. These at a first +naming recall only that incomparable charm of form in which they first +came out clothed,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> and hence vex the souls of men with regretful +comparison. For here by hard necessity we miss the lovely and luminous +setting of designs, which makes the <i>Songs</i> precious and pleasurable to +those who know or care for little else of the master’s doing; the infinite +delight of those drawings, sweeter to see than music to hear, where herb +and stem break into grace of shape and blossom of form, and the +branch-work is full of little flames and flowers, catching as it were from +the verse enclosed the fragrant heat and delicate sound they seem to give +back; where colour lapses into light and light assumes feature in colour. +If elsewhere the artist’s strange strength of thought and hand is more +visible, nowhere is there such pure sweetness and singleness of design in +his work. All the tremulous and tender splendour of spring is mixed into +the written word and coloured draught; every page has the smell of April. +Over all things given, the sleep of flocks and the growth of leaves, the +laughter in dividing lips of flowers and the music at the moulded mouth of +the flute-player, there is cast a pure fine veil of light, softer than +sleep and keener than sunshine. The sweetness of sky and leaf, of grass +and water—the bright light life of bird and child and beast—is so to +speak kept fresh by some graver sense of faithful and mysterious love, +explained and vivified by a conscience and purpose in the artist’s hand +and mind. Such a fiery outbreak of spring, such an insurrection of fierce +floral life and radiant riot of childish power and pleasure, no poet or +painter ever gave before: such lustre of green leaves and flushed limbs, +kindled cloud and fervent fleece, was never wrought into speech or shape. +Nevertheless this decorative<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> work is after all the mere husk and shell of +the <i>Songs</i>. These also, we may notice, have to some extent shared the +comparative popularity of the designs which serve as framework to them. +They have absolutely achieved the dignity of a reprint; have had a chance +before now of swimming for life; whereas most of Blake’s offspring have +been thrown into Lethe bound hand and foot, without hope of ever striking +out in one fair effort. Perhaps on some accounts this preference has been +not unreasonable. What was written for children can hardly offend men; and +the obscurities and audacities of the prophet would here have been clearly +out of place. It is indeed some relief to a neophyte serving in the outer +courts of such an intricate and cloudy temple, to come upon this little +side-chapel set about with the simplest wreaths and smelling of the fields +rather than incense, where all the singing is done by clear children’s +voices to the briefest and least complex tunes. Not at first without a +sense of release does the human mind get quit for a little of the clouds +of Urizen, the fires of Orc, and all the Titanic apparatus of prophecy. +And these poems are really unequalled in their kind. Such verse was never +written for children since verse-writing began. Only in a few of those +faultless fragments of childish rhyme which float without name or form +upon the memories of men shall we find such a pure clear cadence of verse, +such rapid ring and flow of lyric laughter, such sweet and direct choice +of the just word and figure, such an impeccable simplicity; nowhere but +here such a tender wisdom of holiness, such a light and perfume of +innocence. Nothing like this was ever written on that text of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> lion +and the lamb; no such heaven of sinless animal life was ever conceived so +intensely and sweetly.</p> + +<p class="poem">“And there the lion’s ruddy eyes<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shall flow with tears of gold,</span><br /> +And pitying the tender cries,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And walking round the fold,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Saying <i>Wrath by His meekness</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>And by His health sickness</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Is driven away</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>From our immortal day.</i></span><br /> +And now beside thee, bleating lamb,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>I can lie down and sleep,</i></span><br /> +Or think on Him who bore thy name,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Graze after thee, and weep.</i>”</span></p> + +<p>The leap and fall of the verse is so perfect as to make it a fit garment +and covering for the profound tenderness of faith and soft strength of +innocent impulse embodied in it. But the whole of this hymn of <i>Night</i> is +wholly beautiful; being perhaps one of the two poems of loftiest +loveliness among all the <i>Songs of Innocence</i>. The other is that called +<i>The Little Black Boy</i>; a poem especially exquisite for its noble +forbearance from vulgar pathos and achievement of the highest and most +poignant sweetness of speech and sense; in which the poet’s mysticism is +baptized with pure water and taught to speak as from faultless lips of +children, to such effect as this.</p> + +<p class="poem">“And we are put on earth a little space<br /> +<i>That we may learn to bear the beams of love</i>;<br /> +And these black bodies and this sunburnt face<br /> +Are like a cloud and like a shady grove.”</p> + +<p>Other poems of a very perfect beauty are those of the Piper, the Lamb, the +Chimney-sweeper, and the two-days-old baby; all, for the music in them, +more like the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> notes of birds caught up and given back than the modulated +measure of human verse. One cannot say, being so slight and seemingly +wrong in metrical form, how they come to be so absolutely right; but right +even in point of verses and words they assuredly are. Add fuller formal +completion of rhyme and rhythm to that song of <i>Infant Joy</i>, and you have +broken up the soft bird-like perfection of clear light sound which gives +it beauty; the little bodily melody of soulless and painless laughter.</p> + +<p>Against all articulate authority we do however class several of the <i>Songs +of Experience</i> higher for the great qualities of verse than anything in +the earlier division of these poems. If the <i>Songs of Innocence</i> have the +shape and smell of leaves or buds, these have in them the light and sound +of fire or the sea. Entering among them, a fresher savour and a larger +breath strikes one upon the lips and forehead. In the first part we are +shown who they are who have or who deserve the gift of spiritual sight: in +the second, what things there are for them to see when that gift has been +given. Innocence, the quality of beasts and children, has the keenest +eyes; and such eyes alone can discern and interpret the actual mysteries +of experience. It is natural that this second part, dealing as it does +with such things as underlie the outer forms of the first part, should +rise higher and dive deeper in point of mere words. These give the +distilled perfume and extracted blood of the veins in the rose-leaf, the +sharp, liquid, intense spirit crushed out of the broken kernel in the +fruit. The last of the <i>Songs of Innocence</i> is a prelude to these poems;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> +in it the poet summons to judgment the young and single-spirited, that by +right of the natural impulse of delight in them they may give sentence +against the preachers of convention and assumption; and in the first poem +of the second series he, by the same “voice of the bard,” calls upon earth +herself, the mother of all these, to arise and become free: since upon her +limbs also are bound the fetters, and upon her forehead also has fallen +the shadow, of a jealous law: from which nevertheless, by faithful +following of instinct and divine liberal impulse, earth and man shall +obtain deliverance.</p> + +<p class="poem">“Hear the voice of the bard!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who present, past, and future sees:</span><br /> +Whose ears have heard<br /> +The ancient Word<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That walked among the silent trees:</span><br /> +Calling the lapsèd soul<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And weeping in the evening dew;</span><br /> +That might control<br /> +The starry pole<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And fallen fallen light renew!”</span></p> + +<p>If they will hear the Word, earth and the dwellers upon earth shall be +made again as little children; shall regain the strong simplicity of eye +and hand proper to the pure and single of heart; and for them inspiration +shall do the work of innocence; let them but once abjure the doctrine by +which comes sin and the law by which comes prohibition. Therefore must the +appeal be made; that the blind may see and the deaf hear, and the unity of +body and spirit be made manifest in perfect freedom: and that to the +innocent even the liberty of “sin” may be conceded. For if the soul suffer +by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> the body’s doing, are not both degraded? and if the body be oppressed +for the soul’s sake, are not both the losers?</p> + +<p class="poem">“O Earth, O Earth, return!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Arise from out the dewy grass!</span><br /> +Night is worn,<br /> +And the morn<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Rises from the slumberous mass.</span><br /> +Turn away no more;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Why wilt thou turn away?</span><br /> +The starry shore,<br /> +The watery floor,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Are given thee till the break of day.”</span></p> + +<p>For so long, during the night of law and oppression of material form, the +divine evidences hidden under sky and sea are left her; even “till the +break of day.” Will she not get quit of this spiritual bondage to the +heavy body of things, to the encumbrance of deaf clay and blind +vegetation, before the light comes that shall redeem and reveal? But the +earth, being yet in subjection to the creator of men, the jealous God who +divided nature against herself—father of woman and man, legislator of sex +and race—makes blind and bitter answer as in sleep, “her locks covered +with grey despair.”</p> + +<p class="poem">“Prisoned on this watery shore,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Starry Jealousy does keep my den;</span><br /> +Cold and hoar,<br /> +Weeping o’er,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I hear the father of the ancient men.”</span></p> + +<p>Thus, in the poet’s mind, Nature and Religion are the two fetters of life, +one on the right wrist, the other on the left; an obscure material force +on this hand, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> on that a mournful imperious law: the law of divine +jealousy, the government of a God who weeps over his creature and subject +with unprofitable tears, and rules by forbidding and dividing: the +“Urizen” of the prophetic books, clothed with the coldness and the grief +of remote sky and jealous cloud. Here as always, the cry is as much for +light as for license, the appeal not more against prohibition than against +obscurity.</p> + +<p class="poem">“Can the sower sow by night,<br /> +Or the ploughman in darkness plough?”</p> + +<p>In the <i>Songs of Innocence</i> there is no such glory of metre or sonorous +beauty of lyrical work as here. No possible effect of verse can be finer +in a great brief way than that given in the second and last stanzas of the +first part of this poem. It recals within one’s ear the long relapse of +recoiling water and wash of the refluent wave; in the third and fourth +lines sinking suppressed as with equal pulses and soft sobbing noise of +ebb, to climb again in the fifth line with a rapid clamour of ripples and +strong ensuing strain of weightier sound, lifted with the lift of the +running and ringing sea.</p> + +<p>Here also is that most famous of Blake’s lyrics, <i>The Tiger</i>; a poem +beyond praise for its fervent beauty and vigour of music. It appears by +the MS. that this was written with some pains; the cancels and various +readings bear marks of frequent rehandling. One of the latter is worth +transcription for its own excellence and also in proof of the artist’s +real care for details, which his rapid instinctive way of work has induced +some to disbelieve in.</p> + +<p class="poem"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> +“Burnt in distant deeps or skies<br /> +The cruel fire of thine eyes?<br /> +Could heart descend or wings aspire?<small><a name="f16.1" id="f16.1" href="#f16">[16]</a></small><br /> +What the hand dare seize the fire?”</p> + +<p>Nor has Blake left us anything of more profound and perfect value than +<i>The Human Abstract</i>; a little mythical vision of the growth of error; +through soft sophistries of pity and faith, subtle humility of abstinence +and fear, under which the pure simple nature lies corrupted and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> +strangled; through selfish loves which prepare a way for cruelty, and +cruelty that works by spiritual abasement and awe.</p> + +<p class="poem">“Soon spreads the dismal shade<br /> +Of Mystery over his head;<br /> +And the caterpillar and fly<br /> +Feed on the Mystery.<br /> +<br /> +And it bears the fruit of Deceit,<br /> +Ruddy and sweet to eat;<br /> +And the raven his nest has made<br /> +In the thickest shade.”</p> + +<p>Under the shadow of this tree of mystery,<small><a name="f17.1" id="f17.1" href="#f17">[17]</a></small> rooted in artificial belief, +all the meaner kind of devouring things take shelter and eat of the fruit +of its branches; the sweet poison of false faith, painted on its outer +husk with the likeness of all things noble and desirable; and in the +deepest implication of barren branch and deadly leaf, the bird of death, +with priests for worshippers (“the priests of the raven of dawn,” loud of +lip and hoarse of throat until the light of day have risen), finds house +and resting-place. Only in the “miscreative brain” of fallen men can such +a thing strike its tortuous root and bring forth its fatal flower; nowhere +else in all nature can the tyrants of divided matter and moral law, “Gods +of the earth and sea,” find soil that will bear such fruit.</p> + +<p>Nowhere has Blake set forth his spiritual creed more clearly and earnestly +than in the last of the <i>Songs of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> Experience</i>. “Tirzah,” in his +mythology, represents the mere separate and human nature, mother of the +perishing body and daughter of the “religion” which occupies itself with +laying down laws for the flesh; which, while pretending (and that in all +good faith) to despise the body and bring it into subjection as with +control of bit and bridle, does implicitly overrate its power upon the +soul for evil or good, and thus falls foul of fact on all sides by +assuming that spirit and flesh are twain, and that things pleasant and +good for the one can properly be loathsome or poisonous to the other. This +“religion” or “moral law,” the inexplicable prophet has chosen to baptize +under the singular type of “Rahab”—the “harlot virgin-mother,” impure by +dint of chastity and forbearance from such things as are pure to the pure +of heart: for in this creed the one thing unclean is the belief in +uncleanness, the one thing forbidden is to believe in the existence of +forbidden things. Of this mystical mother and her daughter we shall have +to take some further account when once fairly afloat on those windy waters +of prophecy through which all who would know Blake to any purpose must be +content to steer with such pilotage as they can get. For the present it +will be enough to note how eager and how direct is the appeal here made +against any rule or reasoning based on reference to the mere sexual and +external nature of man—the nature made for ephemeral life and speedy +death, kept alive “to work and weep” only through that mercy which +“changed death into sleep”; how intense the reliance on redemption from +such a law by the grace of imaginative insight and spiritual freedom, +typified in “the death of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> Jesus.”<small><a name="f18.1" id="f18.1" href="#f18">[18]</a></small> Nor are any of these poems finer in +structure or nobler in metrical form.</p> + +<p>This present edition of the <i>Songs of Experience</i> is richer by one of +Blake’s most admirable poems of childhood—a division of his work always +of especial value for its fresh and sweet strength of feeling and of +words. In this newly recovered <i>Cradle Song</i> are perhaps the two loveliest +lines of his writing:</p> + +<p class="poem">“Sleep, sleep: in thy sleep<br /> +Little sorrows sit and weep.”<small><a name="f19.1" id="f19.1" href="#f19">[19]</a></small></p> + +<p>Before parting from this chief lyrical work of the poet’s, we may notice +(rather for its convenience as an explanation than its merit as a piece of +verse) this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> projected <i>Motto to the Songs of Innocence and of +Experience</i>, which editors have left hitherto in manuscript:</p> + +<p class="poem">“The good are attracted by men’s perceptions,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And think not for themselves</span><br /> +Till Experience teaches them how to catch<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And to cage the Fairies and Elves.</span><br /> +<br /> +And then the Knave begins to snarl,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the Hypocrite to howl;</span><br /> +And all his<small><a name="f20.1" id="f20.1" href="#f20">[20]</a></small> good friends show their private ends,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the Eagle is known from the Owl.”</span></p> + +<p>Experience must do the work of innocence as soon as conscience begins to +take the place of instinct, reflection of perception; but the moment +experience begins upon this work, men raise against her the conventional<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> +clamour of envy and stupidity. She teaches how to entrap and retain such +fugitive delights as children and animals enjoy without seeking to catch +or cage them; but this teaching the world calls sin, and the law of +material religion condemns: the face of “Tirzah” is set against it, in the +“shame and pride” of sex.</p> + +<p class="poem">“Thou, mother of my mortal part,<br /> +With cruelty didst mould my heart,<br /> +And with false self-deceiving fears<br /> +Didst bind my nostrils, eyes, and ears.”</p> + +<p>And thus those who live in subjection to the senses would in their turn +bring the senses into subjection; unable to see beyond the body, they find +it worth while to refuse the body its right to freedom.</p> + +<p>In these hurried notes on the <i>Songs</i> an effort has been made to get that +done which is most absolutely necessary—not that which might have been +most facile or most delightful. Analytic remark has been bestowed on those +poems only which really cannot dispense with it in the eyes of most men. +Many others need no herald or interpreter, demand no usher or outrider: +some of these are among Blake’s best, some again almost among his +worst.<small><a name="f21.1" id="f21.1" href="#f21">[21]</a></small> Poems in which a doctrine or subject once<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> before nobly stated +and illustrated is re-asserted in a shallower way and exemplified in a +feebler form,<small><a name="f22.1" id="f22.1" href="#f22">[22]</a></small> require at our hands no written or spoken signs of +either assent or dissent. Such poems, as the editor has well indicated, +have places here among their betters: none of them, it may be added, +without some shell of outward beauty or seed of inward value. The simpler +poems claim only praise; and of this they cannot fail from any reader +whose good word is in the least worth having. Those of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> a subtler kind +(often, as must now be clear enough, the best worth study) claim more than +this if they are to have fair play. It is pleasant enough to commend and +to enjoy the palpable excellence of Blake’s work; but another thing is +simply and thoroughly requisite—to understand what the workman was after. +First get well hold of the mystic, and you will then at once get a better +view and comprehension of the painter and poet. And if through fear of +tedium or offence a student refuses to be at such pains, he will find +himself, while following Blake’s trace as poet or painter, brought up +sharply within a very short tether. “It is easy,” says Blake himself in +the <i>Jerusalem</i>, “to acknowledge a man to be great and good while we +derogate from him in the trifles and small articles of that goodness; +those alone are his friends who admire his minute powers.”</p> + +<p>Looking into the larger MS. volume of notes we seem to gain at once a +clearer insight into the writer’s daily habit of life and tone of thought, +and a power of judging more justly the sort of work left us by way of +result. Here, as by fits and flashes, one is enabled to look in upon that +strange small household, so silent and simple on the outside, so content +to live in the poorest domestic way, without any show of eccentric +indulgence or erratic aspiration; husband and wife to all appearance the +commonest citizens alive, satisfied with each other and with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> their minute +obscure world and straitened limits of living. No typical churchwarden or +clerk of the parish could rub on in a more taciturn modest manner, or seem +able to make himself happy with smaller things. It may be as well for us +to hear his own account of the matter:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p><span style="margin-left: 4em;">PRAYER.</span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 6em;">I.</span></p> + +<p>“I rose up at the dawn of day;<br /> +‘Get thee away; get thee away!<br /> +Pray’st thou for riches? away, away!<br /> +This is the throne of Mammon grey.’</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 6em;">II.</span></p> + +<p>Said I, ‘This sure is very odd;<br /> +I took it to be the throne of God;<br /> +For everything besides I have;<br /> +It is only for riches that <i>I</i> can crave.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 6em;">III.</span></p> + +<p>‘I have mental joys and mental health,<br /> +And mental friends and mental wealth;<br /> +I’ve a wife I love and that loves me;<br /> +I’ve all but riches bodily;</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 6em;">IV.</span></p> + +<p>‘Then, if for riches I must not pray,<br /> +God knows I little of prayers need say;<br /> +So, as a church is known by its steeple,<br /> +If I pray, it must be for other people.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 6em;">V.</span></p> + +<p>‘I am in God’s presence night and day,<br /> +And he never turns his face away;<br /> +The accuser of sins by my side does stand,<br /> +And he holds my money-bag in his hand;</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 6em;">VI.</span></p> + +<p>‘For my worldly things God makes him pay,<br /> +And he’d pay for more if to him I would pray;<br /> +And so you may do the worst you can do,<br /> +Be assured, Mr. Devil, I won’t pray to you.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p> +<p><span style="margin-left: 6em;">VII.</span></p> + +<p>‘He says, if I do not worship him for a God,<small><a name="f23.1" id="f23.1" href="#f23">[23]</a></small><br /> +I shall eat coarser food and go worse shod;<br /> +So, as I don’t value such things as these,<br /> +You must do, Mr. Devil—just as God please.’”</p></div> + +<p>One cannot doubt that to a man of this temper his life was endurable +enough. Faith in God and goodwill towards men came naturally to him, being +a mystic; on the one side he had all he wanted, and on the other he wanted +nothing. The praise and discipleship of men might no doubt have added a +kind of pleasure to his way of life, but they could neither give nor take +away what he most desired to have; and this he never failed of having. His +wife, of whose “goodness” to him he has himself borne ample witness, was +company enough for all days. And indeed, by all the evidence left us, it +appears that this goodness of hers was beyond example. Another woman of +the better sort might have had equal patience with his habit of speech and +life, equal faith in his great capacity and character; but hardly in +another woman could such a man have found an equal strength and sweetness +of trust, an equal ardour of belief and tenderness, an equal submission of +soul and body for love’s sake;—submission so perfect and so beautiful in +the manner of it, that the idea of sacrifice or a separate will seems +almost impossible. A man living with such a wife might well believe in +some immediate divine presence and in visible faces like the face of an +angel.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> We have not now of course much chance of knowing at all what +manner of angel she was; but the few things we do know of her, no form of +words can fitly express. To praise such people is merely to waste words in +saying that divine things are praiseworthy. No doubt, if we knew how to +praise them, they would deserve that we should try.<small><a name="f24.1" id="f24.1" href="#f24">[24]</a></small></p> + +<p>The notes bearing in any way upon this daily life of Blake’s are few and +exceptional. In the mass of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> floating verse and prose there is absolutely +no hint of order whatever, save that, at one end of the MS., some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> short +poems are transcribed in a slightly more coherent form. Among these and +the other lyrics, strewn as from a liberal but too lax hand about the +chaotic leaves of his note-book, are many of Blake’s best things. Some of +the slight and scrawled designs, as noted in the <i>Catalogue</i> (pp. 242, +243), have also a merit and a power of their own; but it is with the +poet’s lyrical work that we have to do at this point of our present notes; +and here we may most fitly wind up what remains to be said on that matter.</p> + +<p>The inexhaustible equable gift of Blake for the writing of short sweet +songs is perceptible at every turn we take in this labyrinth of lovely +words, of strong and soft designs. Considering how wide is the range of +date from the earliest of these songs to the latest, they seem more +excellently remote than ever from the day’s verse and the day’s habit. +They reach in point of time from the season of Mason to the season of +Moore; and never in any interval of work by any chance influence do these +poems at their weakest lapse into likeness or tolerance of the accepted +models. From the era of plaster to the era of pinchbeck, Blake kept +straight ahead of the times. To the pseudo-Hellenic casts of the one +school or the pseudo-Hibernian tunes of the other he was admirably deaf +and blind. While a grazing public straightened its bovine neck and +steadied its flickering eyelids to look up betweenwhiles,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> with the day’s +damp fodder drooping half-chewed from its relaxed jaw, at some dim sick +planet of the Mason system, there was a poet, alive if obscure, who had +eyes to behold</p> + +<p class="poem"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">“the chambers of the East,</span><br /> +The chambers of the sun, that now<br /> +From ancient melody have ceased;”</p> + +<p>who had ears to hear and lips to reveal the music and the splendour and +the secret of the high places of verse. Again, in a changed century, when +the reading and warbling world was fain to drop its daily tear and stretch +its daily throat at the bidding of some Irish melodist—when the “female +will” of “Albion” thought fit to inhale with wide and thankful nostril the +rancid flavour of rotten dance-roses and mouldy musk, to feed “in a +feminine delusion” upon the sodden offal of perfumed dog’s-meat, and take +it for the very eucharist of Apollo—then too, while this worship of ape +or beetle went so noisily on, the same poet could let fall from lavish +hand or melodious mouth such grains of solid gold and flakes of perfect +honey as this:—</p> + +<p class="poem">“Silent, silent night,<br /> +Quench the holy light<br /> +Of thy torches bright;<br /> +<br /> +For possessed of day,<br /> +Thousand spirits stray,<br /> +That sweet joys betray.<br /> +<br /> +Why should love be sweet,<br /> +Usèd with deceit,<br /> +Nor with sorrows meet?”</p> + +<p>Verse more nearly faultless and of a more difficult perfection was never +accomplished. The sweet facility of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> being right, proper to great lyrical +poets, was always an especial quality of Blake’s. To go the right way and +do the right thing, was in the nature of his metrical gift—a faculty +mixed into the very flesh and blood of his verse.</p> + +<p>There is in all these straying songs the freshness of clear wind and +purity of blowing rain: here a perfume as of dew or grass against the sun, +there a keener smell of sprinkled shingle and brine-bleached sand; some +growth or breath everywhere of blade or herb leaping into life under the +green wet light of spring; some colour of shapely cloud or mound of +moulded wave. The verse pauses and musters and falls always as a wave +does, with the same patience of gathering form, and rounded glory of +springing curve, and sharp sweet flash of dishevelled and flickering foam +as it curls over, showing the sun through its soft heaving side in veins +of gold that inscribe and jewels of green that inlay the quivering and +sundering skirt or veil of thinner water, throwing upon the tremulous +space of narrowing sea in front, like a reflection of lifted and vibrating +hair, the windy shadow of its shaken spray. The actual page seems to take +life, to assume sound and colour, under the hands that turn it and the +lips that read; we feel the falling of dew and have sight of the rising of +stars. For the very sound of Blake’s verse is no less remote from the +sound of common things and days on earth than is the sense or the +sentiment of it.</p> + +<p class="poem">“O what land is the land of dreams?<br /> +What are its mountains and what are its streams?<br /> +—O father, I saw my mother there,<br /> +Among the lilies by waters fair.<br /> +<span class="spacer">·</span><span class="spacer">·</span><span class="spacer">·</span><span class="spacer">·</span><span class="spacer">·</span><span class="spacer">·</span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> +—Dear child, I also by pleasant streams<br /> +Have wandered all night in the land of dreams;<br /> +But though calm and warm the waters wide<br /> +I could not get to the other side.”</p> + +<p>We may say of Blake that he never got back from that other side—only came +and stood sometimes, as Chapman said of Marlowe in his great plain fashion +of verse, “up to the chin in that Pierian flood,” and so sang half-way +across the water.</p> + +<p>Nothing in the <i>Songs of Innocence</i> is more beautiful as a study of +childish music than the little poem from which we have quoted; written in +a metre which many expert persons have made hideous, and few could at any +time manage as Blake did—a scheme in which the soft and loose iambics +lapse into sudden irregular sound of full anapæsts, not without increase +of grace and impulsive tenderness in the verse. Given a certain attainable +average of intellect and culture, these points of workmanship, by dint of +the infinite gifts or the infinite wants they imply, become the swiftest +and surest means of testing a verse-writer’s perfection of power, and what +quality there may be in him to warrant his loftiest claim. By these you +see whether a man can sing, as by his drawing and colouring whether he can +paint. Another specimen of indefinable sweetness and significance we may +take in this symbolic little piece of song;</p> + +<p class="poem">“I walked abroad on a sunny day;<br /> +I wooed the soft snow with me to play.<br /> +She played and she melted in all her prime;<br /> +And the winter called it a dreadful crime.”<small><a name="f25.1" id="f25.1" href="#f25">[25]</a></small></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>Against the “winter” of ascetic law and moral prescription Blake never +slackens in his fiery animosity; never did a bright hot wind of March make +such war upon the cruel inertness of February. In his obscure way he was +always hurrying into the van of some forlorn hope of ethics. Even Shelley, +who as we said was no less ready to serve in the same camp all his life +long, never shot keener or hotter shafts of lyrical speech into the +enemy’s impregnable ground. Both poets seem to have tried about alike, and +with equally questionable results, at a regular blockade of the steep +central fortress of “Urizen;” both after a little personal practice fell +back, not quite unscarred, upon light skirmishing and the irregular work +of chance guerilla campaigns. Moral custom, “that twice-battered god of +Palestine” round which all Philistia rallies (specially strong in her +British brigade), seemed to suffer little from all their slings and +arrows. Being mere artists, they were perhaps at root too innocent to do +as much harm as they desired, or to desire as much harm as they might have +done. Blake indeed never proposed to push matters quite to such a verge as +the other was content to stand on during his <i>Laon and Cythna</i> period; +from that inconceivable edge of theory or sensation he would probably have +drawn back with some haste. But such sudden cries of melodious revolt as +this were not rare on his part.<small><a name="f26.1" id="f26.1" href="#f26">[26]</a></small></p> + +<p class="poem"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> +“Abstinence sows sand all over<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The ruddy limbs and flaming hair,</span><br /> +But desire gratified<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Plants fruits of life and beauty there.”</span></p> + +<p>Assuredly he never made a more supremely noble and enjoyable effect of +verse than that; the cadence of the first two lines is something hardly to +be matched anywhere: the verse (to resume our old simile for a moment) +turns over and falls in with the sudden weight and luminous motion of a +strong long roller coming in with the wind. So again, lying sad and sick +under his marriage myrtle, even in a full rain of fragrant and brilliant +blossoms that fall round him to waste, he must needs ask and answer the +fatal final question.</p> + +<p class="poem">“Why should I be bound to thee,<br /> +O my lovely myrtle-tree?<br /> +Love, free love, cannot be bound<br /> +To any tree that grows on ground.”</p> + +<p>Mixed with this fervour of desire for more perfect freedom, there appears +at times an excess of pity (like Chaucer’s in his early poems) for the +women and men living under the law, trammelled in soul or body. For +example, the poem called <i>Infant Sorrow</i>, in the <i>Songs of Experience</i>, +ran at first to a greater length and through stranger places than it now +overflows into; and is worth giving here in its original form as extracted +by cautious picking and sifting from a heap of tumbled readings.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p><span style="margin-left: 6em;">I.</span></p> + +<p>“My mother groaned, my father wept;<br /> +Into the dangerous world I leapt,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>Helpless, naked, piping loud,<br /> +Like a fiend hid in a cloud.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 6em;">II.</span></p> + +<p>Struggling in my father’s hands,<br /> +Striving against my swaddling bands,<br /> +Bound and weary, I thought best<br /> +To sulk upon my mother’s breast.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 6em;">III.</span></p> + +<p>When I saw that rage was vain<br /> +And to sulk would nothing gain,<br /> +Twining many a trick and wile<br /> +I began to soothe and smile.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 6em;">IV.</span></p> + +<p>And I grew<small><a name="f27.1" id="f27.1" href="#f27">[27]</a></small> day after day,<br /> +Till upon the ground I lay;<br /> +And I grew<small><a href="#f27">[27]</a></small> night after night,<br /> +Seeking only for delight.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 6em;">V.</span></p> + +<p>And I saw before me shine<br /> +Clusters of the wandering vine;<br /> +And many a lovely flower and tree<br /> +Stretched their blossoms out to me.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 6em;">VI.</span></p> + +<p>But many a priest<small><a name="f28.1" id="f28.1" href="#f28">[28]</a></small> with holy look,<br /> +In their hands a holy book,<br /> +Pronouncèd curses on his head<br /> +Who the fruit or blossoms shed.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 6em;">VII.</span></p> + +<p>I beheld the priests by night;<br /> +They embraced the blossoms bright;<br /> +I beheld the priests by day;<br /> +Underneath the vines they lay.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 6em;">VIII.</span></p> + +<p>Like to serpents in the night,<br /> +They embraced my blossoms bright;<br /> +Like to holy men by day,<br /> +Underneath my vines they lay.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 6em;">IX.</span></p> + +<p>So I smote them, and their gore<br /> +Stained the roots my myrtle bore;<br /> +But the time of youth is fled,<br /> +And grey hairs are on my head.”</p></div> + +<p>Now not even the spilt blood of those who forbid and betray shall quicken +the dried root or flush the faded leaf of love; the myrtle being past all +comfort of soft rain or helpful sun. So in the <i>Rose-Tree</i> (vol. ii. p. +60), when for the sake of a barren material fidelity to his “rose” of +marriage, he has passed over the offered flower “such as May never bore,” +the rose herself “turns away with jealousy,” and gives him thorns for +thanks: nothing left of it for hand or lip but collapsed blossom and +implacable edges of brier. Blake might have kept in mind the end of his +actual wild vine (vol. i. p. 100 of the <i>Life</i>), which ran all to leaf and +never brought a grape worth eating, for fault of pruning-hooks and +vine-dressers.</p> + +<p>In all this there is a certain unmistakeable innocence which accounts for +the practical modesty and peaceable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> forbearance of the man’s way of +living. The material shape of his speculations never goes beyond a sort of +boyish defiant complaint, a half-humorous revolt of the will. Inconstancy +with him is not rooted in satiety, but in the freshness of pure pleasure; +he would never cast off the old to put on the new. The chain once broken, +against which between sleeping and waking he chafes and wrestles, he would +lie for most hours of the day with content enough in the old shade of +wedded rose or myrtle tree. Nor in leaping or reaching after the new +flower would he wilfully bruise or break the least bud of the old. His +desire is towards the freedom of the dawn of things—not towards the “dark +secret hour” that walks under coverings of cloud.</p> + +<p class="poem">“Are not the joys of morning sweeter<br /> +Than the joys of night?”</p> + +<p>The sinless likeness of his seeming “sins”—mere fancies as it appears +they mostly were, mere soft light aspirations of theory without body or +flesh on them—has something of the innocent immodesty of a birds’ or +babies’ paradise—of a fools’ paradise, too, translated into the practice +and language of the untheoretic world. Shelley’s “Epipsychidion” scarcely +preaches a more bodiless evangel of bodily liberty. That famous and +exquisitely written passage beginning, “True love in this differs from +gold and clay,” delivers in more daringly definite words the exact message +of Blake’s belief.</p> + +<p>Nowhere has the note of pity been more strongly and sweetly struck than in +those lovely opening verses<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> of the “Garden of Love,” which must here be +read once again:—</p> + +<p class="poem">“I laid me down upon a bank<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where Love lay sleeping:</span><br /> +I heard among the rushes dank<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Weeping, weeping.</span><br /> +<br /> +Then I went to the heath and the wild,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To the thistles and thorns of the waste;</span><br /> +And they told me how they were beguiled,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Driven out, and compelled to be chaste.”</span></p> + +<p>The sharp and subtle change of metre here and at the end of the poem has +an audacity of beauty and a justice of impulse proper only to the leaders +of lyrical verse: unfit alike for definition and for imitation, if any +copyist were to try his hand at it. The next song we transcribe from the +“Ideas” is lighter in tone than usual, and admirable for humorous +imagination; a light of laughter shines and sounds through the words.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p><span style="margin-left: 1em;">THE WILL AND THE WAY.</span></p> + +<p>“I asked a thief to steal me a peach;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He turned up his eyes;</span><br /> +I asked a lithe lady to lie her down<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Holy and meek, she cries.</span><br /> +<br /> +As soon as I went<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">An angel came;</span><br /> +He winked at the thief<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And smiled at the dame;</span><br /> +<br /> +And without one word spoke<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Had a peach from the tree;</span><br /> +And ’twixt earnest and joke<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Enjoyed the lady.”<small><a name="f29.1" id="f29.1" href="#f29">[29]</a></small></span></p></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>A much better and more solid version of the same fancy than the one given +in the “Selections” under the head of “Love’s Secret;” which is rather +weakly and lax in manner. Our present poem has on the other hand an +exquisite “lithe” grace of limb and suppleness of step, suiting +deliciously with the “light high laugh” in its tone: while for sweet and +rapid daring, for angelically puerile impudence as it were, it may be +matched against any song of its fantastic sort.</p> + +<p>Less complete in a small way, but worth taking some care of, is this carol +of a fairy, emblem of a man’s light hard tyranny of will, calling upon the +birds in the harness of Venus and the shafts in the hand of her son for +help in setting up the kingdom of established and legal love: but caught +himself in the very setting of his net.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p><span style="margin-left: .5em;">THE MARRIAGE RING.</span></p> + +<p>“‘Come hither, my sparrows,<br /> +My little arrows.<br /> +If a tear or a smile<br /> +Will a man beguile,<br /> +If an amorous delay<br /> +Clouds a sunshiny day,<br /> +If the step of a foot<br /> +Smites the heart to its root,<br /> +’Tis the marriage ring<br /> +Makes each fairy a king.’<br /> +So a fairy sang.<br /> +From the leaves I sprang;<br /> +He leaped from his spray<br /> +To flee away:<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>But in my hat caught,<br /> +He soon shall be taught,<br /> +Let him laugh, let him cry,<br /> +He’s my butterfly:<br /> +For I’ve pulled out the sting<br /> +Of the marriage ring.”</p></div> + +<p>It is not so easy to turn wasps to butterflies in the world of average +things; but, as far as verses go, there are few of more supple sweetness +than some of these. They recall the light lapse of measure found in the +beautiful older germs of nursery rhyme;<small><a name="f30.1" id="f30.1" href="#f30">[30]</a></small> and the seeming retributive +triumph of married lovers over unmarried, of wedlock over courtship, could +not well be more gracefully translated than in the “Fairy’s” call to his +winged and feathered “arrows”—the lover’s swift birds of prey, not +without beak and claw. “If they do for a minute or so darken our days, +dupe our fancies, prevail upon our nerves and blood, once well married we +are kings of them at least.” Pull out that sting of jealous reflective +egotism, and your tamed “fairy”—the love that is in a man once set +right—has no point or poison left it, but only rapid grace of wing and +natural charm of colour.</p> + +<p>Throughout the “Ideas” one or two other favourite<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> points of faith and +feeling are incessantly thrown out in new fugitive forms; such as the last +(rejected) stanza of “Cupid,” which, though the song may well dispense +with it and even gain by such a loss in the qualities of shape or sound, +must be saved if only as a specimen of the persistent way in which Blake +assumed the Greek and Roman habits of mind or art to be typical of “war” +and restraint; an iron frame of mind good to fight in and not good for +love to grow under.</p> + +<p class="poem">“’Twas the Greek love of war<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That turned Love into a boy<small><a name="f31.1" id="f31.1" href="#f31">[31]</a></small></span><br /> +And woman into a statue of stone;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And away fled every joy.”</span></p> + +<p>More frequent and more delightful is the recurrence of such loving views +of love as that taken in the last lines of “William Bond;” a poem full of +strange and soft hints, of mist that allures and music that lulls; typical +in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> main of the embodied struggle between selfish and sacrificial +passion, between the immediate impulse that brings at least the direct +profit of delight, and the law of religious or rational submission that +reaps mere loss and late regret after a life of blind prudence and +sorrowful forbearance—the “black cloud” of sickness, malady of spirit and +body inflicted by the church-keeping “angels of Providence” who have +driven away the loving train of spirits that live by innate impulse: not +the bulk of Caliban but the soul of Angelo being the deadliest direct +enemy of Ariel. “Providence” divine or human, prepense moral or spiritual +“foresight,” was a thing in the excellence of which our prophet of divine +instinct and inspired flesh could not consistently believe. His evangel +could dispense with that, in favour of such faith in good things as came +naturally to him.</p> + +<p class="poem">“I thought Love lived in the hot sunshine,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But oh, he lives in the moony light;</span><br /> +I thought to find Love in the heat of day,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But sweet Love is the comforter of night.</span><br /> +<br /> +“Seek Love in the pity of others’ woe,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In the gentle relief of another’s care;</span><br /> +In the darkness of night and the winter’s snow,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In the naked and outcast, seek Love there.”</span></p> + +<p>The infinite and most tender beauty of such words is but one among many +evidences how thoroughly and delicately the lawless fervour and passionate +liberty of desire were tempered in Blake by an exquisite goodness, of +sense rather than of thought, which as it were made the pain or pleasure, +the well-being or the suffering, of another press naturally and sharply on +his own nerves of feeling. Deeply as his thought and fancy had struck +into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> strange paths and veins of spiritual life, he had never found or +felt out any way to the debateable land where simple and tender pleasures +become complex and cruel, and the roses gathered are redder at root than +in leaf.</p> + +<p>Another poem, slight of texture and dim of feature, but full of a cloudy +beauty, is <i>The Angel</i>: a new allegory of love, blindly rejected or +blindly accepted as a thing of course; foiled and made profitless in +either case: then lost, with all the sorrow it brings and all the comfort +it gives: and the ways are barred against it by armed mistrust and +jealousy, and its place knows it no more: but this immunity from the joys +and sorrows of love is bought at the bitter price of untimely age. (I +offer these somewhat verbose and wiredrawn attempts at commentary, only +where the poem seems at once to require analysis and to admit such as I +give; how difficult it is to make such notes clear and full, yet not to +stumble into confusion or slide into prolixity, those can estimate who +will try their hand at such work.)</p> + +<p>Frequent slips and hitches of grammar, it may be added, are common to +Blake’s rough studies and finished writings, and are therefore not always +things to be weeded out. Little learning and much reading of old books +made him more really inaccurate than were their writers, whose apparent +liberties he might perhaps have pleaded in defence of his own hardly +defensible licences.</p> + +<p>None of these poems are worthier, for the delight they give, of the +selected praise and most thankful study than <i>The Two Songs</i> and <i>The +Golden Net</i>: a pair of perfect things, their feet taken in the deep places +of thought, and their heads made lovely with the open light of lyric<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> +speech. Between the former of these<small><a name="f32.1" id="f32.1" href="#f32">[32]</a></small> and <i>The Human Abstract</i> there is +a certain difference: here, the moral point of the poem is, that innocence +is wholly ignorant, and sees no deeper than the shell of form; experience +is mainly malignant, and sees the root of evil and seed of pain under the +leaf of good and blossom of pleasant things:<small><a name="f33.1" id="f33.1" href="#f33">[33]</a></small> there, the vision is the +poet’s own, and deals with that evil neither actually nor seemingly +inherent in the system or scheme of created nature, but watered into life +by the error and fed into luxuriance by the act of “the human brain” +alone; two widely unlike themes for verse. As to execution, here doubtless +there is more of that swift fresh quality peculiar to Blake’s simpler +style; but the <i>Abstract</i> again has more weight of verse and magnificence +of symbol.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>Akin to <i>The Golden Net</i> is the form and manner of <i>Broken Love</i>; which, +whatever taste may lie in the actual kernel of it, is visibly one of the +poet’s noblest studies of language. The grandeur of the growing metre and +heat of passionate pulses felt through the throbbing body of its verse can +escape no ear. In our notes on <i>Jerusalem</i> we shall have, like the “devil” +of <i>The Two Songs</i>, to look at it from the inverse side and pass upon it a +more laborious and less thankworthy comment.</p> + +<p>Of the longest and gravest poem in the “Ideas of Good and Evil” we are +bound to take some careful account. This is <i>The Everlasting Gospel</i>, a +semi-dramatic exposition of faith on the writer’s part; full of subtleties +and paradoxes which might well straighten the stiffest hairs of orthodoxy +and bewilder the sharpest brain of speculation. Blake has here stated once +for all the why and the how of his Christian faith; for Christian he +averred that it was, and we may let his word pass for it. Readers must be +recommended for the present to look at these things as much as possible +from what we will call their artistic or poetic side, and bring no pulpit +logic to get chopped or minced on the altar of this prophet’s vision. His +worst heresy, they may be assured, “will not bite.” In effect one may hope +(or fear, as the case may be) that there is much less of heresy underlying +these daring forms of speech than seems to overlay their outer skirt: +schism or division of body rather than of spirit from less wilful and +outspoken forms of faith.</p> + +<p>Let the student of this “Gospel” of inverted belief and intensified +paradox lay hold of and cling fast to the clue given by the “Vision of the +Last Judgment.” There<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> for one thing the prophet has laid down this rule: +“Moral virtues do not exist; they are allegories and dissimulations.” For +“moral allegory” we are therefore not to look here; we are in the house of +pure vision, outside of which allegory halts blindly across the shifting +sand of moral qualities, her right hand leaning on the staff of virtue, +her left hand propped on the crutch of vice. Conscious unimpulsive +“virtue,” measured by the praise or judged by the laws of men, was to +Blake always Pharisaic: a legal God none other than a magnified and divine +Pharisee. Thus far have other (even European) mystics often enough pushed +their inference; but this time the mystic was a poet; and therefore +always, where it was possible, prone to prefer tangible form and given to +beat out into human shape even the most indefinite features of his vision. +Assuming Christ as the direct and absolute divine type (divine in the +essential not in the clerical sense—divine to the spiritual not the +technical reason) he was therefore obliged to set to work and strip that +type of the incongruous garment of “moral virtues” cast over it by the law +of religious form: to prove, as he elsewhere said, that Christ “was all +virtue,” not by the possession of these “allegoric” qualities called human +virtues or abstinence from those others called human sins or vices: such +abstinence or such possession cannot conceivably suffice for the final +type of goodness or absolute incarnation of a thing unalterably divine. +Virtues are no more predicable of the perfect virtue than vices of the +perfect vice. As the supreme sin cannot be said to commit human faults, so +neither can the supreme holiness obey the principles of human sanctity. +“Deistical virtue” is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> as the embroidery on the ephod of Caiaphas or the +stain left upon the water by the purified hands of Pilate. It is the +property of “the heathen schools”; a bitted and bridled virtue, led by the +nose and tied by the neck; made of men’s hands and subject to men’s laws. +Can you make a God worth worship out of that? To say that God is wise, +chaste, humble, philanthropic, gentle, or just; in one word, that he is +“good” after the human sense; is to lower your image of God not less than +if you had predicated of him the exactly reverse qualities, by reason of +which these exist, even as they by reason of these. How much of all this +Blake had fished up out of his studies of Behmen, Swedenborg, or such +others, his present critic has not the means of deciding; but is assured +of one thing; that where others dealt by inductive rule and law, Blake +dealt by assumptive preaching and intuition; that he found form of his own +for the body of thought, and body of his own for the spirit of +speculation, supplied by others; playing Prometheus to their Epimetheus, +doing poet’s or evangelist’s work where they did philosophic business; not +fumbling in the box of Pandora for things flown or fugitive, but bringing +from extreme heaven the immediate fire in the hollow of his reed or pen.</p> + +<p>Such is the radical “idea” of the poem; and as to details, we are to +remember that “modesty” with Blake means a timid and tacit prurience, and +“humility” a mistrustful and mendacious cowardice: he puts these terms to +such uses in his swift fierce way, just as, in his detestation of deism +and its “impersonal God,” he must needs embody his vision of a deity or +more perfect<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> humanity in the personal Christian type: a purely poetical +tendency, which if justly apprehended will serve to account for the +wildest bodily forms in which he drew forth his visions from the mould of +prophecy.</p> + +<p>Thus much by way of prologue may suffice for the moral side of this +“Gospel”; the mythological or technically religious side is not much +easier to deal with, and indeed cannot well be made out except by such +misty light as may be won from the prophetic books. It seems evident that +Blake, at least for purposes of evangelism, was content to regard the +“Creator” of the mere bodily man as one with the “legal” or “Pharisaic” +God of the churches: even as the “mother of his mortal part”—of the flesh +taken for the moment simply, and separated (for reasoning purposes) from +the inseparable spirit—is “Tirzah.” This vision of a creator divided +against his own creation and having to be subdued by his own creatures +will appear more directly and demand more distinct remark when we come to +deal with its symbolic form in the great myth of “Urizen;” where also it +will be possible to follow it out with less likelihood of offensive +misconstruction. One is compelled here to desire from those who care to +follow Blake at all, the keenest ardour of attention possible; they will +blunder helplessly if they once fail to connect this present minute of his +work with the past and the future of it: if they once let slip the +thinnest thread of analogy, the whole prophetic or evangelic web collapses +for them into a chaos of gossamer, a tangle of unclean and flaccid fibres, +the ravelled woof of an insane and impotent Arachne, who should be +retransmuted with all haste into a palpable spider by the spell of +reason.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> Here, as in all swift “inspired” writing, there are on the +outside infinite and indefinable anomalies, contradictions, +incompatibilities enough of all sorts; open for any Paine or Paley to +impugn or to defend. But let no one dream that there is here either +madness or mendacity: the heart or sense thus hidden away is sound enough +for a mystic.</p> + +<p>The greatest passage of this poem is also the simplest; that division +which deals with the virtue of “chastity,” and uses for its text the story +of “the woman taken in adultery:” who is identified with Mary Magdalene. +We give it here in full; hoping it may now be comprehensible to all who +care to understand, and may bear fruit of its noble and almost faultless +verse for all but those who prefer to take the sterility of their fig-tree +on trust rather than be at the pains of lifting a single leaf.</p> + +<p class="poem">“Was Jesus <i>chaste</i>? or did he<br /> +Give any lessons of chastity?<br /> +The morning blushed fiery red;<br /> +Mary was found in adulterous bed.<br /> +Earth groaned beneath, and heaven above<br /> +Trembled at discovery of love.<br /> +Jesus was sitting in Moses’ chair;<br /> +They brought the trembling woman there.<br /> +Moses commands she be stoned to death:<br /> +What was the sound of Jesus’ breath?<br /> +He laid his hand on Moses’ law;<br /> +The ancient heavens, in silent awe,<br /> +Writ with curses from pole to pole,<br /> +All away began to roll;<br /> +The earth trembling and naked lay<br /> +In secret bed of mortal clay—<br /> +On Sinai felt the hand Divine<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>Pulling<small><a name="f34.1" id="f34.1" href="#f34">[34]</a></small> back the bloody shrine—<br /> +And she heard the breath of God<br /> +As she heard by Eden’s flood:<br /> +‘Good and Evil are no more;<br /> +Sinai’s trumpets, cease to roar;<br /> +Cease, finger of God, to write<br /> +The heavens are not clean in thy sight.<br /> +Thou art good, and thou alone;<br /> +Nor may the sinner cast one stone.<br /> +To be good only, is to be<br /> +A God, or else a Pharisee.<br /> +Thou Angel of the Presence Divine,<br /> +That didst create this body of mine,<br /> +Wherefore <ins class="correction" title="original: has">hast</ins> thou writ these laws<br /> +And created hell’s dark jaws?<br /> +<i>My</i> Presence I will take from thee;<br /> +A cold leper thou shalt be.<br /> +Though thou wast so pure and bright<br /> +That heaven was impure in thy sight,<br /> +Though thine oath turned heaven pale,<br /> +Though thy covenant built hell’s gaol,<br /> +Though thou didst all to chaos roll<br /> +With the serpent for its soul,<br /> +Still the breath Divine does move—<br /> +And the breath Divine is love.<br /> +Mary, fear not. Let me see<br /> +The seven devils that torment thee.<br /> +Hide not from my sight thy sin,<br /> +That forgiveness thou mayst win.<br /> +Hath no man condemnèd thee?’<br /> +‘No man, Lord.’ ‘Then what is he<br /> +Who shall accuse thee? Come ye forth,<br /> +Fallen fiends of heavenly birth<br /> +That have forgot your ancient love<br /> +And driven away my trembling dove;<br /> +You shall bow before her feet;<br /> +You shall lick the dust for meat;<br /> +And though you cannot love, but hate,<br /> +Shall be beggars at love’s gate.<br /> +—What was thy love? Let me see’t;<br /> +Was it love or dark deceit?’<br /> +‘Love too long from me has fled;<br /> +’Twas dark deceit, to earn my bread;<br /> +’Twas covet, or ’twas custom, or<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>Some trifle not worth caring for:<br /> +That they may call a shame and sin<br /> +Love’s temple that God dwelleth in,<br /> +And hide in secret hidden shrine<br /> +The naked human form divine,<br /> +And render that a lawless thing<br /> +On which the soul expands her wing.<br /> +But this, O Lord, this was my sin—<br /> +When first I let these devils in,<br /> +In dark pretence to chastity<br /> +Blaspheming love, blaspheming thee.<br /> +Thence rose secret adulteries,<br /> +And thence did covet also rise.<br /> +My sin thou hast forgiven me;<br /> +Canst thou forgive my blasphemy?<br /> +Canst thou return to this dark hell<br /> +And in my burning bosom dwell?<br /> +And canst thou die that I may live?<br /> +And canst thou pity and forgive?’”</p> + +<p>In no second poem shall we find such a sustained passage as that; such +light of thought and thunder of verse; such sudden splendour of fire seen +across a strange land and among waste places beyond the receded landmarks +of the day or above the glimmering lintels of the night. The passionate +glory of its rapid and profound music fills the sense with too deep and +sharp a delight to leave breathing-space for any thought of analytic or +apologetic work. But the spirit of the verse is not less great than the +body of it is beautiful. “Divide from the divine glory the softness and +warmth of human colour—subtract from the divine the human +presence—subdue all refraction to the white absolute light—and that +light is no longer as the sun’s is, warm with sweet heat of life and +liberal of good gifts; but foul with overmuch purity, sick with disease of +excellence, unclean through exceeding cleanness, like the skin of a leper +‘as white as snow.’” For the divine nature is not greater than the human; +(they are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> one from eternity, sundered by the separative creation or fall, +severed into type and antitype by bodily generation, but to be made one +again when life and death shall both have died;) not greater than the +human nature, but greater than the qualities which the human nature +assumes upon earth. God is man, and man God; as neither of himself the +greater, so neither of himself the less: but as God is the unfallen part +of man, man the fallen part of God, God must needs be (not more than man, +but assuredly) more than the qualities of man. Thus the mystic can +consistently deny that man’s moral goodness or badness can be predicable +of God, while at the same time he affirms man’s intrinsic divinity and +God’s intrinsic humanity. Man can only possess abstract +qualities—“allegoric virtues”—by reason of that side of his nature which +he has <i>not</i> in common with God: God, not partaking of the “generative +nature,” cannot partake of qualities which exist only by right of that +nature. The other “God”<small><a name="f35.1" id="f35.1" href="#f35">[35]</a></small> or “Angel of the Presence” who created the +sexual and separate body of man did but cleave in twain the “divine +humanity,” which becoming reunited shall redeem man without price and +without covenant and without law; he meantime, the Creator,<small><a name="f36.1" id="f36.1" href="#f36">[36]</a></small> is a +divine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> dæmon, liable to error, subduable by and through this very created +nature of his invention, which he for the present imprisons and torments. +<i>His</i> law is the law of Moses, which according to the Manichean heresy +Christ came to reverse as diabolic. This singular (and presumably +“Pantheistic”) creed of Blake’s has a sort of Asiatic flavour about it, +but seems harder and more personal in its mythology than an eastern +philosopher’s; has also a distinct western type and Christian touch in it; +being wrought as it were of Persian lotus-leaves hardened into the +consistency of English oak-timber. The most wonderful part of his belief +or theory is this: “That after Christ’s death he became Jehovah:”<small><a name="f37.1" id="f37.1" href="#f37">[37]</a></small> +which may mean simply that through Christ the law of liberty came to +supplant the bondage of law, so that where Jehovah was Christ is; or may +typify the change of evangel into law, of full-grown Christianity into a +fresh type of “Judaism,” of the Gospel or good news of freedom into the +Church<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> or dogmatic body of faith; or may imply that the two forces, after +that supreme sacrifice, coalesced and became one, all absolute Deity, +being absorbed into the Divine Humanity; or, as a practical public would +suggest, may mean or typify nothing. It is certain that Blake appears so +far to have accepted the “Catholic tradition” as to regard this death or +sacrifice as tending somehow not merely to the redemption of man (which +would be no more than the sequel or outcome of his mystic faith in the +salvation of man by man, the deliverance or redemption of the accident +through the essence), but also to the union of the divine crucified man +with the creative governing power. Somehow; but the prophet must explain +for himself the exact means. We are now fairly up to the ears in +mysticism, and cannot afford to strike out at random, for fear of being +carried right off our feet by the ground-swell and drifted into waters +where swimming will be yet tougher work.</p> + +<p>The belief in “holy insurrection” must be almost as old as the oldest +religions or philosophies afloat or articulate. In the most various creeds +this feature of faith stands out sharply with a sort of tangible human +appeal. Earlier heretics than the author of <i>Jerusalem</i> have taken this to +be the radical significance of Christianity; a divine revolt against +divine law; an evidence that man must become as God only by resistance to +God—“the God of this world;” that if Prometheus cannot, Zeus will not +deliver us: and that man, if saved at all, must indeed be saved “so as by +fire”—by ardour of rebellion and strenuous battle against the God of +nature: who as of old must yet feed upon his children, and will no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> longer +take stone for flesh though never so well wrapped up; who must have the +organ of destruction and division, by which alone he lives<small><a name="f38.1" id="f38.1" href="#f38">[38]</a></small> and has +ability to beget, cut<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> off from him with the sharpest edge of flint that +rebellious hands can whet. In these galliambics of Blake’s we see the +flint of Atys whetted for such work; made ready against the priests of +Nature and her God, though by an alien hand that will cast no incense upon +the altar of Cybele; no Phrygian’s, who would spend his own blood to +moisten and brighten the high places of her worship: but one ready, with +what fire he can get, to burn down the groves and melt down the cymbals of +Dindymus.</p> + +<p>Returning now to the residue of the immediate matter in hand, we may duly +notice in this excursive and all but shapeless poem many of Blake’s strong +points put forth with all his strength: curiously crossed and intermixed +with rough skirmishing attacks on the opposite faction, clerical or +sceptical, by way of interlude. “You would have Christ act according to +what you call a rational or a philanthropic habit of mind—set the actual +God to reason, to elevate, to convince or convert after the fashion in +which you would set about it? redeem, not the spiritual man by inspiration +of his spirit, but the bodily man by application of his arguments? make +him as ‘Bacon and Newton’” (Blake’s usual types of the mere +understanding)?</p> + +<p class="poem">“For thus the Gospel St. Isaac confutes:<br /> +‘God can only be known by his attributes;<br /> +And as to the indwelling of the Holy Ghost<br /> +Or of Christ and the Father, it’s all a boast<br /> +And pride and vanity of imagination<br /> +That did wrong to follow this world’s fashion.’<br /> +To teach doubt and experiment<br /> +Certainly was not what Christ meant.”</p> + +<p>Certainly also no doggrel can be rougher, looser, heavier-weighted about +the wrists and ankles, than this;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> which indeed it was perhaps hardly fair +to transcribe; for take out the one great excerpt already given, and the +whole poem is a mass of huddled notes jotted down in a series of hints, on +stray sides and corners of leaves, crammed into holes and byways out of +sight or reach. So perfect a poet is not to be judged by the scrawls and +sketches of his note-book; but as we cannot have his revision of the +present piece of work, and are not here to make any revision of our own, +we must either let drop the chance of insight thus afforded, or make shift +with the rough and ragged remnants allowed us by the sparing fingers of a +close-handed fate. And this chance of insight is not to be lightly let go, +if we mean to look at all into Blake’s creed and mind. “Experiment” to the +mystic seems not insufficient merely, but irrational. “Reason says +<i>miracle</i>; Newton says <i>doubt</i>;” as Blake in another place expounds to +such disciples as he may get. On this point also his “Vision of Christ” is +other than the Christian public’s.</p> + +<p class="poem">“Thine is the friend of all mankind;<br /> +Mine speaks in parables to the blind.”</p> + +<p><i>His</i> Christ cared no more to convince “the blind” by plain speech than to +save “the world”—the form or flesh of the world, not that imperishable +body or complement of the soul which if a man “keep under and bring into +subjection” he transgresses against himself; but the mere “sexual” shell +which only exists (as we said) by error and by division and by right of +temporal appearance.</p> + +<p>Keeping in mind the utter roughness and formal incompletion of these +notes—which in effect are the mere broken shell or bruised husk of a poem +yet unfledged<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> and unembodied—we may put to some present use the ensuing +crude and loose fragments.</p> + +<p class="poem">“What was he doing all that time<br /> +From twelve years old to manly prime?<br /> +Was he then idle, or the less<br /> +About his Father’s business?<br /> +If he had been Antichrist aping<small><a name="f39.1" id="f39.1" href="#f39">[39]</a></small> Jesus,<br /> +He’d have done anything to please us;<br /> +Gone sneaking into synagogues<br /> +And not used the elders and priests like dogs;<br /> +But humble as a lamb or ass<br /> +Obeyed himself to Caiaphas.<br /> +God wants not man to humble himself.<br /> +That is the trick of the ancient Elf.<br /> +This is the race that Jesus ran:<br /> +Humble to God, haughty to man;<br /> +Cursing the rulers before the people<br /> +Even to the temple’s highest steeple;<br /> +And when he humbled himself to God,<br /> +Then descended the cruel rod.”</p> + +<p>(This noticeable heresy is elsewhere insisted on. Its root seems to be in +that doctrine that nothing is divine which is not human—has not in it the +essence of completed manhood, clear of accident or attribute; servility +therefore to a divine ruler is one with servility to a human ruler. More +orthodox men have registered as fervent a protest against the degradation +involved in base forms of worship; but this singular mythological form +seems peculiar to Blake, who was bent on finding in the sacred text +warrant or illustration for all his creed.)</p> + +<p class="poem">“‘If thou humblest thyself thou humblest me:<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>Thou also dwell’st in eternity.<br /> +Thou art a man; God is no more;<br /> +Thine own humanity learn to adore,<br /> +For that is my spirit of life.<br /> +Awake: arise to spiritual strife;<br /> +And thy revenge abroad display<br /> +In terror at the Last Judgment Day.’”</p> + +<p>(Another special point of faith. “Redemption by forgiveness of sins? yes: +but the power of redeeming or forgiving must come by strife. A gospel is +no mere spiritual essence of boiled milk and rose-water. There are the +energies of nature to fight and beat—unforgivable enemies, embodied in +Melitus or Annas, Caiaphas or Lycon. Sin is pardonable; but these things, +in the body or out of it, are not pardonable. Revenge also is divine; +whatever you may think or say while in the body, there is a part of nature +not forgivable, an element in the world not redeemable, which in the end +must be cast out and tormented.” To the priests of Pharisaic morals or +Satanic religion—those who crucify the great “human” nature and “scourge +sin instead of forgiving it”—to these the Redeemer must be the +tormentor.)</p> + +<p class="poem">“‘God’s mercy and long-suffering<br /> +Are but the sinner to justice to bring.<br /> +Thou on the cross for them shalt pray—<br /> +And take revenge at the last day.’<br /> +Jesus replied, and thunders hurled:<br /> +‘I never will pray for the world.<br /> +Once I did so when I prayed in the garden;<br /> +I wished to take with me a bodily pardon.’”</p> + +<p>These few lines, interpolated by way of comfortable exposition, are more +likely to increase the offence and perplexity: but assuredly no irreverent +brutality of paradox was here in the man’s mind. Even the “divine +humanity” of his quasi-Pantheistic worship must give up<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> (he says) the +desire of redeeming the unredeemable “world”—the quality subject to law +and technical religion. No “bodily pardon” for that, whatever the divine +pity may have hoped, while as yet full-grown in love only, not in +knowledge—seraphic fire without cherubic light; before, that is, it had +perfect insight into the brute nature or sham body of things. That must be +put off—changed as a vesture—by the risen and reunited body and soul. +What is it that has to be saved? What is it that can be?</p> + +<p class="poem">“Can that which was of woman born<br /> +In the absence of the morn,<br /> +While the soul fell into sleep<br /> +And (? heard) archangels round it weep,<br /> +Shooting out against the light<br /> +Fibres of a deadly night,<br /> +Reasoning upon its own dark fiction,<br /> +In doubt which is self-contradiction,”</p> + +<p>can that reason itself into redemption? The absolute body and essential +soul, as we have said, are with all their energies, passive and active +powers and pleasures, natural properties and liberties, of an imperishable +and vital holiness; but their appended qualities, their form and law, +their morals and philosophies, their reason and religion, these are +perishable and damnable. The “holy reasoning power,” in whose “holiness is +closed the abomination of desolation,” must be annihilated. “Rational +Truth, root of Evil and Good,” must be plucked up and burnt with fire. You +cannot, save in an empirical sense, walk by sight and not by faith: you +cannot “walk by faith and not by sight,” for there is no sight except +faith. (Compare generally the <i>Gates of Paradise</i>, for illustrations<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> of +all these intricate and intense conceptions.) Doubt then, being one of the +perishable qualities which depend on externals, is mere impotence and +error: now let us hear further:—</p> + +<p class="poem">“Humility is only doubt<br /> +And does the sun and moon blot out,<br /> +Roofing over with thorns and stems<br /> +The buried soul and all its gems.<br /> +This life’s dim window of the soul<br /> +Distorts the heavens from pole to pole<br /> +And leads you to believe a lie<br /> +When you see with, not through, the eye,<br /> +That was born in a night, to perish in a night,<br /> +When the soul slept in the beams of light.”</p> + +<p>Part of this reappears with no less vigour of evangelic assertion in the +<i>Auguries of Innocence</i>, but stripped of the repellent haze of +mythological form. That poem, full as it is of delicate power and clear +sweetness of thought, does not however reproduce in full the emblematic +beauty of our last extract: nor does it throw so much light of a fitful +flame-like sort upon or over the subtlest profundities of Blake’s faith.</p> + +<p>Elsewhere, reverting with fresh spirit to the same charge, he demands (or +his spectre for him—“This was spoken by my spectre to Voltaire, Bacon, +&c.”):—</p> + +<p class="poem">“Did Jesus teach doubt? or did he<br /> +Give any lessons of philosophy?<br /> +Charge visionaries with deceiving?<br /> +Or call men wise for not believing?”</p> + +<p>Unhappily the respective answers from Verulam and Cirey have not been +registered by a too contemptuous prophet; they would have been worth +reading.</p> + +<p>The dogma of “Christian humility” is totally <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>indigestible to Blake; he +batters upon it with the heaviest artillery of his “gospel.”</p> + +<p class="poem">“Was Jesus humble? or did he<br /> +Give any proofs of humility?<br /> +Boast of high things with humble tone,<br /> +And give with charity a stone?”</p> + +<p>Again;</p> + +<p class="poem">“When the rich learned Pharisee<br /> +Came to consult him secretly,<br /> +Upon his heart with iron pen<br /> +He wrote ‘Ye must be born again.’<br /> +He was too proud to take a bribe:<br /> +He spoke with authority, not like a Scribe.”</p> + +<p>Nor can the love of enemies be accepted literally as an endurable +doctrine; for “he who loves his enemies hates his friends,” in the mind of +the too ardent and candid poet, who proceeds to insist that the divine +teacher “must mean the mere <i>love</i> of civility” (<i>amour de convenance</i>); +“and so he must mean concerning humility”: for the willing acceptance of +death cannot humiliate, and is therefore no test of “humility”<small><a name="f40.1" id="f40.1" href="#f40">[40]</a></small> in +Blake’s sense; <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>self-sacrifice in effect implies an “honest triumphant +pride.” (Here of course the writer drops for a moment the religious view +and divine meaning of the Passion, and looks towards Calvary from the +simply human side as it appeared to casual bystanders; for here he has +only to deal with what he conceives to be errors in the human conception +of Christ’s human character. “You the orthodox, and you the reasoners, +assert through the mouths of your churches or philosophies that purely +human virtues are actually predicable of Christ, and appeal for evidence +to his life and death. Well and good; we will, to gain ground for argument +with you, forget that the Passion is not, and admit that it is, what you +would call a purely human transaction. Are then these virtues predicable +of it even as such?”) A good man who incurs risk of death by his goodness, +is too “proud” to abjure that goodness and live; here is none of that you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> +call “humility.” Such a man need not have died; “Caiaphas would forgive” +if one “died with Christian ease asking pardon” after your “humble” +fashion:—</p> + +<p class="poem">“He had only to say that God was the devil<br /> +And the devil was God, like a Christian civil;<br /> +Mild Christian regrets to the devil confess<br /> +For affronting him thrice in the wilderness;”</p> + +<p>and such an one might have become a very Cæsar’s minion, or Cæsar himself. +Though of course mainly made up of violent quibbling and perversities of +passionate humour, which falls to work in this vehement way upon words as +some personal relief (a relief easily conceivable in Blake’s case by any +student of his life), all this has also its value in helping us to measure +according to what light we may have in us the stronger and weaker, the +worse and better, the graver and lighter sides of the man. It belongs +evidently to the period when he painted portraits of the dead and +transcribed <i>Jerusalem</i> from spiritual dictation. “This,” he lets us know +by way of prelude or opening note, “is what Joseph of Arimathæa said to my +Fairy,” or natural spiritual part by which he conversed with spirits. Next +in his defiant doggrel he calls on “Pliny and Trajan”—heathen learning +and heathen power or goodness—to “come before Joseph of Arimathæa” and +“listen patient.” “What, are you here?” he asks as if in the direct +surprise of vision. (I will not give these roughest notes in the +perfection of their pure doggrel. As verse, serious or humorous, they are +irreclaimable and intolerable; what empirical value they may have must be +wrung out of them with all haste.)</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>We may now as well look into a later division of the poem, where Christ is +tempted of Satan to obey.</p> + +<p class="poem">“‘John for disobedience bled;<br /> +But you can turn the stones to bread.<br /> +God’s high king and God’s high priest<br /> +Shall plant their glories in your breast<br /> +If Caiaphas you will obey,<br /> +If Herod you with bloody prey<br /> +Feed with the sacrifice<small><a name="f41.1" id="f41.1" href="#f41">[41]</a></small> and be<br /> +Obedient, fall down, worship me.’<br /> +Thunder and lightning broke around<br /> +And Jesus’ voice in thunder’s sound;<br /> +‘Thus I seize the spiritual prey;<br /> +Ye smiters with disease, make way.<br /> +I come your King and God to seize;<br /> +Is God a smiter with disease?’”</p> + +<p>This divine revolt and deliverance of the spiritual human “prey” out of +the hands of law and fangs of religion is made matter of accusation +against him by the “unredeemable part of the world” of which we +spoke—using here as its mouthpiece the “shadowy man” or phantasmal shell +of man, which “rolled away” when the times were full “from the limbs of +Jesus, to make them his prey”:—</p> + +<p class="poem">“Crying ‘Crucify this cause of distress<br /> +Who don’t keep the secrets of holiness.<br /> +All mental powers by diseases we bind:<br /> +But he heals the deaf and the dumb and the blind,<br /> +Whom God has afflicted for secret ends;<br /> +He comforts and heals and calls them friends.’”</p> + +<p>But Christ, instead of becoming a prey to it, himself makes his prey of +this unclean shadow or ghastly ghost<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> of the bodily life now divided from +him—this pestilent nature in bondage to the dæmonic deity, which thought +to consume <i>him</i> by dint of death:</p> + +<p class="poem">“An ever-devouring appetite<br /> +Glittering with festering venoms bright;”<small><a name="f42.1" id="f42.1" href="#f42">[42]</a></small></p> + +<p>puts it off and devours it in three nights; even as now also he feeds upon +it to consume it; being made perfect in pride, that he may overcome the +body by spiritual and “galling pride:” eat what “never was made for man to +eat,” the body of dust and clay, the meal’s meat of the old serpent: as +“the white parts or lights” of a plate are “eaten away with aqua-fortis or +other acid, leaving prominent” the spiritual “outline” (<i>Life</i>, v. 1, ch. +ix., p. 89). This symbol, taken from Blake’s own artistic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> work of +engraving—from the process through which we have with us the Songs and +Prophecies—will give with some precision the exact point indicated, and +might have been allowed of by himself, as not unacceptable or inapposite.</p> + +<p>This final absorption of the destructible body, consumption of “the +serpent’s meat,” is but the upshot of a life of divine rebellion and +“spiritual war,” not of barren physical qualities and temporal virtues:—</p> + +<p class="poem">“The God of this world raged in vain;<br /> +He bound old Satan in his chain:<br /> +Throughout the land he took his course,<br /> +And traced diseases to their source:<br /> +He cursed the Scribe and Pharisee,<br /> +Trampling down hypocrisy.”</p> + +<p>His wrath was made as it were a chariot of fire; at the wheels of it was +dragged the God of this world, overthrown and howling aloud:—</p> + +<p class="poem">“Where’er his chariot took its way<br /> +Those gates of death let in the day;”</p> + +<p>every chain and bar broken down from them, and the staples of the doors +loosed; his voice was heard from Zion above the clamour of axle and wheel,</p> + +<p class="poem">“And in his hand the scourge shone bright;<br /> +He scourged the merchant Canaanite<br /> +From out the temple of his mind,<br /> +And in his body tight does bind<br /> +Satan and all his hellish crew;<br /> +And thus with wrath he did subdue<br /> +The serpent bulk of nature’s dross<br /> +Till he had nailed it to the cross.<br /> +He put on sin in the Virgin’s womb,<br /> +And put it off on the cross and tomb<br /> +To be worshipped by the Church of Rome:”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>not to speak of other churches. One may notice how to the Pantheist the +Catholic’s worship is a worship of sin, even as his own is to the +Catholic. “You adore as divine the fallen nature and sinful energies of +man:” “you, again, the cast-off body wherein Satan and sin were shut up, +that he who assumed it might crucify them.” Sin or false faith or +“hypocrisy” was scourged out of the mind into the body, and the separate +animal body then delivered over to death with the sins thereof—all the +sins of the world garnered up in it to be purged away with fire: and of +this body you make your God. The expressed gird at the “Church of Rome” is +an interpolation; at first Blake had merely written. “And on the cross he +sealed its doom” in place of our two last-quoted lines. Akin to this view +of the “body of sin” is his curious heresy of the Conception; reminding +one of that Christian sect which would needs worship Judas as the +necessary gateway of salvation: for without his sin how could redemption +have come about?</p> + +<p class="poem">“Was Jesus born of a virgin pure<br /> +With narrow soul and looks demure?<br /> +If he intended to take on sin,<br /> +His mother should an harlot (have) been:<br /> +Just such a one as Magdalen,<br /> +With seven devils in her pen.<br /> +Or were Jew virgins still more cursed,<br /> +And more sucking devils nursed?”</p> + +<p>(This ingenious solution, worthy of any mediæval heresiarch of the wilder +sort in a time of leprosy, is also an afterthought. From the sudden +anti-Judaic rapture of grotesque faith or humour into which Blake suddenly +dips hereabouts, one might imagine he had been lately bitten<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> or stung by +some dealer or other such dangerous craftsman of the Hebrew kind; for that +any mortal Jew—or for that matter any conceivable Gentile—would have +credited him to the amount of a penny sterling, no one will imagine. Let +the reader meanwhile endure him a little further, suppressing if he is +wise any comment on Blake’s “insanity” or “blasphemous doggrel”; for he +should now at least understand that this literal violence of manner, these +light or grave audacities of mere form, imply no offensive purpose or +significance, except insomuch as offence is inseparable from any strange +kind of earnestly heretical belief. Neither is Blake here busied in +fetching milk to feed his babes and sucklings. This he could do +incomparably well on occasion, with such milk as a nursing-goddess gave to +the son of Metaneira; but here he carves meat for men—of a strange +quality, tough and crude: but not without savour or sustenance if eaten +with the right sauce and prefaced with a proper grace.)</p> + +<p class="poem">“Or what was it that he took on<br /> +That he might bring salvation?<br /> +A body subject to be tempted,<br /> +From neither pain nor grief exempted,<br /> +Or such a body as could not feel<br /> +The passions that with sinners deal?<br /> +Yes: but they say he never fell.<br /> +Ask Caiaphas: for he can tell.”</p> + +<p>Here follow as given by Caiaphas the old charges of Sabbath-breach, +blasphemy and strange doctrine; given again almost word for word, but with +a nobler frame of context, in the <i>Marriage of Heaven and Hell</i>, where, +and not here, we will prefer to read them. One charge will be allowed to +pass as new coin, having Blake’s image and superscription in lieu of +Cæsar’s.</p> + +<p class="poem"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> +“He turned the devils into swine<br /> +That he might tempt the Jews to dine;<br /> +Since when, a pig has got a look<br /> +That for a Jew may be mistook.<br /> +‘Obey your parents’? What says he?<br /> +‘Woman, what have I to do with thee?<br /> +No earthly parents I confess:<br /> +I am doing my Father’s business.’<br /> +He scorned earth’s parents, scorned earth’s God,<br /> +And mocked the one and the other’s rod;<br /> +His seventy disciples sent<small><a name="f43.1" id="f43.1" href="#f43">[43]</a></small><br /> +Against religion and government,”</p> + +<p>and caused his followers to die by the sword of justice as rebels and +blasphemers of this world’s God and his law: overturned “the tent of +secret sins and its God,” with all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> the cords of his weaving, prisons of +his building and snares of his setting; overthrew the “bloody shrine of +war,” the holy place of the God of battles, whose cruel light and fire of +wrath was poured forth upon the world till it reached “from star to star”; +thus casting down all things of “church and state as by law established,” +camps and shrines, temples and prisons,</p> + +<p class="poem">“Halls of justice, hating vice,<br /> +Where the devil combs his lice.”</p> + +<p>Upon all these, to the great grief of Caiaphas and the grievous detriment +of the God of this world, he sent “not peace but a sword”: lived as a +vagrant upon other men’s labour, kept company by preference with publicans +and harlots.</p> + +<p class="poem">“And from the adulteress turned away<br /> +God’s righteous law, that lost its prey.”</p> + +<p>So we end as we began, at that great practical point of revolt: and +finally, with deep fervour of satisfaction, and the sense of a really +undeniable achievement, the new evangelist jots down this couplet by way +of epilogue:</p> + +<p class="poem">“I’m sure this Jesus will not do<br /> +Either for Englishman or Jew.”</p> + +<p>Scarcely, as far as one sees: we may surely allow him that. And yet, +having somehow steered right through this chaotic evangel, we may as +surely admit that none but a great man with a great gift of belief could +have conceived or wrought it out even as roughly as it is here set down. +There is more absolute worship implied in it than in most works of art +that pass muster as religious;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> a more perfect power of noble adoration, +an intenser faculty of faith and capacity of love, keen as flame and soft +as light; a more uncontrollable desire for right and lust after justice, a +more inexhaustible grace of pity for all evil and sorrow that is not of +itself pitiless, a more deliberate sweetness of mercy towards all that are +cast out and trodden under. This “vision of Christ,” though it be to all +seeming the “greatest enemy” of other men’s visions, can hardly be +regarded as the least significant or beautiful that the religious world +has yet been brought into contact with. It is at least not effeminate, not +unmerciful, not ignoble, and not incomprehensible: other “visions” have +before now been any or all of these. Thus much it is at least; the +“vision” of a perfectly brave, tender, subtle and faithful spirit; in +which there was no fear and no guile, nothing false and nothing base. Of +the technical theology or “spiritualism” each man who cares to try will +judge as it may please him; it goes at least high and deep enough to draw +down or pluck up matter for absolution or condemnation. It is no part of +our affair further to vindicate, to excuse, or to account for the singular +gospel here preached.<small><a name="f44.1" id="f44.1" href="#f44">[44]</a></small></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>Space may be made here (before we pass on to larger things if not greater) +for another stray note or two on separate poems. <i>The Crystal Cabinet</i>, +one of the completest short poems by Blake which are not to be called +songs, is an example of the somewhat jarring and confused mixture of +apparent “allegory” with actual “vision” which is the great source of +trouble and error to rapid readers of his verse or students of his +designs. The “cabinet” is either passionate or poetic vision—a spiritual +gift, which may soon and easily become a spiritual bondage; wherein a man +is locked up, with keys of gold indeed, yet is he a prisoner all the same: +his prison built by his love or his art, with a view open beyond of +exquisite limited loveliness, soft quiet and light of dew or moon, and a +whole fresh world to rest in or look into, but intangible and simply +reflective; all present pleasure or power trebled in it, until you try at +too much and attempt to turn spiritual to physical reality—“to seize the +inmost form” with “hands of flame” laid upon things of the spirit which +will endure no such ardent handling—to translate eternal existence<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> into +temporal, essential into accidental, substantial into attributive; when at +once the whole framework, which was meant otherwise to last out your +present life, breaks up and leaves you stranded or cast out, feeble and +sightless “like a weeping babe;” so that whereas at first you were full of +light natural pleasure, “dancing merrily” in “the wild” of animal or +childish life, you are now a child again, but unhappy instead of +happy—less than a child, thrown back on the crying first stage of +babyhood—having had the larger vision, and lost your hold of it by too +great pressure of impatience or desire—unfit for the old pleasure and +deprived of the new; and the maiden-mother of your spiritual life, your +art or your love, is become wan and tearful as you, “pale reclined” in the +barren blowing air which cannot again be filled with the fire and the +luminous life of vision. In <i>Mary</i> we come again upon the main points of +inner contact between Blake’s mind and Shelley’s. This frank acceptance of +pleasure, this avowal without blushing or doubting “that sweet love and +beauty are worthy our care,” was as beautiful a thing to Shelley as to +Blake: he has preached the excellence of it in <i>Rosalind and Helen</i> and +often elsewhere: touching also, as Blake does here, on the persecution of +it by all “who <i>amant miserè</i>”:—</p> + +<p class="poem">“Some said she was proud, some called her a whore,<br /> +And some when she passed by shut to the door;”</p> + +<p>for in their sight the tender and outspoken purity of instinct and +innocence becomes confounded with base desire or vanity. This rather than +genius or mere beauty seems to be the thing whose persecution by the world +is here symbolized.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>Many others of these brief poems are not less excellent; the slightest +among them have the grace of form and heat of life which are indivisible +in all higher works of poetry. One, <i>The Mental Traveller</i>, is full of +sweet and vigorous verses turned loose upon a somewhat arid and thorny +pasture. By a miracle of patient ingenuity this poem has been compelled to +utter some connected message; but it may perhaps be doubted whether the +message be not too articulate and coherent for Blake. Thus limited and +clarified, the broad chafing current of mysticism seems almost too pure +and too strait to issue from such a source: a well-head of living speech +that bursts up with sudden froth and steam through more outlets than one +at once. To have contrived such an elaborate allegory, so welded link by +sequent link together, seems an exercise of logical patience to which +Blake would hardly have submitted his passionate genius, his overstrained +and wayward will. Separate stanzas may be retraced wellnigh through every +word in other books. The latter part seems again to record, as in two +preceding poems, the perversion of love; which having annihilated all +else, falls at last to feed upon itself, to seek out strange things and +barren ways, to invent new loves and invert the old, to fill the emptied +heart and flush the subsiding veins with perverse passion. Alone in the +desert it has made, beguiled to second youth by the incessant diet of joy, +fear comes upon love; fear, and seeming hate, and weariness and cunning; +fruits of the second graft of love, not native to the simple stock: till +reduced at last to the likeness of the two extremes of life, age and +infancy, love can be no further abused or consumed. These stages of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> love, +once seen or heard of, allure lovers to eat of the strange fruits and herd +with the strange flocks of transforming or transformed desire; the visible +world, destroyed at the first advent of love and absorbed into the soul by +a single passion, is again felt nearer; the trees bring forth their +pleasure, and the planets lavish their light. For the second love, in its +wayward and strange delights, is a thing half material; not alien at least +from material forms, as was the first simple and spiritual ardour of equal +love. Passionate and perverse emotion touches all things with some fervent +colour of its own, mixes into all water and all wine some savour of the +dubious honey gathered from its foreign flowers. Pure first love will not +coexist with outward things, burns up with white fire all tangible form, +and so, an unfed lamp, must at last burn itself down to the stage of life +and sensation which breeds those latter loves. The babe that is “born a +boy,” often painfully begot and joyfully brought forth, I take to signify +human genius or intellect, which none can touch and not be consumed except +the “woman old,” faith or fear: all weaker things, pain and pleasure, +hatred and love, fly with shrieking averted faces from before it. The grey +and cruel nurse, custom or religion, crucifies and torments the child, +feeding herself upon his agony to false fresh youth; an allegory not even +literally inapt. Grown older, and seeing her made fair with his blood and +strong by his suffering, he weds her, and constrains her to do him +service, and turns her to use; custom, the daily life of men, once married +to the fresh intellect, bears fruit to him of profit and pleasure, and +becomes through him nobler than she was; but through<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> such union he grows +old the sooner, soon can but wander round and look over his finished work +and gathered treasure, the tragic passions and splendid achievements of +his spirit, kept fresh in verse or colour; which he deals to all men +alike, giving to the poorest of this divine meat and drink, the body and +the blood of genius, caught in golden vessels of art and rhyme, that sight +and hearing may be fed. This, the supreme and most excellent delight +possible to man, is the fruit of his pain; of his suffering at the hands +of life, of his union with her as with a bride. The “female<small><a name="f45.1" id="f45.1" href="#f45">[45]</a></small> babe” +sprung from the fire that burns always on his hearth, is the issue or +result of genius, which, being too strong for the father, flows into new +channels and follows after fresh ways; the thing which he has brought +forth knows him no more, but must choose its own mate or living form of +expression, and expel the former nature—casting off (as theologians say) +the old man. The outcast intellect can then be vivified only by a new +love, or by a new aim of which love is the type; a bride unlike the first, +who was old at root and in substance, young only in seeming and fair only +through cruel theft of his own life and strength; unlike also the art +which has now in its ultimate expression turned against him; love which +can change the face of former<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> things and scatter in sunder the gatherings +of former friends; love which masters the senses and transfigures the +creatures of the earthly life, leaving no light or sustenance but what +comes of itself. Then follow the stages of love, and the phases of action +and passion bred from either stage; of these we have already taken +account. If this view of the poem be wholly or partially correct, then we +may roughly sum up the problem by saying that its real obscurity arises in +the main from a verbal confusion between the passion of art and the +passion of love. These are always spoken of by Blake in terms which prove +that in his nature the two feelings had actually grown into each other; +had become interfused past all chance of mutual extrication. Art was to +him as a lust of the body; appetite as an emotion of the soul. This +saying, true as to some extent it must be of all great men, was never so +exclusively and finally true of any other man as of this one. It is no bad +sample of Blake’s hurried manner of speech, that having sustained half-way +through his poem an allegory of intellect in its relations to art and to +common life, he should suddenly stumble over a type of his own setting up, +and be led off into a new allegory of love which might better have made a +separate poem. As it is, the two symbols are welded together not without +strength and cunning of hand.</p> + +<p>Some further and final notice may here be taken of the manifold designs +scattered about the MS. pages which we have found so prodigal of verse. +Among the most curious of these we rank a series of drawings not quite so +roughly pencilled as the rest, each inscribed with a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> brief text or +metrical motto. Many of these have been wrought up into the “Gates of +Paradise”; many more remain to speak and shift for themselves as they +may.<small><a name="f46.1" id="f46.1" href="#f46">[46]</a></small> Published as it stands here, the series would exceed in length +the whole of that little book: and there is evidently some thread of +intended connexion between all, worn thin and all but broken. They are +numbered in a different order from that in which they stand, which is +indeed plainly a matter of chance. Several have great grace and beauty; +one in especial, where Daphne passes into the laurel; her feet are roots +already and grasp the ground with strong writhing fibres; her lifted arms +and wrestling body struggle into branch and stem, with strange labour of +the supple limbs, with agony of convulsed and loosening hair. One of the +larger designs seems to be a rough full-length study for Adam and Eve, +with these lines opposite by way of suggested epigraph:</p> + +<p class="poem">“What is it men in women do require?<br /> +The lineaments of gratified desire.<br /> +What is it women do in men require?<br /> +The lineaments of gratified desire.”</p> + +<p>These are barely to be recognised in the crude sketch: the faces are +merely serious and rather grim: though designed to reproduce the sweet +silence of beauty, filling features made fair with soft natural pleasure +and a clear calm of soul and body. There is however a certain grace and +nobility of form in the straight limbs and flowing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> hair, not unworthy the +typical man and woman. Another design which deserves remark is a fine +sketch after the manner of the illustrations to Blake’s prophecies, in +which a figure caught in the fierce slanting current of a whirlwind is +drifted sideways like a drowning swimmer under sea, below the orbit of +three mingling suns or planets seen above thick drifts of tempestuous air. +Other and better notices than ours, of various studies hidden away in the +chaos of this MS., the reader will find on reference to that admirable +Catalogue which will remain always the great witness for Blake’s genius +before the eyes of all who read his life.</p> + +<p>We have done now with the lyrical side of this poet’s work,<small><a name="f47.1" id="f47.1" href="#f47">[47]</a></small> and pass +on to things of less direct attraction. Those who have found any in the +record of his life and character, the study of his qualities and +abilities, may safely follow him further. The perfect sweetness and +sufficiency of his best lyrics and his best designs, we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> may not find; of +these we take now farewell, with thanks and final praise such as we have +to give; but we shall not fail to find the traces of a great art and an +exalted spirit, to feel about us the clear air of a great man’s presence.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="III_THE_PROPHETIC_BOOKS" id="III_THE_PROPHETIC_BOOKS"></a>III.—THE PROPHETIC BOOKS.</h2> + +<p>Before entering upon any system of remark or comment on the Prophetic +Books, we may set down in as few and distinct words as possible the +reasons which make this a thing seriously worth doing; nay, even requisite +to be done, if we would know rather the actual facts of the man’s nature +than the circumstances and accidents of his life. Now, first of all, we +are to recollect that Blake himself regarded these works as his greatest, +and as containing the sum of his achieved ambitions and fulfilled desires: +as in effect inspired matter, of absolute imaginative truth and eternal +import. We shall not again pause to rebut the familiar cry of response, to +the effect that he was mad and not accountable for the uttermost madness +of error. It must be enough to reply here that he was by no means mad, in +any sense that would authorise us in rejecting his own judgment of his own +aims and powers on a plea which would be held insufficient in another +man’s case. Let all readers and all critics get rid of that notion for +good—clear their minds of it utterly and with all haste; let them know +and remember, having once been told it, that in these strangest of all +written<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> books there is purpose as well as power, meaning as well as +mystery. Doubtless, nothing quite like them was ever pitched out headlong +into the world as they were. The confusion, the clamour, the jar of words +that half suffice and thoughts that half exist—all these and other more +absolutely offensive qualities—audacity, monotony, bombast, obscure play +of licence and tortuous growth of fancy—cannot quench or even wholly +conceal the living purport and the imperishable beauty which are here +latent.</p> + +<p>And secondly we are to recollect this; that these books are not each a set +of designs with a text made by order to match, but are each a poem +composed for its own sake and with its own aim, having illustrations +arranged by way of frame or appended by way of ornament. On all grounds, +therefore, and for all serious purpose, such notices as some of those +given in this biography are actually worse than worthless. Better have +done nothing than have done this and no more. All the criticism included +as to the illustrative parts merely, is final and faultless, nothing +missed and nothing wrong; this could not have been otherwise, the work +having fallen under hands and eyes of practical taste and trained to +actual knowledge, and the assertions being therefore issued by authority. +So much otherwise has it fared with the books themselves, that (we are +compelled in this case to say it) the clothes are all right and the body +is all wrong. Passing from some phrase of high and accurate eulogy to the +raw ragged extracts here torn away and held up with the unhealed scars of +mutilation fresh and red upon them, what is any human student to think of +the poet or his praisers? what,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> of the assertion of his vindicated sanity +with such appalling counterproof thrust under one’s eyes? In a word, it +must be said of these notices of Blake’s prophetic books<small><a name="f48.1" id="f48.1" href="#f48">[48]</a></small> (except +perhaps that insufficient but painstaking and well-meant chapter on the +<i>Marriage of Heaven and Hell</i>) that what has been done should not have +been done, and what should have been done has not been done.</p> + +<p>Not that the thing was easy to do. If any one would realize to himself for +ever a material notion of chaos, let him take a blind header into the +midst of the whirling foam and rolling weed of this sea of words. Indeed +the sound and savour of these prophecies constantly recall some such idea +or some such memory. This poetry has the huge various monotonies, the +fervent and fluent colours, the vast limits, the fresh sonorous strength, +the certain confusion and tumultuous law, the sense of windy and weltering +space, the intense refraction of shadow or light, the crowded life and +inanimate intricacy, the patience and the passion of the sea. By no manner +of argument or analysis will one be made able to look back or forward with +pure confidence and comprehension. Only there are laws, strange as it must +sound, by which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> the work is done and against which it never sins. The +biographer once attempts to settle the matter by asserting that Blake was +given to contradict himself, by mere impulse if not by brute instinct, to +such an extent that consistency is in no sense to be sought for or +believed in throughout these works of his: and quotes, by way of ratifying +this quite false notion, a noble sentence from the <i>Proverbs of Hell</i>, +aimed by Blake with all his force against that obstinate adherence to one +external opinion which closes and hardens the spirit against all further +message from the new-grown feelings or inspiration from the altering +circumstances of a man. Never was there an error more grave or more +complete than this. The expression shifts perpetually, the types blunder +into new forms, the meaning tumbles into new types; the purpose remains, +and the faith keeps its hold.</p> + +<p>There are certain errors and eccentricities of manner and matter alike +common to nearly all these books, and distinctly referable to the +character and training of the man. Not educated in any regular or rational +way, and by nature of an eagerly susceptible and intensely adhesive mind, +in which the lyrical faculty had gained and kept a preponderance over all +others visible in every scrap of his work, he had saturated his thoughts +and kindled his senses with a passionate study of the forms of the Bible +as translated into English, till his fancy caught a feverish contagion and +his ear derived a delirious excitement from the mere sound and shape of +the written words and verses. Hence the quaint and fervent imitation of +style, the reproduction of peculiarities which to most men are meaningless +when divested of their old<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> sense or invested with a new. Hence the +bewildering catalogues, genealogies, and divisions which (especially in +such later books as the <i>Jerusalem</i>) seem at first invented only to strike +any miserable reader with furious or lachrymose lunacy. Hence, though +heaven knows by no fault of the originals, the insane cosmogony, blatant +mythology, and sonorous aberration of thoughts and theories. Hence also +much of the special force and supreme occasional loveliness or grandeur in +expression. Conceive a man incomparably gifted as to the spiritual side of +art, prone beyond all measure to the lyrical form of work, incredibly +contemptuous of all things and people dissimilar to himself, of an +intensely sensitive imagination and intolerant habit of faith, with a +passionate power of peculiar belief, taking with all his might of mental +nerve and strain of excitable spirit to a perusal and reperusal of such +books as Job and Ezekiel. Observe too that his tone of mind was as far +from being critical as from being orthodox. Thus his ecstacy of study was +neither on the one side tempered and watered down by faith in established +forms and external creeds, nor on the other side modified and directed by +analytic judgment and the lust of facts. To Blake either form of mind was +alike hateful. Like the Moses of Rabbinical tradition, he was “drunken +with the kisses of the lips of God.” Rational deism and clerical religion +were to him two equally abhorrent incarnations of the same evil spirit, +appearing now as negation and now as restriction. He wanted supremacy of +freedom with intensity of faith. Hence he was properly neither Christian +nor infidel: he was emphatically a heretic. Such men, according to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> +temper of the times, are burnt as demoniacs or pitied as lunatics. He +believed in redemption by Christ, and in the incarnation of Satan as +Jehovah. He believed that by self-sacrifice the soul should attain freedom +and victorious deliverance from bodily bondage and sexual servitude; and +also that the extremest fullness of indulgence in such desire and such +delight as the senses can aim at or attain was absolutely good, eternally +just, and universally requisite. These opinions, and stranger than these, +he put forth in the cloudiest style, the wilfullest humour, and the +stormiest excitement. No wonder the world let his books drift without +caring to inquire what gold or jewels might be washed up as waifs from the +dregs of churned foam and subsiding surf. He was the very man for fire and +faggot; a mediæval inquisitor would have had no more doubt about him than +a materialist or “theophilanthropist” of his own day or of ours.</p> + +<p>A wish is expressed in the <i>Life</i> that we could accompany the old man who +appears entering an open door, star in hand, at the beginning of the +<i>Jerusalem</i>, and thread by his light those infinite dark passages and +labyrinthine catacombs of invention or thought. In default of that +desirable possibility, let us make such way as we can for ourselves into +this submarine world, along its slippery and unpaven ways, under its roof +of hollow sound and tumbling storm.</p> + +<p class="poem">“We shall see, while above us<br /> +The waves roar and whirl,<br /> +A ceiling of amber,<br /> +A pavement of pearl.”</p> + +<p>At the entrance of the labyrinth we are met by huge<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> mythologic figures, +created of fire and cloud. Titans of monstrous form and yet more monstrous +name obstruct the ways; sickness or sleep never formed such savage +abstractions, such fierce vanities of vision as these: office and speech +they seem at first to have none: but to strike or clutch at the void of +air with feeble fingers, to babble with vast lax lips a dialect barren of +all but noise, loud and loose as the wind. Slowly they grow into something +of shape, assume some foggy feature and indefinite colour: word by word +the fluctuating noise condenses into music, the floating music divides +into audible notes and scales. The sound which at first was as the mere +collision of cloud with cloud is now the recognizable voice of god or +demon. Chaos is cloven into separate elements; air divides from water, and +earth releases fire. Upon each of these the prophet, as it were, lays +hand, compelling the thing into shape and speech, constraining the +abstract to do service as a man might. These and such as these make up the +personal staff or executive body of his prophecies. But it would be waste +of time to conjecture how or why he came to inflict upon them such +incredible names. These hapless energies and agencies are not simply cast +into the house of allegoric bondage, and set to make bricks without straw, +to construct symbols without reason; but find themselves baptized with +muddy water and fitful fire, by names inconceivable, into a church full of +storm and vapour; regenerated with a vengeance, but disembodied and +disfigured in their resurrection. Space fell into sleep, and awoke as +Enitharmon: Time suffered eclipse, and came forth as Los. The Christ or +Prometheus of this faith is Orc or Fuzon;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> Urizen takes the place of +“Jehovah, Jove, or Lord.” Hardly in such chaotic sounds can one discern +the slightest element of reason gone mad, the narrowest channel of +derivation run dry. In this last word, one of incessant recurrence, there +seems to flicker a thin reminiscence of such names as Uranus, Uriel, and +perhaps Urien; for the deity has a diabolic savour in him, and Blake was +not incapable of mixing the Hellenic, the Miltonic, and the Celtic +mythologies into one drugged and adulterated compound. He had read much +and blindly; he had no leaning to verbal accuracy, and never acquired any +faculty of comparison. Any sound that in the dimmest way suggested to him +a notion of hell or heaven, of passion or power, was significant enough to +adopt and register. Commentary was impossible to him: if his work could +not be apprehended or enjoyed by an instinct of inspiration like his own, +it was lost labour to dissect or expound; and here, if ever, translation +would have been treason. He took the visions as they came; he let the +words lie as they fell. These barbarous and blundering names are not +always without a certain kind of melody and an uncertain sort of meaning. +Such as they are, they must be endured; or the whole affair must be tossed +aside and thrown up. Over these clamorous kingdoms of speech and dream +some few ruling forces of supreme discord preside: and chiefly the lord of +the world of man; Urizen, God of cloud and star, “Father of jealousy,” +clothed with a splendour of shadow, strong and sad and cruel; his planet +faintly glimmers and slowly revolves, a horror in heaven; the night is a +part of his thought, rain and wind are in the passage of his feet; sorrow +is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> in all his works; he is the maker of mortal things, of the elements +and sexes; in him are incarnate that jealousy which the Hebrews +acknowledged and that envy which the Greeks recognized in the divine +nature; in his worship faith remains one with fear. Star and cloud, the +types of mystery and distance, of cold alienation and heavenly jealousy, +belong of right to the God who grudges and forbids: even as the spirit of +revolt is made manifest in fiery incarnation—pure prolific fire, “the +cold loins of Urizen dividing.” These two symbols of “cruel fear” or +“starry jealousy” in the divine tyrant, of ardent love or creative lust in +the rebellious saviour of man, pervade the mystical writings of Blake. +Orc, the man-child, with hair and flesh like fire, son of Space and Time, +a terror and a wonder from the hour of his birth, containing within +himself the likeness of all passions and appetites of men, is cast out +from before the face of heaven; and falling upon earth, a stronger Vulcan +or Satan, fills with his fire the narrowed foreheads and the darkened eyes +of all that dwell thereon; imprisoned often and fed from vessels of iron +with barren food and bitter drink,<small><a name="f49.1" id="f49.1" href="#f49">[49]</a></small> a wanderer or a captive upon earth, +he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> shall rise again when his fire has spread through all lands to inflame +and to infect with a strong contagion the spirit and the sense of man, and +shall prevail against the law and the commandments of his enemy. This +endless myth of oppression and redemption, of revelation and revolt, runs +through many forms and spills itself by strange straits and byways among +the sands and shallows of prophetic speech. But in these books there is +not the substantial coherence of form and reasonable unity of principle +which bring within scope of apprehension even the wildest myths grown out +of unconscious idealism and impulsive tradition. A single man’s work, +however exclusively he may look to inspiration for motive and material, +must always want the breadth and variety of meaning, the supple beauty of +symbol, the infectious intensity of satisfied belief, which grow out of +creeds and fables native to the spirit of a nation, yet peculiar to no man +or sect, common yet sacred, not invented or constructed, but found growing +and kept fresh with faith. But for all the dimness and violence of +expression which pervert and darken the mythology of these attempts at +gospel, they have qualities great enough to be worth finding out. Only let +none conceive that each separate figure in the swarming and noisy life of +this populous dæmonic creation has individual meaning and vitality. Blake +was often taken off his feet by the strong currents of fancy, and +indulged, like a child during its first humour of invention, in wild +byplay and erratic excesses of simple sound; often lost his way in a maze +of wind-music, and transcribed as it were with eyes closed and open ears +the notes caught by chance as they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> drifted across the dream of his +subdued senses. Alternating between lyrical invention and gigantic +allegory, it is hard to catch and hold him down to any form or plan. At +one time we have mere music, chains of ringing names, scattered jewels of +sound without a thread, tortuous network of harmonies without a clue; and +again we have passages, not always unworthy of an Æschylean chorus, full +of fate and fear; words that are strained wellnigh in sunder by strong +significance and earnest passion; words that deal greatly with great +things, that strike deep and hold fast; each inclusive of some fierce +apocalypse or suggestive of some obscure evangel. Now the matter in hand +is touched with something of an epic style; the narrative and characters +lose half their hidden sense, and the reciter passes from the prophetic +tripod to the seat of a common singer; mere names, perhaps not even +musical to other ears than his, allure and divert him; he plays with +stately cadences, and lets the wind of swift or slow declamation steer him +whither it will. Now again he falls with renewed might of will to his +purpose; and his grand lyrical gift becomes an instrument not sonorous +merely but vocal and articulate. To readers who can but once take their +stand for a minute on the writer’s footing, look for a little with his +eyes and listen with his ears, even the more incoherent cadences will +become not undelightful; something of his pleasure, with something of his +perception, will pass into them; and understanding once the main gist of +the whole fitful and high-strung tune, they will tolerate, where they +cannot enjoy, the strange diversities and discords which intervene.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>Among many notable eccentricities we have touched upon but two as yet; the +huge windy mythology of elemental dæmons, and the capricious passion for +catalogues of random names, which make obscure and hideous so much of +these books. Akin to these is the habit of seeing or assuming in things +inanimate or in the several limbs and divisions of one thing, separate +forms of active and symbolic life. This, like many other of Blake’s +habits, grows and swells enormously by progressive indulgence. At first, +as in <i>Thel</i>, clouds and flowers, clods and creeping things, are given +speech and sense; the degree of symbolism is already excessive, owing to +the strength of expression and directness of dramatic vision peculiar to +Blake; but in later books everything is given a soul to feel and a tongue +to speak; the very members of the body become spirits, each a type of some +spiritual state. Again, in the prophecies of <i>Europe</i> and <i>America</i>, there +is more fable and less allegory, more overflow of lyrical invention, more +of the divine babble which sometimes takes the place of earthly speech or +sense, more vague emotion with less of reducible and amenable quality than +in almost any of these poems. In others, a habit of mapping out and +marking down the lines of his chaotic and Titanic scenery has added to +Blake’s other singularities of manner this above all, that side by side +with the jumbled worlds of Tharmas and Urthona, the whirling skies and +plunging planets of Ololon and Beulah, the breathless student of prophecy +encounters places and names absurdly familiar; London streets and suburbs +make up part of the mystic antediluvian world; Fulham and Lambeth, Kentish +Town and Poland Street, cross the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> courses and break the metres of the +stars. This apparent madness of final absurdity has also its root in the +deepest and soundest part of Blake’s mind and faith. In the meanest place +as in the meanest man he beheld the hidden spirit and significance of +which the flesh or the building is but a type. If continents have a soul, +shall suburbs or lanes have less? where life is, shall not the spirit of +life be there also? Europe and America are vital and significant; we mean +by all names somewhat more than we know of; for where there is anything +visible or conceivable, there is also some invisible and inconceivable +thing. This is but the rough grotesque result of the tenet that matter +apart from spirit is non-existent. Launched once upon that theory, Blake +never thought it worth while to shorten sail or tack about for fear of any +rock or shoal. It is inadequate and even inaccurate to say that he +allotted to each place as to each world a presiding dæmon or deity. He +averred implicitly or directly, that each had a soul or spirit, the +quintessence of its natural life, capable of change but not of death; and +that of this soul the visible externals, though a native and actual part, +were only a part, inseparable as yet but incomplete. Thus whenever, to his +misfortune and ours, he stumbles upon the proper names of terrene men and +things, he uses these names as signifying not the sensual form or body but +the spirit which he supposed to animate these, to speak in them and work +through them. In <i>America</i> the names of liberators, in <i>Jerusalem</i> the +names of provinces, have no separate local or mundane sense whatever; +throughout the prophecies “Albion” is the mythical and typical fatherland +of human<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> life, much what the East might seem to other men: and by way of +making this type actual and prominent enough, Blake seizes upon all +possible divisions of the modern visible England in town or country, and +turns them in his loose symbolic way into minor powers and serving +spirits. That he was wholly unconscious of the intolerably laughable +effect we need not believe. He had all the delight in laying snares and +giving offence, which is proper to his kind. He had all the confidence in +his own power and right to do such things and to get over the doing of +them which accompanies in such men the subtle humour of scandalizing. And +unfortunately he had not by training, perhaps not by nature, the +conscience which would have reminded him that whether or not an artist may +allowably play with all other things in heaven and earth, one thing he +must certainly not play with; the material forms of art: that levity and +violence are here prohibited under grave penalties. Allowing however for +this, we may notice that in the wildest passages of these books Blake +merely carries into strange places or throws into strange shapes such +final theories as in the dialect of calmer and smaller men have been +accounted not unreasonable.</p> + +<p>Further preface or help, however loudly the subject might seem to call for +it, we have not in this place to give; and indeed more words would +possibly not bring with them more light. What was explicable we have +endeavoured to explain; to suggest where a hint was profitable; to prepare +where preparation was feasible: but many voices might be heard crying in +this wilderness before the paths were made straight. The pursuivant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> would +grow hoarse and the outrider saddle-sick long before the great man’s +advent; and for these offices we have no further taste or ability. Those +who will may now, with what furtherance they have here, follow us through +some brief revision of each book in its order.<small><a name="f50.1" id="f50.1" href="#f50">[50]</a></small></p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img1_tmb.jpg" alt="THE BOOK of THEL The Author & Printer Willm Blake. 1789." /><br /> +<a href="images/img1.jpg"><small>Larger Image</small></a></div> +<p> </p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span><i>The Book of Thel</i>, first in date and simplest in tone of the prophecies, +requires less comment than the others. This poem is as the one sister, +feeblest if also fairest, among that Titanic brotherhood of books. It has +the clearness and sweetness of spring-water; they have in their lips the +speech, in their limbs the pulses of the sea. In this book, as in the +illustrations to Blair, the poet attempts to comfort life through death; +to assuage by spiritual hope the fleshly fear of man. The “shining woman,” +youngest and mortal daughter of the angels of God, leaving her sisters to +tend the flocks and close the folds of the stars, fills herself with the +images of perishable things; she feeds upon the sorrow that comes of +beauty, the heathen weariness of heart, that is sick of life because death +will come, seeing how “our little life is rounded with a sleep.” Let all +these things go, for they are mortal; but if I die with the flowers, let +me also die as they die. This is the end of all things, to sleep; but let +me fall asleep softly, not without the lulling sound of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>God’s voice +audible in my ears. The flower makes answer; does God not care for the +least of these? they shall not die, they shall all be changed. She answers +again; the flower is serviceable to God’s creatures, giving food to the +pasturing lambs and flavour to the honey of the gleaning bees: but her +beauty is barren as a lighted cloud’s; wherefore should she live? She is +bidden to seek counsel then of the cloud; and of him she asks the secret +of his glad ephemeral life; for she, not less ephemeral, has no such joy +of her life. Here again she is shown that life and permanence are twain; +the cloud has drunk at the springs of the sun, whence all hours are +renewed; and shall not die though he pass away; for his falling drops find +out the living flowers, and are wedded to the dew in these; and they are +made one before the sun, and kept alive to feed other flowers: and all +these are as women and men, having souls and senses, capable of love and +prayer. But she answers, that of her fair body no cloud or bird gets food, +but the worm only; why should anything survive of her who has been helpful +to nothing? The worm therefore is called to witness; and appears in an +infant’s likeness, inarticulate, naked, weeping; but upon it too the +divine earth has mercy, and the clay finds a voice to speak for it; this +likewise is not the sad unprofitable thing it seems; for the very earth, +baser and liker death than the least thing bred of it, is the bride of +God, a fruitful mother of all his children. “We live not for ourselves;” +else indeed were earth and the worm of earth things mournful and +fruitless. The secret of creation is sacrifice; the very act of growth is +a sacrament: and through this eternal generation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> in which one life is +given for another and shed into new veins of existence, each thing is +redeemed from perpetual death by perpetual change. This secret once made +evident to Thel, her fear is in a measure removed; for the very deathbed +of earth in which she must lie is now revealed as a mother’s bosom, warm +and giving warmth, living and prodigal of life. That God would care for +the least thing he made she knew always; but now knows also that in the +least thing there is something of God’s life infused, which makes it +substantially imperishable. So far one may say the poem is as fluent and +translucent as the merest sermon on faith, hope, and charity could well +be: and not less inoffensive. The earth, who has overheard and gathered up +all the flitting sighs of this unwedded Eve, now unveils to her the +mysteries of the body, bred in the grave whither all sorrows tend and +whence all tears arise. The forces of material nature give way before her; +passing to her own grave, she hears thence a voice lamenting over the +nature of all the senses, their sweet perilous gifts and strange limits, +and all their offices which fill and discolour the days of mortal life. To +this, the question lying at the root of life and under the shadow of +death, nothing makes answer; as though no word spoken upon earth or under +could explain the marvel of the flesh, the infinite beauty and delight of +it, the infinite subtlety and danger; its prodigalities and powers, its +wide capacity and utter weakness. Set face to face with this bodily +mystery, and affrighted at the sudden nakedness of natural life, the soul +recoils; and Thel regains the common air and quiet light of earth. Such, +cut short and melted down, is the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> purport of this poem: a prophecy as +literally as any other of Blake’s, being professedly an inspired +exposition of material things; for none of course pretend to be prophecies +in the inaccurate and vulgar sense of prediction. It is full of small +sweet details, bright and soft as summer grass, regular to monotony in its +cadence until the last division, where the tone suddenly strengthens and +deepens. There and not for the last time the strong imagination of Blake +wrestles with the great questions of physical life, constraining the mute +rebellious flesh as in a fervent and strenuous grasp of spirit, if +perchance it will yield up the heart of its mystery. Throughout the book +his extreme and feminine tenderness of faith speaks more softly and shows +a simpler face than elsewhere. One might almost say that <i>Thel</i> had +overmuch of this gracious and delicate beauty; that the intense faith and +compassion which thus animate all matter give a touch of almost dubious +and effeminate sweetness to the thought and style. Not however justly; for +there is a firm body of significance in the poem, and the soft light +leaves in which the fruit lies wrapped are solid as well as sweet.</p> + +<p>It is well worth while to compare any average copy of <i>Thel</i> with the +smaller volume of designs now in the British Museum, which reproduces +among others the main illustrations of this book. The clear, sweet, pallid +colour of the fainter version will then serve to throw into full effect +the splendour of the more finished work. Especially in the separate copy +of the frontispiece, the sovereignty of colour and glorious grace of +workmanship double and treble its original beauty; give new light and new +charm to the fervent heaven, to the bowing figure of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> the girl, to the +broad cloven blossoms whose flickering and sundering petals release the +bright leaping forms of loving spirits, raindrop and dewdrop wedded before +the sun; and again, where Thel sees the worm in likeness of a new-born +child, the colours of tree and leaf and sky are of a more excellent and +lordly beauty than in any copy known to me of the book itself; though in +all good copies these designs appear full of great and gracious qualities. +Of the book of designs here referred to more must not now be said; not +even of the twelfth plate where the mother-goddess and her fiery +first-born child exult with flying wingless limbs through splendid spaces +of the infinite morning, coloured here like opening flowers and there like +climbing fire, where all the light and all the wind of heaven seem to +unite in fierce gladness as of a supreme embrace and exultation; for to +these better praise than ours has been already given at p. 374 of the +<i>Life</i>, in words of choice and incomparable sufficiency, not less bright +and sweet, significant and subtle, than the most tender or perfect of the +designs described.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img2_tmb.jpg" alt="THE MARRIAGE of HEAVEN and HELL." /><br /> +<a href="images/img2.jpg"><small>Larger Image</small></a></div> +<p> </p> + +<p>In 1790 Blake produced the greatest of all his books; a work indeed which +we rank as about the greatest produced by the eighteenth century in the +line of high poetry and spiritual speculation. <i>The Marriage of Heaven and +Hell</i> gives us the high-water mark of his intellect. None of his lyrical +writings show the same sustained strength and radiance of mind; none of +his other works in verse or prose give more than a hint here and a trace +there of the same harmonious and humorous power, of the same choice of +eloquent words, the same noble command and liberal music of thought; small +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>things he could often do perfectly, and great things often +imperfectly; here for once he has written a book as perfect as his most +faultless song, as great as his most imperfect rhapsody. His fire of +spirit fills it from end to end; but never deforms the body, never singes +the surface of the work, as too often in the still noble books of his +later life. Across the flicker of flame, under the roll and roar of water, +which seem to flash and to resound throughout the poem, a stately music, +shrill now as laughter and now again sonorous as a psalm, is audible +through shifting notes and fitful metres of sound. The book swarms with +heresies and eccentricities; every sentence bristles with some paradox, +every page seethes with blind foam and surf of stormy doctrine; the humour +is of that fierce grave sort, whose cool insanity of manner is more +horrible and more obscure to the Philistine than any sharp edge of +burlesque or glitter of irony; it is huge, swift, inexplicable; hardly +laughable through its enormity of laughter, hardly significant through its +condensation of meaning; but as true and thoughtful as the greatest +humourist’s. The variety and audacity of thoughts and words are +incomparable: not less so their fervour and beauty. “No bird soars too +high if he soars with his own wings.” This proverb might serve as motto to +the book: it is one of many “Proverbs of Hell,” as forcible and as +finished.</p> + +<p>It was part of Blake’s humour to challenge misconception, conscious as he +was of power to grapple with it: to blow dust in their eyes who were +already sandblind, to strew thorns under their feet who were already lame. +Those whom the book in its present shape would perplex<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> and repel he knew +it would not in any form have attracted; and how such readers may fare is +no concern of such writers; nor in effect need it be. Aware that he must +at best offend a little, he did not fear to offend much. To measure the +exact space of safety, to lay down the precise limits of offence, was an +office neither to his taste nor within his power. Those who try to clip or +melt themselves down to the standard of current feeling, to sauce and +spice their natural fruits of mind with such condiments as may take the +palate of common opinion, deserve to disgust themselves and others alike. +It is hopeless to reckon how far the timid, the perverse, or the malignant +irrelevance of human remarks will go; to set bounds to the incompetence or +devise landmarks for the imbecility of men. Blake’s way was not the worst; +to indulge his impulse to the full and write what fell to his hand, making +sure at least of his own genius and natural instinct. In this his greatest +book he has at once given himself freer play and set himself to harder +labour than elsewhere: the two secrets of great work. Passion and humour +are mixed in his writing like mist and light; whom the light may scorch or +the mist confuse it is not his part to consider.</p> + +<p>In the prologue Blake puts forth, not without grandeur if also with an +admixture of rant and wind, a chief tenet of his moral creed. Once the +ways of good and evil were clear, not yet confused by laws and religions; +then humility and benevolence, the endurance of peril and the fruitful +labour of love, were the just man’s proper apanage; behind his feet the +desert blossomed; by his toil and danger, by his sweat and blood, the +desolate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> places were made rich and the dead bones clothed with flesh as +the flesh of Adam. Now the hypocrite has come to reap the fruits, to +divide and gather and eat; to drive forth the just man and to dwell in the +paths which he found perilous and barren, but left safe and fertile. +Churches have cast out apostles; creeds have rooted out faith. Henceforth +anger and loneliness, the divine indignation of spiritual exile, the salt +bread of scorn and the bitter wine of wrath, are the portion of the just +man; he walks with lions in the waste places, not worth making fertile +that others may reap and feed. “Rintrah,” the spirit presiding over this +period, is a spirit of fire and storm; darkness and famine, wrath and +want, divide the kingdoms of the world. “Prisons are built with stones of +Law; brothels with bricks of Religion.” “As the caterpillar chooses the +fairest leaves to lay her eggs on, so the priest lays his curse on the +fairest joys.” In a third proverb the view given of prayer is no less +heretical; “As the plough follows words, so God rewards prayers.” This was +but the outcome or corollary of his main doctrine; as what we have called +his “evangel of bodily liberty” was but the fruit of his belief in the +identity of body with soul. The fear which restrains and the faith which +refuses were things as ignoble as the hypocrisy which assumes or the +humility which resigns. Veils and chains must be lifted and broken. “Folly +is the cloak of knavery; shame is pride’s cloak.” Again; “He who desires +but acts not breeds pestilence.” “Sooner murder an infant in its cradle +than nurse unacted desires.” The doctrine of freedom could hardly run +further or faster. Translated into rough practice, and planted in a less +pure<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> soil than that of the writer’s mind, this philosophy might bring +forth a strange harvest. Together with such width of moral pantheism as +will hardly admit a “tender curb,” leave “a little curtain of flesh on the +bed of our desire,” there is a vehemence of faith in divine wrath, in the +excellence of righteous anger and revenge, to be outdone by no prophet or +Puritan. “A dead body revenges not injuries.” Sincerity and plain dealing +at least are virtues not to be thrown over; Blake indeed could not +conceive an impulse to mendacity, a tortuous habit of mind, a soul born +crooked. This one quality of falsehood remains damnable in his sight, to +be consumed with all that comes of it. In man or beast or any other part +of God he found no native taint or birthmark of this. Upon all else the +divine breath and the divine hand are sensible and visible.</p> + +<p class="poem">“The pride of the peacock is the glory of God;<br /> +The lust of the goat is the bounty of God;<br /> +The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God;<br /> +The nakedness of woman is the work of God.”</p> + +<p>All form and all instinct is sacred; but no invention or device of man’s. +All crafts and creeds of theirs are “the serpent’s meat:” and that a man +should be born cruel and false is barely imaginable. “If the lion was +advised by the fox he would be cunning.” Such counsel was always wasted on +the high clear spirit and stainless intellect of Blake.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img3_tmb.jpg" alt="Proverbs of Hell" /><br /> +<a href="images/img3.jpg"><small>Larger Image</small></a></div> +<p> </p> + +<p>We have given some of the most subtle and venturous “Proverbs of +Hell”—samples of their depth of doctrine and plainness of speech. But +even here Blake rarely indulges in such excess and exposure. There are +jewels in this treasure-house neither set so roughly nor so sharply +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>cut as these; they may be seen in the <i>Life</i>, taken out and reset, so +as to offend no customer. And these sayings must themselves be read by the +light of Blake’s life and weighed against others of his words not less +weighty than they. Apology shall now and always remain as far from us as +it was in life from Blake himself; to excuse and to explain are different +offices. To plead for his acquittal on the base and foolish ground that he +meant no harm, knew not what he did, had no design or desire to afflict or +offend, is no office for his counsel; who must strive at least to speak +not less frankly and clearly than did Blake when he could speak in his own +cause. Neither have we to approve or condemn; but only to endeavour that +we may see the right and deliver the truth as to this man and his life. +“That I cannot live,” he says, in the Butts correspondence, “without doing +my duty to lay up treasures in heaven, is certain and determined, and to +this I have long made up my mind. And why this should be made an objection +to me, while drunkenness, lewdness, gluttony, and even idleness itself +does not hurt other men, let Satan himself explain. The thing I have most +at heart—more than life, or all that seems to make life comfortable +without (it)—is the interest of true religion and science.” His one fear +is to “omit any duty to my station as a soldier of Christ;” a fear that +“gives him the greatest torments;” for “if our footsteps slide in clay, +how can we do otherwise than fear and tremble?” And such books as these +were part of his spiritual taskwork. From whencesoever the inspiration of +them came, inspiration it was and no invention. He is content with that +knowledge; and if it please the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> hearer to call it diabolic, diabolic it +shall be. If he has a devil, he will make the most and the best of him. If +these things come from hell, let us look to it and hold them fast, that we +may see what it is that divides hell from heaven.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“As a new heaven is begun, and it is now thirty-three years since its +advent: the Eternal Hell revives. And lo! Swedenborg is the Angel +sitting at the tomb: his writings are the linen clothes folded up. +Now is the dominion of Edom, and the return of Adam into Paradise; +see Isaiah xxxiv. and xxxv. chap.</p> + +<p>“Without Contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion, +Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human existence.</p> + +<p>“From these Contraries spring what the religious call Good and Evil. +Good is the passive that obeys Reason.</p> + +<p>“Evil is the active springing from Energy.</p> + +<p>“<i>Good is Heaven. Evil is Hell.</i></p> + + +<p class="center"><br />“<span class="smcap">The Voice of the Devil.</span></p> + +<p>“All Bibles or sacred codes have been the causes of the following +Errors.</p> + +<p>“1. That man has two real existing principles—viz., a Body and a +Soul.</p> + +<p>“2. That Energy, called Evil, is alone from the Body; and that +Reason, called Good, is alone from the Soul.</p> + +<p>“3. That God will torment Man in Eternity for following his Energies.</p> + +<p>“But the following contraries to these are True.</p> + +<p>“1. Man has no Body distinct from his Soul, for that called Body is a +portion of Soul discerned by the five Senses, the chief inlets of +Soul in this age.</p> + +<p>“2. Energy is the only life, and is from the Body; and Reason is the +bound or outward circumference of Energy.</p> + +<p>“3. Energy is Eternal Delight.</p> + +<p>“Those who restrain desire to do so because theirs is weak enough to +be restrained; and the restrainer, or reason, usurps its place and +governs the unwilling.</p> + +<p>“And being restrained it by degrees becomes passive, till it is only +the shadow of desire.</p> + +<p>“The history of this is written in ‘Paradise Lost,’ and the Governor, +or Reason, is called Messiah.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>“And the original Archangel, or possessor of the command of the +heavenly host, is called the Devil or Satan, and his children are +called Sin and Death.</p> + +<p>“But in the Book of Job Milton’s Messiah is called Satan.</p> + +<p>“For this history has been adopted by both parties.</p> + +<p>“It indeed appeared to Reason as if Desire was cast out; but the +Devil’s account is, that the Messiah fell, and formed a heaven of +what he stole from the Abyss.</p> + +<p>“This is shewn in the Gospel, where he prays to the Father to send +the comforter or Desire, that Reason may have Ideas to build on, the +Jehovah of the Bible being no other than he who dwells in flaming +fire. Know that after Christ’s death, he became Jehovah.</p> + +<p>“But in Milton the Father is Destiny, the Son a Ratio of the five +Senses, and the Holy Ghost, Vacuum.</p> + +<p>“<span class="smcap">Note.</span>—The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels +and God, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell, is because he was a +true Poet, and of the Devil’s party without knowing it.”</p></div> + +<p>Something of these high matters we have seen before, and should now be +able to allow for the subtle intricate fashion in which Blake labours to +invert the weapons of his antagonists upon themselves. Neither can the +banns of marriage be published between heaven and hell with the voice of a +parish clerk. This prophet came to do what Swedenborg his precursor had +left undone, being but the watchman by the empty sepulchre, and his +writings as the grave-clothes cast off by the risen Christ. Blake’s +estimate of Swedenborg, right or wrong, was, as we shall see, distinct and +consistent; to this effect; that his inspiration was limited and timid, +superficial and derivative; that he was content with leaves and husks, and +had not the courage to examine the root and the kernel of things; that he +clove to the heaven and shrank from the hell of other men; whereas, to men +in whom “a new heaven is begun,” the one must not be terrible nor the +other desirable. To them the “flaming fire”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> wherein dwells a God whom men +call devil, must seem a purer element of life than the starry and cloudy +space wherein dwells a devil whom they call God. It must be remembered +that Blake uses the current terms of religion, now as types of his own +peculiar faith, now in the sense of ordinary preachers: impugning +therefore at one time what at another he will seem to vindicate. Vague and +violent as this overture may appear, it must be followed with care, that +the writer’s intensity of spiritual faith may be hereafter kept in sight. +The senses, “the chief inlets of soul in this age” of brute doubt and +brute belief, are worthy only as parts of the soul. This, it cannot be too +much repeated and insisted on, this and no prurience of porcine appetite +for rotten apples, no vulgarity of porcine adoration for unctuous wash, is +what lies at the root of Blake’s sensual doctrine. Let no reader now or +ever forget, that while others will admit nothing beyond the body, the +mystic will admit nothing outside the soul. That the two extremes, if +reduced to hard practice, might run round and meet, not without lamentably +curious consequences, those may assert who will; it is none of our +business to decide. Even granting that the result will be about equivalent +if one man does for his soul’s sake all that another would do for his +body’s sake, we might plead that the difference of thought and eye between +these two would remain great and important. Indulgence bracketed to faith +and vivified by that vigorous contact with things divine is not (we might +say) the same, whether seen from the actual side of life or from the +speculative, as indulgence cut loose and left to decompose. But these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> +pleas we will leave the mystic to advance, if it please him, on his own +behalf.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="center">“<span class="smcap">A Memorable Fancy.</span></p> + +<p>“As I was walking among the fires of hell, delighted with the +enjoyments of Genius, which to Angels look like torment and insanity, +I collected some of their Proverbs: thinking that as the sayings used +in a nation mark its character, so the Proverbs of Hell show the +nature of the Infernal wisdom better than any description of +buildings or garments. When I came home, on the abyss of the five +senses, where a flat-sided steep frowns over the present world, I saw +a mighty Devil folded in black clouds, hovering on the sides of the +rock; with corroding fires he wrote the following sentence, now +perceived by the minds of men, and read by them on earth:—</p> + +<p class="poem">“‘How do you know but ev’ry Bird that cuts the airy way<br /> +Is an immense world of delight, clos’d by your senses five?’”</p></div> + +<p>Here follow the “Proverbs of Hell,” which give us the quintessence and the +most fine gold of Blake’s alembic. Each, whether earnest or satirical, +slight or great in manner, is full of that passionate wisdom and bright +rapid strength proper to the step and speech of gods. The simplest give us +a measure of his energy, as this:—“Think in the morning, act in the noon, +eat in the evening, sleep in the night.” The highest have a light and +resonance about them, as though in effect from above or beneath; a spirit +which lifts thought upon the high levels of verse.</p> + +<p>From the ensuing divisions of the book we shall give full extracts; for +these detached sections have a grace and coherence which we shall not +always find in Blake; and the crude excerpts given in the <i>Life</i> are +inadequate to help the reader much towards a clear comprehension of the +main scheme.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“The ancient Poets animated all sensible objects with Gods or +Geniuses, calling them by the names and adorning them with the +properties of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> woods, rivers, mountains, lakes, cities, nations, and +whatever their enlarged and numerous senses could perceive.</p> + +<p>“And, particularly, they studied the genius of each city and country, +placing it under its mental deity.</p> + +<p>“Till a system was formed, which some took advantage of and enslaved +the vulgar by attempting to realize or abstract the mental deities +from their objects: thus began Priesthood,</p> + +<p>“Choosing forms of worship from poetic tales;</p> + +<p>“And at length they pronounced that the Gods had ordered such things.</p> + +<p>“Thus men forgot that All deities reside in the human breast.”</p></div> + +<p>From this we pass to higher tones of exposition. The next passage is one +of the clearest and keenest in the book, full of faith and sacred humour, +none the less sincere for its dramatic form. The subtle simplicity of +expression is excellently subservient to the intricate force of thought.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="center">“<span class="smcap">A Memorable Fancy.</span></p> + +<p>“The Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel dined with me, and I asked them how +they dared so roundly to assert that God spoke to them; and whether +they did not think at the time that they would be misunderstood, and +so be the cause of imposition.</p> + +<p>“Isaiah answered, ‘I saw no God, nor heard any, in a finite or +organical perception; but my senses discovered the infinite in +everything, and as I was then persuaded, I remain confirmed, that the +voice of honest indignation is the voice of God. I cared not for +consequences, but wrote.’</p> + +<p>“Then I asked, ‘Does a firm persuasion that a thing is so, make it +so?’</p> + +<p>“He replied, ‘All poets believe that it does, and in ages of +imagination this firm persuasion removed mountains. But many are not +capable of a firm persuasion of anything.’</p> + +<p>“Then Ezekiel said, ‘The philosophy of the East taught the first +principles of human perception. Some nations held one principle for +the origin and some another. We of Israel taught that the Poetic +Genius (as you now call it) was the first principle, and all the +others merely derivative, which was the cause of our despising the +Priests and Philosophers of other countries, and prophesying that all +Gods would at last be proved to originate in ours, and to be the +tributaries of the Poetic Genius. It was this that our great poet +King David desired so fervently and invokes so pathetically, saying +by this he conquers enemies and governs<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> kingdoms; and we so loved +our God, that we cursed in his name all the deities of surrounding +nations, and asserted that they had rebelled; from these opinions the +vulgar came to think that all nations would at last be subject to the Jews.</p> + +<p>“‘This,’ said he, ‘like all firm persuasions, is come to pass, for +all nations believe the Jews’ code and worship the Jews’ God, and +what greater subjection can be?’</p> + +<p>“I heard this with some wonder, and must confess my own conviction. +After dinner, I asked Isaiah to favour the world with his lost works. +He said none of equal value was lost.</p> + +<p>“Ezekiel said the same of his.</p> + +<p>“I also asked Isaiah what made him go naked and barefoot three years? +He answered, the same that made our friend Diogenes the Grecian.</p> + +<p>“I then asked Ezekiel, why he eat dung, and lay so long on his right +and left side? he answered, the desire of raising other men into a +perception of the infinite. This the North American tribes practise; +and is he honest who resists his genius or conscience, only for the +sake of present ease or gratification?”</p></div> + +<p>The doctrine of perception through not with the senses, beyond not in the +organs, as also of the absolute existence of things thus apprehended, is +again directly enforced in our next excerpt; in praise of which we will +say nothing, but leave the words to burn their way in as they may.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“The ancient tradition that the world will be consumed in fire at the +end of six thousand years is true, as I have heard from Hell.</p> + +<p>“For the cherub with his flaming sword is hereby commanded to leave +his guard at the tree of life; and when he does, the whole creation +will be consumed, and appear infinite and holy, whereas it now +appears finite and corrupt.</p> + +<p>“This will come to pass by an improvement of sensual enjoyment.</p> + +<p>“But first the notion that man has a body distinct from his soul is +to be expunged; this I shall do, by printing in the infernal method, +by corrosives, which in Hell are salutary and medicinal, melting +apparent surfaces away and displaying the infinite which was hid.</p> + +<p>“If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to +man as it is, infinite.</p> + +<p>“For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through +narrow chinks of his cavern.”</p></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span>After which corrosive touch of revelation there follows a vision of +knowledge; first, the human nature is cleansed and widened into shape, +then decorated, then enlarged and built about with stately buildings for +guest-chambers and treasure-houses; then the purged metal of knowledge, +melted into form with divine violence, is made fluid and vital, that it +may percolate and permeate the whole man through every pore of his spirit; +then the metal is cast forth and put to use. All forms and forces of the +world, viper and lion, half-human things and nameless natures, serve to +help in this work; all manner of aspiration and inspiration, wrath and +faith, love and labour, do good service here.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“The Giants who formed this world into its sensual existence, and now +seem to live in it in chains, are in truth the causes of its life and +the sources of all activity; but the chains are, the cunning of weak +and tame minds, which have power to resist energy; according to the +proverb, the weak in courage is strong in cunning.</p> + +<p>“Thus one portion of being is the Prolific, the other, the Devouring; +to the devourer it seems as if the producer was in his chains; but it +is not so; he only takes portions of existence and fancies that the +whole.</p> + +<p>“But the Prolific would cease to be Prolific, unless the Devourer as +a sea received the excess of his delights.</p> + +<p>“Some will say, Is not God alone the Prolific?</p> + +<p>“I answer, God only Acts and Is in existing beings or Men.</p> + +<p>“These two classes of men are always upon earth, and they should be +enemies; whoever tries to reconcile them, seeks to destroy existence.</p> + +<p>“Religion is an endeavour to reconcile the two.</p> + +<p>“<span class="smcap">Note.</span>—Jesus Christ did not wish to unite but to separate them, as +in the Parable of sheep and goats! and he says I came not to send +Peace but a Sword.</p> + +<p>“Messiah or Satan or Tempter was formerly thought to be one of the +Antediluvians who are our Energies.”</p></div> + +<p>These are hard sayings; who can hear them? At first sight also, as we were +forewarned, this passage<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> seems at direct variance with that other in the +overture, where our prophet appears at first sight, and only appears, to +speak of the fallen “Messiah” as the same with the Christ of his belief. +Verbally coherent we cannot hope to make the two passages; but it must be +remarked and remembered that the very root or kernel of this creed is not +the assumed humanity of God, but the achieved divinity of Man; not +incarnation from without, but development from within; not a miraculous +passage into flesh, but a natural growth into godhead. Christ, as the type +or sample of manhood, thus becomes after death the true Jehovah; not, as +he seems to the vulgar, the extraneous and empirical God of creeds and +churches, human in no necessary or absolute sense, the false and fallen +phantom of his enemy, Zeus in the mask of Prometheus. We are careful to +note and as far as may be to correct any apparent slips or shortcomings in +expression, only because if left without a touch of commentary they may +seem to make worse confusion than they do actually make. Subtle, trenchant +and profound as is this philosophy, there is no radical flaw in the book, +no positive incongruity, no inherent contradiction. A single consistent +principle keeps alive the large relaxed limbs, makes significant the dim +great features of this strange faith. It is but at the opening that the +words are even partially inadequate and obscure. Revision alone could have +righted and straightened them; and revision the author would not give. +Impatient of their insufficiency, and incapable of any labour that implies +rest, he shook them together and flung them out in an irritated hurried<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> +manner, regardless who might gather them up or let them lie.</p> + +<p>In the next and longest division of the book, direct allegory and +imaginative vision are indivisibly mixed into each other. The stable and +mill, the twisted root and inverted fungus, are transparent symbols +enough: the splendid and stormy apocalypse of the abyss is a chapter of +pure vision or poetic invention. Why “Swedenborg’s volumes” are the +weights used to sink the travellers from the “glorious clime” to the +passive and iron void between the fixed stars and the coldest of the +remote planets, will be conceivable in due time.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="center">“<span class="smcap">A Memorable Fancy.</span></p> + +<p>“An Angel came to me and said, ‘O pitiable foolish young man! O +horrible! O dreadful state! Consider the hot burning dungeon thou art +preparing for thyself to all eternity, to which thou art going in +such career.’</p> + +<p>“I said, ‘Perhaps you will be willing to show me my eternal lot and +we will contemplate upon it and see whether your lot or mine is most +desirable.’</p> + +<p>“So he took me through a stable and through a church and down into +the church vault at the end of which was a mill; through the mill we +went, and came to a cave; down the winding cavern we groped our +tedious way, till a void, boundless as a nether sky, appeared beneath +us, and we held by the roots of trees and hung over this immensity; +but I said, ‘If you please, we will commit ourselves to this void, +and see whether Providence is here also; if you will not, I will.’</p> + +<p>“But he answered, ‘Do not presume, O young man, but as we here +remain, behold thy lot, which will soon appear when the darkness +passes away.’</p> + +<p>“So I remained with him, sitting in the twisted root of an oak; he +was suspended in a fungus, which hung with the head downward into the +deep.</p> + +<p>“By degrees we beheld the infinite Abyss, fiery as the smoke of a +burning city; beneath us at an immense distance was the sun, black +but shining; round it were fiery tracks on which revolved vast +spiders, crawling after their prey; which flew or rather swam in the +infinite deep,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> in the most terrific shapes of animals sprung from +corruption; and the air was full of them, and seemed composed of +them; these are Devils, and are called Powers of the air. I now asked +my companion which was my eternal lot? he said, between the black and +white spiders.</p> + +<p>“But now, from between the black and white spiders a cloud and fire +burst and rolled through the deep blackening all beneath, so that the +nether deep grew black as a sea and rolled with a terrible noise: +beneath us was nothing now to be seen but a black tempest, till +looking east between the clouds and the waves, we saw a cataract of +blood mixed with fire, and not many stones’ throw from us appeared +and sunk again the scaly fold of a monstrous serpent; at last, to the +east, distant about three degrees, appeared a fiery crest above the +waves; slowly it reared, like a ridge of golden rocks, till we +discovered two globes of crimson fire, from which the sea fled away +in clouds of smoke: and now we saw it was the head of Leviathan; his +forehead was divided into streaks of green and purple, like those on +a tiger’s forehead: soon we saw his mouth and red gills hang just +above the raging foam, tinging the black deep with beams of blood, +advancing toward us with all the fury of a spiritual existence.</p> + +<p>“My friend the Angel climbed up from his station into the mill; I +remained alone, and then this appearance was no more; but I found +myself sitting on a pleasant bank beside a river by moonlight, +hearing a harper who sung to the harp, and his theme was, The man who +never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles +of the mind.</p> + +<p>“But I arose, and sought for the mill, and there I found my Angel, +who, surprised, asked me how I escaped?</p> + +<p>“I answered, ‘All that we saw was owing to your metaphysics: for when +you ran away, I found myself on a bank by moonlight hearing a harper. +But now we have seen my eternal lot, shall I show you yours?’ He +laughed at my proposal: but I by force suddenly caught him in my +arms, and flew westerly through the night, till we were elevated +above the earth’s shadow: then I flung myself with him directly into +the body of the sun; here I clothed myself in white, and taking in my +hand Swedenborg’s volumes, sunk from the glorious clime, and passed +all the planets till we came to Saturn: here I staid to rest, and +then leaped into the void, between Saturn and the fixed stars.</p> + +<p>“‘Here,’ said I, ‘is your lot, in this space, if space it may be +called.’ Soon we saw the stable and the church, and I took him to the +altar and opened the Bible, and lo! it was a deep pit, into which I +descended, driving the Angel before me; soon we saw seven houses of +brick; one we entered; in it were a number of monkeys, baboons, and +all of that species chained by the middle, grinning and snatching at +one another, but withheld by the shortness of their chains; however, +I saw that they sometimes grew numerous, and then the weak were +caught by the strong and,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> with a grinning aspect, first coupled with +and then devoured, by plucking off first one limb and then another, +till the body was left a helpless trunk; this, after grinning and +kissing it with seeming kindness, they devoured too; and here and +there I saw one savourily picking the flesh off of his own tail. As +the stench terribly annoyed us both, we went into the mill, and I in +my hand brought the skeleton of a body, which in the mill was +Aristotle’s ‘Analytics.’</p> + +<p>“So the Angel said; ‘Thy phantasy has imposed upon me, and thou +oughtest to be ashamed.’</p> + +<p>“I answered; ‘We impose on one another, and it is but lost time to +converse with you, whose works are only Analytics.’”</p></div> + +<p>The “seven houses of brick” we may take to be a reminiscence of the seven +churches of St. John; as indeed the traces of former evangelists and +prophets are never long wanting when we track the steps of this one. Lest +however we be found unawares on the side of these hapless angels and +baboons, we will abstain with all due care from any not indispensable +analysis. It is evident that between pure “phantasy” and mere “analytics” +the great gulf must remain fixed, and either party appear to the other +deceptive and deceived. That impulsive energy and energetic faith are the +only means, whether used as tools of peace or as weapons of war, to pave +or to fight our way toward the realities of things, was plainly the creed +of Blake; as also that these realities, once well in sight, will reverse +appearance and overthrow tradition: hell will appear as heaven, and heaven +as hell. The abyss once entered with due trust and courage appears a place +of green pastures and gracious springs: the paradise of resignation once +beheld with undisturbed eyes appears a place of emptiness or bondage, +delusion or cruelty. On the humorous beauty and vigour of these symbols we +need not expatiate; in these qualities Rabelais and Dante together could +hardly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> have excelled Blake at his best. What his meaning is should by +this time be as clear as the meaning of a mystic need be; it is but +partially expressible by words, as (to borrow Blake’s own symbol) the +inseparable soul is yet but incompletely expressible through the body. +Whether it be right or wrong, foolish or wise, we will neither inquire nor +assert: the autocercophagous monkeys of the mill may be left to settle +that for themselves with “Urizen.”</p> + +<p>We come now to a chapter of comments, intercalated between two +sufficiently memorable “fancies.”</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“I have always found that Angels have the vanity to speak of +themselves as the only wise; this they do with a confident insolence +sprouting from systematic reasoning.</p> + +<p>“Thus Swedenborg boasts that what he writes is new, though it is only +the Contents or Index of already published books.</p> + +<p>“A man carried a monkey about for a show, and because he was a little +wiser than the monkey, grew vain, and conceived himself as much wiser +than seven men. It is so with Swedenborg: he shows the folly of +churches and exposes hypocrites, till he imagines that all are +religious and himself the single one on earth that ever broke a net.</p> + +<p>“Now hear a plain fact: Swedenborg has not written one new truth.</p> + +<p>“Now hear another: He has written all the old falsehoods.</p> + +<p>“And now hear the reason: He conversed with Angels who are all +religious and conversed not with Devils who all hate religion; for he +was incapable, through his conceited notions.</p> + +<p>“Thus Swedenborg’s writings are a recapitulation of all superficial +opinions, and an analysis of the more sublime, but no further.</p> + +<p>“Hear now another plain fact: Any man of mechanical talents may, from +the writings of Paracelsus or Jacob Behmen, produce ten thousand +volumes of equal value with Swedenborg’s; and from those of Dante or +Shakespeare, an infinite number. But when he has done this, let him +not say that he knows better than his master, for he only holds a +candle in sunshine.”</p></div> + +<p>This also we will leave for those to decide who please, and attend to the +next and final vision. That the fire<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> of inspiration should absorb and +convert to its own nature all denser and meaner elements of mind, was the +prophet’s sole idea of redemption: the dead cloud of belief consumed +becomes the vital flame of faith.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="center">“<span class="smcap">A Memorable Fancy.</span></p> + +<p>“Once I saw a Devil in a flame of fire, who arose before an Angel +that sat on a cloud, and the Devil uttered these words.</p> + +<p>“The worship of God is: Honouring his gifts in other men, each +according to his genius, and loving the greatest men best; those who +envy or calumniate great men hate God, for there is no other God.</p> + +<p>“The Angel hearing this became almost blue, but mastering himself, he +grew yellow, and at last white, pink, and smiling; and then replied, +Thou Idolator, is not God one? and is not he visible in Jesus Christ? +and has not Jesus Christ given his sanction to the law of ten +commandments? and are not all other men fools, sinners, and nothings?</p> + +<p>“The Devil answered; Bray a fool in a mortar with wheat, yet shall +not his folly be beaten out of him: if Jesus Christ is the greatest +man, you ought to love him in the greatest degree; now hear how he +has given his sanction to the law of the ten commandments: did he not +mock at the sabbath, and so mock the sabbath’s God? murder those who +were murdered, because of him? turn away the law from the woman taken +in adultery? steal the labour of others to support him? bear false +witness when he omitted making a defence before Pilate? covet when he +prayed for his disciples, and when he bid them shake off the dust of +their feet against such as refused to lodge them? I tell you, no +virtue can exist without breaking these ten commandments. Jesus was +all virtue, and acted from impulse, not from rules.</p> + +<p>“When he had so spoken, I beheld the Angel who stretched out his arms +embracing the flame of fire, and he was consumed, and arose as +Elijah.</p> + +<p>“<span class="smcap">Note.</span> This Angel, who is now become a Devil, is my particular +friend: we often read the Bible together in its infernal or +diabolical sense, which the world shall have if they behave well.</p> + +<p>“I have also the Bible of Hell, which the world shall have, whether +they will or no.”</p></div> + +<p>Under this title at least the world was never favoured with it; but we may +presumably taste some savour of that Bible in these pages. After this the +book is wound<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> up in a lyric rapture, not without some flutter and tumour +of style, but full of clear high music and flame-like aspiration. Epilogue +and prologue are both nearer in manner to the dubious hybrid language of +the succeeding books of prophecy than to the choice and noble prose in +which the rest of this book is written. The overture must be read by the +light of its meaning; of the mysterious universal mother and her son, the +latest birth of the world, we have already taken account. The date of 1790 +must here be kept in mind, that all may remember what appearances of +change were abroad, what manner of light and tempest was visible upon +earth, when the hopes of such men as Blake made their stormy way into +speech or song.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="center">“A SONG OF LIBERTY.</p> + +<p>1. The Eternal Female groan’d! it was heard over all the Earth.</p> + +<p>2. Albion’s coast is sick silent; the American meadows faint!</p> + +<p>3. Shadows of Prophecy shiver along by the lakes and the rivers, and +mutter across the ocean. France, rend down thy dungeon;</p> + +<p>4. Golden Spain, burst the barriers of old Rome;</p> + +<p>5. Cast thy keys, O Rome, into the deep down falling, even to +eternity down falling;</p> + +<p>6. And weep.</p> + +<p>7. In her trembling hands she took the new-born terror howling:</p> + +<p>8. On those infinite mountains of light now barred out by the +Atlantic sea, the new-born fire stood before the starry King!</p> + +<p>9. Flag’d with grey-browed snows and thunderous visages the jealous +wings waved over the deep.</p> + +<p>10. The speary hand burned aloft, unbuckled was the shield, forth +went the hand of jealousy among the flaming hair, and hurled the +new-born wonder thro’ the starry night.</p> + +<p>11. The fire, the fire is falling!</p> + +<p>12. Look up! look up! O citizen of London, enlarge thy countenance: O +Jew, leave counting gold! return to thy oil and wine; O African! +black African! (go, winged thought, widen his forehead.)</p> + +<p>13. The fiery limbs, the flaming hair, shot like the sinking sun into +the western sea.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>14. Waked from his eternal sleep, the hoary element roaring fled +away.</p> + +<p>15. Down rushed, beating his wings in vain, the jealous King; his +grey-browed councillors, thunderous warriors, curled veterans, among +helms and shields, and chariots, horses, elephants; banners, castles, +slings and rocks;</p> + +<p>16. Falling, rushing, ruining! buried in the ruins, on Urthona’s +dens;</p> + +<p>17. All night beneath the ruins, then their sullen flames faded +emerge round the gloomy King.</p> + +<p>18. With thunder and fire, leading his starry hosts thro’ the waste +wilderness, he promulgates his ten commands, glancing his beamy +eyelids over the deep in dark dismay;</p> + +<p>19. Where the son of fire in his eastern cloud, while the morning +plumes her golden breast,</p> + +<p>20. Spurning the clouds written with curses, stamps the stony law to +dust, loosing the eternal horses from the dens of night, crying, +Empire is no more! and now the lion and the wolf shall cease.</p> + +<p class="center">CHORUS.</p> + +<p>Let the Priests of the Raven of dawn no longer in deadly black with +hoarse note curse the sons of joy; Nor his accepted brethren, whom, +tyrant, he calls free, lay the bound or build the roof; Nor pale +religious letchery call that virginity that wishes but acts not;</p> + +<p class="poem">For everything that lives is Holy.”</p></div> + +<p>And so, as with fire and thunder—“thunder of thought, and flames of +fierce desire”—is this <i>Marriage of Heaven and Hell</i> at length happily +consummated; the prophet, as a fervent paranymph, standing by to invoke +upon the wedded pair his most unclerical benediction. Those who are not +bidden to the bridegroom’s supper may as well keep away, lest worse befall +them, not having a wedding garment. For us there remains little to say, +now that the torches are out, the nuts scattered, the songs silent, and +the saffron faded from the veil. We will wish them a quiet life, and an +heir who may combine the merits and capacities of either parent. It were +pleasant enough, but too superfluous, to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> dwell upon the beauty of this +nuptial hymn; to bid men remark what eloquence, what subtlety, what ardour +of wisdom, what splendour of thought, is here; how far it outruns, not in +daring alone but in sufficiency, all sayings of minor mystics who were not +also poets; how much of lofty love and of noble faith underlies and +animates these rapid and fervent words; what greatness of spirit and of +speech there was in the man who, living as Blake lived, could write as +Blake has written. Those who cannot see what is implied may remain unable +to tolerate what is expressed; and those who can read aright need no index +of ours.<small><a name="f51.1" id="f51.1" href="#f51">[51]</a></small></p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img4_tmb.jpg" alt="" /><br /> +<a href="images/img4.jpg"><small>Larger Image</small></a></div> +<p> </p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span>The decorations of this great work, though less large and complete than +those of the subsequent prophecies, are full of noble and subtle beauty. +Over every page faint fibres and flickering threads of colour weave a net +of intricate design. Skies cloven with flame and thunder,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> half-blasted +trees round which huddled forms of women or men cower and cling, strange +beasts and splendid flowers, alternate with the engraved text; and +throughout all the sunbeams of heaven and fires of hell shed fiercer or +softer light. In minute splendour and general effect the pages of Blake’s +next work fall short of these; though in the <i>Visions of the Daughters of +Albion</i> the separate designs are fuller and more composed. This poem, +written in a sort of regular though quasi-lyrical blank verse, is more +direct and lucid in purpose than most of these books; but the style is +already laxer, veers more swiftly from point to point, stands weaker on +its feet, and speaks with more of a hurried and hysterical tone. With +“formidable moral questions,” as the biographer has observed, it does +assuredly deal; and in a way somewhat formidable. This, we are told, “the +exemplary man had good right to do.” Exemplary or not, he in common with +all men had undoubtedly such a right; and was not slow to use it. Nowhere +else has the prophet so fully and vehemently set forth his doctrine of +indulgence; too Albigensian or antinomian this time to be given out again +in more decorous form. Of pure mythology there is happily little; of pure +allegory even less. “The eye sees more than the heart knows;” these words +are given on the title-page by way of motto or key-note. Above this +inscription a single design fills the page; in it the title is written +with characters of pale fire upon cloud and rainbow; the figure of the +typical woman, held fast to earth but by one foot, seems to soar and yearn +upwards with straining limbs that flutter like shaken flame: appealing in +vain to the mournful and merciless<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> Creator, whose sad fierce face looks +out beyond and over her, swathed and cradled in bloodlike fire and drifted +rain. In the prologue we get a design expressive of plain and pure +pleasure; a woman gathers a child from the heart of a blossom as it +breaks, and the sky is full of the golden stains and widening roses of a +sundawn. But elsewhere, from the frontispiece to the end, nothing meets us +but emblems of restraint and error; figures rent by the beaks of eagles +though lying but on mere cloud, chained to no solid rock by the fetters +only of their own faiths or fancies; leafless trunks that rot where they +fell; cold ripples of barren sea that break among caves of bondage. The +perfect woman, Oothoon, is one with the spirit of the great western world; +born for rebellion and freedom, but half a slave yet, and half a harlot. +“Bromion,” the violent Titan, subject himself to ignorance and sorrow, has +defiled her;<small><a name="f52.1" id="f52.1" href="#f52">[52]</a></small> “Theotormon,” her lover, emblem of man held in bondage to +creed or law, will not become one with her because of her shame; and she, +who gathered in time of innocence the natural flower of delight, calls now +for his eagles to rend her polluted flesh with cruel talons of remorse and +ravenous beaks of shame: enjoys his infliction, accepts her agony, and +reflects his severe smile in the mirrors of her purged spirit.<small><a name="f53.1" id="f53.1" href="#f53">[53]</a></small><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> But he</p> + +<p class="poem"><span style="margin-left: 9em;">“sits wearing the threshold hard</span><br /> +With secret tears; beneath him sound like waves on a desert shore<br /> +The voice of slaves beneath the sun, and children bought with money.”</p> + +<p>From her long melodious lamentation we give one continuous excerpt here. +Sweet, and lucid as <i>Thel</i>, it is more subtle and more strong; the +allusions to American servitude and English aspiration, which elsewhere +distract and distort the sense and scheme of the poem, are here well +cleared away.</p> + +<p class="poem">“I cry Arise, O Theotormon; for the village dog<br /> +Barks at the breaking day; the nightingale has done lamenting;<br /> +The lark does rustle in the green corn, and the eagle returns<br /> +From nightly prey and lifts his golden beak to the pure east;<br /> +Shaking the dust from his immortal pinions, to awake<br /> +The sun that sleeps too long. Arise my Theotormon, I am pure<br /> +Because the night is gone that closed me in its deadly black.<br /> +They told me that the night and day were all that I could see;<br /> +They told me that I had five senses to enclose me up,<br /> +And they enclosed my infinite beam into a narrow circle,<br /> +And sank my heart into the abyss, a red round globe hotburning<br /> +Till all from life I was obliterated and erased.<br /> +<br /> +Instead of morn arises a bright shadow like an eye<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>In the eastern cloud; instead of night a sickly charnel-house.<br /> +But Theotormon hears me not: to him the night and morn<br /> +Are both alike; a night of sighs, a morning of fresh tears.<br /> +And none but Bromion can hear my lamentations.<br /> +<br /> +With what sense is it that the chicken shuns the ravenous hawk?<br /> +With what sense does the tame pigeon measure out the expanse?<br /> +With what sense does the bee form cells? have not the mouse and frog<br /> +Eyes and ears and sense of touch? yet are their habitations<br /> +And their pursuits as different as their forms and as their joy.<br /> +Ask the wild ass why he refuses burdens, and the meek camel<br /> +Why he loves man: is it because of eye, ear, mouth or skin,<br /> +Or breathing nostrils? no: for these the wolf and tiger have.<br /> +Ask the blind worm the secrets of the grave and why her spires<br /> +Love to curl around the bones of death: and ask the ravenous snake<br /> +Where she gets poison; and the winged eagle why he loves the sun;<br /> +And then tell me the thoughts of man, that have been hid of old.<br /> +<br /> +Silent I hover all the night, and all day could be silent,<br /> +If Theotormon once would turn his loved eyes upon me;<br /> +How can I be defiled when I reflect thy image pure?<br /> +Sweetest the fruit that the worm feeds on, and the soul prey’d on by woe;<br /> +The new-washed lamb tinged with the village smoke, and the bright swan<br /> +By the red earth of our immortal river; I bathe my wings<br /> +And I am white and pure to hover round Theotormon’s breast.<br /> +<br /> +Then Theotormon broke his silence, and he answered;<br /> +Tell me what is the night or day to one overflowed with woe?<br /> +Tell me what is a thought? and of what substance is it made?<br /> +Tell me what is joy? and in what gardens do joys grow?<br /> +And in what rivers swim the sorrows? and upon what mountains<br /> +Wave shadows of discontent? and in what houses dwell the wretched<br /> +Drunken with woe forgotten, and shut up from cold despair?<br /> +<br /> +Tell me where dwell the thoughts forgotten till thou call them forth?<br /> +Tell me where dwell the joys of old? and where the ancient loves?<br /> +And when will they renew again and the night of oblivion be past?<br /> +That I might traverse times and spaces far remote and bring<br /> +Comfort into a present sorrow and a night of pain!<br /> +Where goest thou, O thought? to what remote land is thy flight?<br /> +If thou returnest to the present moment of affliction<br /> +Wilt thou bring comforts on thy wings and dews and honey and balm<br /> +Or poison from the desert wilds, from the eyes of the envier?”</p> + +<p>After this Bromion, with less musical lamentation, asks<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> whether for all +things there be not one law established? “Thou knowest that the ancient +trees seen by thine eyes have fruit; but knowest thou that trees and +fruits flourish upon the earth to gratify senses unknown, in worlds over +another kind of seas?” Are there other wars, other sorrows, and other joys +than those of external life? But the one law surely does exist “for the +lion and the ox,” for weak and strong, wise and foolish, gentle and +fierce; and for all who rebel against it there are prepared from +everlasting the fires and the chains of hell. So speaks the violent slave +of heaven; and after a day and a night Oothoon lifts up her voice in sad +rebellious answer and appeal.</p> + +<p class="poem">“O Urizen, Creator of men! mistaken Demon of heaven!<br /> +Thy joys are tears: thy labour vain, to form man to thine image;<br /> +How can one joy absorb another? are not different joys<br /> +Holy, eternal, infinite? and each joy is a Love.<br /> +<br /> +Does not the great mouth laugh at a gift? and the narrow eyelids mock<br /> +At the labour that is above payment? and wilt thou take the ape<br /> +For thy counsellor, or the dog for a schoolmaster to thy children?<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span></span><br /> +Does the whale worship at thy footsteps as the hungry dog?<br /> +Or does he scent the mountain prey, because his nostrils wide<br /> +Draw in the ocean? does his eye discern the flying cloud<br /> +As the raven’s eye? or does he measure the expanse like the vulture?<br /> +Does the still spider view the cliffs where eagles hide their young?<br /> +Or does the fly rejoice because the harvest is brought in?<br /> +Does not the eagle scorn the earth and despise the treasures beneath?<br /> +But the mole knoweth what is there, and the worm shall tell it thee.”</p> + +<p>Perhaps there is no loftier note of music and of thought struck anywhere +throughout these prophecies. For the rest, we must tread carefully over +the treacherous hot ashes strewn about the latter end of this book: which +indeed speaks plainly enough for once, and with high<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> equal eloquence; but +to no generally acceptable effect. The one matter of marriage laws is +still beaten upon, still hammered at with all the might of an insurgent +prophet: to whom it is intolerable that for the sake of mere words and +mere confusions of thought “she who burns with youth and knows no fixed +lot” should be “bound by spells of law to one she loathes,” should “drag +the chain of life in weary lust,” and “bear the wintry rage of a harsh +terror driven to madness, bound to hold a rod over her shrinking shoulders +all the day, and all the night to turn the wheel of false desire;” +intolerable that she should be driven by “longings that wake her womb” to +bring forth not men but some monstrous “abhorred birth of cherubs,” +imperfect, artificial, abortive; counterfeits of holiness and mockeries of +purity; things of barren or perverse nature, creatures inhuman or +diseased, that live as a pestilence lives and pass away as a meteor +passes; “till the child dwell with one he hates, and do the deed he +loathes, and the impure scourge force his seed into its unripe birth ere +yet his eyelids can behold the arrows of the day:” the day whose blinding +beams had surely somewhat affected the prophet’s own eyesight, and left +his eyelids lined with strange colours of fugitive red and green that +fades into black. However, all these things shall be made plain by death; +for “over the porch is written Take thy bliss, O man! and sweet shall be +thy taste, and sweet thy infant joys renew.” On the one hand is innocence, +on the other modesty; infancy is “fearless, lustful, happy;” who taught it +modesty, “subtle modesty, child of night and sleep?” Once taught to +dissemble, to call pure things impure, to “catch virgin joy, and brand it +with the name<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> of whore and sell it in the night;” once corrupted and +misled, “religious dreams and holy vespers light thy smoky fires: once +were thy fires lighted by the eyes of honest morn.” Not pleasure but +hypocrisy is the unclean thing; Oothoon is no harlot, but “a virgin filled +with virgin fancies, open to joy and to delight wherever it appears; if in +the morning sun I find it, there my eyes are fixed in happy copulation:” +and so forth—further than we need follow.</p> + +<p class="poem">“Is it because acts are not lovely that thou seekest solitude<br /> +Where the horrible darkness is impressed with reflections of desire?—<br /> +<br /> +Father of Jealousy, be thou accursed from the earth!<br /> +Why hast thou taught my Theotormon this accursed thing?<br /> +Till beauty fades from off my shoulders, darkened and cast out,<br /> +A solitary shadow wailing on the margin of non-entity;”</p> + +<p>as in a later prophecy Ahania, cast out by the jealous God, being the type +or embodiment of this sacred natural love “free as the mountain wind.”</p> + +<p class="poem">“Can that be love which drinks another as a sponge drinks water?<br /> +That clouds with jealousy his nights, with weepings all the days?<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span></span><br /> +Such is self-love, that envies all; a creeping skeleton<br /> +With lamp-like eyes watching around the frozen marriage-bed.”</p> + +<p>But instead of the dark-grey “web of age” spun around man by self-love, +love spreads nets to catch for him all wandering and foreign pleasures, +pale as mild silver or ruddy as flaming gold; beholds them without +grudging drink deep of various delight, “red as the rosy morning, lustful +as the first-born beam.” No single law for all things alike; the sun will +not shine in the miser’s secret chamber, nor the brightest cloud drop +fruitful rain on his stone threshold; for one thing night<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> is good and for +another thing day: nothing is good and nothing evil to all at once.</p> + +<p class="poem">“‘The sea-fowl takes the wintry blast for a covering to her limbs,<br /> +And the wild snake the pestilence, to adorn him with gems and gold;<br /> +And trees and birds and beasts and men behold their eternal joy.<br /> +Arise, you little glancing wings, and sing your infant joy!<br /> +Arise and drink your bliss! For everything that lives is holy.’<br /> +<br /> +Thus every morning wails Oothoon, but Theotormon sits<br /> +Upon the margined ocean, conversing with shadows dire.<br /> +<br /> +The daughters of Albion hear her woes, and echo back her sighs.”</p> + +<p>It may be feared that Oothoon has yet to wait long before <ins class="correction" title="original: Thetoormon">Theotormon</ins> will +leave off “conversing with shadows dire;” nor is it surprising that this +poem won such small favour; for had it not seemed inexplicable it must +have seemed unbearable. Blake, as evidently as Shelley, did in all +innocence believe that ameliorated humanity would be soon qualified to +start afresh on these new terms after the saving advent of French and +American revolutions. “All good things are in the West;” thence in the +teeth of “Urizen” shall human deliverance come at length. In the same year +Blake’s prophecy of <i>America</i> came forth to proclaim this message over +again. Upon this book we need not dwell so long; it has more of thunder +and less of lightning than the former prophecies; more of sonorous cloud +and less of explicit fire. The prelude, though windy enough, is among +Blake’s nobler myths: the divine spirit of rebellious redemption, +imprisoned as yet by the gods of night and chaos, is fed and sustained in +secret by the “nameless” spirit of the great western continent; nameless +and shadowy, a daughter of chaos, till the day of their fierce and +fruitful union.</p> + +<p class="poem"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> +“Silent as despairing love and strong as jealousy,<br /> +The hairy shoulders rend the links, free are the wrists of fire.”</p> + +<p>At his embrace “she cast aside her clouds and smiled her first-born smile, +as when a black cloud shows its lightnings to the silent deep.”</p> + +<p class="poem">“Soon as she saw the terrible boy then burst the virgin’s cry;<br /> +I love thee; I have found thee, and I will not let thee go.<br /> +Thou art the image of God who dwells in darkness of Africa,<br /> +And thou art fallen to give me life in regions of dark death.”</p> + +<p>Then begins the agony of revolution, her frost and his fire mingling in +pain; and the poem opens as with a sound and a light of storm. It is +throughout in the main a mere expansion and dilution of the “Song of +Liberty” which we have already heard; and in the interludes of the great +fight between Urizen and Orc the human names of American or English +leaders fall upon the ear with a sudden incongruous clash: not perhaps +unfelt by the author’s ear also, but unheeded in his desire to make vital +and vivid the message he came to deliver. The action is wholly swamped by +the allegory; hardly is it related how the serpent-formed “hater of +dignities, lover of wild rebellion and transgressor of God’s Law,” arose +in red clouds, “a wonder, a human fire;” “heat but not light went from +him;” “his terrible limbs were fire;” his voice shook the ancient Druid +temple of tyranny and faith, proclaiming freedom and “the fiery joy that +Urizen perverted to ten commands;” the “punishing demons” of the God of +jealousy</p> + +<p class="poem">“Crouch howling before their caverns deep like skins dried in the wind;<br /> +They cannot smite the wheat nor quench the fatness of the earth;<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>They cannot smite with sorrows nor subdue the plough and spade;<br /> +For terrible men stand on the shores, and in their robes I see<br /> +Children take refuge from the lightnings. * * * *<br /> +Ah vision from afar! ah rebel form that rent the ancient heavens!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 16.5em;">* * * * Red flames the crest rebellious</span><br /> +And eyes of death; the harlot womb oft opened in vain<br /> +Heaves in eternal circles, now the times are returned upon thee.”</p> + +<p>“Thus wept the angel voice” of the guardian-angel of Albion; but the +thirteen angels of the American provinces rent off their robes and threw +down their sceptres and cast in their lot with the rebel; gathered +together where on the hills</p> + +<p class="poem"><span style="margin-left: 9em;">“called Atlantean hills,</span><br /> +Because from their bright summits you may pass to the golden world,<br /> +An ancient palace, archetype of mighty emperies,<br /> +Rears its immortal pinnacles, built in the forest of God<br /> +By Ariston the king of beauty for his stolen bride.”</p> + +<p>A myth of which we are to hear no more, significant probably of the +rebellion of natural beauty against the intolerable tyranny of God, from +which she has to seek shelter in the darkest part of his creation with the +angelic or dæmonic bridegroom (one of the descended “sons of God”) who has +wedded her by stealth and built her a secret shelter from the strife of +divine things; where at least nature may breathe freely and take pleasure; +whither also in their time congregate all other rebellious forces and +spirits at war with the Creator and his laws. But the speech of “Boston’s +angel” we will at least transcribe: not without a wish that he had never +since then spoken more incoherently and less musically.</p> + +<p class="poem">“Must the generous tremble and leave his joy to the idle, to the pestilence,<br /> +That mock him? who commanded this? what God? what Angel?<br /> +To keep the generous from experience, till the ungenerous<br /> +Are unrestrained performers of the energies of nature,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>Till pity is become a trade and generosity a science<br /> +That men get rich by; and the sandy desert is given to the strong?<br /> +What God is he writes laws of peace and clothes him in a tempest?<br /> +What pitying Angel lusts for tears and fans himself with sighs?<br /> +What crawling villain preaches abstinence and wraps himself<br /> +In fat of lambs? no more I follow, no more obedience pay.”</p> + +<p>This is perhaps the finest and clearest passage in the book; and beyond +this point there is not much extractable from the clamorous lyrical chaos. +Here again besides the mere outward violence of battle, the visible plague +and fire of war, we have sight of a subtler and wider revolution.</p> + +<p class="poem">“For the female spirits of the dead pining in bonds of religion<br /> +Run from their fetters reddening and in long-drawn arches sitting.<br /> +They feel the nerves of youth renew, and desires of ancient times.”</p> + +<p>Light and warmth and colour and life are shed from the flames of +revolution not alone on city and valley and hill, but likewise</p> + +<p class="poem">“Over their pale limbs, as a vine when the tender grape appears;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span></span><br /> +The heavens melted from north to south; and Urizen who sat<br /> +Above all heavens in thunders wrapt, emerged his leprous head<br /> +From out his holy shrine; his tears in deluge piteous<br /> +Falling into the deep sublime.”</p> + +<p>Notwithstanding for twelve years it was fated that “angels and weak men +should govern o’er the strong, and then their end should come when France +received the demon’s light:” and the ancient European guardians “slow +advance to shut the five gates of their law-built heaven, filled with +blasting fancies and with mildews of despair, with fierce disease and +lust;” but these gates were consumed in the final fire of revolution that +went forth upon the world. So ends the poem; and of the decoration<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> we +have barely space to say enough. On one page are the visions of the +renewed world, on another the emblems of oppression and war: children +sleeping nestled in the fleece of a sleeping ram with heavy horns and +quiet mouth pressing the soft ground, while overhead shapely branches +droop and gracious birds are perched; or what seems the new-born body of +Orc cast under the sea, enmeshed in a web of water whose waves are waves +of corn when you come to look; maidens and infants that bridle a strong +dragon, and behind them a flight of birds through the clouds of a starry +moonlit night, where a wild swan with vast wings and stretching neck is +bestridden by a spirit looking eagerly back as he clutches the rein; +eagles that devour the dead on a stormy sea-beach, while underneath fierce +pikes and sharks make towards a wrecked corpse that has sunk without +drifting, and sea-snakes wind about it in soft loathsome coils; women and +children embrace in bitter violence of loving passion among ripples of +fruitful flame, out of which rise roots and grasses of the field and laden +branches of the vine. Of all these we cannot hope to speak duly; nor can +we hope to give more than a glimpse of the work they illustrate.</p> + +<p>Throughout the Prophecy of <i>Europe</i> the fervent and intricate splendours +of text and decoration are whirled as it were and woven into spreading +webs or twining wheels of luminous confusion. The Museum copy, not equal +in nobility of colour to some others, is crowded with MS. notes and mottos +of some interest and significance. To the frontispiece a passage of Milton +is appended; to the first page is prefixed a <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>transcript of some verses by +Mrs. Radcliffe concerning a murdered pilgrim, sufficiently execrable and +explanatory; and so throughout. These notes will help us at least to +measure the amount of connexion between the text and the designs; an +amount easily measurable, being in effect about the smallest possible. +Fierce fluctuating wind and the shaken light of meteors flutter or glitter +upon the stormy ways of vision; serving rather for raiment than for +symbol. The outcast gods of star and comet are driven through tempestuous +air: “forms without body” leap or lurk under cloud or water; War, a man +coated with scales of defiled and blackening bronze, handling a heavy +sword-hilt, averts his face from appealing angels; Famine slays and eats +her children; fire curls about the caldron in which their limbs are to be +sodden for food; starved plague-stricken shapes of women and men fall +shrieking or silent as the bell-ringer, a white-haired man with slouched +hat drawn down and long straight cassock, passes them bell in hand; a +daughter clings to her father in the dumb pain of fear, while he with arms +thrust out in repulsion seems to plead against the gathering deluges that +“sweep o’er the yellow year;” mildews are seen incarnate as foul flushed +women with strenuous limbs contorted, blighting ears of corn with the +violent breath of their inflated mouths; “Papal Superstition,” with the +triple crown on a head broader across cheek and jowl than across the +forehead, with bat’s wings and bloodlike garments dripping and rent, leers +across the open book on his knees; behind his reptile face a decoration as +of a cleft mitre, wrought in the shape of Gothic windows that straiten as +it ascends, shows grey upon the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> dead black air; this is “Urizen seen on +the Atlantic; and his brazen book that kings and priests had copied on +earth, expanded from north to south;” all the creeping things of the +prison-house, bloated leaf and dropping spider, crawl or curl above a +writhing figure overgrown with horrible scurf of corruption as with +network; the gaoler leaves his prisoner fast bound by the ankles, with +limbs stained and discoloured; (the motto to this is from “The Two Noble +Kinsmen,” Act ii., Sc. 1., “The vine shall grow, but we shall never see +it,” &c.); snakes and caterpillars, birds and gnats, each after their own +kind take their pleasure and their prey among the leaves and grasses they +defile and devour; flames chase the naked or swooning fugitives from a +blazing ruin. The prelude is set in the frame of two large designs; one of +the assassin waiting for the pilgrim as he turns round a sharp corner of +rock; one of hurricane and storm in which “Horror, Amazement and Despair” +appear abroad upon the winds. A sketch of these violent and hideously +impossible figures is pasted into the note-book on a stray slip of paper. +The MS. mottos are mostly from Milton and Dryden; Shakespeare and +Fletcher, Rowe and Mason, are also dragged into service. The prophecy +itself is full of melody and mist; of music not wholly unrecognisable and +vapour not wholly impermeable. In a lull of intermittent war, the gods of +time and space awake with all their children; Time bids them “seize all +the spirits of life and bind their warbling joys to our loud strings, bind +all the nourishing sweets of earth to give us bliss.” Orc, the fiery +spirit of revolution, first-born of Space, his father summons to arise; +“and we will crown thy head with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> garlands of the ruddy vine; for now thou +art bound; and I may see thee in the hour of bliss, my eldest born.” +Allegory, here as always, is interfused with myth in a manner at once +violent and intricate; but in this book the mere mythologic fancy of Blake +labours for the most part without curb or guide. Enitharmon, the universal +or typical woman, desires that “woman may have dominion” for a space over +all the souls upon earth; she descends and becomes visible in the red +light of Orc; and she charges other spirits born of her and Los to “tell +the human race that woman’s love is sin,” for thus the woman will have +power to refuse or accede, to starve or satiate the perverted loves and +lives of man; “that an eternal life awaits the worms of sixty winters, in +an allegorical abode where existence hath never come; forbid all joy, and +from her childhood shall the little female spread nets in every secret +path.” To this end the goddess of Space calls forth her chosen children, +the “horned priest” of animal nature, the “silver-bowed queen” of desolate +places, the “prince of the sun” with his innumerable race “thick as the +summer stars; each one, ramping, his golden mane shakes, and thine eyes +rejoice because of strength, O Rintrah, furious King.” Moon and sun, +spirit and flesh, all lovely jealous forces and mysteries of the natural +world are gathered together under her law, that throughout the eighteen +Christian centuries she may have her will of the world. For so long nature +has sat silent, her harps out of tune; the goddess herself has slept out +all those years, a dream among dreams, the ghostly regent of a ghostly +generation. The angels of Albion, satellites once of the ancient Titan,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> +are smitten now with their own plagues, crushed in their own +council-house, and rise again but to follow after Rintrah, the fiery +minister of his mother’s triumph. Him the chief “Angel” follows to “his +ancient temple serpent-formed,” ringed round with Druid oaks, massive with +pillar and porch built of precious stones; “such eternal in the heavens, +of colours twelve, few known on earth, give light in the opaque.”</p> + +<p class="poem">“Placed in the order of the stars, when the five senses whelmed<br /> +In deluge o’er the earth-born man: then bound the flexile eyes<br /> +Into two stationary orbs concentrating all things:<br /> +The ever-varying spiral ascents to the heaven of heavens<br /> +Were bended downward, and the nostril’s golden gates shut,<br /> +Turned outward, barred and petrified against the infinite.<br /> +Thought changed the infinite to a serpent; that which pitieth<br /> +To a devouring flame; and man fled from its face and hid<br /> +In forests<small><a name="f54.1" id="f54.1" href="#f54">[54]</a></small> of night; then all the eternal forests were divided<br /> +Into earths rolling in circles of space, that like an ocean rushed<br /> +And overwhelmed all except this finite wall of flesh.<br /> +Then was the serpent temple formed, image of (the) infinite<br /> +Shut up in finite revolutions,<small><a name="f55.1" id="f55.1" href="#f55">[55]</a></small> and man became an Angel;<br /> +Heaven a mighty circle turning; God a tyrant crowned.”</p> + +<p>Thus again recurs the doctrine that the one inlet left us for spiritual +perception—that namely of the senses—is but one and the least of many +inlets and channels of communication now destroyed or perverted by the +creative demon; a tenet which once well grasped and digested by the +disciple will further his understanding of Blake more than anything else +can: will indeed, pushed to the full extreme of its logical results, +elucidate and justify much<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> that seems merely condemnable and chaotic. To +resume our somewhat halting and bewildered fable: the southern porch of +this temple, “planted thick with trees of blackest leaf, and in a vale +obscure, enclosed the stone of night; oblique it stood, o’erhung with +purple flowers and berries red;” image of the human intellect “once open +to the heavens” as the south to the sun; now, as the head of fallen man, +“overgrown with hair and covered with a stony roof;” sunk deep “beneath +the attractive north,” where evil spirits are strongest, where the +whirlpool of speculation sucks in the soul and entombs it. Standing on +this, as on a watch-tower, the “Angel” beholds Religion enthroned over +Europe, and the pale revolution of cloud and fire through the night of +space and time; beholds “Albion,” the home once of ancient freedom and +faith, trodden underfoot by laws and churches, that the God of religion +may have wherewithal to “feed his soul with pity.” At last begins the era +of rebellion and change; the fires of Orc lay hold upon law<small><a name="f56.1" id="f56.1" href="#f56">[56]</a></small> and +gospel; yet for a little while the ministers of his mother have power to +fight against him, and she, allied now and making common cause with the +God alien to her children, “laughs in her sleep,” seeing through the veil +and vapour of dreams the subjection of male to female, the false attribute +of unnatural power given to women by faith and fear. Not as yet can the +Promethean fire utterly dissolve the clouds of Urizen, though the flesh of +the ministering angel of religion is already consumed or consuming;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> nor +as yet can the trumpet of revolution summon the dead to judgment. That +first blast of summons must be blown by material science, which destroys +the letter of the law and the text of the covenant. When the “mighty +spirit” of Newton had seized the trumpet and blown it,</p> + +<p class="poem">“Yellow as leaves of Autumn the myriads of Angelic hosts<br /> +Fell thro’ the wintry skies seeking their graves,<br /> +Rattling their hollow bones in howling and lamentation;”</p> + +<p>as to this day they do, and did in Blake’s time, throughout whole +barrowfuls of controversial “apologies” and “evidences.” Then the +mother-goddess awoke from her eighteen centuries of sleep, the “Christian +era” being now wellnigh consummated, and all those years “fled as if they +had not been;” she called her children around her, by many monstrous names +and phrases of chaotic invocation; comfort and happiness here, there sweet +pestilence and soft delusion; the “seven churches of Leutha” seek the love +of “Antamon,” symbolic of Christian faith reconciled to “pagan” indulgence +and divorced from Jewish prohibition; even as we find in the prophet +himself equal faith in sensual innocence and spiritual truth. Of “the soft +Oothoon” the great goddess asks now “Why wilt thou give up woman’s +secrecy, my melancholy child? Between two moments bliss is ripe.” Last she +calls upon Orc; “Smile, son of my afflictions; arise and give our +mountains joy of thy red light.”</p> + +<p class="poem">“She ceased; for all were forth at sport beneath the solemn moon,<br /> +Waking the stars of Urizen with their immortal songs,<br /> +That nature felt thro’ all her pores the enormous revelry.<br /> +Till morning oped her eastern gate;<br /> +Then every one fled to his station; and Enitharmon wept.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>But with the dawn of that morning Orc descended in fire, “and in the +vineyards of red France appeared the light of his fury.” The revolution +begins; all space groans; and lion and tiger are gathered together after +their prey: the god of time arises as one out of a trance,</p> + +<p class="poem">“And with a cry that shook all nature to the utmost pole<br /> +Called all his sons to the strife of blood.”</p> + +<p>Our study of the <i>Europe</i> might bring more profit if we could have genuine +notes appended to the text as well as to the designs. Such worth or beauty +as the poem has burns dim and looms distant by comparison; but there is in +it more of either than we have here time or means to indicate. At least +the prelude so strangely selected for citation and thrown loose upon the +pages of the biography in so crude and inexplicable a manner, may now be +seen to have some tangible or presumable sense. The spirit of Europe rises +revealed in the advent of revolution, sick of time and travail; pleading +with the mother-goddess, Cybele of this mythology; wrapping about her +veils of water and garments of cloud, in vain; “the red sun and moon and +all the overflowing stars rain down prolific pains.” Out of her +overlaboured womb arise forms and forces of change, fugitive fires of +wrath, sonorous shapes of fear; and they take substance in space, but +bring to their mother no help or profit, no comfort or light; to the +virgin daughter of America freedom has come and fruitful violence of love, +but not to the European mother. She has no hope in all the infinity of +space and time; “who shall bind the infinite with an eternal band, to +compass it with swaddling bands?” By comparison of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> the two preludes the +relations of the two kindred poems may be better understood: the one is +plaintive as the voice of a world in pain, and decaying kingdom by +kingdom; the other fierce and hopeful as the cry of a nation in travail, +whose agony is not that of death, but rather that of birth.</p> + +<p><i>The First Book of Urizen</i> is perhaps more shapeless and chaotic at a +first glimpse than any other of these prose poems. Clouds of blood, +shadows of horror, worlds without form and void, rise and mingle and wane +in indefinite ways, with no special purpose or appreciable result. The +myth here is of an active but unprolific God, warring with shapes of the +wilderness, and at variance with the eternals: beaten upon by Time, who +figures always in all his various shapes and actions as the saviour and +friend of man. “Earth was not, nor globes of attraction; the will of the +Immortal expanded or contracted at will his all-flexible senses. Death was +not; but eternal life sprang.” (1. Urizen, ii. 1.) Urizen, the God of +restraint, creator of prohibition, whose laws are forbearance and +abstinence, is for ages divided from Eternity and at war with Time; “long +periods in burning fires labouring, till hoary, and age-broken, and aged, +in despair and the shadows of death.” (1. Urizen, iii. 6.) In time the +formless God takes form, creating and assuming feature by feature; bones, +heart, eyes, ears, nostrils, throat with tongue, hands with feet; an age +of agony being allotted to each of the seven created features; still +toiling in fire and beset by snares, which the Time-Spirit kindles and +weaves to avert and destroy in its birth the desolate influence of the +Deity who forbids and restrains.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> These transformations of Urizen make up +some of Blake’s grandest and strangest prophetic studies. First the spinal +skeleton, with branchwork of rib and savage nudity of joint and clavicle, +shaped mammoth-wise, in grovelling involution of limb. In one copy at +least these bones are touched with dim green and gold colour; such a faint +fierce tint as one might look for on the cast scales or flakes of dragons +left astrand in the ebb of a deluge. Next a huge fettered figure with +blind shut eyes overflowing into tears, with convulsed mouth and sodden +stream of beard: then bones painfully gathering flesh, twisted forms round +which flames break out fourfold, tortured elemental shapes that plunge and +writhe and moan. Until Time, divided against himself, brings forth Space, +the universal eternal female element, called Pity among the gods, who +recoil in fear from the dawn of human creation and division. Of these two +divinities, called in the mythology Los and Enitharmon, is born the +man-child Orc. “The dead heard the voice of the child and began to awake +from sleep; all things heard the voice of the child and began to awake to +life.” (vii. 5.) Here again we may spare a word or two for that splendid +figure (p. 20) of the new-born child falling aslant through cloven fire +that curls and trembles into spiral blossoms of colour and petals of +feverish light. And the children of Urizen were Thiriel, born from cloud; +Utha, from water; Grodna, from earth; Fuzon, “first-begotten, last-born,” +from fire—“and his daughters from green herbs and cattle, from monsters +and worms of the pit. He cursed both sons and daughters; for he saw that +no flesh nor spirit could keep his iron laws one moment.” (viii. 3, 4.)<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> +Then from his sorrows for these his children begotten on the material body +of nature, the web of religion begins to unwind and expand, “throwing out +from his sorrowing soul, the dungeon-like heaven dividing” (viii. 6)—and +the knotted meshes of the web to involve all races and cities. “The Senses +inward rushed shrinking beneath the dark net of infection: till the +shrunken eyes, clouded over, discerned not the woven hypocrisy; but the +streaky slime in their heavens, brought together by narrowing perceptions, +appeared transparent air; for their eyes grew small like the eyes of a +man. Six days they shrank up from existence, and the seventh day they +rested, and they blessed the seventh day, in sick hope; and forgot their +eternal life.” (1. Urizen, ix. 1, 2, 3.) Hence grows the animal tyranny of +gravitation, and hence also the spiritual tyranny of law; “they lived a +period of years, then left a noisome body to the jaws of devouring +darkness; and their children wept, and built tombs in the desolate places; +and formed laws of prudence and called them the eternal laws of God.” (ix. +4, 5.) Seeing these his brethren degraded into life and debased into +flesh, the son of the fire, Fuzon, called together “the remaining children +of Urizen; and they left the pendulous earth: they called it Egypt, and +left it. And the salt ocean rolled englobed.” (ix. 8, 9.) The freer and +stronger spirits left the world of men to the dominion of earth and water; +air and fire were withdrawn from them, and there were left only the +heaviness of imprisoning clay and the bitterness of violent sea.</p> + +<p>This is a hurried and blotted sketch of the main myth, which is worth +following up by those who would enter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> on any serious study of Blake’s +work; all that is here indicated in dim hints being afterwards assumed as +the admitted groundwork of later and larger myths. In this present book +(and in it only) the illustrative work may be said almost to overweigh and +stifle the idea illustrated. Strange semi-human figures, clad in sombre or +in fiery flesh, racing through fire or sinking through water, allure and +confuse the fancy of the student. Every page vibrates with light and +colour; on none of his books has the artist lavished more noble profusion +of decorative work. It is worth observing that while some copies are +carefully numbered throughout “First Book,” in others the word “First” is +erased from every leaf: as in effect the Second Book never was put forth +under that title. Next year however the <i>Book of Ahania</i> came out—if one +may say as much of a quarto of six leaves which has hardly yet emerged +into sight of two or three readers. This we may take—or those may who +please—to be the <i>Second Book of Urizen</i>. It is among the choicer spoils +of Blake, not as yet cast into the public treasury; for the Museum has no +copy, though possessing (in its blind confused way) duplicates of +<i>America</i>, <i>Albion</i>, and <i>Los</i>. Some day, one must hope, there will at +least be a complete accessible collection of Blake’s written works +arranged in rational order for reference. Till the dawn of that day people +must make what shift they can in chaos.</p> + +<p>In <i>Ahania</i>, though a fine and sonorous piece of wind-music, we have not +found many separate notes worth striking. Formless as these poems may +seem, it is often the floating final impression of power which makes them<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> +memorable and valuable, rather than any stray gleam of purple or glitter +of pearl on the skirt. Thus the myth runs—to the best of its power; but +the tether of it is but short.</p> + +<p>Fuzon, born of the fiery part of the God of nature, in revolt against his +father, divides him in twain as with a beam of fire; the desire of Urizen +is separated from him; this divided soul, “his invisible lust,” he sees +now as she is apart from himself, and calls Sin; seizes her on his +mountains of jealousy; kisses and weeps over her, then casts her forth and +hides her in cloud, in dumb distance of mysterious space; “jealous though +she was invisible.” Divided from him, she turns to mere shadow “unseen, +unbodied, unknown, the mother of Pestilence.” But the beam cast by Fuzon +was light upon earth—light to “Egypt,” the house of bondage and place of +captivity for the outcast human children of Urizen. Thus far the book +floats between mere allegory and creative myth; not difficult however to +trace to the root of its purport. From this point it grows, if not wilder +in words, still mistier in build of limb and shape of feature. Fuzon, +smitten by the bow of Urizen, seems to typify dimly the Christian or +Promethean sacrifice; the revolted God or son of God, who giving to men +some help or hope to enlighten them, is slain for an atonement to the +wrath of his father: though except for the mythical sonship Prometheus +would be much the nearer parallel. The bow, formed in secresy of the +nerves of a slain dragon “scaled and poisonous-horned,” begotten of the +contemplations of Urizen and destroyed by him in combat, must be another +type, half conceived and hardly at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> all wrought out, of the secret and +jealous law of introspective faith divided against itself and the god of +its worship, but strong enough to smite the over-confident champion of men +even in his time of triumph, when he “thought Urizen slain by his wrath: I +am God, said he, eldest of things.” (II. 8.) Suddenly the judgment of the +jealous wrath of God falls upon him; the rock hurled as an arrow “enters +his bosom; his beautiful visage, his tresses that gave light to the +mornings of heaven, were smitten with darkness.—But the rock fell upon +the earth, Mount Sinai, in Arabia:” being indeed a type of the moral law +of Moses, sent to destroy and suppress the native rebellious energies and +active sins of men. Here one may catch fast hold of one thing—the +identity of Blake’s “Urizen,” at least for this time, with the Deity of +the earlier Hebrews; the God of the Law and Decalogue rather than of Job +or the Prophets. “On the accursed tree of mystery” that shoots up under +his heel from “tears and sparks of vegetation” fallen on the barren rock +of separation, where “shrunk away from Eternals,” alienated from the +ancient freedom of the first Gods or Titans, averse to their large and +liberal laws of life, the jealous God sat secret—on the topmost stem of +this tree Urizen “nailed the corpse of his first-begotten.” Thenceforward +there fell upon the half-formed races of men sorrow only and pestilence, +barren pain of unprofitable fruit and timeless burden of desire and +disease. One need not sift the myth too closely; it would be like +winnowing water and weighing cloud with scale or sieve. The two +illustrations, it may here be said, are very slight—mere hints of a +design, and merely touched with colour.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> In the frontispiece Ahania, +divided from Urizen, floats upon a stream of wind between hill and cloud, +with haggard limbs and straightened spectral hair; on the last leaf a dim +Titan, wounded and bruised, lies among rocks flaked with leprous lichen +and shaggy with bloodlike growths of weed and moss. One final glimpse we +may take of Ahania after her division—the love of God, as it were, parted +from God, impotent therefore and a shadow, if not rather a plague and +blight; mercy severed from justice, and thus made a worse thing than +useless. Such may be the hinted meaning, or at least some part of it; but +the work, it must be said, holds by implication dim and great suggestions +of something more than our analytic ingenuities can well unravel by this +slow process of suggestion. Properly too Ahania seems rather to represent +the divine generative desire or love, translated on earth into sexual +expression; the female side of the creative power—mother of all things +made.</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“The lamenting voice of Ahania weeping upon the void and round the +Tree of Fuzon. Distant in solitary night her voice was heard, but no +form had she; but her tears from clouds eternal fell round the Tree. +And the voice cried ‘Ah Urizen! Love! Flower of morning! I weep on +the verge of non-entity: how wide the abyss between Ahania and thee! +I lie on the verge of the deep, I see thy dark clouds ascend; I see +thy black forests and floods, a horrible waste to my eyes. Weeping I +walk over the rocks, over dens, and through valleys of death. Why +dost thou despise Ahania, to cast me from thy bright presence into +the world of loneness? I cannot touch his hand; nor weep on his +knees; nor hear his voice and bow; nor see his eyes and joy; nor hear +his footsteps, and my heart leap at the lovely sound; I cannot kiss +the place where his bright feet have trod: but I wander on the rocks +with hard necessity. Where is my golden palace? where my ivory bed? +where the joy of my morning hour? where the sons of eternity singing +to awake bright Urizen my king to arise to the mountain sport, to the +bliss of eternal valleys, to awake my king in the morn, to embrace +Ahania’s joy on the breath of his open bosom; from my soft cloud of +dew to fall in showers of life on his harvest? When he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> gave my happy +soul to the sons of eternal joy; when he took the daughters of life +into my chambers of love; when I found babes of bliss on my beds and +bosoms of milk in my chambers, filled with eternal seed. O! eternal +births sung round Ahania in interchange sweet of their joys; swelled +with ripeness and fat with fatness, bursting in clouds my odours, my +ripe figs and rich pomegranates, in infant joy at thy feet, O Urizen, +sported and sang: then thou with thy lap full of seed, with thy hand +full of generous fire, walkedst forth from the clouds of morning, on +the virgins of springing joy, on the human soul, to cast the seed of +eternal science. The sweat poured down thy temples, to Ahania +returned in evening; the moisture awoke to birth my mother’s joys +sleeping in bliss. But now alone over rocks, mountains—cast out from +thy lovely bosom—cruel jealousy! selfish fear! self-destroying! how +can delight renew in these chains of darkness, where bones of beasts +are strewn on the bleak and snowy mountains, where bones from the +birth are buried before they see the light?’”—<i>Ahania</i>, ch. v., v. 1-14.</p> + +<p>With the prolonged melody of this lament the <i>Book of Ahania</i> winds itself +up; one of the most musical among this crowd of singing shadows. In the +same year the last and briefest of this first prophetic series was +engraved. The <i>Song of Los</i>, broken into two divisions headed <i>Africa</i> and +<i>Asia</i>, has more affinity to <i>Urizen</i> and <i>Ahania</i> than to <i>Europe</i> and +<i>America</i>. The old themes of delusion and perversion are once again +rehandled; not without vigorous harmonies of choral expression. The +illustrations are of special splendour, as though designed to atone for +the lean and denuded form in which <i>Ahania</i> had been sent forth. In the +frontispiece a grey old giant, clothed from the waist only with heavy +raiment of livid and lurid white, bows down upon a Druid altar before the +likeness of a darkened sun low-hung in heaven, filled with sombre and +fiery forms of things, and shooting out upon each quarter a broad +reflected ray like the reflection struck by sunlight from a broad bare +sword-blade, but touched also, as with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> strange infection, with flakes of +deadly colour that vibrate upon the starless solid ground of an +intolerable night. Less of menace with more of sadness is in the landscape +and sky on the title-page: a Titan, with one weighty hand lying on a +gigantic skull, rests at the edge of a green sloping moor, himself seeming +a grey fragment of moorland rock; brown fire of waste grass or rusted +flower stains crag and bent all round him; the sky is all night and fire, +bitter red and black. On the first page a serpent, splendid with blood-red +specks and scales of greenish blue, darts the cloven flame of its tongue +against a brilliant swarm of flies; and again throughout the divided lines +a network of fair tortuous things, of flickering leaf and sinuous tendril +and strenuous root, flashes and curls from margin to margin.</p> + +<p>This song is the song of Time, sung to the four harps of the world, each +continent a harp struck by Time as by a harper. In brief dim words it +celebrates the end of the world of the patriarchs where faith and freedom +were one, the advent of the iron laws and ages, when God the Accuser gave +his laws to the nations by the hands of the children of time: when to the +extreme east was given mere abstract philosophy for faith instead of clear +pure belief, and man became slave to the elements, the slave and not the +lord of the nature of things; but not yet was philosophy a mere matter of +the five senses. Thus they fared in the east; meantime the spirits of the +patriarchal world shrank beneath waters or fled in fires, Adam from Eden, +Noah from Ararat; and “Moses beheld upon Mount Sinai forms of dark +delusion.” Over each religion, Indian and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> Jewish and Grecian, some +special demon or god of the mythology is bidden preside; Christianity, the +expression of human sorrow, human indulgence and forgiveness, was given as +gospel to “a man of sorrows” by the two afflicted spirits who typify man +and woman, in whom the bitter errors and the sore needs of either several +sex upon earth are reproduced in vast vague reflection; to them therefore +the gentler gospel belongs as of right. Next comes Mahometanism, to give +some freedom and fair play to the controlled and abused senses; but +northwards other spirits set on foot a code of war to satiate their +violent delight. So on all sides is the world overgrown with kingdoms and +churches, codes and creeds; inspiration is crushed and erased; the sons of +Time and Space reign alone; Har and Heva, the spirits of loftier and purer +kind who were not as the rest of the Titan brood that “lived in war and +lust,” are fled and fallen, become as mere creeping things; and the world +is ripe to bring forth for its cruel and mournful God the final fruit of +reason debased and faith distorted.</p> + +<p class="poem">“Thus the terrible race of Los and Enitharmon gave<br /> +Laws and Religions to the sons of Har, binding them more<br /> +And more to Earth, closing and restraining;<br /> +Till a Philosophy of Five Senses was complete;<br /> +Urizen wept, and gave it into the hands of Newton and Locke.”</p> + +<p>These “terrible sons” of time and space are the presiding demons of each +creed or code; the sons of men are in their hands now, for the father and +mother of men are fallen gods, oblivious and transformed: and these minor +demons are all subservient to the Creator, whose soul,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> sorrowful but not +merciful, animates the whole pained world. So, with cloud of menace and +fire of wrath shed out about the deceased gods and the new philosophies, +the first part ends. In the second part the clouds have broken and the +fire has come forth; revolution has begun in Europe; the ancient lords of +Asia are startled from their dens and cry in bitterness of soul for help +of the old oppressions; for councillors and for taxes, for plagues and for +priests, “to turn man from his path; to restrain the child from the womb; +to cut off the bread from the city, that the remnant may learn to obey: +that the pride of the heart may fail; that the lust of the eye may be +quenched; that the delicate ear in its infancy may be dulled, and the +nostrils closed up; to teach mortal worms the path that leads from the +gates of the grave.” At their cry Urizen arose, the lord of Asia from of +old, ever since he cast down the patriarchal law and set up the Mosaic +code; “his shuddering waving wings went enormous above the red flames,” to +contend with the rekindled revolution, “the thick-flaming thought-creating +fires of Orc;”</p> + +<p class="poem">“His books of brass, iron, and gold<br /> +Melted over the land as he flew,<br /> +Heavy-waving, howling, weeping.<br /> +And he stood over Judea,<br /> +And stayed in his ancient places,<br /> +And stretched his clouds over Jerusalem.<br /> +For Adam, a mouldering skeleton,<br /> +Lay bleached on the garden of Eden;<br /> +And Noah, as white as snow,<br /> +On the mountains of Ararat.”</p> + +<p>Thus, with thunder from eastward and fire from <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span>westward, the God of +jealousy and the Spirit of freedom met together; earth shrank at the +meeting of them.</p> + +<p class="poem">“Forth from the dead dust rattling bones to bones<br /> +Came; shaking, convulsed, the shivering clay breathes;<br /> +And all flesh naked stands; Fathers and Friends;<br /> +Mothers and Infants; Kings and Warriors;<br /> +The Grave shrieks with delight, and shakes<br /> +Her hollow womb, and clasps the solid stem;<br /> +Her bosom swells with wild desire;<br /> +And milk and blood and glandous wine<br /> +In rivers rush and shout and dance<br /> +On mountain, dale and plain.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Song of Los is ended.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Urizen wept.”</span></p> + +<p>So much for the text; which has throughout a contagious power of +excitement in the musical passion of its speech. For these books, above +all, it is impossible to read continuously and not imbibe a certain +half-nervous enjoyment from their long cadences and tempestuous +undulations of melody. Such passion went to the writing of them that some +savour of that strong emotion infects us also in reading pages which seem +still hot from the violent touch of the poet. The design of Har and Heva +flying from their lustful and warlike brethren across green waste land +before a late and thunder-coloured sky, he grasping her with convulsive +fear, she looking back as she runs with lifted arm and flame-like hair and +fiery flow of raiment; and that succeeding where they reappear fallen to +mere king and queen of the vegetable world, themselves half things of +vegetable life; are both noble if somewhat vehement and reckless. In this +latter, the deep green-blue heaven full of stars like flowers is set with +sweet and deep effect against the darkening green of the vast lily-leaves +supporting the fiery pallor of those<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> shapely chalices which enclose as +the heart of either blossom the queen lying at her length, and the king +sitting with bright plucked-out pistil in hand by way of sceptre or sword; +and below them the dim walls of the world alone are wholly black: his +robes of soft shot purple and red, her long chrysalid shell or husk of +tarnished gold, are but signs of their bondage and fall from deity; they +are fallen to be mere flowers. More might be said of the remaining +designs; the fierce glory of sweeping branches and driven leaves in a +strong wind, the fervent sky and glimmering hill, the crouching figures +above and under, the divine insane luxuriance of cloudy and flowery colour +which makes twice luminous the last page of the poem; the strange final +design where a spirit with huge childlike limbs and lifted hair seems to +smite with glittering mallet the outer rim of a huger blood-red sun; but +for this book we have no more space; and much laborious travel lies ahead +of us yet.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img5_tmb.jpg" alt="" /><br /> +<a href="images/img5.jpg"><small>Larger Image</small></a></div> +<p> </p> + +<p>With the <i>Song of Los</i> the first or London series of prophecies came to a +close not unfit or unmelodious. As their first word had been Revelation, +their last was Revolution. We have now to deal with the two later and +larger books written at Felpham, but not put forth till 1804. To one of +these at least we must allow some tolerably full notice. The <i>Milton</i> +shall here take precedence. This poem, though sufficiently vexatious to +the human sense at first sight, is worth some care and some admiration. +Its preface must here be read in full.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“The stolen and perverted writings of Homer and Ovid, of Plato and +Cicero, which all men ought to contemn, are set up by artifice +against the sublime of the Bible; but when the New Age is at leisure +to pronounce, all will be set right, and those grand works of the +more ancient and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>consciously and professedly inspired men, will +hold their proper rank; and the daughters of memory shall become the +daughters of inspiration. Shakespeare and Milton were both curbed by +the general malady and infection from the silly Greek and Latin +slaves of the sword. Rouse up, O young men of the New Age! set your +foreheads against the ignorant hirelings! For we have hirelings in +the camp, the court, and the university; who would, if they could, +for ever depress mental and prolong corporeal war. Painters! on you I +call! Sculptors! Architects! suffer not the fashionable fools to +depress your powers by the prices they pretend to give for +contemptible works or the expensive advertising boasts that they make +of such works: believe Christ and his Apostles, that there is a class +of men whose whole delight is in destroying. We do not want either +Greek or Roman models if we are but just and true to our own +imaginations, those worlds of eternity in which we shall live for +ever, in Jesus our Lord.</p> + +<p class="poem">And did those feet in ancient time<br /> +Walk over England’s mountains green?<br /> +And was the holy Lamb of God<br /> +On England’s pleasant pastures seen?<br /> +<br /> +And did the Countenance Divine<br /> +Shine forth upon our clouded hills?<br /> +And was Jerusalem builded here,<br /> +Among these dark Satanic mills?<br /> +<br /> +Bring me my bow of burning gold;<br /> +Bring me my arrows of desire;<br /> +Bring me my spear: O clouds, unfold;<br /> +Bring me my chariot of fire.<br /> +<br /> +I will not cease from mental fight,<br /> +Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,<br /> +Till we have built Jerusalem<br /> +In England’s green and pleasant land.</p> + +<p>‘Would to God that all the Lord’s people were prophets.’—Numbers xi. +29.”</p></div> + +<p>After this strange and grand prelude, which, though taken in the letter it +may read like foolishness, is in the spirit of it certainty and truth for +all time, we pass again under the shadow and into the land that shifts and +slips under our feet. Something however out of the chaos of fire and wind +and stormy colour may be caught at by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> fits and stored up for such as can +like it. Thus the poem opens, with not less fervour and splendour of sound +than usual.</p> + +<p class="poem">“Daughters of Beulah! Muses who inspire the Poet’s Song!<br /> +Record the journey of immortal Milton thro’ your realms<br /> +Of terror and mild moony lustre, in soft sexual delusions<br /> +Of varied beauty, to delight the wanderer and repose<br /> +His burning thirst and freezing hunger! Come into my hand,<br /> +By your mild power descending down the Nerves of my right arm<br /> +From out the Portals of my Brain, where by your ministry<br /> +The Eternal Great Humanity Divine planted his Paradise<br /> +And in it caused the Spectres of the Dead to take sweet forms<br /> +In likeness of himself.”</p> + +<p>(Observe here the answer by anticipation to the old foolish charge of +madness and belief in mere material visions; a charge indeed refuted and +confuted at every turn we take. Thus, and no otherwise, did Blake believe +in his dead visitors and models: as spectres formed into new and +significant shape by God, after his own likeness; <i>not</i> called up as by +some witch of Endor and reclothed with the rags and rottenness of their +dead old bodies; creatures existing within the brain and imagination of +the workman, not as they were once externally and by accident, but as they +will be for ever by the essence and substance of their nature. For the +“vegetated shadow” or “human vegetable” no mystic ever had deeper or +subtler contempt than Blake; nor was ever a man less likely to care about +raising or laying it after death.)</p> + +<p class="poem"><span style="margin-left: 5em;">“Tell also of the False Tongue! vegetated</span><br /> +Beneath your land of shadows; of its sacrifices, and<br /> +Its offerings: even till Jesus, the image of the Invisible God,<br /> +Became its prey; a curse, an offering, and an atonement<br /> +For Death Eternal, in the heavens of Albion, and before the gates<br /> +Of Jerusalem his Emanation, in the heavens beneath Beulah.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span>Let the Súfis of the West make what construction they can of that +doctrine. We will help them, before passing on, with another view of the +Atonement, taken from <i>The Everlasting Gospel</i>.</p> + +<p class="poem">“But when Jesus was crucified,<br /> +Then was perfected his galling pride.<br /> +In three days he devoured his prey,<br /> +<i>And still he devours the body of clay</i>;<br /> +For dust and clay is the serpent’s meat,<br /> +Which never was meant for man to eat.”</p> + +<p>That is, the spirit must be eternally at work consuming and destroying the +likeness of things material and the religions made out of them. This +over-fervent prophet of freedom for the senses as well as the soul would +have them free, one may say, only for the soul’s sake: talking as we see +he did of redemption from the body and salvation by the spirit at war with +it, in words which literally taken would hardly have misbecome a monk of +Nitria.</p> + +<p>Returning to the <i>Milton</i>, we are caught again in the mythologic +whirlpools and cross-currents of symbol and doctrine; our ears rung deaf +and dazed by the hammers of Los (Time) and our eyes bewildered by the +wheels and woofs of Enitharmon (Space): “her looms vibrate with soft +affections, weaving the Web of Life out from the ashes of the Dead.” This +is a fragment of the main myth, whose details Los and Enitharmon +themselves for the present forbid our following out.</p> + +<p class="poem">“The Three Classes of men regulated by Los’s hammer, and woven<br /> +By Enitharmon’s Looms, and spun beneath the Spindle of Tirzah:<br /> +The first: The Elect from before the foundation of the World;<br /> +The second: The Redeemed. The Third: the Reprobate and formed<br /> +To destruction from the mother’s womb.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>Into the myth of the harrow and horses of Palamabron, more Asiatic in tone +than any other of Blake’s, and full of the vast proportion and formless +fervour of Hindoo legends, we will not haul any reluctant reader. Let him +only take enough by way of extract to understand how thoroughly one vein +of fiery faith runs through all the prophetic books, and one passionate +form of doctrine is enforced and beaten in upon the disciple again and +again; not hitherto with much material effect.</p> + +<p class="poem">“And in the midst of the Great Assembly Palamabron prayed;<br /> +O God, protect me from my friends that they have not power over me;<br /> +Thou hast given me power to protect myself from my bitterest enemies.”</p> + +<p>Then the wrath of Rintrah, the most fiery of the spirits who are children +of Time, having entered by lot into Satan, who was of the Elect from the +first, “seeming a brother, being a tyrant, even thinking himself a brother +while he is murdering the just,” “with incomparable mildness,” believing +“that he had not oppressed”—a symbolic point much insisted on—</p> + +<p class="poem">“He created Seven deadly Sins, drawing out his infernal scroll<br /> +Of moral laws and cruel punishments upon the clouds of Jehovah,<br /> +To pervert the divine voice in its entrance to the earth<br /> +With thunders of war and trumpet’s sound, with armies of disease;<br /> +Punishments and deaths mustered and numbered; saying, I am God alone,<br /> +There is no other; let all obey my principles of moral individuality<br /> +I have brought them from the uppermost innermost recesses<br /> +Of my Eternal Mind; transgressors I will rend off for ever;<br /> +As now I rend this accursed Family from my covering.”</p> + +<p>This is the Satan of Blake, sufficiently unlike the Miltonic. Of himself +he cannot conceive evil and bring forth destruction; the absolute Spirit +of Evil is alien<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> from this mythology; he must enter into the body of a +law or system and put on the qualities of spirits strange to himself +(Rintrah); he is divided, inconsistent, a mystery and error to himself; he +represents Monotheism with its stringent law and sacerdotal creed, Jewish +or Christian, as opposed to Pantheism whereby man and God are one, and by +culture and perfection of humanity man makes himself God. The point of +difference here between Blake and many other western Pantheists is that in +his creed self-abnegation (in the mystic sense, not the ascetic—the +Oriental, not the Catholic) is the highest and only perfect form of +self-culture: and as Satan (under “names divine”—see the Epilogue to the +<i>Gates of Paradise</i>) is the incarnate type of Monotheism, so is Jesus the +incarnate type of Pantheism. To return to our myth; the stronger spirit +rears walls of rocks and forms rivers of fire round them;</p> + +<p class="poem">“And Satan, <i>not having the Science of Wrath but only of Pity</i>,<small><a name="f57.1" id="f57.1" href="#f57">[57]</a></small><br /> +Rent them asunder; and Wrath was left to Wrath, and Pity to Pity.”</p> + +<p>This is Blake’s ultimate conception of active evil; not wilful wrong-doing +by force of arm or of spirit; but mild error, tender falsehood innocent of +a purpose, embodied in an external law of moral action and restrictive +faith, and clothed with a covering of cruelty which adheres to and grows +into it (Decalogue and Law). A subtle and rather<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> noble conception, +developing easily and rapidly into what was once called the Manichean +doctrine as to the Old Testament.</p> + +<p class="poem">“If the guilty should be condemned, he must be an Eternal Death,<br /> +And one must die for another throughout all Eternity;<br /> +Satan is fallen from his station and can never be redeemed,<br /> +But must be new-created continually moment by moment,<br /> +And therefore the class of Satan shall be called the Elect, and those<br /> +Of Rintrah the Reprobate, and those of Palamabron the Redeemed;<br /> +For he is redeemed from Satan’s law, the wrath falling on Rintrah.<br /> +And therefore Palamabron cared not to call a solemn Assembly<br /> +Till Satan had assumed Rintrah’s wrath in the day of mourning,<br /> +In a feminine delusion<small><a name="f58.1" id="f58.1" href="#f58">[58]</a></small> of false pride self-deceived.”</p> + +<p>The words of the text recur not unfrequently in the prophetic books. A +single final act of redemption by sacrifice and oblation of one for +another is not admitted as sufficient, or even possible. The favourite +dogma is this, of the eternity of sacrifice; endless redemption to be +bought at no less a price than endless self-devotion. To this plea of “an +Eternal” before the assembly succeeds the myth of Leutha “offering herself +a ransom for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> Satan:”<small><a name="f59.1" id="f59.1" href="#f59">[59]</a></small> a myth, not an allegory; for of allegory pure +and simple there is scarcely a trace in Blake.</p> + +<p class="poem"><span style="margin-left: 13.5em;">“I formed the Serpent</span><br /> +Of precious stones and gold turned poison on the sultry waste.<br /> +To do unkind things with kindness; with power armed, to say<br /> +The most irritating things in the midst of tears and love;<br /> +These are the stings of the Serpent.”</p> + +<p>This whole myth of Leutha is splendid for colour, and not too subtle to be +thought out: the imaginative action of the poem plays like fire and +palpitates like blood upon every line, as the lips of caressing flame and +the tongues of cleaving light in which the text is set fold and flash +about the margins.</p> + +<p class="poem">“The Elect shall meet the Redeemed, on Albion’s rocks they shall meet,<br /> +Astonished at the Transgressor, in him beholding the Saviour.<br /> +And the Elect shall say to the Redeemed; We behold it is of Divine<br /> +Mercy alone, of free gift and Election, that we live;<br /> +Our Virtues and cruel Goodnesses have deserved Eternal Death.”</p> + +<p>Forgiveness of sin and indulgence, the disciple perceives, is not enough +for this mythology; it must include forgiveness of virtue and abstinence, +the hypocritic holiness made perfect in the body of death for six thousand +years under the repressive and restrictive law called after the name of +the God of the Jews, who “was leprous.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> Thus prophesies Blake, in a fury +of supra-Christian dogmatism.</p> + +<p>Here ends the “Song of the Bard” in the First Book. “Many condemned the +high-toned song, saying, Pity and Love are too venerable for the +imputation of guilt. Others said, If it is true!” Let us say the same, and +pass on: listening only to the Bard’s answer:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">“I am inspired! I know it is Truth! for I sing</span><br /> +According to the Inspiration of the Poetic Genius<br /> +Who is the Eternal all-protecting divine Humanity<br /> +To whom be Glory and Power and Dominion evermore. Amen.”</p> + +<p>Then follows the incarnation and descent into earth and hell of Milton, +who represents here the redemption by inspiration, working in pain and +difficulty before the expiration of the six thousand Satanic years. His +words are worth quoting:—</p> + +<p class="poem">“When will the Resurrection come, to deliver the sleeping body<br /> +From corruptibility? O when, Lord Jesus, wilt thou come?<br /> +Tarry no longer; for my soul lies at the gates of death:<br /> +I will arise and look forth for the morning of the grave:<br /> +I will go down to the sepulchre and see if morning breaks.<br /> +I will go down to self-annihilation and eternal death<br /> +Lest the Last Judgment come and find me unannihilate<br /> +And I be seized and given into the hands of my own selfhood.”</p> + +<p>This grand dogma, that personal love and selfishness make up the sin which +defies redemption, is in a manner involved in that former one of the +necessary “eternity of sacrifice,” for</p> + +<p class="poem">“I in my selfhood am that Satan; I am that Evil One;<br /> +He is my Spectre.”</p> + +<p>Now by the light of these extracts let any student examine the great +figure at p. 13, where “he beheld his own<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> Shadow—and entered into it.” +Clothed in the colours of pain, crowned with the rays of suffering, it +stands between world and world in a great anguish of transformation and +change: Passion included by Incarnation. Erect on a globe of opaque +shadow, backed by a sphere of aching light that opens flower-wise into +beams of shifting colour and bitter radiance as of fire, it appeals with a +doubtful tortured face and straining limbs to the flat black wall and roof +of heaven. All over the head is a darkness not of transitory cloud or +night that will some time melt into day; recalling that great verse: +“Neither could the bright flames of the stars endure to lighten that +horrible night.”</p> + +<p class="poem">“As when a man dreams he reflects not that his body sleeps,<br /> +Else he would wake; so seemed he entering his Shadow; but<br /> +With him the Spirits of the Seven Angels of the Presence<br /> +Entering, they gave him still perceptions of his Sleeping Body<br /> +Which now arose and walked with them in Eden, as an Eighth<br /> +Image, Divine tho’ darkened, and tho’ walking as one walks<br /> +In Sleep; and the Seven comforted and supported him.”</p> + +<p>The whole passage is full of a deep and dim beauty which grows clearer and +takes form of feature to those only who bring with them eyes to see and +patience to desire it. Take next this piece of cosmography, worth +comparing with Dante’s vision of the worlds:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“The nature of infinity is this; That everything has its<br /> +Own vortex: and when once a traveller thro’ Eternity<br /> +Has passed that vortex, he perceives it roll backward behind<br /> +His path into a globe itself enfolding, like a sun<br /> +Or like a moon or like a universe of starry majesty,<br /> +While he keeps onward in his wondrous journey thro’ the earth,<br /> +Or like a human form, a friend with whom he lived benevolent:<br /> +As the eye of man views both the east and west encompassing<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span>Its vortex, and the north and south, with all their starry host;<br /> +Also the rising and setting moon he views surrounding<br /> +His cornfields and his valleys of five hundred acres square;<br /> +Thus is the earth one infinite plane, and not as apparent<br /> +To the weak traveller confined beneath the moony shade;<br /> +Thus is the heaven a vortex passed already, and the earth<br /> +A vortex not yet passed by the traveller thro’ Eternity.”</p> + +<p>One curious piece of symbolism may be extracted from the myth, as the one +reference to anything actual:—</p> + +<p class="poem">“Then Milton knew that the Three Heavens of Beulah were beheld<br /> +By him on earth in his bright pilgrimage of sixty years<br /> +In those three Females whom his Wives, and those three whom his Daughters<br /> +Had represented and contained, that they might be resumed<br /> +By giving up of Selfhood.”</p> + +<p>But of Milton’s flight, of the cruelties of Ulro, of his journey above the +Mundane Shell, which “is a vast concave earth, an immense hardened shadow +of all things upon our vegetated earth, enlarged into dimension and +deformed into indefinite space,” we will take no more account here; nor of +the strife with Urizen, “one giving life, the other giving death, to his +adversary;” hardly even of the temptation by the sons and daughters of +Rahab and Tirzah, when</p> + +<p class="poem">“The twofold Form Hermaphroditic, and the Double-sexed,<br /> +The Female-male and the Male-female, self-dividing stood<br /> +Before him in their beauty and in cruelties of holiness.”</p> + +<p>(Compare the beautiful song “To Tirzah,” in the Songs of Experience.) This +Tirzah, daughter of Rahab the holy, is “Natural Religion” (Theism as +opposed to Pantheism), which would fain have the spiritual Jerusalem +offered in sacrifice to it.</p> + +<p class="poem"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> +“Let her be offered up to holiness: Tirzah numbers her:<br /> +She numbers with her fingers every fibre ere it grow:<br /> +Where is the Lamb of God? where is the promise of his coming?<br /> +Her shadowy sisters form the bones, even the bones of Horeb<br /> +Around the marrow; and the orbed scull around the brain;<br /> +She ties the knot of nervous fibres into a white brain;<br /> +She ties the knot of bloody veins into a red-hot heart;<br /> +She ties the knot of milky seed into two lovely heavens,<br /> +Two yet but one; each in the other sweet reflected; these<br /> +Are our Three Heavens beneath the shades of Beulah, land of rest.”</p> + +<p>Here and henceforward the clamour and glitter of the poem become more and +more confused; nevertheless every page is set about with jewels; as here, +in a more comprehensible form than usual:—</p> + +<p class="poem">“God sent his two servants Whitfield and Wesley; were they prophets?<br /> +Or were they idiots and madmen? ‘Show us Miracles’?<br /> +Can you have greater Miracles than these? Men who devote<br /> +Their life’s whole comfort to entire scorn, injury, and death?”</p> + +<p>Take also these scraps of explanation mercifully vouchsafed us:—</p> + +<p class="poem">“Bowlahoola is named Law by Mortals: Tharmas founded it<br /> +Because of Satan: * * * *<br /> +But Golgonooza is named Art and Manufacture by mortal men.<br /> +In Bowlahoola Los’s Anvils stand and his Furnaces rage.<br /> +Bowlahoola thro’ all its porches feels, tho’ too fast founded<br /> +Its pillars and porticoes to tremble at the force<br /> +Of mortal or immortal arm; * * *<br /> +The Bellows are the Animal Lungs; the Hammers the Animal Heart;<br /> +The Furnaces the Stomach for digestion;”</p> + +<p>(Here we must condense instead of transcribing. While thousands labour at +this work of the Senses in the halls of Time, thousands “play on +instruments stringed or fluted” to lull the labourers and drown the +painful sound of the toiling members, and bring forgetfulness of this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> +slavery to the flesh: a myth of animal life not without beauty, and to +Blake one of great attraction.)</p> + +<p class="poem">“Los is by mortals named Time, Enitharmon is named Space;<br /> +But they depict him bald and aged who is in eternal youth<br /> +All-powerful, and his locks flourish like the brows of morning;<br /> +He is the Spirit of Prophecy, the ever-apparent Elias.<br /> +Time is the mercy of Eternity; without Time’s swiftness<br /> +Which is the swiftest of all things, all were eternal torment.”</p> + +<p>At least this last magnificent passage should in common charity and sense +have been cited in the biography, if only to explain the often-quoted +words Los and Enitharmon. Neither blindness to such splendour of symbol, +nor deafness to such music of thought, can excuse the omission of what is +so wholly necessary for the comprehension of extracts already given, and +given (as far as one can see) with no available purpose whatever.</p> + +<p>The remainder of the first book of the <i>Milton</i> is a vision of Nature and +prophecy of the gathering of the harvest of Time and treading of the +winepress of War; in which harvest and vintage work all living things have +their share for good or evil.</p> + +<p class="poem">“How red the sons and daughters of Luvah! here they tread the grapes,<br /> +Laughing and shouting, drunk with odours; many fall o’erwearied,<br /> +Drowned in the wine is many a youth and maiden; those around<br /> +Lay them on skins of Tigers and of the spotted Leopard and the wild Ass<br /> +Till they revive, or bury them in cool grots, making lamentation.<br /> +This Winepress is called War on Earth; it is the printing-press<br /> +Of Los, there he lays his words in order above the mortal brain<br /> +As cogs are formed in a wheel to turn the cogs of the adverse wheel.”</p> + +<p>All kind of insects, of roots and seeds and creeping things—“all the +armies of disease visible or invisible”—are there;</p> + +<p class="poem"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> +“The slow slug; the grasshopper that sings and laughs and drinks<br /> +(Winter comes, he folds his slender bones without a murmur);”</p> + +<p>wasp and hornet, toad and newt, spider and snake,</p> + +<p class="poem">“They throw off their gorgeous raiment; they rejoice with loud jubilee<br /> +Around the winepresses of Luvah, naked and drunk with wine.<br /> +There is the nettle that stings with soft down; and there<br /> +The indignant thistle whose bitterness is bred in his milk;<br /> +Who feeds on contempt of his neighbour; there all the idle weeds<br /> +That creep around the obscure places show their various limbs<br /> +Naked in all their beauty, dancing round the winepresses.<br /> +But in the winepresses the human grapes sing not nor dance,<br /> +They howl and writhe in shoals of torment, in fierce flames consuming;”</p> + +<p>tortured for the cruel joy and deadly sport of Luvah’s sons and daughters;</p> + +<p class="poem">“They dance around the dying and they drink the howl and groan;<br /> +They catch the shrieks in cups of gold, they hand them one to another;<br /> +These are the sports of love, and these the sweet delights of amorous play;<br /> +Tears of the grape, the death-sweat of the cluster; the last sigh<br /> +Of the mild youth who listens to the luring songs of Luvah.”</p> + +<p>Take also this from the speech of Time to his reapers.</p> + +<p class="poem">“You must bind the sheaves not by nations or families,<br /> +You shall bind them in three classes; according to their classes<br /> +So shall you bind them, separating what has been mixed<br /> +Since men began to be woven into nations. * *<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 17em;">* * * The Elect is one class; you</span><br /> +Shall bind them separate; they cannot believe in eternal life<br /> +Except by miracle and a new birth. The other two classes,<br /> +The Reprobate<small><a name="f60.1" id="f60.1" href="#f60">[60]</a></small> who never cease to believe, and the Redeemed<br /> +Who live in doubts and fears, perpetually tormented by the Elect,<br /> +These you shall bind in a twin bundle for the consummation.”</p> + +<p>The constellations that rise in immortal order, that keep their course +upon mountain and valley, with sound of harp<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> and song, “with cups and +measures filled with foaming wine;” that fill the streams with light of +many visions and leave in luminous traces upon the extreme sea the peace +of their passage; these too are sons of Los, and labour in the vintage. +The gorgeous flies on meadow or brook, that weave in mazes of music and +motion the delight of artful dances, and sound instruments of song as they +touch and cross and recede; the trees shaken by the wind into sound of +heavy thunder till they become preachers and prophets to men; these are +the sons of Los, these the visions of eternity; and we see but as it were +the hem of their garments.</p> + +<p>A noble passage follows, in which are resumed the labours of the sons of +time in fashioning men and the stations of men. They make for doubts and +fears cabinets of ivory and gold; when two spectres “like lamps quivering” +between life and death stand ready for the blind malignity of combat, they +are taken and moulded instead into shapes fit for love, clothed with soft +raiment by softer hands, drawn after lines of sweet and perfect form. Some +“in the optic nerve” give to the poor infinite wealth of insight, power to +know and enjoy the invisible heaven, and to the rich scorn and ignorance +and thick darkness. Others build minutes and hours and days;</p> + +<p class="poem">“And every moment has a couch of gold for soft repose<br /> +(A moment equals a pulsation of the artery)<br /> +And every minute has an azure tent with silken veils,<br /> +And every hour has a bright golden gate carved with skill,<br /> +And every day and night has walls of brass and gates of adamant<br /> +Shining like precious stones and ornamented with appropriate signs,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>And every month a silver-paved terrace builded high,<br /> +And every year invulnerable barriers with high towers,<br /> +And every age is moated deep, with bridges of silver and gold,<br /> +And every Seven Ages are encircled with a flaming fire.”</p> + +<p>There is much more of the same mythic sort concerning the duration of +time, the offices of the nerves (<i>e.g.</i>, in the optic nerve sleep was +transformed to death by Satan the father of sin and death, even as we have +seen sensual death re-transformed by Mercy into sleep), and such-like huge +matters; full, one need not now repeat, of subtle splendour and fanciful +intensity. But enough now of this over-careful dredging in such weedy +waters; where nevertheless, at risk of breaking our net, we may at every +dip fish up some pearl.</p> + +<p>At the opening of the second book the pearls lie close and pure. From this +(without explanation or reference) has been taken the lovely and mutilated +extract at p. 197 of the <i>Life</i>. Thus it stands in Blake’s text:—</p> + +<p class="poem">“Thou hearest the nightingale begin the song of spring;<br /> +The lark, sitting upon his earthy bed, just as the morn<br /> +Appears, listens silent; then, springing from the waving corn-field, loud<br /> +He leads the choir of day: trill—trill—trill—trill—<br /> +Mounting upon the wings of light into the great expanse,<br /> +Re-echoing against the lovely blue and shining heavenly shell<br /> +His little throat labours with inspiration; every feather<br /> +On throat, and breast, and wing, vibrate with the effluence divine.<br /> +All nature listens to him silent; and the awful Sun<br /> +Stands still upon the mountains, looking on this little bird<br /> +With eyes of soft humility, and wonder, love, and awe.<br /> +Then loud, from their green covert, all the birds began their song,—<br /> +The thrush, the linnet and the goldfinch, robin and the wren,<br /> +Awake the Sun from his sweet reverie upon the mountains;<br /> +The nightingale again essays his song, and through the day<br /> +And through the night warbles luxuriant; every bird of song<br /> +Attending his loud harmony with admiration and love.<br /> +<br /> +(This is a vision of the lamentation of Beulah over Ololon.)<br /> +<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span>Thou perceivest the flowers put forth their precious odours,<br /> +And none can tell how from so small a centre come such sweets,<br /> +Forgetting that within that centre eternity expands<br /> +Its ever-during doors that Og and Anak fiercely guard.<small><a name="f61.1" id="f61.1" href="#f61">[61]</a></small><br /> +First ere the morning breaks joy opens in the flowery bosoms,<br /> +Joy even to tears, which the sun rising dries; first the wild thyme<br /> +And meadow-sweet downy and soft waving among the reeds,<br /> +Light springing on the air, lead the sweet dance; they wake<br /> +The honeysuckle sleeping on the oak, the flaunting beauty<br /> +Revels along upon the wind; the white-thorn, lovely May,<br /> +Opens her many lovely eyes; listening, the rose still sleeps,<br /> +None dare to wake her: soon she bursts her crimson-curtained bed<br /> +And comes forth in the majesty of beauty; every flower,<br /> +The pink, the jessamine, the wallflower, the carnation,<br /> +The jonquil, the mild lily, opes her heavens; every tree<br /> +And flower and herb soon fill the air with an innumerable dance,<br /> +Yet all in order sweet and lovely; men are sick with love.<br /> +<br /> +Such is a vision of the lamentation of Beulah over Ololon.”</p> + +<p>This Beulah is “a place where contrarieties are equally true;” “it is a +pleasant lovely shadow where no dispute<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> can come because of those who +sleep:” made to shelter, before they “pass away in winter,” the temporary +emanations “which trembled exceedingly neither could they live, because +the life of man was too exceeding unbounded.” Of the incarnation and +descent of Ololon, of the wars and prophecies of Milton, and of all the +other Felpham visions here put on record, we shall say no more in this +place; but all these things are written in the Second Book. The +illustrative work is also noble and worth study in all ways. One page for +example is covered by a design among the grandest of Blake’s. Two figures +lie half embraced, as in a deadly sleep without dawn of dream or shadow of +rest, along a bare slant ledge of rock washed against by wintry water. +Over these two stoops an eagle balanced on the heavy-laden air, with +stretching throat and sharpened wings, opening beak, and eyes full of a +fierce perplexity of pity. All round the greenish and black slope of moist +sea-cliff the weary tidal ripple plashes and laps, thrusting up as it were +faint tongues and listless fingers tipped with foam. On an earlier page, +part of the text of which we have given, crowd and glitter all shapes and +images of insect or reptile life, sprinkling between line and margin keen +points of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span>jewel-coloured light and soft flashes as of starry or scaly +brilliance.</p> + +<p>The same year 1804 saw the huge advent of <i>Jerusalem</i>. Of that terrible +“emanation,” hitherto the main cornerstone of offence to all students of +Blake, what can be said within any decent limit? or where shall any +traveller find a rest for feet or eyes in that noisy and misty land? It +were a mere frenzy of discipleship that would undertake by force of words +to make straight these crooked ways or compel things incoherent to cohere. +<i>Supra hanc petram</i>—and such a rock it is to begin any church-building +upon! Many of the unwary have stumbled over it and broken their wits. +Seriously, one cannot imagine that people will ever read through this vast +poem with pleasure enough to warrant them in having patience with it.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img6_tmb.jpg" alt="" /><br /> +<a href="images/img6.jpg"><small>Larger Image</small></a></div> +<p> </p> + +<p>Several things, true in the main of all the prophetic books, are +especially true and memorable with regard to those written or designed +during the “three years’ slumber” at Felpham. They are the results of +intense and active solitude working upon the capricious nerves and +tremulous brain of a man naturally the most excitable and receptive of +men. They are to be read by the light of his earlier work in the same +line; still more perhaps by the light of those invaluable ten letters +printed in Vol. II. of the <i>Life</i>, for which one can hardly give thanks +enough. The incredible fever of spirit under the sting and stress of which +he thought and laboured all his life through, has left marks of its hot +and restless presence as clearly on this short correspondence as on the +voluminous rolls of prophecy. The merit or demerit of the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>work done is +never in any degree the conscious or deliberate result of a purpose. +Possessed to the inmost nerve and core by a certain faith, consumed by the +desire to obey his instinct of right by preaching that faith, utterly +regardless of all matters lying outside of his own inspiration, he wrote +and engraved as it was given him to do, and no otherwise. As to matter and +argument, the enormous <i>Jerusalem</i> is simply a fervent apocalyptic +discourse on the old subjects—love without law and against law, virtue +that stagnates into poisonous dead matter by moral isolation, sin that +must exist for the sake of being forgiven, forgiveness that must always +keep up with sin—must even maintain sin that it may have something to +keep up with and to live for. Without forgiveness of sins, the one thing +necessary, we lapse each man into separate self-righteousness and a cruel +worship of natural morality and religious law. For nature, oddly enough as +it seems at first sight, is assumed by this mystical code to be the +cruellest and narrowest of absolute moralists. Only by worship of +imaginative impulse, the grace of the Lamb of God, which admits infinite +indulgence in sin and infinite forgiveness of sin—only by some such faith +as this shall the world be renewed and redeemed. This may be taken as the +rough result, broadly set down, of the portentous book of revelation. +Never, one may suppose, did any Oriental heretic drive his deductions +further or set forth his conclusions in obscurer form. Never certainly did +a man fall to his work with keener faith and devotion. Sin itself is not +so evil—but the remembrance and punishment of sin! “Injury the Lord +heals; but vengeance cannot be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> healed.” Next or equal in hatefulness to +the division of qualities into evil and good (see above, <i>Marriage of +Heaven and Hell</i>) is the separation of sexes into male and female: hence +jealous love and personal desire, that set itself against the mystical +frankness of fraternity: hence too (contradictory as it may seem till one +thinks it out) the hermaphroditic emblem is always used as a symbol +seemingly of duplicity and division, perplexity and restraint. The two +sexes should not combine and contend; they must finally amalgamate and be +annihilated.<small><a name="f62.1" id="f62.1" href="#f62">[62]</a></small> All this is of course more or less symbolic, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279 & 280]</a></span> not to +be taken in literal coarseness or folly of meaning. The whole stage is +elemental, the scheme one of patriarchal vapour, and the mythologic +actors mere Titans outlined in cloud. Reserving this always, we shall not +be far out in interpreting Blake’s dim creed somewhat as above. One +distinction it is here possible to make, and desirable to keep in mind: +Blake at one time speaks of Nature as the source of moral law, “the harlot +virgin-mother,” “Rahab,” “the daughter of Babylon,” origin of religious +restrictions and the worship of abstinence; mother of “the harlot +modesty,” and spring of all hypocrisies and prohibitions; to whom the +religious and moral of this world would fain offer up in sacrifice the +spiritual Jerusalem, the virgin espoused, named among men Liberty, +forbidding nothing and enjoying all, but therefore clean and not unclean: +by whom comes indulgence, after whom follows redemption. At another time +this same prophet will plead for freedom on behalf of “natural” energies, +and set up the claims of nature to energetic enjoyment and gratification +of all desires, against the moral law and government of the creative and +restrictive Deity—“Urizen, mistaken Demon of Heaven.” With a like +looseness of phrase he uses and transposes the words “God” and “Satan,” +even to an excess of laxity and consequent perplexity; not, it may be +suspected, without a grain of innocent if malign pleasure at the chance of +inflicting on men of conventional tempers bewilderment and offence. But as +to this question of the term “Nature” the case seems to lie thus: when, as +throughout the <i>Marriage of Heaven and Hell</i>, he uses it in the simple +sense of human or physical condition as opposed to some artificial state +of soul or belief, he takes it as the contrary of conventional ideas and +habits (of religion and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> morality as vulgarly conceived or practised); but +when, as throughout the <i>Milton</i> and <i>Jerusalem</i>, he speaks of nature as +opposed to inspiration, it must be taken as the contrary of that higher +and subtler religious faith which he is bent on inculcating, and which +itself is the only perfect opposite and efficient antagonist to the +conventional faith and (to use another of his quasi-technical terms) the +“deistical virtue” which he is bent on denying. Blake, one should always +remember, was not infidel but heretic; his belief was peculiar enough, but +it was not unbelief; it was farther from that than most men’s. To him, +though for quite personal reasons and in a quite especial sense, much of +what is called inspired writing was as sacred and infallible as to any +priest of any church. Only before reading he inverted the book.</p> + +<p class="poem">“Both read the Bible day and night,<br /> +But thou read’st black where I read white.”<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 12em;">(<i>Everlasting Gospel</i>, MS.)</span></p> + +<p>Thus, by his own showing, in the recorded words of Christ he found +authority for his vision and sympathy with his faith; in the published +creed of reason or rationalism, he found negation of his belief and +antipathy to his aims. Hence in his later denunciation he brackets +together the Churches of Rome and England with the Churches of Ferney and +Lausanne; it was all uninspired—all “nature’s cruel holiness—the deceits +of natural religion”; all irremediably involved, all inextricably +interwoven with the old fallacies and the old prohibitions.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img7_tmb.jpg" alt="" /><br /> +<a href="images/img7.jpg"><small>Larger Image</small></a></div> +<p> </p> + +<p>Such points as these do, above most others, deserve, demand, and reward +the trouble of clearing up; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> these once understood, much that seemed +the aimless unreflecting jargon of crude or accidental rhetoric assumes a +distinct if unacceptable meaning. It is much otherwise with the external +scheme or literal shell of the <i>Jerusalem</i>. Let no man attempt to define +the post or expound the office of the “terrible sons and daughters.” +These, with all their flock of emanations and spectrous or vegetating +shadows, let us leave to the discretion of Los; who has enough on his +hands among them all. Neither let any attempt to plant a human foot upon +the soil of the newly-divided shires and counties, partitioned though they +be into the mystic likeness of the twelve tribes of Israel. Nor let any +questioner of arithmetical mind apply his skill in numbers to the finding +of flaws or products in the twelves, twenty-fours, and twenty-sevens which +make up the sum of their male and female emanations. In earnest, the +externals of this poem are too incredibly grotesque—the mythologic plan +too incomparably tortuous—to be fit for any detailed coherence of remark. +Nor indeed were they meant to endure it. Such things, and the expression +of such things, as are here treated of, are not to be reasoned out; the +matter one may say is above reasoning; the manner (taken apart from the +matter) is below it: the spirit of the work is too strong and its form too +faulty for any rule or line. It will upon the whole suffice if this be +kept in mind; that to Blake, in a literal perhaps as well as a mystical +sense, Albion was as it were the cradle and centre of all created +existence; he even calls on the Jews to recognize it as the parent land of +their history and their faith. Its incarnate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> spirit is chief among the +ancient giant-gods, Titans of his mythology, who were lords of the old +simple world and its good things, its wise delights and strong sweet +instincts, full of the vigorous impulse of innocence; lords of an extinct +kingdom, superseded now and transformed by the advent of moral fear and +religious jealousy, of pallid faith and artificial abstinence. In this +manner Albion is changed and overthrown; hence at length he dies, stifled +and slain by his children under the new law. His one friend, not misled or +converted to the dispensations of bodily virtue and spiritual restraint, +but faithful from of old and even after his change and conversion to moral +law, is Time; whose Spectre, or mere outside husk and likeness, is indeed +(as it must needs be) fain to range itself on the transitory side of +things, fain to follow after the fugitive Emanation embodied in these new +forms of life and allied to the faith and habit of the day against the old +liberty;<small><a name="f63.1" id="f63.1" href="#f63">[63]</a></small> but for all the desire of his despair and fierce entreaties +to be let go, he is yet kept to work, however afflicted and rebellious, +and compelled to labour with Time’s self at the building up within every +man of that spiritual city which is redemption and freedom for all men +(ch. i.). All the myth of this building of “Golgonooza,” (that is,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> we +know, inspired art by which salvation must come) is noticeable for sweet +intricacy of beauty; only after a little some maddening memory (surely not +pure inspiration this time, but rather memory?) of the latter chapters of +Ezekiel, with their interminable inexplicable structures and plans, seizes +on Blake’s passionate fancy and sets him at work measuring and dividing +walls and gates in a style calculated to wear out a hecatomb of +scholiasts, for whole pages in which no subtilized mediæval intellect, +though trained under seraphic or cherubic doctors, could possibly find one +satisfactory hair to split. For it merely trebles the roaring and rolling +confusion when some weak grain of symbolism is turned up for a glimpse of +time in the thick of a mass of choral prose consisting of absolute fancy +and mere naked sound.</p> + +<p>Not that there is here less than elsewhere of the passion and beauty which +redeem so much of these confused and clamorous poems. The merits and +attractions of this book are not such as can be minced small and served up +in fragments. To do justice to its melodious eloquence and tender +subtlety, we should have to analyze or transcribe whole sections: to give +any fair notion of the grandeur and variety of its decorations would take +up twice the space we can allow to it. Let this brief prologue stand as a +sample of the former qualities.</p> + +<p class="poem">“Reader! lover of books! lover of heaven<br /> +And of that God from whom all things are given;<br /> +Who in mysterious Sinai’s awful cave<br /> +To Man the wondrous art of writing gave;<br /> +Again he speaks in thunder and in fire,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span>Thunder of thought and flames of fierce desire;<br /> +Even from the depths of Hell his voice I hear<br /> +Within the unfathomed caverns of my ear;<br /> +Therefore I print; nor vain my types shall be;<br /> +Heaven, Earth, and Hell henceforth shall live in harmony.”</p> + +<p>“We who dwell on earth,” adds the prophet, speaking of the measure and +outward fashion of his poem, “can do nothing of ourselves; everything is +conducted by Spirits no less than digestion or sleep.” It is to be wished +then that the spirits had on this occasion spoken less like somnambulists +and uttered less indigested verse. For metrical oratory the plea that +follows against ordinary metre may be allowed to have some effective +significance; however futile if applied to purer and more essential forms +of poetry.</p> + +<p>It will be enough to understand well and bear well in mind once for all +that the gist of this poem, regarded either as a scheme of ethics or as a +mythological evangel, is simply this: to preach, as in the Saviour’s +opening invocation, the union of man with God:—(“I am not a God afar +off;—Lo! we are One; forgiving all evil; not seeking recompense”): to +confute the dull mournful insanity of disbelief which compels “the +perturbed man” to avert his ear and reject the divine counsellor as a +“Phantom of the over-heated brain.” This perverted humanity is incarnate +in Albion, the fallen Titan, imprisoned by his children; the “sons of +Albion” are dæmonic qualities of force and faith, the “daughters” are +reflex qualities or conditions which emanate from these. As thus; reason +supplants faith, and law, moral or religious, grows out of reason; +Jerusalem, symbol of imaginative liberty, emanation of his unfallen days, +is the faith cast out by the “sons” or spirits who substitute reason for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> +faith, the freedom trodden under by the “daughters” who substitute moral +law for moral impulse: “Vala,” her Spectre, called “Tirzah” among men, is +the personified form in which “Jerusalem” becomes revealed, the perverted +incarnation, the wrested medium or condition in which she exists among +men. Thus much for the scheme of allegory with which the prophet sets out; +but when once he has got his theogony well under way and thrown it well +into types, the antitypes all but vanish: every condition or quality has a +god or goddess of its own; every obscure state and allegorical gradation +becomes a personal agent: and all these fierce dim figures threaten and +complain, mingle and divide, struggle and embrace as human friends or +foes. The main symbols are even of a monotonous consistency; but no +accurate sequence of symbolic detail is to be looked for in the doings and +sayings of these contending giants and gods. To those who will remember +this distinction and will make allowance for the peculiar dialect and +manner of which some account has already been taken, this poem will not +seem so wholly devoid of reason or of charm.</p> + +<p>For its great qualities are much the same in text as in design: plenteous, +delicate, vigorous. There is a certain real if rough and lax power of +dramatic insight and invention shown even in the singular divisions of +adverse symbol against symbol; in such allegories as that which opposes +the “human imagination in which all things exist”—do actually exist to +all eternity—and the reflex fancy or belief which men confound with this; +nay, which they prefer to dwell in and ask comfort from. These two the +poet calls the “states” of Beulah and Jerusalem.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> As the souls of men are +attracted towards that “mild heaven” of dreams and shadows where only the +reflected image of their own hopes and errors can abide, the imagination, +most divine and human, most actual and absolute, of all things, recedes +ever further and further among the clouds of smoke, vapours of “abstract +philosophy,” and is caught among the “starry wheels” of religion and law, +whose restless and magnetic revolution attracts and absorbs her.</p> + +<p class="poem">“O what avail the loves and tears of Beulah’s lovely daughters?<br /> +They hold the immortal form in gentle bands and tender tears,<br /> +But all within is opened into the deeps”—</p> + +<p>the deeps of “a dark and unknown night” in which “philosophy wars against +imagination.” Here also the main myth of the <i>Europe</i> is once more +rehandled; to “create a female will,” jealous, curious, cunning, full of +tender tyranny and confusion, this is “to hide the most evident God in a +hidden covert, even in the shadows of a woman and a secluded holy place, +that we may pry after him as after a stolen treasure, hidden among the +dead and mured up from the paths of life.” Thus is it with the Titan +Albion and all his race of mythologic men, when for them “Vala supplants +Jerusalem,” the husk replaces the fruit, the mutable form eclipses the +immutable substance.</p> + +<p>But into these darker parts of the book we will not go too deep. Time, +patience, and insight on the part of writer and reader might perhaps clear +up all details and lay bare much worth sight and study; but only at the +expense of much labour and space. It is feasible, and would be worth +doing; but not here. If the singular<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> amalgam called Blake’s works should +ever get published, and edited to any purpose, this will have to be done +by an energetic editor with time enough on his hands and wits enough for +the work. We meantime will gather up a few strays that even under these +circumstances appear worth hiving. In the address (p. 27) to the Jews, +&c., Blake affirms that “Britain was the primitive seat of the patriarchal +religion”: therefore, in a literal as well as in a mystical sense, +Jerusalem was the emanation of the giant Albion. (This it should seem was, +according to the mythology, before the visible world was created; in the +time when all things were in the divine undivided world of the gods.) “Ye +are united, O ye inhabitants of Earth, in one Religion: the most Ancient, +the Eternal, and the Everlasting Gospel. The Wicked will turn it to +Wickedness; the Righteous, to Righteousness.” If there be truth in the +Jewish tradition, he adds further on, that man anciently contained in his +mighty limbs all things in heaven and earth, “and they were separated from +him by cruel sacrifices; and when compulsory cruel sacrifices had brought +Humanity into a feminine tabernacle in the loins of Abraham and David, the +Lamb of God, the Saviour, became apparent on earth as the prophets had +foretold: the return of Israel is a return to mental sacrifice and war,” +to noble spiritual freedom and labour, which alone can supplant “corporeal +war” and violence of error.</p> + +<p>The second address (p. 52) “to the Deists” is more singular and more +eloquent. Take a few extracts given not quite at random. “He,” says Blake, +“who preaches natural religion or morality is a flatterer who means to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> +betray, and to perpetuate tyrant pride and the laws of that Babylon which +he foresees shall shortly be destroyed with the spiritual and not the +natural sword; he is in the state named Rahab.” The prophet then enforces +his law that “man is born a spectre or Satan and is altogether an Evil,” +and “must continually be changed into his direct contrary.” Those who +persuade him otherwise are his enemies. For “man must and will have some +religion; if he has not the religion of Jesus he will have the religion of +Satan.” Again, “Will any one say, Where are those who worship Satan under +the name of God?—where are they? Listen. Every religion that preaches +vengeance for sin is the religion of the enemy and avenger, and not of the +forgiver of sin: and their God is Satan named by the Divine Name.” This, +he says, must be at root the religion of all who deny revelation and adore +nature;<small><a name="f64.1" id="f64.1" href="#f64">[64]</a></small> for mere nature is Satanic. Adam the first man was created at +the same time with Satan, when the earth-giant Albion was cast into a +trance of sleep: the first man was a part of the universal fluent nature +made opaque; the first fiend, a part contracted; and only by these +qualities of opacity and contraction can man or devil have separate +natural existence. Those, the prophet adds in his perverse manner, who +profess belief in natural virtue are hypocrites; which those cannot be who +“pretend to be holier than others, but confess their sins before all the +world.” <i>Therefore</i> there was never a religious hypocrite! “Rousseau +thought<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> men good by nature; he found them evil, and found no friend. +Friendship cannot exist without forgiveness of sins continually.” And so +forth.</p> + +<p>At p. 66 is a passage recalling the myth of the “Mental Traveller,” and +which seems to bear out the interpretation we gave to that misty and +tempestuous poem. This part of the prophecy, describing the blind pitiful +cruelty of divided qualities set against each other, is full of brilliant +and noble passages. Even the faint symbolic shapes of Tirzah and all her +kind assume now and then a splendour of pathos, utter words of stately +sound, complain and appeal even to some recognizable purpose. So much +might here be cited that we will prefer to cite nothing but this slight +touch of myth. In the world of time “they refuse liberty to the male: not +like Beulah,</p> + +<p class="poem">Where every female delights to give her maiden to her husband.”</p> + +<p>The female searches sea and land for gratification to the male genius, who +in return clothes her in gems and gold and feeds her with the food of +Eden: hence all her beauty beams. But this is only in the “land of +dreams,” where dwell things “stolen from the human imagination by secret +amorous theft:” and when the spectres of the dead awake in that land, “all +the jealousies become murderous:—forming a commerce to sell loves with +moral law; an equal balance, not going down with decision: +therefore—mutual hate returns and mutual deceit and mutual fear.” In +fact, the divorce batteries are here open again.</p> + +<p>The third address “to the Christians” is too long to transcribe here; and +should in fairness have been given<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> in the biography. Its devout passion +and beauty of words might have won notice, and earned tolerance for the +more erratic matter in which it lies embedded. “What is the joy of heaven +but improvement in the things of the spirit? What are the pains of hell +but ignorance, bodily lust, idleness, and devastation of the things of the +spirit?” Mental gifts, given of Christ, “always appear to the +ignorance-loving hypocrite as sins; but that which is a sin in the sight +of cruel man is not so in the sight of our kind God.” Every Christian +after his ability should openly engage in some mental pursuit; for “to +labour in knowledge is to build up Jerusalem; and to despise knowledge is +to despise Jerusalem and her builders.” A little before he has said: “I +know of no other Christianity and no other Gospel than the liberty both of +body and mind to exercise the divine arts of imagination.” God being a +spirit, and to be worshipped in spirit and in truth, are not all his gifts +spiritual gifts? “The Christians then must give up the religion of +Caiaphas, the dark preacher of death, of sin, of sorrow, and of +punishment, typified as a revolving wheel, a devouring sword; and +recognize that the labours of Art and Science alone are the labours of the +Gospel.” As to religion, “Jesus died because he strove against the current +of this wheel—opposing nature; it is natural religion. But Jesus is the +bright preacher of life, creating nature from this fiery law, by +self-denial and forgiveness of sin.” So speaks to the prophet “a Watcher +and a Holy One;” bidding him</p> + +<p class="poem">“Go therefore, cast out devils in Christ’s name,<br /> +Heal thou the sick of spiritual disease;<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span>Pity the evil; for thou art not sent<br /> +To smite with terror and with punishments<br /> +Those that are sick. * * * *<br /> +But to the publicans and harlots go:<br /> +Teach them true happiness; but let no curse<br /> +Go forth out of thy mouth to blight their peace.<br /> +For hell is opened to heaven; thine eyes behold<br /> +The dungeons burst, the prisoners set free.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">England, awake! awake! awake!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Jerusalem thy sister calls;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Why wilt thou sleep the sleep of death</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And chase her from thy ancient walls?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thy hills and valleys felt her feet</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Gently upon their bosoms move;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thy gates beheld sweet Zion’s ways;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Then was a time of joy and love.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And now the time returns again;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Our souls exult; and London’s towers</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Receive the Lamb of God to dwell</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">In England’s green and pleasant bowers.”</span></p> + +<p>Much might also be said, had one leave of time, of the last chapter; of +the death of the earth-giant through jealousy, and his resurrection when +the Saviour appeared to him revealed in the likeness and similitude of +Time: of the ultimate deliverance of all things, chanted in a psalm of +high and tidal melody; a resurrection wherein all things, even “Tree, +Metal, Earth and Stone,” become all</p> + +<p class="poem">“Human forms identified; living, going forth, and returning wearied<br /> +Into the planetary lives of years, months, days, and hours: reposing<br /> +And then awaking into his bosom in the life of immortality.<br /> +And I heard the name of their emanations: they are named Jerusalem.”</p> + +<p>We will add one reference, to pp. 61-62, where God shows to Jerusalem in a +vision “Joseph the carpenter in Nazareth, and Mary his espoused wife.” +Through the vision of their story the forgiveness of Jerusalem also, when +she has gone astray from her Lord, is made manifest to her.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span>“And I heard a voice among the reapers saying, ‘Am I Jerusalem the lost +adulteress? or am I Babylon come up to Jerusalem?’ And another voice +answered saying, ‘Does the voice of my Lord call me again? am I pure +through his mercy and pity? am I become lovely as a virgin in his sight, +who am indeed a harlot drunken with the sacrifice of idols?—O mercy, O +divine humanity, O forgiveness and pity and compassion, if I were pure I +should never have known thee: if I were unpolluted I should never have +glorified thy holiness, or rejoiced in thy great salvation.’” The whole +passage—and such are not so unfrequent as at first glimpse they seem—is, +if seen with equal eyes, whether its purport be right or wrong, “full of +wisdom and perfect in beauty.” But we will dive after no more pearls at +present in this huge oyster-bed; and of the illustrations we can but speak +in a rough swift way. These are all generally noble: that at p. 70 is +great among the greatest of Blake’s. Spires of serpentine cloud are seen +before a strong wind below a crescent moon; Druid pillars enclose as with +a frame this stormy division of sky; outside them again the vapour twists +and thickens; and men standing on desolate broken ground look heavenward +or earthward between the pillars. Of others a brief and admirable account +is given in the <i>Life</i>, more final and sufficient than we can again give; +but all in fact should be well seen into by those who would judge fitly of +Blake’s singular and supreme gift for purely imaginative work. Flowers +sprung of earth and lit from heaven, with chalices of floral fire and with +flower-like women or men growing up out of their centre; fair large forms +full of labour or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> of rest; sudden starry strands and reaches of +breathless heaven washed by drifts of rapid wind and cloud; serrated array +of iron rocks and glorious growth of weedy lands or flowering fields; +reflected light of bows bent and arrows drawn in heaven, dividing cloud +from starlit cloud; stately shapes of infinite sorrow or exuberant joy; +all beautiful things and all things terrible, all changes of shadow and of +light, all mysteries of the darkness and the day, find place and likeness +here: deep waters made glad and sad with heavy light that comes and goes; +vast expansion of star-shaped blossom and swift aspiration of laborious +flame; strong and sweet figures made subject to strange torture in dim +lands of bondage; mystic emblems of plumeless bird and semi-human beast; +women like the daughters of giants, with immense shapeliness and vigour of +lithe large limbs, clothed about with anguish and crowned upon with +triumph; their deep bosoms pressed against the scales of strong dragons, +their bodies and faces strained together in the delight of monstrous +caresses; similitudes of all between angel and reptile that divide +illimitable spaces of air or defile the overlaboured furrows upon earth.</p> + +<p>It is easier to do complete justice to the minor prophecies than to give +any not inadequate conception of this great book, so vast in reach, so +repellent in style, so rich, vehement, and subtle beyond all other works +of Blake; the chosen crown and treasured fruit of his strange labours. +Extracts of admirable beauty might be gathered up on all hands, more +eligible it may be than any here given; none I think more serviceable by +way of sample and exposition, as far as such can at all be attained.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> That +the book contains much of a personal kind referring in a wild dim manner +to his own spiritual actions and passions, is evident: but even by the new +light of the Felpham correspondence one can hardly see where to lay finger +on these passages and separate them decisively from the loose floating +context. Not without regret, yet not with any sense of wilful or scornful +oversight, we must be content now to pass on, and put up with this +insufficient notice.</p> + +<p>The only other engraved work of a prophetic kind did not appear for +eighteen years more. This last and least in size, but not in worth, of the +whole set is so brief that it may here be read in full.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="center">THE GHOST OF ABEL.</p> + +<p class="center">A REVELATION IN THE VISIONS OF JEHOVAH.</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Seen by William Blake.</span></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table"> +<tr><td>To Lord Byron in the Wilderness.—What dost thou here, Elijah?<br /> +Can a Poet doubt the Visions of Jehovah? Nature has no Outline:<br /> +But Imagination has. Nature has no Time; but Imagination has.<br /> +Nature has no Supernatural, and dissolves; Imagination is Eternity.</td></tr></table> + +<p class="note">SCENE.—<i>A rocky Country.</i> <span class="smcap">Eve</span> <i>fainted over the dead body of</i> <span class="smcap">Abel</span> +<i>which lays near a grave</i>. <span class="smcap">Adam</span> <i>kneels by her</i>. <span class="smcap">Jehovah</span> <i>stands above</i>.</p> + +<p class="poem"><span class="smcap">Jehovah.</span> Adam!<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Adam.</span> It is in vain: I will not hear thee more, thou Spiritual Voice.<br /> +Is this Death?<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Jehovah.</span><span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Adam!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Adam.</span><span style="margin-left: 6em;">It is in vain; I will not hear thee</span><br /> +Henceforth. Is this thy Promise that the Woman’s Seed<br /> +Should bruise the Serpent’s Head? Is this the Serpent? Ah!<br /> +Seven times, O Eve, thou hast fainted over the Dead. Ah! Ah!<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 8em;">(<span class="smcap">Eve</span> <i>revives</i>.)</span><br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Eve.</span> Is this the Promise of Jehovah? O it is all a vain delusion,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>This Death and this Life and this Jehovah.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Jehovah.</span><span style="margin-left: 12em;">Woman, lift thine eyes.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">(<span class="smcap">A Voice</span> <i>is heard coming on</i>.)</span><br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Voice.</span> O Earth, cover not thou my blood! cover not thou my blood!<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">(<i>Enter the</i> <span class="smcap">Ghost</span> of <span class="smcap">Abel</span>.)</span><br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Eve.</span> Thou visionary Phantasm, thou art not the real Abel.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Abel.</span> Among the Elohim a Human Victim I wander: I am their House,<br /> +Prince of the Air, and our dimensions compass Zenith and Nadir.<br /> +Vain is thy Covenant, O Jehovah: I am the Accuser and Avenger<br /> +Of Blood; O Earth, cover not thou the blood of Abel.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Jehovah.</span> What vengeance dost thou require?<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Abel.</span><span style="margin-left: 14em;">Life for Life! Life for Life!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Jehovah.</span> He who shall take Cain’s life must also die, O Abel;<br /> +And who is he? Adam, wilt thou, or Eve, thou, do this?<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Adam.</span> It is all a vain delusion of the all-creative Imagination.<br /> +Eve, come away, and let us not believe these vain delusions.<br /> +Abel is dead, and Cain slew him; We shall also die a death<br /> +And then—what then? be as poor Abel, a Thought; or as<br /> +This? O what shall I call thee, Form Divine, Father of Mercies,<br /> +That appearest to my Spiritual Vision? Eve, seest thou also?<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Eve.</span> I see him plainly with my mind’s eye: I see also Abel living;<br /> +Tho’ terribly afflicted, as we also are: yet Jehovah sees him<br /> +Alive and not dead; were it not better to believe Vision<br /> +With all our might and strength, tho’ we are fallen and lost?<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Adam.</span> Eve, thou hast spoken truly; let us kneel before his feet.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">(<i>They kneel before</i> <span class="smcap">Jehovah</span>.)</span><br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Abel.</span> Are these the sacrifices of Eternity, O Jehovah? a broken spirit<br /> +And a contrite heart? O, I cannot forgive; the Accuser hath<br /> +Entered into me as into his house, and I loathe thy Tabernacles.<br /> +As thou hast said so is it come to pass: My desire is unto Cain<br /> +And he doth rule over me: therefore my soul in fumes of blood<br /> +Cries for vengeance: Sacrifice on Sacrifice, Blood on Blood.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Jehovah.</span> Lo, I have given you a Lamb for an Atonement instead<br /> +Of the Transgressor, or no Flesh or Spirit could ever live.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Abel.</span> Compelled I cry, O Earth, cover not the blood of Abel.<br /> +<br /> +(<span class="smcap">Abel</span> <i>sinks down into the grave, from which arises</i> <span class="smcap">Satan</span> <i>armed in</i><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>glittering scales with a crown and a spear</i>.)</span><br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Satan.</span> I will have human blood and not the blood of bulls or goats,<br /> +And no Atonement, O Jehovah; the Elohim live on Sacrifice<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>Of men: hence I am God of men; thou human, O Jehovah.<br /> +By the rock and oak of the Druid, creeping mistletoe and thorn,<br /> +Cain’s city built with human blood, not blood of bulls and goats,<br /> +Thou shalt thyself be sacrificed to me thy God on Calvary.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Jehovah.</span> Such is my will—(<i>Thunders</i>)—that thou thyself go to Eternal Death<br /> +In self-annihilation, even till Satan self-subdued put off Satan<br /> +Into the bottomless abyss whose torment arises for ever and ever.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>On each side a Chorus of Angels entering sing the following.</i>)</span><br /> +<br /> +The Elohim of the Heathen swore Vengeance for Sin! Then thou stood’st<br /> +Forth, O Elohim Jehovah, in the midst of the darkness of the oath all clothed<br /> +In thy covenant of the forgiveness of Sins. Death, O Holy! is this Brotherhood?<br /> +The Elohim saw their oath eternal fire; they rolled apart trembling over the<br /> +Mercy-Seat, each in his station fixed in the firmament, by Peace, Brotherhood, and Love.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 10em;"><i>The Curtain falls.</i></span></p> + +<p class="right">(1822. W. Blake’s original stereotype was 1788.)</p></div> + +<p>On the skirt of a figure, rapid and “vehemently sweeping,” engraved +underneath (recalling that vision of Dion made memorable by one of +Wordsworth’s nobler poems) are inscribed these words—“The Voice of Abel’s +Blood.” The fierce and strenuous flight of this figure is as the motion of +one “whose feet are swift to shed blood,” and the dim face is full of +hunger and sorrowful lust after revenge. The decorations are slight but +not ineffective; wrought merely in black and white. This small prose lyric +has a value beyond the value of its occasional beauty and force of form; +it is a brief comprehensible expression of Blake’s faith seen from its two +leading sides; belief in vision and belief in mercy. Into the singular +mood of mind which made him inscribe it to the least imaginative of all +serious poets we need by no means strive to enter; but in the trustful +admiration and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> the loyal goodwill which this quaint inscription seems to +imply, there must be something not merely laughable: as, however rough and +homespun the veil of eccentric speech may seem to us at first, we soon +find it interwoven with threads of such fair and fervent colour as make +the stuff of splendid verse; so, beyond all apparent aberrations of +relaxed thought which offend us at each turn, a purpose not ignoble and a +sense not valueless become manifest to those who will see them.</p> + +<p>Here then the scroll of prophecy is finally wound up; and those who have +cared to unroll and decipher it by such light as we can attain or afford +may now look back across the tempest and tumult, and pass sentence, +according to their pleasure or capacity, on the message delivered from +this cloudy and noisy tabernacle. The complete and exalted figure of Blake +cannot be seen in full by those who avert their eyes, smarting and +blinking, from the frequent smoke and sudden flame. Others will see more +clearly, as they look more sharply, the radical sanity and coherence of +the mind which put forth its shoots of thought and faith in ways so +strange, at such strange times. Faith incredible and love invisible to +most men were alone the springs of this turbid and sonorous stream. In +Blake, above all other men, the moral and the imaginative senses were so +fused together as to compose the final artistic form. No man’s fancy, in +that age, flew so far and so high on so sure a wing. No man’s mind, in +that generation, dived so deep or gazed so long after the chance of human +redemption. To serve art and to love liberty seemed to him the two things +(if indeed they were not one thing) worth a man’s life<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> and work; and no +servant was ever trustier, no lover more constant than he. Knowing that +without liberty there can be no loyalty, he did not fear, whether in his +work or his life, to challenge and to deride the misconstruction of the +foolish and the fraudulent. It does not appear that he was ever at the +pains to refute any senseless and rootless lie that may have floated up +during his life on the muddy waters of rumour, or drifted from hand to +hand and mouth to mouth along the putrescent weed-beds of tradition. Many +such lies, I am told, were then set afloat, and have not all as yet gone +down. One at least of these may here be swept once for all out of our way. +Mr. Linnell, the truest friend of Blake’s age and genius, has assured +me—and has expressed a wish that I should make public his assurance—that +the legend of Blake and his wife, sitting as Adam and Eve in their garden, +is simply a legend—to those who knew them, repulsive and absurd; based +probably, if on any foundation at all, on some rough and rapid expression +of Blake’s in the heat and flush of friendly talk, to the effect (it may +be) that such a thing, if one chose to do it, would be in itself innocent +and righteous,—wrong or strange only in the eyes of a world whose views +and whose deeds were strange and wrong. So far Blake would probably have +gone; and so far his commentators need not fear to go. But one thing does +certainly seem to me loathsome and condemnable; the imputation of such a +charge as has been brought against Blake on this matter, without ground +and without excuse. The oral flux of fools, being as it is a tertian or +quotidian malady or ague of the tongue among their kind, may <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span>deserve pity +or may not, but does assuredly demand rigid medical treatment. The words +or thoughts of a free thinker and a free speaker, falling upon rather than +into the ear of a servile and supine fool, will probably in all times +bring forth such fruit as this. By way of solace or compensation for the +folly which he half perceives and half admits, the fool must be allowed +his little jest and his little lie. Only when it passes into tradition and +threatens to endure, is it worth while to set foot on it. It seems that +Blake never cared to do this good office for himself; and in effect it can +only seem worth doing on rare occasions to any workman who respects his +work. This contempt, in itself noble and rational, became injurious when +applied to the direct service of things in hand. Confidence in future +friends, and contempt of present foes, may have induced him to leave his +highest achievements impalpable and obscure. Their scope is as wide and as +high as heaven, but not as clear; clouds involve and rains inundate the +fitful and stormy space of air through which he spreads and plies an +indefatigable wing. There can be few books in the world like these; I can +remember one poet only whose work seems to me the same or similar in kind; +a poet as vast in aim, as daring in detail, as unlike others, as coherent +to himself, as strange without and as sane within. The points of contact +and sides of likeness between William Blake and Walt Whitman are so many +and so grave, as to afford some ground of reason to those who preach the +transition of souls or transfusion of spirits. The great American is not a +more passionate preacher of sexual or political freedom than the English +artist. To<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> each the imperishable form of a possible and universal +Republic is equally requisite and adorable as the temporal and spiritual +queen of ages as of men. To each all sides and shapes of life are alike +acceptable or endurable. From the fresh free ground of either workman +nothing is excluded that is not exclusive. The words of either strike deep +and run wide and soar high. They are both full of faith and passion, +competent to love and to loathe, capable of contempt and of worship. Both +are spiritual, and both democratic; both by their works recall, even to so +untaught and tentative a student as I am, the fragments vouchsafed to us +of the Pantheistic poetry of the East. Their casual audacities of +expression or speculation are in effect wellnigh identical. Their outlooks +and theories are evidently the same on all points of intellectual and +social life. The divine devotion and selfless love which make men martyrs +and prophets are alike visible and palpable in each. It is no secret now, +but a matter of public knowledge, that both these men, being poor in the +sight and the sense of the world, have given what they had of time or of +money, of labour or of love, to comfort and support all the suffering and +sick, all the afflicted and misused, whom they had the chance or the right +to succour and to serve. The noble and gentle labours of the one are known +to those who live in his time; the similar deeds of the other deserve and +demand a late recognition. No man so poor and so obscure as Blake appeared +in the eyes of his generation ever did more good works in a more noble and +simple spirit. It seems that in each of these men at their birth pity and +passion, and relief and redress of wrong, became incarnate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> and innate. +That may well be said of the one which was said of the other: that “he +looks like a man.” And in externals and details the work of these two +constantly and inevitably coheres and coincides. A sound as of a sweeping +wind; a prospect as over dawning continents at the fiery instant of a +sudden sunrise; a splendour now of stars and now of storms; an expanse and +exultation of wing across strange spaces of air and above shoreless +stretches of sea; a resolute and reflective love of liberty in all times +and in all things where it should be; a depth of sympathy and a height of +scorn which complete and explain each other, as tender and as bitter as +Dante’s; a power, intense and infallible, of pictorial concentration and +absorption, most rare when combined with the sense and the enjoyment of +the widest and the highest things; an exquisite and lyrical excellence of +form when the subject is well in keeping with the poet’s tone of spirit; a +strength and security of touch in small sweet sketches of colour and +outline, which bring before the eyes of their student a clear glimpse of +the thing designed—some little inlet of sky lighted by moon or star, some +dim reach of windy water or gentle growth of meadow-land or wood; these +are qualities common to the work of either. Had we place or time or wish +to touch on their shortcomings and errors, it might be shown that these +too are nearly akin; that their poetry has at once the melody and the +laxity of a fitful storm-wind; that, being oceanic, it is troubled with +violent groundswells and sudden perils of ebb and reflux, of shoal and +reef, perplexing to the swimmer or the sailor; in a word, that it partakes +the powers and the faults of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> elemental and eternal things; that it is at +times noisy and barren and loose, rootless and fruitless and informal; and +is in the main fruitful and delightful and noble, a necessary part of the +divine mechanism of things. Any work or art of which this cannot be said +is superfluous and perishable, whatever of grace or charm it may possess +or assume. Whitman has seldom struck a note of thought and speech so just +and so profound as Blake has now and then touched upon; but his work is +generally more frank and fresh, smelling of sweeter air, and readier to +expound or expose its message, than this of the prophetic books. Nor is +there among these any poem or passage of equal length so faultless and so +noble as his “Voice out of the Sea,” or as his dirge over President +Lincoln—the most sweet and sonorous nocturn ever chanted in the church of +the world. But in breadth of outline and charm of colour, these poems +recall the work of Blake; and to neither poet can a higher tribute of +honest praise be paid than this.</p> + +<p>We have now done what in us lay to help the works of a great man on their +way towards that due appreciation and that high honour of which in the end +they will not fail. Much, it need not be repeated, has been done for them +of late, and admirably done; much also we have found to do, and have been +compelled to leave undone still more. If it should now appear to any +reader that too much has been made of slight things, or too little said of +grave errors, this must be taken well into account: that praise enough has +not as yet been given, and blame enough can always be had for the asking; +that when full honour has been done and full thanks<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> rendered to those who +have done great things, then and then only will it be no longer an +untimely and unseemly labour to map out and mark down their shortcomings +for the profit or the pleasure of their inferiors and our own; that +however pleasant for common palates and feeble fingers it may be to nibble +and pick holes, it is not only more profitable but should be more +delightful for all who desire or who strive after any excellence of mind +or of achievement to do homage wherever it may be due; to let nothing +great pass unsaluted or unenjoyed; but as often as we look backwards among +past days and dead generations, with glad and ready reverence to answer +the noble summons—“Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers who were +before us.” Those who refuse them that are none of their sons; and among +all these “famous men, and our fathers,” no names seem to demand our +praise so loudly as theirs who while alive had to dispense with the +thanksgiving of men. To them doubtless, it may be said, this is now more +than ever indifferent; but to us it had better not be so. And especially +in the works and in the life of Blake there is so strong and special a +charm for those to whom the higher ways of work are not sealed ways that +none will fear to be too grudging of blame or too liberal of praise. A +more noble memory is hardly left us; and it is not for his sake that we +should contend to do him honour.</p> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p class="center">THE END.</p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center">BRADBURY, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<div class="verts"> +<p><span class="pagenum">[1]</span></p> + +<p class="center"><span class="giant">NEW BOOKS</span><br /> +PUBLISHED BY<br /> +<span class="big">JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN,</span><br /> +74 & 75, PICCADILLY, LONDON, W.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> <span class="smcap">Note.</span>—<i>In order to ensure the correct delivery of the actual +Works, or Particular Editions, specified in this List, the name of the +Publisher should be distinctly given. 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By the consent of Mr. +Taylor’s family a new Edition is now issued, under the care and +superintendence of the printers who issued the originals forty years ago. +The Illustrations are considered amongst the most extraordinary examples +of successful reproduction that have ever been published. A very few +copies on <span class="smcaplc">LARGE PAPER</span>; proofs of plates on <i>India paper</i>, price One +Guinea.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">THE BEST BOOK ON CONFECTIONERY AND DESSERTS.</p> + +<p class="center">New Edition, with Plates, Post 8vo., cloth, 6s. 6d.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Gunter’s Modern Confectioner.</strong> An Entirely New Edition of this Standard +Work on the Preparation of Confectionery and the Arrangement of Desserts. +Adapted for private families or large establishments. By <span class="smcap">William Jeanes</span>, +Chief Confectioner at Messrs. Gunter’s (Confectioners to Her Majesty), +Berkeley Square.</p> + +<p>“All housekeepers should have it.”—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> This work has won for itself the reputation of being the +<span class="smcap">Standard English Book</span> on the preparation of all kinds of Confectionery, +and on the arrangement of Desserts.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">GUSTAVE DORÉ’S SPECIAL FAVOURITES.</p> + +<p class="center">This day, oblong 4to., handsome table book, 7s. 6d.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Historical Cartoons; or, Pictures of the World’s History from the First to +the Nineteenth Century.</strong> By GUSTAVE DORÉ. With admirable letterpress +descriptions of the Nineteen Centuries of European History.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> A new book of daring and inimitable designs, which will excite +considerable attention, and doubtless command a wide circulation.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">Now ready, 7s. 6d.</p> + +<p><strong>History of Signboards. A Fourth Edition.</strong></p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> The <i>Times</i>, in a review of three columns, remarked that the +“good things in the book were so numerous as to defy the most wholesale +depredation on the part of any reviewer.”</p> + +<p>Nearly 100 most curious illustrations on wood are given, showing the +various old signs which were formerly hung from taverns and other houses. +The frontispiece represents the famous sign of “The Man loaded with +Mischief,” in the colours of the original painting said to have been +executed by Hogarth.<span class="pagenum">[3]</span></p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">In 4to., half-morocco, neat, 30s.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>“Large-paper Edition” of History of Signboards.</strong> With <span class="smcap">Seventy-two</span> extra +Illustrations (not given in the small edition), showing Old London in the +days when Signboards hung from almost every house.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">In Crown 8vo., handsomely printed, 3s. 6d.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Horace and Virgil (The Odes and Eclogues).</strong> Translated into English Verse. +By HERBERT NOYES.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">THE NEW “SPECIAL” GUIDE.</p> + +<p class="center">200 pages, 24 Illustrations, Bird’s-eye View Map, Plan, &c. Crown 8vo., +price One Shilling.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Hotten’s Imperial Paris Guide.</strong> Issued under the superintendence of Mr. +CHARLES AUGUSTUS COLE, Commissioner to the Exhibition of 1851.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> This Guide is entirely new, and contains more Facts and +Anecdotes than any other published. The materials have been collected by a +well-known French Author, and the work has been revised by Mr. Cole.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">A SEQUEL TO THE “SHAM SQUIRE.”</p> + +<p class="center">New and Enlarged Edition, Crown 8vo., boards, 2s. 6d.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Ireland before the Union.</strong> With Revelations from the Unpublished Diary of +Lord Clonmell. By W. J. FITZPATRICK, J.P.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">This day, price 1s., 160 pages,</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>A Visit to King Theodore.</strong> By a Traveller returned from Gondar. With a +characteristic <span class="smcap">Portrait</span>.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> A very descriptive and amusing account of the King and his +Court by Mr. HENRY A. BURETTE.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">A VERY USEFUL BOOK.</p> + +<p class="center">Now ready, in Folio, half-morocco, cloth sides, 7s. 6d.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Literary Scraps, Cuttings from Newspapers, Extracts, Miscellanea, &c.</strong> A +Folio Scrap-book of 340 columns, formed for the reception of Cuttings, &c. +With Guards.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> A most useful volume, and one of the cheapest ever sold. The +book is sure to be appreciated, and to become popular.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">A MAGNIFICENT WORK.</p> + +<p class="center">Immediately, in Crown 4to., sumptuously printed, £7.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Lives of the Saints.</strong> With 50 exquisite 4to. Illuminations, mostly coloured +by hand; the Letterpress within Woodcut Borders of beautiful design.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> The illustrations to this work are far superior to anything of +the kind ever published here before.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">In Crown 8vo., uniform with the “Slang Dictionary,” price 6s. 6d.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Lost Beauties of the English Language.</strong> Revived and Revivable in England +and America. An Appeal to Authors, Poets, Clergymen, and Public Speakers.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table"> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 5em;">“Ancient words</span><br /> +That come from the poetic quarry<br /> +As sharp as swords.”<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 8em;"><span class="smcap">Hamilton</span>’s <i>Epistle to Allan Ramsay</i>.</span></td></tr></table> + +<p class="center">————————<span class="pagenum">[4]</span></p> + +<p class="center">NEW AND GENUINE BOOK OF HUMOUR.</p> +<p class="center">Uniform with Artemus Ward. Crown 8vo., toned paper, price 3s. 6d.</p> + +<p><strong>Mr. Sprouts his Opinions.</strong></p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> Readers who found amusement in Artemus Ward’s droll books will +have no cause to complain of this humorous production. A Costermonger who +gets into Parliament and becomes one of the most “practical” Members, +rivalling Bernal Osborne in his wit and Roebuck in his satire, OUGHT TO BE +an amusing person.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">In 3 vols. Crown 8vo., £1. 11s. 6d.</p> + +<p><strong>Melchior Gorles.</strong> By Henry Aitchenbie.</p> + +<p>The New Novel, illustrative of “Mesmeric Influence,” or whatever else we +may choose to term that strange power which some persons exercise over +others, controlling without being seen, ordering in silence, and enslaving +or freeing as fancy or will may dictate.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> “The power of detaching the spirit from the body, of borrowing +another’s physical courage, returning it at will with (or without) +interest, has a humorous audacity of conception about it.”—<i>Spectator.</i></p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">POPULAR MEMOIR OF FARADAY.</p> + +<p class="center">This day, Crown 8vo., toned paper, Portrait, price 6d.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Michael Faraday. Philosopher and Christian.</strong> By the Rev. SAMUEL MARTIN, of Westminster.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> An admirable résumé—designed for popular reading—of this +great man’s life.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">Now ready, One Shilling Edition of</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Never Caught: Personal Adventures in Twelve Successful Trips in Blockade Running.</strong></p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> A Volume of Adventure of thrilling interest.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">FOLK-LORE, LEGENDS, PROVERBS OF ICELAND.</p> + +<p class="center">Now ready, Cheap Edition, with Map and Tinted Illustrations, 2s. 6d.</p> + +<p><strong>Oxonian in Iceland; with Icelandic Folk-lore and Sagas.</strong> By the Rev. FRED. METCALFE, M.A.</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="huge">⁂</span> A very amusing Book of Travel.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">MR. EDMUND OLLIER’S POEMS.</p> + +<p class="center">This day, cloth neat, 5s.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Poems from the Greek Mythology, and Miscellaneous Poems.</strong> By EDMUND OLLIER.</p> + +<p>“What he has written is enough, and more than enough, to give him a high +rank amongst the most successful cultivators of the English +Muse.”—<i>Globe.</i></p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">THE NEW RIDDLE BOOK.</p> + +<p class="center">New Edition of “An awfully Jolly Book for Parties.” On toned paper, cloth +gilt, 7s. 6d.; cloth gilt, with Illustration in Colours by G. Doré, 8s. +6d.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Puniana; or, Thoughts Wise and Otherwise.</strong> Best Book of Riddles and Puns +ever formed. With nearly 100 exquisitely fanciful drawings. Contains +nearly 3,000 of the best Riddles and 10,000 most outrageous Puns, and it +is believed will prove to be one of the most popular books ever issued.</p> + +<p>Why did Du Chaillu get so angry when he was chaffed about the Gorilla? +Why? we ask.</p> + +<p>Why is a chrysalis like a hot roll? You will doubtless remark, “Because +it’s the grub that makes the butter fly!” But see “Puniana.”</p> + +<p>Why is a wide-awake hat so called? Because it never had a nap, and never +wants one.</p> + +<p class="center">————————<span class="pagenum">[5]</span></p> + +<p class="center">A REPRODUCTION IN EXACT FACSIMILE, LETTER FOR LETTER, OF THE EXCESSIVELY +RARE ORIGINAL OF SHAKESPEARE’S FAMOUS PLAY,</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Much Adoe about Nothing.</strong> As it hath been sundrie times publikely acted by +the Right Honourable the Lord Chamberlaine his seruants. Written by +WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, 1600.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> Small quarto, on fine toned paper, half bound morocco, +Roxburghe style, 4s. 6d. (Original price 10s. 6d.)</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">Immediately, in Crown 4to., exquisitely printed, £3. 10s.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Saint Ursula, and the Story of the 11,000 Virgins,</strong> now newly told by +THOMAS WRIGHT, F.S.A. With Twenty-five Full-page 4to. Illuminated +Miniatures from the Pictures of Cologne.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> The finest book-paintings of the kind ever published. The +artist has just obtained the gold prize at the Paris Exposition.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">New Edition, with large Additions, 15th Thousand, Crown 8vo., cloth, 6s. +6d.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Slang Dictionary.</strong> With Further Particulars of Beggars’ Marks.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> “<span class="smcap">Beggars’ Marks upon House Corners.</span>—On our doorways, and on +our house corners and gate-posts, curious chalk marks may occasionally be +observed, which, although meaningless to us, are full of suggestion to +tramps, beggars, and pedlars. Mr. Hotten intends giving, in the new +edition of his ‘Slang Dictionary’—the fourth—some extra illustrations +descriptive of this curious and, it is believed, ancient method of +communicating the charitable or ill-natured intentions of house occupants; +and he would be obliged by the receipt, at 74, Piccadilly, London, of any +facts which might assist his inquiry.”—<i>Notes and Queries.</i></p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">UNIFORM WITH ESSAYS WRITTEN IN THE “INTERVALS OF BUSINESS.”</p> + +<p class="center">This day, a Choice Book, on toned paper, 6s.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>The Collector.</strong> Essays on Books, Authors, Newspapers, Pictures, Inns, +Doctors, Holidays, &c. Introduction by Dr. DORAN.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> A charming volume of delightful Essays, with +exquisitely-engraved Vignette of an Old-Book Collector busily engaged at +his favourite pursuit of book-hunting. The work is a companion volume to +Disraeli’s “Curiosities of Literature,” and to the more recently published +“Book-Hunter,” by Mr. John Hill Burton.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">“A PERFECT MARVEL OF CHEAPNESS.”</p> + +<p class="center">Five of Scott’s Novels, complete, for 3s., well bound.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Waverley Novels.</strong> “Toned Paper.” Five Choice Novels <span class="smcap">Complete for</span> 3s., cloth +extra, 850 pp. This very handsome Volume contains unmutilated and Author’s +Editions of <span class="smcap">Ivanhoe, Old Mortality, Fortunes of Nigel, Guy Mannering, Bride of Lammermoor</span>.</p> + +<p class="hang">Also, <i>FIRST SERIES</i>, Fifth Thousand, containing <span class="smcap">Waverley, The Monastery, Rob Roy, +Kenilworth, The Pirate</span>. All complete in 1 vol., cloth neat, 3s.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">A GUIDE TO READING OLD MANUSCRIPTS, RECORDS, &c.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Wright’s Court Hand Restored;</strong> or, Student’s Assistant in Reading Old +Deeds, Charters, Records, &c. Half-morocco, 10s. 6d.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> A New Edition, corrected, of an invaluable Work to all who have +occasion to consult old MSS., Deeds, Charters, &c. It contains a Series of +Facsimiles of old MSS. from the time of the Conqueror, Tables of +Contractions and Abbreviations, Ancient Surnames, &c.</p> + +<p class="center">————————<span class="pagenum">[6]</span></p> +<p class="center">OLD ENGLISH RELIGIOUS BALLADS AND CAROLS.</p> + +<p class="center">This day, in small 4to., with very beautiful floriated borders, in the +Renaissance style.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Songs of the Nativity.</strong> An entirely New Collection of Old Carols, including +some never before given in any collection. With Music to the more popular. +Edited by W. H. HUSK, Librarian to the Sacred Harmonic Society. In +charmingly appropriate cloth, gilt, and admirably adapted for binding in +antique calf or morocco, 12s. 6d.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> A volume which will not be without peculiar interest to lovers +of <span class="smcap">Ancient English Poetry</span>, and to admirers of our <i>National Sacred Music</i>. +The work forms a handsome square 8vo., and has been printed with beautiful +floriated borders by Whittingham & Wilkins. The Carols embrace the joyous +and festive songs of the olden time, as well as those sacred melodies +which have maintained their popularity from a period long before the +Reformation.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">“DOES FOR WINCHESTER WHAT ‘TOM BROWN’ DID FOR RUGBY.”</p> + +<p class="center">This day, Crown 8vo., handsomely printed, 7s. 6d.,</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>School Life at Winchester; or, the Reminiscences of a Winchester Junior.</strong> +By the Author of the “Log of the Water Lily.” With numerous illustrations, +exquisitely coloured after the original drawings.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">ANGLICAN CHURCH ORNAMENTS.</p> + +<p class="center">This day, thick 8vo., with illustrations, price 15s.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>English Church Furniture, Ornaments, and Decorations, at the Period of the +Reformation.</strong> Edited by ED. PEACOCK, F.S.A.</p> + +<p>“Very curious as showing what articles of church furniture were in those +days considered to be idolatrous or unnecessary. The work, of which only a +limited number has been printed, is of the highest interest to those who +take part in the present Ritual discussion.”—<i>See Reviews in the +Religious Journals.</i></p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">NEW BOOK BY THE “ENGLISH GUSTAVE DORÉ.”—COMPANION TO THE “HATCHET-THROWERS.”</p> + +<p class="center">This day, 4to., Illustrations, coloured, 7s. 6d.; plain, 5s.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Legends of Savage Life.</strong> By James Greenwood, the famous Author of “A Night +in a Workhouse.” With 36 inimitably droll Illustrations drawn and coloured +by <span class="smcap">Ernest Griset</span>, the “English Gustave Doré.”</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> Readers who found amusement in the “Hatchet-Throwers” will not +regret any acquaintance they may form with this comical work. The pictures +are among the most surprising which have come from this artist’s pencil.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">COMPANION VOLUME TO “LEECH’S PICTURES.”</p> + +<p class="center">This day, oblong 4to., a handsome volume, half morocco, price 12s.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Seymour’s Sketches.</strong> The Book of Cockney Sports, Whims, and Oddities. +Nearly 200 highly amusing Illustrations.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> A reissue of the famous pictorial comicalities which were so +popular thirty years ago. The volume is admirably adapted for a +table-book, and the pictures will doubtless again meet with that +popularity which was extended towards them when the artist projected with +Mr. Dickens the famous “Pickwick Papers.”</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">MR. SWINBURNE’S NEW WORK.</p> + +<p class="center">This day, in Demy 8vo., pp. 350, price 16s.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>William Blake; Artist and Poet.</strong> A Critical Essay. By ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> The coloured illustrations to this book have all been prepared, +by a careful hand, from the original drawings painted by Blake and his +wife, and are very different from ordinary book illustrations.</p> + +<p class="center">————————<span class="pagenum">[7]</span></p> + +<p class="center">RECENT POETRY.<br /> +——<br /> +MR. SWINBURNE’S NEW POEM.</p> + +<p class="center">This day, fcap. 8vo. toned paper, cloth, 3s. 6d.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>A Song of Italy.</strong> By Algernon Charles Swinburne.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> The <i>Athenæum</i> remarks of this poem:—“Seldom has such a chant +been heard, so full of glow, strength, and colour.”</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="hang"><strong>Mr. Swinburne’s “Poems and Ballads.”</strong></p> + +<p class="hang"><i>NOTICE.—The Publisher begs to inform the very many persons who have +inquired after this remarkable Work that copies may now be obtained at all +Booksellers, price 9s.</i></p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="hang"><strong>Mr. Swinburne’s Notes</strong> on his Poems and on the Reviews which have appeared +upon them, is now ready, price 1s.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">Also New and Revised Editions.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Atalanta in Calydon.</strong> By Algernon Charles Swinburne. 6s.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="hang"><strong>Chastelard: a Tragedy.</strong> By A. C. Swinburne. 7s.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="hang"><strong>Rossetti’s Criticism on Swinburne’s “Poems.”</strong> 3s. 6d.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">UNIFORM WITH MR. SWINBURNE’S POEMS.</p> + +<p class="center">In fcap. 8vo., price 5s.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Walt Whitman’s Poems. (Leaves of Grass, Drum-taps, &c.)</strong> Selected and Edited by WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> For twelve years the American poet Whitman has been the object +of widespread detraction and of concentrated admiration. The admiration +continues to gain ground, as evidenced of late by papers in the American +<i>Round Table</i>, in the <i>London Review</i>, in the <i>Fortnightly Review</i> by Mr. +M. D. Conway, in the <i>Broadway</i> by Mr. Robert Buchanan, and in the +<i>Chronicle</i> by the editor of the selection announced above, as also by the +recent publication of Whitman’s last poem, from advance sheets, in +<i>Tinsleys’ Magazine</i>.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">In preparation, small 4to. elegant.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Carols of Cockayne.</strong> By Henry S. Leigh. [Vers de Société and humorous +pieces descriptive of London life.] With numerous requisite little +designs, by <span class="smcap">Alfred Concannen</span>.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">Now ready, price 3s. 6d.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>The Prometheus Bound of Æschylus.</strong> Translated in the Original Metres. By <span class="smcap">C. +B. Cayley</span>, B.A.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">Now ready, 4to. 10s. 6d., on toned paper, very elegant.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Bianca: Poems and Ballads.</strong> By Edward Brennan.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">Now ready, cloth, price 5s.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Poems from the Greek Mythology: and Miscellaneous Poems.</strong> By <span class="smcap">Edmund +Ollier</span>.</p> + +<p class="center">————————<span class="pagenum">[8]</span></p> +<p class="center">In crown 8vo. toned paper.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Poems.</strong> By P. F. Roe.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">In crown 8vo. handsomely printed.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>The Idolatress, and other Poems.</strong> By Dr. Wills, Author of “Dramatic +Scenes,” “The Disembodied,” and of various Poetical contributions to +<i>Blackwood’s Magazine</i>.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">HOTTEN’S AUTHORIZED ONLY COMPLETE EDITIONS.</p> + +<p class="center">This day, on toned paper, price 6d.; by post, 7d.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Hotten’s New Book of Humour.</strong> “Artemus Ward Among the Fenians.”</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">This day, 4th edition, on tinted paper, bound in cloth, neat, price 3s. +6d.; by post, 3s. 10d.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Hotten’s “Artemus Ward: His Book.”</strong> The Author’s Enlarged Edition; +containing, in addition to the following edition, two extra chapters, +entitled “The Draft in Baldinsville, with Mr. Ward’s Private Opinion +concerning Old Bachelors,” and “Mr. W.’s Visit to a Graffick” (Soirée).</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> “We never, not even in the pages of our best humorists, read +anything so laughable and so shrewd as we have seen in this book by the +mirthful Artemus.”—<i>Public Opinion.</i></p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">New edition, this day, price 1s.; by post, 1s. 2d.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Hotten’s “Artemus Ward: His Book.” A Cheap Edition,</strong> without extra +chapters, with portrait of author on paper cover, 1s.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> <span class="smcap">Notice.</span>—Mr. Hotten’s Edition is the only one published in this +country with the sanction of the author. Every copy contains A. Ward’s +signature. The <i>Saturday Review</i> of October 21st says of Mr. Hotten’s +edition: “The author combines the powers of Thackeray with those of Albert +Smith. The salt is rubbed in by a native hand—one which has the gift of +tickling.”</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">This day, crown 8vo., toned paper, cloth, price 3s. 6d.; by post, 3s. 10d.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Hotten’s “Artemus Ward: His Travels Among the Mormons and on the Rampage.”</strong> +Edited by E. P. HINGSTON, the Agent and Companion of A. Ward whilst “on +the Rampage.”</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> <span class="smcap">Notice.</span>—Readers of Artemus Ward’s droll books are informed +that an Illustrated Edition of His Travels is now ready, containing +numerous Comic Pictures, representing the different scenes and events in +Artemus Ward’s Adventures.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">This day, cheap edition, in neat wrapper, price 1s.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Hotten’s “Artemus Ward: His Travels Among the Mormons.” The New Shilling +Edition,</strong> with Ticket of Admission to Mormon Lecture.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">THE CHOICEST HUMOROUS POETRY OF THE AGE.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Hotten’s “Biglow Papers.”</strong> By James Russell Lowell. Price 1s.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> This Edition has been edited, with additional Notes explanatory +of the persons and subjects mentioned therein, and is the only complete +and correct edition published in this country.</p> + +<p>“The celebrated ‘Biglow Papers.’”—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p class="center">————————<span class="pagenum">[9]</span></p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Biglow Papers. Another Edition,</strong> with Coloured Plates by <span class="smcap">George Cruikshank</span>, +bound in cloth, neat, price 3s. 6d.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">Handsomely printed, square 12mo.,</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Advice to Parties About to Marry.</strong> A Series of Instructions in Jest and +Earnest. By the Hon. HUGH ROWLEY, and illustrated with numerous comic +designs from his pencil.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">AN EXTRAORDINARY BOOK.</p> + +<p class="center">Beautifully printed, thick 8vo., new, half morocco, Roxburghe, 12s. 6d.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Hotten’s Edition of “Contes Drolatiques”</strong> (Droll Tales collected from the +Abbeys of Loraine). Par BALZAC. With Four Hundred and Twenty-five +Marvellous, Extravagant, and Fantastic Woodcuts by <span class="smcap">Gustave Doré</span>.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> The most singular designs ever attempted by any artist. This +book is a fund of amusement. So crammed is it with pictures that even the +contents are adorned with thirty-three illustrations. <i>Direct application +must be made to Mr. Hotten for this work.</i></p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">THE ORIGINAL EDITION OF JOE MILLER’S JESTS. 1739. Price 9s. 6d.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Joe Miller’s Jests: or, the Wit’s Vade-Mecum;</strong> a Collection of the most +brilliant Jests, politest Repartees, most elegant Bons Mots, and most +pleasant short Stories in the English Language. An interesting specimen of +remarkable facsimile, 8vo., half morocco, price 9s. 6d. London: printed by +T. Read, 1739.</p> + +<p>Only a very few copies of this humorous book have been reproduced.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">This day, handsomely printed on toned paper, price 3s. 6d.; cheap edition, +1s.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Hotten’s “Josh Billings: His Book of Sayings;”</strong> with Introduction by E. P. +HINGSTON, companion of Artemus Ward when on his “Travels.”</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> For many years past the sayings and comicalities of “Josh +Billings” have been quoted in our newspapers. His humour is of a quieter +kind, more aphoristically comic, than the fun and drollery of the +“delicious Artemus,” as Charles Reade styles the Showman. If Artemus Ward +may be called the comic story-teller of his time, “Josh” can certainly be +dubbed the comic essayist of his day. Although promised some time ago, Mr. +Billings’ “Book” has only just appeared, but it contains all his best and +most mirth-provoking articles.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">This day, in three vols., crown 8vo., cloth, neat.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Orpheus C. Kerr Papers.</strong> The Original American Edition, in Three Series, +complete. Three vols., 8vo., cloth; sells at £1. 2s. 6d., now specially +offered at 15s.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> A most mirth-provoking work. It was first introduced into this +country by the English officers who were quartered during the late war on +the Canadian frontier. They found it one of the drollest pieces of +composition they had ever met with, and so brought copies over for the +delectation of their friends.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="hang"><strong>Orpheus C. Kerr [Office Seeker] Papers.</strong> First Series, Edited by E. P. +HINGSTON. Price 1s.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">THACKERAY AND GEORGE CRUIKSHANK.</p> + +<p class="center">In small 8vo., cloth, very neat, price 4s. 6d.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Thackeray’s Humour.</strong> Illustrated by the Pencil of George Cruikshank. +Twenty-four Humorous Designs executed by this inimitable artist in the +year 1839-40, as illustrations to “The Fatal Boots” and “The Diary of +Barber Cox,” with letterpress descriptions suggested by the late Mr. +Thackeray.</p> + +<p class="center">————————<span class="pagenum">[10]</span></p> +<p class="center">THE ENGLISH GUSTAVE DORÉ.</p> + +<p class="center">This day, in 4to., handsomely printed, cloth gilt, price 7s. 6d.; with +plates uncoloured, 5s.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>The Hatchet-Throwers;</strong> with Thirty-six Illustrations, coloured after the +Inimitably Grotesque Drawings of <span class="smcap">Ernest Griset</span>.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> Comprises the astonishing adventures of Three Ancient Mariners, +the Brothers Brass of Bristol, Mr. Corker, and Mungo Midge.</p> + +<p>“A Munchausen sort of book. The drawings by M. Griset are very powerful +and eccentric.”—<i>Saturday Review.</i></p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">This day, in Crown 8vo., uniform with “Biglow Papers,” price 3s. 6d.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Wit and Humour.</strong> By the “Autocrat of the Breakfast Table.” A volume of +delightfully humorous Poems, very similar to the mirthful verses of Tom +Hood. Readers will not be disappointed with this work.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">Cheap edition, handsomely printed, price 1s.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Vere Vereker: a Comic Story,</strong> by Thomas Hood, with Punning Illustrations. +By <span class="smcap">William Brunton</span>.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> One of the most amusing volumes which have been published for a +long time. For a piece of broad humour, of the highly-sensational kind, it +is perhaps the best piece of literary fun by Tom Hood.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">Immediately, at all the Libraries.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Cent. per Cent.: a Story written upon a Bill Stamp.</strong> By BLANCHARD JERROLD. +With numerous coloured illustrations in the style of the late Mr. Leech’s charming designs.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> A Story of “The Vampires of London,” as they were pithily +termed in a recent notorious case, and one of undoubted interest.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">AN ENTIRELY NEW BOOK OF DELIGHTFUL FAIRY TALES.</p> + +<p class="center">Now ready, square 12mo., handsomely printed on toned paper, in cloth, +green and gold, price 4s. 6d. plain, 5s. 6d. coloured (by post 6d. extra).</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Family Fairy Tales: or, Glimpses of Elfland at Heatherston Hall.</strong> Edited by +CHOLMONDELEY PENNELL, Author of “Puck on Pegasus,” &c., adorned with +beautiful pictures of “My Lord Lion,” “King Uggermugger,” and other great +folks.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> This charming volume of Original Tales has been universally +praised by the critical press.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="hang"><strong>Pansie: a Child Story,</strong> the Last Literary Effort of Nathaniel Hawthorne. +12mo., price 6d.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="hang"><strong>Rip Van Winkle: and the “Story of Sleepy Hollow.”</strong> By WASHINGTON IRVING. +Foolscap 8vo., very neatly printed on toned paper, illustrated cover, 6d.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="hang"><strong>Anecdotes of the Green Room and Stage; or, Leaves from an Actor’s +Note-Book, at Home and Abroad.</strong> By GEORGE VANDENHOFF. Post 8vo., pp. 336, +price 2s.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> Includes original anecdotes of the Keans (father and son), the +two Kembles, Macready, Cooke, Liston, Farren, Elliston, Braham and his +Sons, Phelps, Buckstone, Webster, Charles Matthews, Siddons, Vestris, +Helen Faucit, Mrs. Nisbet, Miss Cushman, Miss O’Neil, Mrs. Glover, Mrs. +Charles Kean, Rachel, Ristori, and many other dramatic celebrities.</p> + +<p class="center">————————<span class="pagenum">[11]</span></p> +<p class="hang"><strong>Berjean’s (P. C.) Book of Dogs:</strong> the Varieties of Dogs as they are found in +Old Sculptures, Pictures, Engravings, and Books. 1865. Half-morocco, the +sides richly lettered with gold, 7s. 6d.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> In this very interesting volume are 52 plates, facsimiled from +rare old Engravings, Paintings, Sculptures, &c., in which may be traced +over 100 varieties of dogs known to the ancients.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">This day, elegantly printed, pp. 96, wrapper 1s., cloth 2s., post free.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Carlyle on the Choice of Books.</strong> The Inaugural Address of THOMAS CARLYLE, +with Memoir, Anecdotes, Two Portraits, and View of his House in Chelsea. +The “Address” is reprinted from <i>The Times</i>, carefully compared with +twelve other reports, and is believed to be the most accurate yet printed.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> The leader in the <i>Daily Telegraph</i>, April 25th, largely quotes +from the above “Memoir.”</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">In Fcap. 8vo., cloth, price 3s. 6d. beautifully printed.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Gog and Magog; or, the History of the Guildhall Giants.</strong> With some Account +of the Giants which guard English and Continental Cities. By F. W. +FAIRHOLT, F.S.A. With Illustrations on Wood by the author, coloured and +plain.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> The critiques which have appeared upon this amusing little work +have been uniformly favourable. The <i>Art Journal</i> says, in a long article, +that it thoroughly explains who these old giants were, the position they +occupied in popular mythology, the origin of their names, and a score of +other matters, all of much interest in throwing a light upon fabulous +portions of our history.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">Now ready, handsomely printed, price 1s. 6d.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Hints on Hats; adapted to the Heads of the People.</strong> By HENRY MELTON, of +Regent Street. With curious woodcuts of the various style of Hats worn at +different periods.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> Anecdotes of eminent and fashionable personages are given, and +a fund of interesting information relative to the History of Costume and +change of tastes may be found scattered through its pages.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">This day, handsomely bound, pp. 550, price 7s. 6d.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>History of Playing Cards:</strong> with Anecdotes of their Use in Ancient and +Modern Games, Conjuring, Fortune-Telling, and Card-sharping. With Sixty +curious illustrations on toned paper. Skill and Sleight-of-Hand; Gambling +and Calculation; Cartomancy and Cheating; Old Games and Gaming-Houses; +Card Revels and Blind Hookey; Piquet and Vingt-et-un; Whist and Cribbage; +Old-fashioned Tricks.</p> + +<p>“A highly-interesting volume.”—<i>Morning Post.</i></p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">This day, in 2 vols., 8vo., very handsomely printed, price 16s.</p> + +<p class="center">THE HOUSEHOLD STORIES OF ENGLAND.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Popular Romances of the West of England; or, the Drolls of Old Cornwall.</strong> +Collected and edited by ROBERT HUNT, F.R.S.</p> + +<p>For an analysis of this important work see printed description, which may +be obtained gratis at the publisher’s.</p> + +<p>Many of the stories are remarkable for their wild poetic beauty; others +surprise us by their quaintness; whilst others, again, show forth a tragic +force which can only be associated with those rude ages which existed long +before the period of authentic history.</p> + +<p>Mr. George Cruikshank has supplied two wonderful pictures as illustrations +to the work. One is a portrait of Giant Bolster, a personage twelve miles +high.</p> + +<p class="center">————————<span class="pagenum">[12]</span></p> +<p class="center">Pp. 336, handsomely printed, cloth extra, price 3s. 6d.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Holidays with Hobgoblins; or, Talk of Strange Things.</strong> By DUDLEY COSTELLO. +With humorous engravings by <span class="smcap">George Cruikshank</span>. Amongst the chapters may be +enumerated: Shaving a Ghost; Superstitions and Traditions; Monsters; the +Ghost of Pit Pond; the Watcher of the Dead; the Haunted House near +Hampstead; Dragons, Griffins, and Salamanders; Alchemy and Gunpowder; +Mother Shipton; Bird History; Witchcraft and Old Boguey; Crabs; Lobsters; +the Apparition of Monsieur Bodry.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">SUPPLEMENTARY VOLUME TO HONE’S WORKS.</p> + +<p class="center">In preparation, thick 8vo., uniform with “Year-Book,” pp. 800.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Hone’s Scrap Book.</strong> A Supplementary Volume to the “Every-Day Book,” the +“Year-Book,” and the “Table-Book.” From the MSS. of the late WILLIAM HONE, +with upwards of One Hundred and Fifty engravings of curious or eccentric +objects.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">BARNUM’S NEW BOOK.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Humbugs of the World.</strong> By P. T. Barnum. Pp. 320. crown 8vo., cloth extra, +4s. 6d.</p> + +<p>“A most vivacious book, and a very readable one.”—<i>Globe.</i></p> + +<p>“The history of Old Adams and his grisly bears is +inimitable.”—<i>Athenæum.</i></p> + +<p>“A History of Humbugs by the Prince of Humbugs! What book can be more +promising?”—<i>Saturday Review.</i></p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">A KEEPSAKE FOR SMOKERS.</p> + +<p class="center">This day, 48mo., beautifully printed from silver-faced type, cloth, very +neat, gilt edges, price 2s. 6d.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Smoker’s Text Book.</strong> By J. Hamer, F.R.S.L. This exquisite little volume +comprises the most important passages from the works of eminent men +written in favour of the much-abused weed. Its compilation was suggested +by a remark made by Sir Bulwer Lytton:—</p> + +<p>“A pipe is a great comforter, a pleasant soother. The man who smokes +thinks like a sage and acts like a Samaritan.”</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> A few copies have been choicely bound in calf antique and +morocco, price 10s. 6d. each.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">A NEW BOOK BY THE LATE MR. THACKERAY.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>The Student’s Quarter; or, Paris Life Five-and-Twenty Years Since.</strong> By the +late WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. With numerous coloured illustrations +after designs made at the time.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> For these interesting sketches of French literature and art, +made immediately after the Revolution of 1830, the reading world is +indebted to a gentleman in Paris, who has carefully preserved the original +papers up to the present time.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="hang"><strong>Thackeray: the Humorist and the Man of Letters.</strong> The Story of his Life and +Literary Labours. With some particulars of his Early Career never before +made public. By THEODORE TAYLOR, Esq., Membre de la Société des gens de +Lettres. Price 7s. 6d.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> Illustrated with Photographic Portrait (one of the most +characteristic known to have been taken) by Ernest Edwards, B.A.; view of +Mr. Thackeray’s House, built after a favourite design of the great +novelist’s; facsimile of his Handwriting, long noted in London literary +circles for its exquisite neatness; and a curious life sketch of his Coat +of Arms, a pen and pencil humorously introduced as the crest, the motto, +“Nobilitas est sola virtus” (Virtue is the sole nobility).</p> + +<p class="center">————————<span class="pagenum">[13]</span></p> +<p class="center">This day, neatly printed, price 1s. 6d.; by post 1s. 8d.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Mental Exertion: its Influence on Health.</strong> By Dr. BRIGHAM. Edited, with +additional Notes, by Dr. ARTHUR LEARED, Physician to the Great Northern +Hospital. This is a highly important little book, showing how far we may +educate the mind without injuring the body.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> The recent untimely deaths of Admiral Fitzroy and Mr. Prescott, +whose minds gave way under excessive mental exertion, fully illustrate the +importance of the subject.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">EVERY HOUSEKEEPER SHOULD POSSESS A COPY.</p> + +<p class="center">Now ready, in cloth, price 2s. 6d.; by post 2s. 8d.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>The Housekeeper’s Assistant;</strong> a Collection of the most valuable Recipes, +carefully written down for future use, by Mrs. B—— during her forty +years’ active service.</p> + +<p>As much as two guineas has been paid for a copy of this invaluable little +work.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="hang"><strong>How to See Scotland;</strong> or, a Fortnight in the Highlands for £6.</p> + +<p>A plain and practical guide.—Price 1s.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">Now ready, 8vo., price 1s.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>List of British Plants.</strong> Compiled and Arranged by Alex More, F.L.S.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> This comparative <i>List of British Plants</i> was drawn up for the +use of the country botanist, to show the differences in opinion which +exist between different authors as to the number of species which ought to +be reckoned within the compass of the <i>flora</i> of Great Britain.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">Now ready, price 2s. 6d.; by post 2s. 10d.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Dictionary of the Oldest Words in the English Language,</strong> from the +Semi-Saxon Period of <span class="smcaplc">A.D.</span> 1250 to 1300; consisting of an Alphabetical +Inventory of Every Word found in the Printed English Literature of the +13th Century, by the late HERBERT COLERIDGE, Secretary to the Philological +Society. 8vo., neat half morocco.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> An invaluable work to historical students and those interested +in linguistic pursuits.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="hang"><strong>The School and College Slang of England;</strong> or, Glossaries of the Words and +Phrases peculiar to the Six great Educational Establishments of the +country.—Preparing.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">This day, in Crown 8vo., handsomely printed, price 7s. 6d.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Glossary of all the Words, Phrases, and Customs peculiar to Winchester +College.</strong></p> + +<p>See “School Life at Winchester College,” recently published.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="hang"><strong>Robson; a Sketch, by Augustus Sala.</strong> An Interesting Biography, with +Sketches of his famous characters, “Jem Baggs,” “Boots at the Swan,” “The +Yellow Dwarf,” “Daddy Hardacre,” &c. Price 6d.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">In preparation, Crown 8vo., handsomely printed.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>The Curiosities of Flagellation:</strong> an Anecdotal History of the Birch in +Ancient and Modern Times: its Use as a Religious Stimulant, and as a +Corrector of Morals in all Ages. With some quaint illustrations. By J. G. +BERTRAND, Author of “The Harvest of the Sea,” &c.</p> + +<p class="center">————————<span class="pagenum">[14]</span></p> +<p class="center">In 1 vol., with 300 Drawings from Nature, 2s. 6d. plain, 4s. 6d. coloured +by hand.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>The Young Botanist: a Popular Guide to Elementary Botany.</strong> By T. S. RALPH, +of the Linnæan Society.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> An excellent book for the young beginner. The objects selected +as illustrations are either easy of access as specimens of wild plants, or +are common in gardens.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="hang"><strong>Common Prayer.</strong> Illustrated by Holbein and Albert Durer. With Wood +Engravings of the “Life of Christ,” rich woodcut border on every page of +Fruit and Flowers; also the Dance of Death, a singularly curious series +after Holbein, with Scriptural Quotations and Proverbs in the Margin. +Square 8vo., cloth neat, exquisitely printed on tinted paper, price 8s. +6d.; in dark morocco, very plain and neat, with block in the Elizabethan +style impressed on the sides, gilt edges, 16s. 6d.</p> + +<p class="center">Apply direct for this exquisite volume.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">AN APPROPRIATE BOOK TO ILLUMINATE.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> The attention of those who practise the beautiful art of +Illuminating is requested to the following sumptuous volume:—</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>The Presentation Book of Common Prayer.</strong> Illustrated with Elegant +Ornamental Borders in red and black, from “Books of Hours” and Illuminated +Missals, by GEOFFREY TORY. One of the most tasteful and beautiful books +ever printed. May now be seen at all booksellers.</p> + +<p class="hang">Although the price is only a few shillings (7s. 6d. in plain cloth; 8s. +6d. antique do.; 14s. 6d. morocco extra), this edition is so prized by +artists that, at the South Kensington and other important Art Schools, +copies are kept for the use of students.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">Now ready, in 8vo., on tinted paper, nearly 350 pages, very neat, price +5s.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Family History of the English Counties:</strong> Descriptive Account of Twenty +Thousand most Curious and Rare Books, Old Tracts, Ancient Manuscripts, +Engravings, and Privately-printed Family Papers, relating to the History +of almost every Landed Estate and Old English Family in the Country; +interspersed with nearly Two Thousand Original Anecdotes, Topographical +and Antiquarian Notes. By JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN.</p> + +<p>By far the largest collection of English and Welsh Topography and Family +History ever formed. Each article has a small price affixed for the +convenience of those who may desire to possess any book or tract that +interests them.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">AN INTERESTING VOLUME TO ANTIQUARIES.</p> + +<p class="center">Now ready, 4to., half morocco, handsomely printed, price 7s. 6d.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Army Lists of the Roundheads and Cavaliers in the Civil War.</strong></p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> These most curious Lists show on which side the gentlemen of +England were to be found during the great conflict between the King and +the Parliament. Only a very few copies have been most carefully reprinted +on paper that will gladden the heart of the lover of choice books.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">Folio, exquisitely printed on toned paper, with numerous Etchings, &c., +price 28s.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Millais Family,</strong> the Lineage and Pedigree of, recording its History from +1331 to 1865, by <span class="smcap">J. B. Payne</span>, with Illustrations from Designs by the +Author.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> Of this beautiful volume only sixty copies have been privately +printed for presents to the several members of the family. The work is +magnificently bound in blue and gold. These are believed to be the only +etchings of an heraldic character ever designed and engraved by the +distinguished artist of the name.</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Apply direct for this work.</i></p> + +<p class="center">————————<span class="pagenum">[15]</span></p> +<p class="center">Now ready, 12mo., very choicely printed, price 6s. 6d.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>London Directory for 1677,</strong> the Earliest Known List of the London +Merchants. See Review in the <i>Times</i>, Jan. 22.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> This curious little volume has been reprinted verbatim from one +of the only two copies known to be in existence. It contains an +Introduction pointing out some of the principal persons mentioned in the +list. For historical and genealogical purposes the little book is of the +greatest value. Herein will be found the originators of many of the great +firms and co-partnerships which have prospered through two pregnant +centuries, and which exist some of them in nearly the same names at this +day. Its most distinctive feature is the early severance which it marks of +“goldsmiths that keep running cashes,” precursors of the modern bankers, +from the mass of the merchants of London.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">Now ready, price 5s.; by post, on roller, 5s. 4d.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Magna Charta.</strong> An Exact Facsimile of the Original Document preserved in the +British Museum, very carefully drawn, and printed on fine plate paper, +nearly 3 feet long by 2 feet wide, with the Arms and Seals of the Barons +elaborately emblazoned in gold and colours. <span class="smcaplc">A.D.</span> 1215.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> Copied by express permission, and the only correct drawing of +the Great Charter ever taken. Handsomely framed and glazed, in carved oak +of an antique pattern, 22s. 6d. It is uniform with the “Roll of Battle +Abbey.”</p> + +<p>A full translation, with Notes, has just been prepared, price 6d.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">NEW BOOK BY PROFESSOR RENAN’S ASSOCIATE.</p> + +<p class="center">Exquisitely printed, 12mo., cloth, very neat, price 3s. 6d.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Apollonius of Tyana: the Pagan or False Christ of the Third Century.</strong> An +Essay. By ALBERT REVILLE, Pastor of the Walloon Church at Rotterdam. +Authorized translation.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> A most curious account of an attempt to revive Paganism in the +third century by means of a false Christ. Strange to say, the principal +events in the life of Apollonius are almost identical with the Gospel +narrative. Apollonius was born in a mysterious way about the same time as +Christ. After a period of preparation came a Passion, then a Resurrection, +and an Ascension. In many other respects the parallel is equally +extraordinary.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">In the press, 4to. Part I.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>The Celtic Tumuli of Dorsetshire:</strong> an Account of Personal and other +Researches on the Sepulchral Mounds of the Durotiges; forming the First +Part of a Description of the Primeval Antiquities of the County.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">In small 4to. handsomely printed, 1s. 6d.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Esholt in Airedale, Yorkshire:</strong> the Cistercian Priory of St. Leonard, +Account of, with View of Esholt Hall.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">ANECDOTES OF THE “LONG PARLIAMENT” OF 1645.</p> + +<p class="center">Now ready, in 4to., half morocco, choicely printed, price 7s. 6d.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>The Mysteries of the Good Old Cause:</strong> Sarcastic Notices of those Members of +the Long Parliament that held places, both Civil and Military, contrary to +the Self-denying Ordinance of April 3, 1645; with the sums of money and +lands they divided among themselves.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> Gives many curious particulars about the famous Assembly not +mentioned by historians or biographers. The history of almost every county +in England receives some illustration from it. Genealogists and +antiquaries will find in it much interesting matter.</p> + +<p class="center">————————<span class="pagenum">[16]</span></p> +<p class="center">Now ready, in 4to., very handsomely printed, with curious woodcut initial +letters, extra cloth, 18s.; or crimson morocco extra, the sides and back +covered in rich fleur-de-lys, gold tooling, 55s.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Roll of Carlaverlock,</strong> with the Arms of the Earls, Barons, and Knights who +were present at the Siege of this Castle in Scotland, 26 Edward I., <span class="smcaplc">A.D.</span> +1300; including the Original Anglo-Norman Poem, and an English Translation +of the MS. in the British Museum; the whole newly edited by THOMAS WRIGHT, +Esq., M.A., F.S.A.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> A very handsome volume, and a delightful one to lovers of +Heraldry, as it is the earliest blazon or arms known to exist.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">UNIFORM WITH “MAGNA CHARTA.”</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Roll of Battle Abbey;</strong> or, a List of the Principal Warriors who came over +from Normandy with William the Conqueror and settled in this country, <span class="smcaplc">A.D.</span> +1066-7, from Authentic Documents, very carefully drawn, and printed on +fine plate paper, nearly three feet long by two feet wide, with the Arms +of the principal Barons elaborately emblazoned in gold and colours, price +5s.; by post, on roller, 5s. 4d.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> A most curious document, and of the greatest interest, as the +descendants of nearly all these Norman Conquerors are at this moment +living amongst us. No names are believed to be in this “Battel Roll,” +which are not fully entitled to the distinction.</p> + +<p>Handsomely framed and glazed, in carved oak of an antique pattern, price +22s. 6d.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="hang"><strong>Warrant to Execute Charles I.</strong> An Exact Facsimile of this Important +Document in the House of Lords, with the Fifty-nine Signatures of the +Regicides, and Corresponding Seals, admirably executed on paper made to +imitate the Original Document, 22 in. by 14 in. Price 2s.; by post, 2s. +4d. Handsomely framed and glazed, in carved oak of an antique pattern, +14s. 6d.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">Now ready.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Warrant to Execute Mary Queen of Scots.</strong> The Exact Facsimile of this +Important Document, including the Signature Queen Elizabeth and Facsimile +of the Great Seal, on tinted paper, made to imitate the original MS. Safe +on roller, 2s.; by post, 2s. 4d.</p> + +<p>Handsomely framed and glazed, in carved oak of an antique pattern, 14s. +6d.</p> + +<p class="center">————————</p> +<p class="center">In 1 vol., 4to., on tinted paper, with 19 large and most curious Plates in +facsimile, coloured by hand, including an ancient View of the City of +Waterford.</p> + +<p class="hang"><strong>Illuminated Charter-Roll of Waterford, Temp. Richard II.</strong>Price to Subscribers, 20s.; Non-subscribers, 30s.</p> + +<p><span class="huge">⁂</span> Of the very limited impression proposed, more than 150 copies +have already been subscribed for. Amongst the Corporation Muniments of the +City of Waterford is preserved an ancient Illuminated Roll, of great +interest and beauty, comprising all the early Charters and Grants to the +City of Waterford, from the time of Henry II. to Richard II. Full-length +Portraits of each King adorn the margin, varying from eight to nine inches +in length—some in armour and some in robes of state. In addition are +Portraits of an Archbishop in full canonicals, of a Chancellor, and of +many of the chief Burgesses of the City of Waterford, as well as +singularly-curious Portraits of the Mayors of Dublin, Waterford, Limerick, +and Cork, figured for the most part in the quaint bipartite costume of the +Second Richard’s reign, peculiarities of that of Edward III. Altogether +this ancient work of art is unique of its kind in Ireland, and deserves to +be rescued from oblivion.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><i>John Camden Hotten, 74 & 75, Piccadilly, London.</i></p></div> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><strong>Footnotes:</strong></p> + +<p><a name="f1" id="f1" href="#f1.1">[1]</a> Gilchrist’s “Life of Blake.”</p> + +<p><a name="f2" id="f2" href="#f2.1">[2]</a> It may be as well set down here as at any further stage of our +business, that the date of Blake’s birth appears, from good MS. authority, +to have been the 20th of November (1757), not the 28th; that he was the +second of five children, not four; James, the hosier in Broad Street, +being his junior, not, as the biography states, his senior by a year and a +half. The eldest son was John, a favourite child who came to small good, +enlisted, and died it seems in comparative youth; of him Mr. Gilchrist +evidently had not heard. In some verses of the Felpham period (written in +1801, printed in vol. ii. p. 189 of the “Life and Selections”) Blake makes +mention, hitherto unexplained, of “my brother John the evil one,” which +may now be comprehensible enough.</p> + +<p><a name="f3" id="f3" href="#f3.1">[3]</a> Our greatest poet of the later days may be cited as a third witness. +Through the marvellous last book of the <i>Contemplations</i> the breath and +sound of the sea is blown upon every verse; when he heard as it were the +thunder and saw as it were the splendour of revelation, it was amid the +murmur and above the motion of the Channel;</p> + +<p class="poem"><span style="margin-left: 5em;">près du dolmen qui domine Rozel,</span><br /> +À l’endroit où le cap se prolonge en presqu’île.</p> + +<p><a name="f4" id="f4" href="#f4.1">[4]</a> W. B. Scott. The few and great words cited above occur, it will be +observed, in a poem affording throughout no inapt allegory of Blake’s life +and works. More accurate and more admirable expression was never given to +a theme so pregnant and so great. The whole “fable” may be well applied by +students of the matter in hand to the history of Blake’s relations with +minor men of more turn for success; which, as Victor Hugo has noted in his +royal manner, is so often “a rather hideous thing.”</p> + +<p><a name="f5" id="f5" href="#f5.1">[5]</a> It appears that some effort, laudable if wholly sincere, and not +condemnable if partly coloured by personal feeling, has been made to rebut +the charges brought against Stothard and Cromek by the biographer of +Blake. What has been written in the text is of course based upon the +assumption that Mr. Gilchrist has given an account of the matter as full +and as fair as it was assuredly his desire to make it. As junior counsel +(so to speak) on behalf of Blake, I have followed the lead of his +biographer; for me in fact nothing remained but to revise and restate, +with such clearness and brevity as I could, the case as laid down by him. +This, finding on the face of it nothing incoherent or incredible, I have +done; whether any man can disprove it remains to be seen. Meantime we are +not left to our own choice in the matter of epithets. There is but one +kind of phrase that will express such things and the doers of such things. +Against Stothard no grave charge has been brought; none therefore can be +refuted. Any reference to subsequent doings or sufferings of his must be +unspeakably irrelevant to the matter in hand. Against Cromek a +sufficiently heavy indictment has been laid; one which cannot be in the +least degree lightened by countercharges of rash violence on Blake’s part +or blind hastiness on Mr. Gilchrist’s. One thing alone can avail him in +the way of whitewash. He is charged with theft; prove that he did not +steal. He is charged with breach of contract; prove that his contract was +never broken. He is charged with denying a commission given by him; prove +that he did not deny it. For no man, it is to be feared, will now believe +that Blake, sleeping or waking, forged the story of the commission or +trumped up the story of the contract. That point of the defence the +counsel for Cromek had best give up with all convenient speed; had better +indeed not dream at all of entering upon it. Again: he is charged, as +above, with adding to his apparent perfidy a superfetation of insolence, +an accretion or excrescence of insult. Prove that he did not write the +letter published by Mr. Cunningham in 1852. It is undoubtedly deplorable +that any one now living should in any way have to suffer for the misdoings +of a man, whom, were it just or even possible, one would be willing to +overlook and to forget. But time is logical and equable; and this is but +one among many inevitable penalties which time is certain to bring upon +such wrong-doers in the end; penalties, or rather simple results of the +thing done. Had this man either dealt honestly or while dealing +dishonestly been but at the pains to keep clear of Walter Scott and +William Blake, no writer would have had to disturb his memory. But now, +however strong or sincere may be our just sense of pity for all to whom it +may give pain, truth must be spoken; and the truth is that, unless the +authorities cited can be utterly upset and broken down by some palpable +proof in his favour, Cromek was what has been stated. Mr. Gilchrist also, +in the course of his fair and lucid narrative, speaks once of “pity.” Pity +may be good, but proof is better. Until such proof come, the best that can +be done for Cromek is to let well alone. Less could not have been said of +him than equitable biography has here been compelled to say; no more need +be said now and for ever, if counsel will have the wisdom to let sleeping +dogs lie. This advice, if they cannot refute what is set down without more +words, we must give them; <ins class="correction" title="mê kinei Kamarinan">μὴ κίνει +Καμάριναν</ins>. The waters are +muddy enough without that. Vague and vain clamour of deprecation or appeal +may be plaintive but is not conclusive. As to any talk of cruelty or +indelicacy shown in digging up the dead misdeeds of dead men, it is simply +pitiable. Were not reason wasted on such reasoners it might be profitable +(which too evidently it is not) to reply that such an argument cuts right +and left at once. Suppress a truth, and you suggest a lie; and a lie so +suggested is the most “indelicate” of cruelties possible to inflict on the +dead. If, for pity’s sake or contempt’s or for any other reason, the +biographer had explained away the charges against Cromek which lay ready +to his hand, he must have left upon the memory of Scott and upon the +memory of Blake the stain of a charge as grave as this: if Cromek was +honest, they were calumniators. To one or two the good name of a private +man may be valuable; to all men the good name of a great man must be +precious. This difference of value must not be allowed to weigh with us +while considering the evidence; but the fact seems to be that no evidence +in disproof of the main charges has been put forward which can be +seriously thought worth sifting for a moment. This then being the sad +case, to inveigh against Blake’s biographer is utterly idle and hardly +honest. If the stories are not true, any man’s commentary which assumes +their truth must be infinitely unimportant. If the stories are true, no +remark annexed to the narrative can now blacken the accused further. Those +alone who are responsible for the accusation brought can be convicted of +unfairness in bringing it; Mr. Gilchrist, it must be repeated, found every +one of the charges which we now find in his book, given under the hand and +seal of honourable men. These he found it, as I do now, necessary to +transcribe in a concise form; adding, as I have done, any brief remarks he +saw fit to make in the interest of justice and for the sake of +explanation. Let there be no more heard of appeal against this exercise of +a patent right, of invective against this discharge of an evident duty. +Disproof is the one thing that will now avail; and to anything short of +that no one should again for an instant listen.</p> + +<p><a name="f6" id="f6" href="#f6.1">[6]</a> It is to be regretted that the share taken in this matter by Flaxman, +who defended Stothard from the charge of collusion with Cromek, appears to +have alienated Blake from one of his first friends. Throughout the MS. so +often cited by his biographer, he couples their names together for attack. +In one of his rough epigrams, formless and pointless for the most part, +but not without value for the sudden broken gleams of light they cast upon +Blake’s character and history, he reproaches both sculptor and painter +with benefits conferred by himself and disowned by them: and the +blundering stumbling verses thus jotted down to relieve a minute’s fit of +private anger are valuable as evidence for his sincere sense of injury.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p><span style="margin-left: 6em;">To F. AND S.</span></p> + +<p>“I found them blind: I taught them how to see;<br /> +And now they know neither themselves nor me.<br /> +’Tis excellent to turn a thorn to a pin,<br /> +A fool to a bolt, a knave to a glass of gin.”</p></div> + +<p>Whether or not he had in fact thus utilized his rivals by making the most +out of their several qualities, may be questionable. If so, we must say he +managed to scratch his own fingers with the pin, to miss his shot with the +bolt, and to spill the liquor extracted from the essence of knavery. The +following dialogue has equal virulence and somewhat more sureness of aim.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Mr. Stothard to Mr. Cromek.</span></span></p> + +<p>“For fortune’s favour you your riches bring;<br /> +But fortune says she gave you no such thing.<br /> +Why should you prove ungrateful to your friends,<br /> +Sneaking, and backbiting, and odds-and-ends?”</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Mr. Cromek to Mr. Stothard.</span></span></p> + +<p>“Fortune favours the brave, old proverbs say;<br /> +But not with money; that is not the way:<br /> +Turn back, turn back; you travel all in vain;<br /> +Turn through the iron gate down Sneaking Lane.”</p></div> + +<p>For the “iron gate” of money-making the brazen-browed speaker was no unfit +porter. The crudity of these rough notes for some unfinished satire is +not, let it be remembered, a fair sample of Blake’s capacity for epigram; +and it would indeed be unfair to cite them but for their value as to the +matter in hand.</p> + +<p><a name="f7" id="f7" href="#f7.1">[7]</a> Since writing the lines above I have been told by Mr. Seymour Kirkup +that one picture at least among those exhibited at this time was the very +noblest of all Blake’s works; the “Ancient Britons.” It appears to have +dropped out of sight, but must be still hidden somewhere. Against the +judgment of Mr. Kirkup there can be no appeal. The saviour of Giotto, the +redeemer of Dante, has power to pronounce on the work of Blake. I allow +what I said to stand as I said it at first, only that I may not miss the +chance of calling attention to the loss and paying tribute to the critic.</p> + +<p><a name="f8" id="f8" href="#f8.1">[8]</a> Written in 1863. Mr. Landor died Sept. 17th, 1864.</p> + +<p><a name="f9" id="f9" href="#f9.1">[9]</a> Since the lines above were written, I have been informed by a +surviving friend of Blake, celebrated throughout Italy as over England, in +a time nearer our own, as (among other things) the discoverer of Giotto’s +fresco in the Chapel of the Podestà, that after Blake’s death a gift of +£100 was sent to his widow by the Princess Sophia, who must not lose the +exceptional honour due to her for a display of sense and liberality so +foreign to her blood. At whose suggestion it was made is not known, and +worth knowing. Mrs. Blake sent back the money with all due thanks, not +liking to take or keep what (as it seemed to her) she could dispense with, +while many to whom no chance or choice was given might have been kept +alive by the gift; and, as readers of the “Life” know, fell to work in her +old age by preference. One complaint only she was ever known to make +during her husband’s life, and that gently. “Mr. Blake” was so little with +her, though in the body they were never separated; for he was incessantly +away “in Paradise”; which would not seem to have been far off. Mr. Kirkup +also speaks of the courtesy with which, on occasion, Blake would waive the +question of his spiritual life, if the subject seemed at all +incomprehensible or offensive to the friend with him: he would no more +obtrude than suppress his faith, and would practically accept and act upon +the dissent or distaste of his companions without visible vexation or the +rudeness of a thwarted fanatic. It was in the time of this intimacy (see +note at p. 58) that Mr. Kirkup also saw, what seems long since to have +dropped out of human sight, the picture of <i>The Ancient Britons</i>; which, +himself also an artist, he thought and thinks the finest work of the +painter: remembering well the fury and splendour of energy there +contrasted with the serene ardour of simply beautiful courage; the violent +life of the design, and the fierce distance of fluctuating battle.</p> + +<p><a name="f10" id="f10" href="#f10.1">[10]</a> The direct cause of Blake’s death, it appears from a MS. source, “was +the mixing of the gall with the blood.” It may be worth remark, that one +brief notice at least of Blake’s death made its way into print; the +“Literary Gazette” (No. 552; the “Gentleman’s Magazine” published it in +briefer form but nearly identical words as far as it went) of August 18, +1827, saw fit to “record the death of a singular and very able man,” in an +article contributed mainly by “the kindness of a correspondent,” who +speaks as an acquaintance of Blake, and gives this account of his last +days, prefaced by a sufficiently humble reference to the authorities of +Fuseli, Flaxman, and Lawrence. “Pent, with his affectionate wife, in a +close back-room in one of the Strand courts, his bed in one corner, his +meagre dinner in another, a ricketty table holding his copper-plates in +progress, his colours, books (among which his Bible, a Sessi Velutello’s +Dante, and Mr. Carey’s translation, were at the top), his large drawings, +sketches, and MSS.; his ankles frightfully swelled, his chest disordered, +old age striding on, his wants increased, but not his miserable means and +appliances; even yet was his eye undimmed, the fire of his imagination +unquenched, and the preternatural never-resting activity of his mind +unflagging. He had not merely a calmly resigned, but a cheerful and +mirthful countenance. He took no thought for his life, what he should eat +or what he should drink; nor yet for his body, what he should put on; but +had a fearless confidence in that Providence which had given him the vast +range of the world for his recreation and delight. Blake died last Monday; +died as he had lived, piously, cheerfully, talking calmly, and finally +resigning himself to his eternal rest like an infant to its sleep. He has +left nothing except some pictures, copper-plates, and his principal work, +a series of a hundred large designs from Dante.... He was active” (the +good correspondent adds, further on) “in mind and body, passing from one +occupation to another without an intervening minute of repose. Of an +ardent, affectionate, and grateful temper, he was simple in manner and +address, and displayed an inbred courteousness of the most agreeable +character.” Finally, the writer has no doubt that Mrs. Blake’s “cause will +be taken up by the distributors of those funds which are raised for the +relief of distressed artists, and also by the benevolence of private +individuals”: for she “is left (we fear, from the accounts which have +reached us) in a very forlorn condition, Mr. Blake himself having been +much indebted for succour and consolation to his friend Mr. Linnell the +painter.” The discreet editor, “when further time has been allowed him for +inquiry, will probably resume the matter:” but, we may now more safely +prophesy, assuredly will not.</p> + +<p><a name="f11" id="f11" href="#f11.1">[11]</a> Of course, there can be no question here of bad art: which indeed is +a non-entity or contradiction in terms, as to speak of good art is to run +into tautology. It is assumed, to begin with, that the artist has +something to say or do worth doing or saying in an artistic form.</p> + +<p><a name="f12" id="f12" href="#f12.1">[12]</a> Observe especially in Chaucer’s most beautiful of young poems that +appalling passage, where, turning the favourite edgetool of religious +menace back with point inverted upon those who forged it, the poet +represents men and women of religious habit or life as punished in the +next world, beholding afar off with jealous regret the salvation and +happiness of Venus and all her servants (converse of the Hörsel legend, +which shows the religious or anti-Satanic view of the matter; though there +too there is some pity or sympathy implied for the pagan side of things, +revealing in the tradition the presence and touch of some poet): expressly +punished, these monks and nuns, for their continence and holiness of life, +and compelled after death to an eternity of fruitless repentance for +having wilfully missed of pleasure and made light of indulgence in this +world; which is perfect Albigeois. Compare the famous speech in <i>Aucassin +et Nicolette</i>, where the typical hero weighs in a judicial manner the +respective attractions of heaven and hell; deciding of course dead against +the former on account of the deplorably bad company kept there; priests, +hermits, saints, and such-like, in lieu of knights and ladies, painters +and poets. One may remark also, the minute this pagan revival begins to +get breathing-room, how there breaks at once into flower a most passionate +and tender worship of nature, whether as shown in the bodily beauty of man +and woman or in the outside loveliness of leaf and grass; both Chaucer and +his anonymous southern colleague being throughout careful to decorate +their work with the most delicate and splendid studies of colour and form. +Either of the two choice morsels of doctrinal morality cited above would +have exquisitely suited the palate of Blake. He in his time, one need not +doubt, was considerably worried and gibbered at by “monkeys in houses of +brick,” moral theorists, and “pantopragmatic” men of all sorts; what can +we suppose he would have said or done in an epoch given over to preachers +(lay, clerical, and mixed) who assert without fear or shame that you may +demand, nay are bound to demand, of a picture or poem what message it has +for you, what may be its moral utility or material worth? “Poetry must +conform itself to” &c.; “art must have a mission and meaning appreciable +by earnest men in an age of work,” and so forth. These be thy gods, O +Philistia.</p> + +<p><a name="f13" id="f13" href="#f13.1">[13]</a> I will not resist the temptation to write a brief word of comment on +this passage. While my words of inadequate and now of joyless praise were +in course of printing, I heard that a mortal illness had indeed stricken +the illustrious poet, the faultless critic, the fearless artist; that no +more of fervent yet of perfect verse, no more of subtle yet of sensitive +comment, will be granted us at the hands of Charles Baudelaire: that now +for ever we must fall back upon what is left us. It is precious enough. We +may see again as various a power as was his, may feel again as fiery a +sympathy, may hear again as strange a murmur of revelation, as sad a +whisper of knowledge, as mysterious a music of emotion; we shall never +find so keen, so delicate, so deep an unison of sense and spirit. What +verse he could make, how he loved all fair and felt all strange things, +with what infallible taste he knew at once the limit and the licence of +his art, all may see at a glance. He could give beauty to the form, +expression to the feeling, most horrible and most obscure to the senses or +souls of lesser men. The chances of things parted us once and again; the +admiration of some years, at last in part expressed, brought me near him +by way of written or transmitted word; let it be an excuse for the +insertion of this note, and for a desire, if so it must be, to repeat for +once the immortal words which too often return upon our lips;</p> + +<p class="poem">“Ergo in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale!”</p> + +<p><a name="f14" id="f14" href="#f14.1">[14]</a> There are exceptions, we are told from the first, to all rules; and +the sole exception to this one is great enough to do all but establish a +rival rule. But, as I have tried already to say, the work—all the +work—of Victor Hugo is in its essence artistic, in its accident alone +philanthropic or moral. I call this the sole exception, not being aware +that the written work of Dante or Shelley did ever tend to alter the +material face of things; though they may have desired that it should, and +though their unwritten work may have done so. Accidentally of course a +poet’s work may tend towards some moral or actual result; that is beside +the question.</p> + +<p><a name="f15" id="f15" href="#f15.1">[15]</a> The reader who cares to remember that everything here set down is of +immediate importance and necessity for the understanding of the matter in +hand (namely, the life of Blake, and the faith and works which made that +life what it was) may as well take here a word of comment. It will soon be +necessary for even the very hack-writers and ingenious people of ready +pens and wits who now babble about Balzac in English and French as a +splendid specimen of their craft, fertile but faulty, and so forth—to +understand that they have nothing to do with Balzac; that he is not of +their craft, nor of any but the common craft of all great men—the guild +of godlike things and people; that a shelf holding “all Balzac’s +novels—forty volumes long,” is not “cabin-furniture” for any chance +“passenger” to select or reject. Error and deficiency there may be in his +work; but none such as they can be aware of. Of poetic form, for example, +we know that he knew nothing; the error would be theirs who should think +his kind of work the worse for that. Among men equally great, the +distinctive supremacy of Balzac is this; that whereas the great men who +are pure artists (Shakespeare for instance) work by implication only, and +hardly care about descending to the level of a preacher’s or interpreter’s +work, he is the only man not of their kind who is great enough to supply +their place in his own way—to be their correlative in a different class +of workmen; being from his personal point of view simply impeccable and +infallible. The pure artist never asserts; he suggests, and therefore his +meaning is totally lost upon moralists and sciolists—is indeed +irreparably wasted upon the run of men who cannot work out suggestions. +Balzac asserts; and Balzac cannot blunder or lie. So profound and +extensive a capacity of moral apprehension no other prose writer, no man +of mere analytic faculty, ever had or can have. This assuredly, when men +become (as they will have to become) capable of looking beyond the mere +clothes and skin of his work, will be always, as we said, his great +especial praise; that he was, beyond any other man, the master of +morals—the greatest direct expounder of actual moral fact. Once consent +to forget or overlook the mere <i>entourage</i> and social habiliment of +Balzac’s intense and illimitable intellect, you cannot fail of seeing that +he of all men was fittest to grapple with all strange things and words, +and compel them by divine violence of spiritual rape to bring forth +flowers and fruits good for food and available for use.</p> + +<p><a name="f16" id="f16" href="#f16.1">[16]</a> Could God bring down his heart to the making of a thing so deadly and +strong? or could any lesser dæmonic force of nature take to itself wings +and fly high enough to assume power equal to such a creation? Could +spiritual force so far descend or material force so far aspire? Or, when +the very stars, and all the armed children of heaven, the “helmed +cherubim” that guide and the “sworded seraphim” that guard their several +planets, wept for pity and fear at sight of this new force of monstrous +matter seen in the deepest night as a fire of menace to man—</p> + +<p class="poem">“Did he smile his work to see?<br /> +Did he who made the lamb make thee?”</p> + +<p>We may add another cancelled reading to show how delicately the poem has +been perfected; although by an oversight of the writer’s most copies +hitherto have retained some trace of the rough first draught, neglecting +in one line a change necessary to save the sense as well as to complete +the sentence.</p> + +<p class="poem">“And when thy heart began to beat,<br /> +What dread hand and what dread feet<br /> +<br /> +Could fetch it from the furnace deep<br /> +And in thy horrid ribs dare steep?<br /> +In what clay and in what mould<br /> +Were thine eyes of fury rolled?”</p> + +<p>Having cancelled this stanza or sketched ghost of a stanza, Blake in his +hurry of rejection did not at once remember to alter the last line of the +preceding one; leaving thus a stone of some size and slipperiness for +editorial feet to trip upon, until the recovery of that nobler reading—</p> + +<p class="poem">“What dread hand <i>framed thy</i> dread feet?”</p> + +<p>Nor was this little “rock of offence” cleared from the channel of the poem +even by the editor of 1827, who was yet not afraid of laying hand upon the +text. So grave a flaw in so short and so great a lyric was well worth the +pains of removing and is yet worth the pains of accounting for; on which +ground this note must be of value to all who take in verse with eye and +ear instead of touching it merely with eyelash and finger-tip in the +manner of sand-blind students.</p> + +<p><a name="f17" id="f17" href="#f17.1">[17]</a> Compare the passage in <i>Ahania</i> where the growth of it is defined; +rooted in the rock of separation, watered with the tears of a jealous God, +shot up from sparks and fallen germs of material seed; being after all a +growth of mere error, and vegetable (not spiritual) life; the topmost stem +of it made into a cross whereon to nail the dead redeemer and friend of +men.</p> + +<p><a name="f18" id="f18" href="#f18.1">[18]</a> Compare again in the <i>Vision of the Last Judgment</i> (v. 2, p. 163), +that definition of the “Divine body of the Saviour, the true Vine of +Eternity,” as “the Human Imagination, who appeared to me as coming to +judgment among his saints, and throwing off the Temporal that the Eternal +might be established.” The whole of that subtle and eloquent rhapsody is +about the best commentary attainable on Blake’s mystical writings and +designs. It is impossible to overstate the debt of gratitude due from all +students of Blake to the transcriber and editor of the <i>Vision</i>, whose +indefatigable sense and patient taste have made it legible for all. To +have extracted it piecemeal from the chaos of notes jotted down by Blake +in the most inconceivable way, would have been a praiseworthy labour +enough; but without addition or omission to have constructed these +abortive fragments into a whole so available and so admirable, is a labour +beyond praise.</p> + +<p><a name="f19" id="f19" href="#f19.1">[19]</a> This exquisite verse did not fall into its place by chance; the poem +has been more than once revised. Its opening stanza stood originally +thus:—</p> + +<p class="poem">“Sleep, sleep; in thy sleep<br /> +Thou wilt every secret keep;<br /> +Sleep, sleep, beauty bright,<br /> +Thou shalt taste the joys of night.”</p> + +<p>Before recasting the whole, Blake altered the second line into—</p> + +<p class="poem">“Canst thou any secret keep?”</p> + +<p>The gist of the song is this; the speaker, watching a girl newly-born, +compares her innocuous infancy with the power that through beauty will one +day be hers, her blameless wiles and undeveloped desires with the strong +and subtle qualities now dormant which the years will assuredly awaken +within her; seeing as it were the whole <ins class="correction" title="original: woamn">woman</ins> asleep in the child, he +smells future fruit in the unblown bud. On retouching his work, Blake thus +wound up the moral and tune of this song in a stanza forming by its rhymes +an exact antiphonal complement to the end of the first <i>Cradle Song</i>.</p> + +<p class="poem">“When thy little heart does wake,<br /> +Then the dreadful lightnings break<br /> +From thy cheek and from thine eye,<br /> +O’er the youthful harvests nigh;<br /> +Infant wiles and infant smiles<br /> +Heaven and earth of peace beguiles.”</p> + +<p>The epithet “infant” has supplanted that of “female,” which was perhaps +better: as to the grammatical licence, Blake followed in that the +Elizabethan fashion which made the rule of sound predominate over all +others. The song, if it loses simplicity, seems to gain significance by +this expansion of the dim original idea; and beauty by expression of the +peril latent in a life whose smiles as yet breed no strife between +friends, kindle no fire among the unripe shocks of growing corn; but whose +words shall hereafter be as very swords, and her eyes as lightning; +<i>teterrima belli causa</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="f20" id="f20" href="#f20.1">[20]</a> “His,” the good man’s: this lax piece of grammar (shifting from +singular to plural and back again without much tangible provocation) is +not infrequent with Blake, and would hardly be worth righting if that were +feasible. A remarkable instance is but too patent in the final “chorus” of +the <i>Marriage of Heaven and Hell</i>. Such <ins class="correction" title="original: rongh">rough</ins> licence is given or taken by +old poets; and Blake’s English is always beautiful enough to be pardonable +where it slips or halts: especially as its errors are always those of a +rapid lyrical style, never of a tortuous or verbose ingenuity: it stammers +and slips occasionally, but never goes into convulsions like that of some +later versifiers.</p> + +<p><a name="f21" id="f21" href="#f21.1">[21]</a> Such we must consider, for instance, the second <i>Little Boy Lost</i>, +which looks at first more of a riddle and less worth solution than the +haziest section of the prophetic books. A cancelled reading taken from the +rough copy in the <i>Ideas</i> will at all events make one stanza more amenable +to reason:</p> + +<p class="poem">“I love myself; so does the bird<br /> +That picks up crumbs around the door.”</p> + +<p>Blake was rather given to erase a comparatively reasonable reading and +substitute something which cannot be confidently deciphered by the most +daring self-reliance of audacious ingenuity, until the reader has found +some means of pitching his fancy for a moment in the ordinary key of the +prophet’s. This uncomfortable little poem is in effect merely an allegoric +or fabulous appeal against the oppression of formulas (or family +“textualism” of the blind and unctuous sort) which refuse to single and +simple insight, to the outspoken innocence of a child’s laughing or +confused analysis, a right to exist on any terms: just as the companion +poem is an appeal, so vague as to fall decidedly flat, against the +externals of moral fashion. Both, but especially the <i>Girl</i>, have some +executive merit: not overmuch. To the surprising final query, “Are such +things done on Albion’s shore?” one is provoked to respond, “On the whole, +not, as far as we can see;” but the “Albion” of Blake’s verse is never +this weaving and spinning country of our working days; it is rather some +inscrutable remote land of Titanic visions, moated with silent white mist +instead of solid and sonorous surf, and peopled with vague pre-Adamite +giants symbolic of more than we can safely define or conceive. An inkling +of the meaning may, if anything can, be extracted from some parts of the +<i>Jerusalem</i>; but probably no one will try.</p> + +<p><a name="f22" id="f22" href="#f22.1">[22]</a> With more time and room to work in, we might have noticed in these +less dramatic and seemingly less original poems of the second series which +take up from the opposite point of view matters already handled to such +splendid effect in the <i>Songs of Innocence</i>, a depth and warmth of moral +quality worth remark; infinite tenderness of heart and fiery pity for all +that suffer wrong; something of Hugo’s or Shelley’s passionate compassion +for those who lie open to “all the oppression that is done under the sun”; +something of the anguish and labour, the fever-heat of sleepless mercy and +love incurable which is common to those two great poets. The second <i>Holy +Thursday</i> is doubtless far enough below the high level of the first; but +the second <i>Chimney-sweeper</i> as certainly has a full share of this +passionate grace of pain and pity. Blake’s love of children never wrung +out into his work a more pungent pathos or keener taste of tears than in +the last verse of this poem. It stood thus in the first draught:</p> + +<p class="poem">“And because I am happy and dance and sing<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They think they have done me no injury,</span><br /> +And are gone to praise God and his priest and king,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who wrap themselves up in our misery.”</span></p> + +<p>The quiet tremulous anger of that, its childish sorrow and contempt, are +no less true than subtle in effect. It recalls another floating fragment +of verse on social wrongs which shall be rescued from the chaos of the +<i>Ideas</i>:</p> + +<p class="poem">“There souls of men are bought and sold,<br /> +And milk-fed infancy, for gold;<br /> +And youths to slaughter-houses led,<br /> +And maidens, for a bit of bread.”</p> + +<p><a name="f23" id="f23" href="#f23.1">[23]</a> This verse is of course to be read as one made up of rough but +regular anapæsts; the heavier accents falling consequently upon every +third syllable—that is, upon the words <i>if</i>, <i>not</i>, and <i>him</i>. The next +line is almost as rough, and seems indeed to slip into the solid English +iambic; but may also be set right by giving full attention to accent.</p> + +<p><a name="f24" id="f24" href="#f24.1">[24]</a> A strange and rather beautiful, if grotesque, evidence of the unity +of faith and feeling to which Blake and his wife had come by dint of +living and thinking so long together, is given by one of the stray notes +in this same book: which we transcribe at full on account of its great +biographical value as a study of character. Space might have been found +for it in the Life, if only to prove once again how curiously the nature +and spiritual habits of a great man leave their mark or dye upon the mind +nearest to his own.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="right">“<span class="smcap">South Molton Street.</span></p> + +<p>“<i>Sunday, August, 1807.</i>—My wife was told by a spirit to look for +her fortune by opening by chance a book which she had in her hand; it +was Bysshe’s ‘Art of Poetry.’ She opened the following:—</p> + +<p class="poem">‘I saw ’em kindle with desire,<br /> +While with soft sighs they blew the fire;<br /> +Saw the approaches of their joy,<br /> +He growing more fierce and she less coy;<br /> +Saw how they mingled melting rays,<br /> +Exchanging love a thousand ways.<br /> +Kind was the force on every side;<br /> +Her new desire she could not hide,<br /> +Nor would the shepherd be denied.<br /> +The blessed minute he pursued,<br /> +Till she, transported in his arms,<br /> +Yields to the conqueror all her charms.<br /> +His panting breast to hers now joined,<br /> +They feast on raptures unconfined,<br /> +Vast and luxuriant; such as prove<br /> +The immortality of love.<br /> +For who but a Divinity<br /> +Could mingle souls to that degree<br /> +And melt them into ecstasy?<br /> +Now like the Phœnix both expire,<br /> +While from the ashes of their fire<br /> +Springs up a new and soft desire.<br /> +Like charmers, thrice they did invoke<br /> +The God, and thrice new vigour took.’—<i>Behn.</i></p> + +<p>“I was so well pleased with her luck that I thought I would try my +own, and opened the following:—</p> + +<p class="poem">‘As when the winds their airy quarrel try,<br /> +Jostling from every quarter of the sky,<br /> +This way and that the mountain oak they bear,<br /> +His boughs they scatter and his branches tear;<br /> +With leaves and falling mast they spread the ground;<br /> +The hollow valleys echo to the sound;<br /> +Unmoved, the royal plant their fury mocks,<br /> +Or, shaken, clings more closely to the rocks:<br /> +For as he shoots his towering head on high,<br /> +So deep in earth his fixed foundations lie.’—<i>Dryden’s Virgil.</i>”</p></div> + +<p>Nothing is ever so cynical as innocence, whether it be a child’s or a +mystic’s. As a poet, Blake had some reason to be “well pleased” with his +wife’s curious windfall; for those verses of the illustrious Aphra’s have +some real energy and beauty of form, visible to those who care to make +allowance, first for the conventional English of the time, and secondly +for the naked violence of manner natural to that she-satyr, whose really +great lyrical gifts are hopelessly overlaid and encrusted by the rough +repulsive husk of her incredible style of speech. Even “Astræa” must +however have fair play and fair praise; and the simple truth is that, when +writing her best, this “unmentionable” poetess has a vigorous grace and a +noble sense of metre to be found in no other song-writer of her time. One +song, fished up by Mr. Dyce out of the weltering sewerage of Aphra’s +unreadable and unutterable plays, has a splendid quality of verse, and +even some degree of sentiment not wholly porcine. Take four lines as a +sample, and Blake’s implied approval will hardly seem unjustifiable:—</p> + +<p class="poem">“From thy bright eyes he took those fires<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which round about in sport he hurled;</span><br /> +But ’twas from mine he took desires<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Enough to undo the amorous world.”</span></p> + +<p>The strong and subtle cadence of that magnificent fourth verse gives +evidence of so delicate an ear and such dexterous power of hand as no +other poet between the Restoration date and Blake’s own time has left +proof of in serious or tragic song. Great as is Dryden’s lyrical work in +more ways than one, its main quality is mere strength of intellect and +solidity of handling—the forcible and imperial manner of his satires; and +in pure literal song-writing, which (rather than any ‘ode’ or such-like +mixed poem) may be taken as the absolute and final test of a poet’s +lyrical nature, he never came near this mark. François Villon and Aphra +Behn, the two most inexpressibly non-respectable of male or female +Bohemians and poets, were alike in this as well; that the supreme gift of +each, in a time sufficiently barren of lyrical merit, was the gift of +writing admirable songs; and this, after all, has perhaps borne better +fruit for us than any gift of moral excellence.</p> + +<p><a name="f25" id="f25" href="#f25.1">[25]</a> Another version of this line, with less of pungent and brilliant +effect, has yet a touch of sound in it worth preserving: some may even +prefer it in point of simple lyrical sweetness:</p> + +<p class="poem">“She played and she melted in all her prime:<br /> +Ah! that sweet love should be thought a crime.”</p> + +<p><a name="f26" id="f26" href="#f26.1">[26]</a> On closer inspection of Blake’s rapid autograph I suspect that in the +second line those who please may read “the ruddy limbs and flowering +hair,” or perhaps “flowery;” but the type of flame is more familiar to +Blake. Compare further on “A Song of Liberty.”</p> + +<p><a name="f27" id="f27" href="#f27.1">[27]</a> Other readings are “soothed” and “smiled”—readings adopted after the +insertion of the preceding stanza. As the subject is a child not yet grown +to standing and walking age, these readings are perhaps better, though +less simple in sound, than the one I have retained.</p> + +<p><a name="f28" id="f28" href="#f28.1">[28]</a> Here and throughout to the end, duly altering metre and grammar with +a quite laudable care, Blake has substituted “my father” for the +“priests;” not I think to the improvement of the poem, though probably +with an eye to making the end cohere rather more closely with the +beginning. This and the “Myrtle” are shoots of the same stock, and differ +only in the second grafting. In the last-named poem the father’s office +was originally thus;</p> + +<p class="poem">“Oft my myrtle sighed in vain<br /> +To behold my heavy chain:<br /> +Oft my father saw us sigh,<br /> +And laughed at our simplicity.”</p> + +<p>Here too Blake had at first written, “Oft the priest beheld us sigh;” he +afterwards cancelled the whole passage, perhaps on first remarking the +rather too grotesque confusion of a symbolic myrtle with a literal wife; +and the last stanza in either form is identical. The simple subtle grace +of both poems, and the singular care of revision bestowed on them, are +equally worth notice.</p> + +<p><a name="f29" id="f29" href="#f29.1">[29]</a> Those who insist on the tight lacing of grammatical stays upon the +“painèd loveliness” of a muse’s over-pliant body may use if they please +Blake’s own amended reading; in which otherwise the main salt of the poem +is considerably diluted as by tepid water: the angel (one might say) has +his sting blunted and the best quill of his pinion pulled out.</p> + +<p class="poem">“And without one word said<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Had a peach from the tree;</span><br /> +And still as a maid,” &c.</p> + +<p><a name="f30" id="f30" href="#f30.1">[30]</a> We may find place here for another fairy song, quaint in shape and +faint in colour, but with the signet of Blake upon it; copied from a loose +scrap of paper on the back of which is a pencilled sketch of Hercules +throttling the serpents, whose twisted limbs make a sort of spiral cradle +around and above the child’s triumphant figure: an attendant, naked, falls +back in terror with sharp recoil of drawn-up limbs; Alcmena and Amphitryon +watch the struggle in silence, he grasping her hand.</p> + +<p class="poem">“A fairy leapt upon my knee<br /> +Singing and dancing merrily;<br /> +I said, ‘Thou thing of patches, rings,<br /> +Pins, necklaces, and such-like things,<br /> +Disgracer of the female form,<br /> +Thou paltry gilded poisonous worm!’<br /> +Weeping, he fell upon my thigh,<br /> +And thus in tears did soft reply:<br /> +‘Knowest thou not, O fairies’ lord,<br /> +How much by us contemned, abhorred,<br /> +Whatever hides the female form<br /> +That cannot bear the mortal storm?<br /> +Therefore in pity still we give<br /> +Our lives to make the female live;<br /> +And what would turn into disease<br /> +We turn to what will joy and please.’”</p> + +<p>Even so dim and slight a sketch as this may be of worth as indicating +Blake’s views of the apparent and the substantial form of things, the +primary and the derivative life; also as a sample of his roughest and +readiest work.</p> + +<p><a name="f31" id="f31" href="#f31.1">[31]</a> Lest the kingdom of love left under the type of a woman should be +over powerful for a nation of hard fighters and reasoners, such as Blake +conceived the “ancients” to be. Compare for his general style of fancies +on classic matters the prologue to “Milton” and the Sibylline Leaves on +Homer and Virgil. To his half-trained apprehension Rome seemed mere +violence and Greece mere philosophy.</p> + +<p><a name="f32" id="f32" href="#f32.1">[32]</a> Let the reader take another instance of the culture given to these +songs—a gift which has happily been bequeathed by Blake to his editor. +This one was at first divided into five equal stanzas; the last two +running thus:—</p> + +<p class="poem">“‘And pity no more would be<br /> +If all were happy as we;’<br /> +At his curse the sun went down,<br /> +And the heavens gave a frown.<br /> +<br /> +“Down poured the heavy rain<br /> +Over the new-reaped grain;<br /> +And Misery’s increase<br /> +Is Mercy, Pity, Peace.”</p> + +<p>Thus one might say is the curse confuted; for if, as the “grievous devil” +will have it, the root of the sweetest goodness is in material evil, then +may the other side answer that even by his own showing the flower or +“increase” from that root is not evil, but good: a soft final point of +comfort missed by the change which gives otherwise fresher colour to this +poem.</p> + +<p><a name="f33" id="f33" href="#f33.1">[33]</a> But as above shewn the vision of the wise man or poet is wider than +both; sees beyond the angel’s blind innocent enjoyment to a deeper faith +than his simple nature can grasp or include; sees also past the truth of +the devil’s sad ingenious “analytics” to the broader sense of things, seen +by which, “Good and Evil are no more.”</p> + +<p><a name="f34" id="f34" href="#f34.1">[34]</a> Query “Putting?” This whole poem is jotted down in a close rough +handwriting, not often easy to follow with confidence.</p> + +<p><a name="f35" id="f35" href="#f35.1">[35]</a> In the line “A God or else a Pharisee,” Blake with a pencil-scratch +has turned “a God” to “a devil”; as if the words were admittedly or +admissibly interchangeable! A prophet so wonderfully loose-tongued may +well be the despair of his faithfullest commentators: but as it happens +the pencil-scratch should here be of some help and significance to us: +following this small clue, we may come to distinguish the God of his +belief from this demon-god of the created “mundane shell”—the God of +Pharisaic religion and moral law.</p> + +<p><a name="f36" id="f36" href="#f36.1">[36]</a> The creator by division, father of men and women, fashioner of evil +and good; literally in the deepest sense “the God of this world,” who +“does not know the garment from the man;” cannot see beyond the two halves +which he has made by violence of separation; would have the body +perishable, yet the qualities of the bodily life permanent: thus inverting +order and reversing fact. Parallel passages might be brought in by the +dozen on all hands, after a little dipping into mystic books; but I want +to make no more room here for all this than is matter of bare necessity.</p> + +<p><a name="f37" id="f37" href="#f37.1">[37]</a> We shall see this presently. I conceive however that Blake, to save +time and contract the space of his preaching, uses the consecrated Hebrew +name to design now the giver of the Mosaic law, now that other and +opposite Divinity which after the “body of clay” had been “devoured” was +the residue or disembodied victorious spirit of the human Saviour. +Mysticism need not of necessity be either inaccurate or incoherent: +neither need it give offence by its forms and expressions of faith: but a +mystic is but human after all, and with the best intentions may slip +somewhere, especially a mystic so little in <i>training</i> as Blake, and so +much of a poet or artist; who is not accustomed to any careful feeling of +his way among words, except with an eye to the perfection of their bodily +beauty. Indeed, as appears by Mr. Crabb Robinson’s notes of his +conversation, Blake affirmed that according to scripture itself the world +was created by “the Elohim,” not by Jehovah; whose covenant he elsewhere +asserted was simply “forgiveness of sins.” Thus even according to this +heretical creed the God of the Jews would seem to be ranged on the same +side with Christ against “the God of this world.”</p> + +<p><a name="f38" id="f38" href="#f38.1">[38]</a> Compare this fragment of a paraphrase or “excursus” on a lay sermon +by a modern pagan philosopher of more material tendencies; but given to +such tragic indulgence in huge Titanic dithyrambs. “Nature averse to +crime? I tell you, nature lives and breathes by it; hungers at all her +pores for bloodshed, aches in all her nerves for the help of sin, yearns +with all her heart for the furtherance of cruelty. Nature forbid that +thing or this? Nay, the best or worst of you will never go so far as she +would have you; no criminal will come up to the measure of her crimes, no +destruction seem to her destructive enough. We, when we would do evil, can +disorganise a little matter, shed a little blood, quench a little breath +at the door, of a perishable body; this we can do, and can call it crime. +Unnatural is it? Good friend, it is by criminal things and deeds unnatural +that nature works and moves and has her being; what subsides through inert +virtue, she quickens through active crime; out of death she kindles life; +she uses the dust of man to strike her light upon; she feeds with fresh +blood the innumerable insatiable mouths suckled at her milkless breast; +she takes the pain of the whole world to sharpen the sense of vital +pleasure in her limitless veins: she stabs and poisons, crushes and +corrodes, yet cannot live and sin fast enough for the cruelty of her great +desire. Behold, the ages of men are dead at her feet; the blood of the +world is on her hands; and her desire is continually toward evil, that she +may see the end of things which she hath made. Friends, if we would be one +with nature, let us continually do evil with our might. But what evil is +here for us to do, where the whole body of things is evil? The day’s +spider kills the day’s fly, and calls it a crime? Nay, could we thwart +nature, then might crime become possible and sin an actual thing. Could +but a man do this; could he cross the courses of the stars, and put back +the times of the sea; could he change the ways of the world and find out +the house of life to destroy it; could he go into heaven to defile it and +into hell to deliver it from subjection; could he draw down the sun to +consume the earth, and bid the moon shed poison or fire upon the air; +could he kill the fruit in the seed and corrode the child’s mouth with the +mother’s milk; then had he sinned and done evil against nature. Nay, and +not then: for nature would fain have it so, that she might create a world +of new things; for she is weary of the ancient life: her eyes are sick of +seeing and her ears are heavy with hearing; with the lust of creation she +is burnt up, and rent in twain with travail until she bring forth change; +she would fain create afresh, and cannot, except it be by destroying: in +all her energies she is athirst for mortal food, and with all her forces +she labours in desire of death. And what are the worst sins we can do—we +who live for a day and die in a night? a few murders, a few”—we need +not run over the not so wholly insignificant roll-call; but it is curious +to observe how the mystical evangelist and the material humourist meet in +the reading of mere nature and join hands in their interpretation of the +laws ruling the outer body of life: a vision of ghastly glory, without +pity or help possible.</p> + +<p><a name="f39" id="f39" href="#f39.1">[39]</a> Blake had first written “the creeping,” then cancelled “the” and +interlined the word “Antichrist”: I have no doubt intending some such +alteration as that in the text of “creeping” to “aping”; but as far as we +can now know the day for rewriting his fair copy never came.</p> + +<p><a name="f40" id="f40" href="#f40.1">[40]</a> There are (says the mystic) two forms of “humility”: detestable both, +and condemnable. By one, the extrinsic form, a man cringes and submits, +doubts himself and gives in to others; becomes in effect impotent, a +sceptic and a coward; by the other or intrinsic form, he conceives too +meanly of his own soul, and comes to believe himself less than God—of +course, to a pure Pantheist, the one radical and ruinous error which +throws up on all sides a crop of lies and misconceptions, rank and ready; +as base a thing to believe as an act of bodily “humility” were base to do: +consequently any mere external worship is by this law heathenish, +heretical and idolatrous. This heathenish or idolatrous heresy of +spiritual humility comes merely of too much reliance on the reasoning +power; man is undivine as to his mere understanding, and by using that as +an eye instead of an eyeglass “distorts” all which he does not obliterate. +“Pride of reason” is a foolish thing for any clerical defender of the +“faith” to impugn; such pride is essentially humility. To be proud of +having an empty eye-socket implies that you would be ashamed of having +eyesight; then you are proud on the wrong side, and humble there exactly +where humility is a mere blundering suicide’s cut at his own throat; if +you are <i>not</i> of your nature heavenly, how shall any alien celestial +quality be sewn or stuck on to you? in whose cast clothes will you crawl +into heaven by rational or religious cross-roads? “Imputed righteousness” +will not much help your case; if you “impute” a wrong quality to any +imaginable substance, does your imputation change the substance? What it +had not before, it has not now; your tongue has not the power of turning +truth to a lie or a lie to truth; the fact gives your assertion a straight +blow in the face. The mystic who says that man is God has some logical +cause for pride; but the sceptic has no more than the cleric—he who +asserts that reason, which is finite, can be final, is essentially as +“humble” as he who admits that he can be “saved” by accepting as a gift +some “imputed” goodness which is not in any sense his. For reason—the +“spectre” of the <i>Jerusalem</i>—is no matter for pride; if you make out that +to be the best faculty about you, you give proof of the stupidest modesty +and hatefullest humility. Look across the lower animal reason, and over +the dim lying limit of tangible and changeable flesh; and be humble if you +can or dare, then; for if what you apprehend of yourself beyond is not +God, there is none—except in that sad sense of a dæmon or natural force, +strong only to create and to divide and to destroy and to govern by reason +or religion the material scheme of things. <i>Extra hominem nulla salus.</i> +“God is no more than man; <i>because</i> man is no less than God:” there is +Blake’s Pantheistic Iliad in a nutshell.</p> + +<p><a name="f41" id="f41" href="#f41.1">[41]</a> An ugly specimen of ready-writing; meaning of course “with the +sacrifice of bloody prey:” but doubtless even Blake would not have let +this stand, though we cannot safely alter it: and the passage did upon the +whole appear worth citing.</p> + +<p><a name="f42" id="f42" href="#f42.1">[42]</a> This is so like Blake’s style of design that one can scarcely help +fancying he must somewhere have translated it into colours perhaps more +comprehensible than his words: have given somewhere in painter’s types the +likeness of that bodily appetite, serpentine food of the serpent, a lithe +and strenuous body of clay, fair with luminous flakes of eruptive poison, +foul with cold and coloured scales as the scales of a leper in grain; with +green pallor of straining mouth and bloodlike expansion of fiery throat; +teeth and claws convulsed with the painful lust of pain, eyelids cloven in +sunder with a dull flame of desire, the visible venom of its breath shot +sharp against the face and eyes of the divine human soul: he, disembodied +yet incarnate in the eternal body, stripped of accidental and clothed with +essential flesh, naked of attribute that he may be girdled with substance, +wrestling silent with fair great limbs, but with calm hair and brows +blanched as in fire, with light of lordship in the “sunclear joyful eyes” +that already absorb and devour by sweet strength of radiance the relapsing +reluctant bulk of body, that foulest ravenous birth begotten of accident +or error upon time; eyes beautiful with the after-light of ancient tears, +that shall not weep again for ever: “for the former things are passed +away”: and by that light of theirs shall all men see light. Behind these +two, an intense and tremulous night stricken through with stars and fire; +and overhead the dividing roof and underfoot the sundering floor-work of +the grave; a waste place beyond, full of risen bones that gather flesh and +springing roots that strike out or catch at light flying flames of life. +Decidedly the design must exist somewhere; and presumably in “Golgonooza.” +We have the artist’s prophetic authority for believing that his works +written and painted before he came upon earth do in effect fill whole +chambers in heaven, and are “the delight and study of archangels:” an +apocalyptic fact not unnaturally unacceptable and inconceivable to the +cleverest of Scotch stonemasons.</p> + +<p><a name="f43" id="f43" href="#f43.1">[43]</a> Compare Hugo’s admirable poem in the <i>Châtiments</i> (vii. 11. p. +319-321)—“Paroles d’un conservateur à propos d’un perturbateur:”—where, +speaking through the mouth of “Elizab, a scribe,” the chief poet of our +time gives in his great swift manner a dramatic summary of the view taken +by priests and elders of Christ. It is worth looking to trace out how +nearly the same historical points of objection are selected and the same +lines of inference struck into by the two poets; one aiming straight at +present politics, one indirectly at mystic doctrine.</p> + +<p class="poem">“Cet homme était de ceux qui n’ont rien de sacré,<br /> +Il ne respectait rien de tout ce qu’on respecte.<br /> +Pour leur inoculer sa doctrine suspecte,<br /> +Il allait ramassant dans les plus méchants lieux<br /> +Des bouviers, des pêcheurs, des drôles bilieux,<br /> +D’immondes va-nu-pieds n’ayant ni sou ni maille:<br /> +Il faisait son cénacle avec cette canaille.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span></span><br /> +L’honnête homme indigné rentrait dans sa maison<br /> +Quand ce jongleur passait avec cette sequelle.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span></span><br /> +Il traînait à sa suite une espèce de fille.<br /> +Il allait pérorant, ébranlant la famille,<br /> +Et la religion et la société.<br /> +Il sapait la morale et la propriété.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span><span class="spacer">*</span></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 12em;">Quant aux prêtres,</span><br /> +Il les déchirait; bref, il blasphémait. Cela<br /> +Dans la rue. Il contait toutes ces horreurs-là<br /> +Aux premiers gueux venus, sans cape et sans semelles.<br /> +Il fallait en finir, les lois étaient formelles,<br /> +On l’a crucifié.”</p> + +<p><a name="f44" id="f44" href="#f44.1">[44]</a> In a briefer and less important fragment of verse Blake as earnestly +inculcates this faith of his: that all mere virtues and vices were known +before Christ; of right and wrong Plato and Cicero, men uninspired, were +competent to speak as well as he; but until his advent “the moral virtues +in their pride” held rule over the world, and among them as they rode +clothed with war and sacrifice, driving souls to hell before them, shone +“upon the rivers and the streams” the face of the Accuser, holy God of +this Pharisaic world. Then arose Christ and said to man “Thy sins are all +forgiven thee;” and the “moral virtues,” in terror lest their reign of war +and accusation should now draw to an end, cried out “Crucify him,” and +formed with their own hands the cross and the nails and the spear: and the +Accuser spoke to them saying:—</p> + +<p class="poem">“Am I not Lucifer the great<br /> +And ye my daughters, in great state,<br /> +The fruit of my mysterious tree<br /> +Of Good and Evil and Misery?”</p> + +<p>If, the preacher adds, moral virtue was Christianity, Christ’s pretensions +were madness, “and Caiaphas and Pilate men praiseworthy;” and the lion’s +den a fitter emblem of heaven than the sheepfold. “The moral Christian is +the cause of the unbeliever;” and Antichrist is incarnate in those who +close heaven against sinners</p> + +<p class="poem">“With iron bars in virtuous state<br /> +And Rhadamanthus at the gate.”</p> + +<p>But men have so long allowed the heathen virtues, whose element is war and +whose essence retaliation, to “take Jesus’ and Jehovah’s name” that the +Accuser, Antichrist and Lucifer though he be, is now worshipped by those +holy names over all the world: and the era called Christian is the era of +his reign. For the rest, this new relic has no special merit, although it +may be allowed some share of interest as a supplement or illustration to +the larger poem or sermon.</p> + +<p><a name="f45" id="f45" href="#f45.1">[45]</a> The words “female” and “reflex” are synonymous in all Blake’s +writings. What is feminine in its material symbol is derivative in its +spiritual significance; “there is no such thing in eternity as a female +will;” for in eternity substances lose their shadows, and essence puts off +accident. The “frowning babe” of the last stanzas is of course the same or +such another as the one whose birth is first spoken of; not the latter +female growth born in the earthly house of art, but genius itself, whose +likeness is terrible and unlovely at first sight to the run of men, +filling them with affright and scandal, with wonder and the repellent +sense that a new and strange thing is brought into the world.</p> + +<p><a name="f46" id="f46" href="#f46.1">[46]</a> It seems not impossible that this series may have been intended, in +its complete form, to bear the title of <i>Ideas of Good and Evil</i>, which we +find loosely attached to the general MS. When the designer broke it up +into different sets, this name would naturally have been abandoned.</p> + +<p><a name="f47" id="f47" href="#f47.1">[47]</a> Of Blake’s prose other samples are extant besides the notes on art +published in the second volume of the <i>Life and Selections</i>. These strays +are for the most part, as far as I have seen, mere waifs of weed and +barren drift. One fragment, not without some grace and thoughtfulness +curiously used up and thrown away, is an allegory of “the Gods which came +from Fear,” of Shame born of the “poisonous seed” of pride, and such +things; written much in the manner of those early Ossianic studies which +dilate and deform the volume of <i>Poetical Sketches</i>: perhaps composed +(though properly never composed at all) about the same time. Another, a +sort of satire on critics and “philosophers,” seems to emulate the style +of Sterne in his intervals of lax and dull writing; in execution it is +some depths below the baby stories of little Malkin, whose ghost might +well have blushed rejection of the authorship. The fragment on <i>Laocoon</i> +is a mere cento of stray notes on art which reaffirm in a chaotic and +spluttering manner Blake’s theories that the only real prayer is study of +art, the only real praise, its practice; that excellence of art, not moral +virtue, is the aim and the essence of Christianity; and much more of the +same sort. These notes, crammed into every blank space and corner of the +engraved page, burst out as it were and boil over, disconnected but +irrepressible, in a feverish watery style. All really good or even +passable prose of Blake’s seems to be given in the volume of <i>Selections</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="f48" id="f48" href="#f48.1">[48]</a> It should not be overlooked that this part of his work was left +unfinished, all but untouched, by the author of the <i>Life</i>. Without as +long a study and as deep a sympathy as his, it would seem to any follower, +however able and zealous, the most toilsome as well as the most sterile +part of the task in hand. The fault therefore lies with chance or fate +alone. Less than I have said above could not here be said; and more need +not be. I was bound at starting to register my protest against the +contempt and condemnation which these books have incurred, thinking them +as I do not unworthy the trouble of commentary; but no word was designed +to depreciate the careful and admirable labour which has completed a +monument cut short with the life of the sculptor, joined now in death to +the dead whom he honoured.</p> + +<p><a name="f49" id="f49" href="#f49.1">[49]</a> Something like this may be found in a passage of Werner translated by +Mr. Carlyle, but mixed with much of meaner matter, and debased by a +feebleness and a certain spiritual petulance proper to a man so much +inferior. The German mystic, though ingenious and laborious, is also +tepid, pretentious, insecure; half terrified at his own timid audacities, +half choked by the fumes of his own alembic. He labours within a limit, +not fixed indeed, but never expansive; narrowing always at one point as it +widens at another: his work is weak in the head and the spine; he ventures +with half a heart and strikes with half a hand; throughout his myth of +Phosphorus he goes halting and hinting; not ungracefully, nay with a real +sense of beauty, but never like a man braced up for the work requisite; he +labours under a dull devotion and a cloudy capacity. Above all, he can +neither speak nor do well, being no artist or prophet; and so makes but a +poor preacher or essayist. The light he shows is thick and weak; Blake’s +light, be it meteor or star, rises with the heat and radiance of fire or +the morning.</p> + +<p><a name="f50" id="f50" href="#f50.1">[50]</a> A word in passing may here be spared to the singular MS. of <i>Tiriel</i>. +This little poem or mythical episode is evidently a growth of the crude +Ossianic period; in style it is somewhat weak and inadequate to any grave +or subtle expression of thought: a few noticeable lines intervene, but the +general execution is heavy, faint, and rough even for a sketch. Here +however (if I am not incorrect in referring it to a date earlier than the +earliest of the prophetic books) we may see the dull dawn of a day full of +fiery presage, of the light and vapour of tempestuous revelation. The name +of Tiriel king of the West, father of a rebellious race of children who +perish by his curse, hardly reappears once as “Thiriel” the cloud-born son +of Urizen; Har and Heva, the gentler father and mother of the great +eastern family, who in the <i>Song of Los</i> are seen flying before the windy +flames of a broad-blown sunset, chased over Asia with fire and sword by +the divine tyrant and his tributary kings, are here seen forsaken of their +sons in extreme and childish age, but tended by “Mutha” their mother; +“they are holy and forgiving, filled with loving mercy, forgetting the +offences of their most rebellious children.” Into the story or +subject-matter we need not go far; but it is worth notice that the series +of twelve designs classified in the catalogue, section B., No. 156, pp. +253-4 of vol. 2, must evidently (as is there half suggested) be a set of +illustrations to this <i>Tiriel</i>. In one of these any reader will recognize +the serpentine hair which at her father’s imprecation rose and hissed +around the brows of “Hela” (<i>Tiriel</i>, ch. 6); but these designs have as +evidently fallen out of order; thus the one lettered (<i>k</i>) appears to +illustrate the very first lines of the poem; and others seem equally +misarranged. In this faint allegory of the blind discrowned king with his +two brothers, the mad invulnerable giant of the woods and the fettered +dotard dwelling in caves, some fresh incomplete symbol is discernible of +tyranny and error, of strength made insane or perverse and weakness made +cruel or imbecile by oppression of the spirit or the flesh; the “eloquent” +outcast oppressor might then be the uninspired intellect, against whose +errors and tyrannies its own children revolt, and perish by the curse of +their perishing father and mother, blind reason and powerless faith: but +from such shallow and sandy soil the conjectural Muse of commentary can +reap little worth her pains to garner, and at every sweep of her sickle +must risk being blinded by the sand blown into her eyes. Some stray verses +might be gathered up, perhaps worth a place in the gleaner’s loose sheaf; +such as these:</p> + +<p class="poem">“And aged Tiriel stood and said: Where does the thunder sleep?<br /> +Where doth he hide his terrible head? and his swift and fiery daughters,<br /> +Where do they shroud their fiery wings and the terrors of their hair?”</p> + +<p>Anything better worth citation than such crude sonorous snatches of lyric +style I have not found here, except in chap. vii., where the dying Tiriel +lays his final curse on Har—“weak mistaken father of a lawless race,” +whose “laws and Tiriel’s wisdom end together in a curse.” Here, in words +afterwards variously repeated and enlarged, he appeals against the laws of +mere animal life, the narrowed senses and material bondage of men upon +earth; against unnatural training and abstinence through which “milk is +cut off from the weeping mouth with difficulty and pain,” when first “the +little lids are lifted and the little nostrils opened;” against +“hypocrisy, the idiot’s wisdom and the wise man’s folly,” by which men are +“compelled to pray repugnant and to handle the immortal spirit” till like +Tiriel they become as subtle serpents in a paradise which they consume +fruit by fruit and flower by flower till at its fall they themselves are +left desolate. Thus too he inveighs against faith in matter and “respect +of persons” under their perishable and finite forms: “Can wisdom be put in +a silver rod or love in a golden bowl? is the son of a king warmed without +wool? or does he cry with a voice of thunder? does he look upon the sun +and laugh, or stretch his little hands into the depths of the sea?” Much +of this has been half erased, probably with a view to remoulding the +whole: for here alone does anything in tone or thought recall the nobler +mysticism of Blake’s later writings.</p> + +<p><a name="f51" id="f51" href="#f51.1">[51]</a> Before we dismiss the matter from view, it may be permissible to cast +up in a rough and rapid way the sum of Blake’s teaching in these books, if +only because this was also the doctrine or moral of his entire life and +life’s work. I will therefore, as leave has been given, append a note +extracted from a manuscript now before me, which attempts to embody and +enforce, if only by dint of pure and simple exposition, the pantheistic +evangel here set forth in so strange a fashion. Thus at least I read the +passage; if misinterpreted, my correspondent has to thank his own laxity +of expression. “These poems or essays at prophecy” (he says) “seem to me +to represent in an obscure and forcible manner the real naked question to +which all theologies and all philosophies must in the end be pared down. +Strained and filtered clear of extraneous matter, pruned of foreign fruit +and artificial foliage, this radical question lies between Theism and +Pantheism. When the battles of the creeds have been all fought out, this +battle will remain to fight. I do not see much likelihood on either hand +of success or defeat. Faith and reason, evidence and report, are alike +inadequate to decide the day. This prophet or that prophet, this God or +that God, is not here under debate. Histories, religions, all things born +of rumour or circumstance, accident or change, are out of court; are, for +the moment, of necessity set aside. Gentile or Jew, Christian or Pagan, +Eastern or Western, can but be equal to us—for the moment. No single +figure, no single book, stands out for special judgment or special belief. +On the right hand, let us say (employing the old figure of speech), is the +Theist—the ‘man of God,’ if you may take his own word for it; the +believer in a separate or divisible deity, capable or conceivably capable +of existence apart from ours who conceive of it; a conscious and absolute +Creator. On the left hand is the Pantheist; to whom such a creed is mainly +incredible and wholly insufficient His creed is or should be much like +that of your prophet here;” (I must observe in passing that my +correspondent seems so unable to conceive of a comment apart from the +text, an exponent who is not an evangelist,—so inclined to confuse the +various functions of critic and of disciple, and assume that you must mean +to preach or teach whatever doctrine you may have to explain—in a word, +so obtuse or perverse on this point that he might be taken for a +professional man-of-letters or sworn juryman of the press; but I will hope +better things of him, though anonymous;) “and that creed, as I take it, is +simply enough expressible in Blake’s own words, or deducible from them; +that ‘all deities reside in the human breast’; that except humanity there +is no divine thing or person. Clearly therefore, in the eyes of a Theist, +he lies open to the charge of atheism or antitheism. The real difference +is perhaps this; God appears to a Theist as the root, to a Pantheist as +the flower of things. It does not follow logically or actually that to +this latter all things are alike. For us (he might say), for us, within +the boundaries of time and space, evil and good do really exist, and live +no empirical life—for a certain time, and within a certain range. ‘There +is no God unless man can become God.’ That is no saying for an Atheist. +‘There is no man unless the child can become a man’; is that equivalent to +a denial of manhood? But if a man is to be born into the world, the mother +must abstain from the drugs that produce abortion, the child from strong +meats and drinks, the man from poisons. So it is in the spiritual world; +tyranny and treachery, indolence and dulness, cannot but impede and impair +the immutable law of nature and necessary growth. These and their like +must be and must pass away; the eternal body of things must change. As the +fanatic abstains through fear of God or of hell, the free-thinker abstains +from what he sees or thinks to be evil (<i>i. e.</i>, adverse or alien to his +nature at its best) through respect for what he is and reverence for what +he may be. Pantheism therefore is no immoral creed, and cannot be, if only +because it is based upon faith in nature and rooted in respect for it. By +faith in sight it attains to sight through faith. It follows that pure +Theism is more immediately the contrary of this belief, more unacceptable +and more delusive in the eyes of its followers, than any scheme of +doctrine or code of revelation. These, as we see by your Blake” (again), +“the Pantheist may seize and recast in the mould of his own faith. But +Theism, but the naked distinct figure of God, whether or not he assume the +nature of man, so long as this is mere assumption and not the essence of +his being—the clothes and not the body, the body and not the soul—this +is to him incredible, the source of all evil and error. Grant such a God +his chance of existence, what reason has the Theist to suppose or what +right to assume his wisdom or his goodness? why this and not that? whence +his acceptance and whence his rejection of anything that is? ‘Shall the +clay demand of the potter, why hast thou made me thus?’ Shall it not? and +why? Of whom else should a man ask? and if sure of his God, what better +should he do? Theism is not expansive, but exclusive: and the creeds +begotten or misbegotten on this lean body of belief are ‘Satanic’ in the +eyes of a Pantheist, as his faith is in the eyes of their followers.” +There is much more, but it were superfluous to mix a narcotic over strong: +and in pursuit of his flying “faith” my friend’s ideal “Pantheist” is apt +to become heretical.</p> + +<p><a name="f52" id="f52" href="#f52.1">[52]</a> That is, woman has become subject to oppression of customs; suffers +violence at the hands of marriage laws and other such condemnable things. +“Emancipation” and the cognate creeds of which later days have heard so +much never had a more violent and vehement preacher. Not love, not the +plucking of the flower, but error, fear, submission to custom and law, is +that which “defiles” a woman in the sight of our prophet.</p> + +<p><a name="f53" id="f53" href="#f53.1">[53]</a> Even thus told, the myth is plain enough; a word or two of briefer +translation may serve also to light up future allusions. “I plucked +Leutha’s flower,” says Oothoon in the prelude of this poem, “and I was not +ashamed;” the flower that brings forth a child, which nature permits and +desires her to gather; Leutha is the spirit emblematic of physical +pleasure, of sensual impulse and indulgence, from whom comes the “loose +Bible” of Mahomet (<i>Song of Los</i>). But crossing the seas eastward to find +her lover, the strong enslaved spirit of Europe, she, type of womanhood +and freedom, is caught and chained as he by the force of conventional +error and tyrannous habit, which makes her seem impure in his eyes; so +they sit bound back to back, afraid to love; the eagles that tear her +flesh are emblems of her lover’s scorn; vainly, a virgin at heart, she +appeals to all the fair and fearless face of nature against her rival, the +prurient modesty of custom, a virgin in face, a harlot at heart; against +unnatural laws of restraint upon youths and maidens, whose inevitable +outcome is in the licentious alternative not less unnatural; he will not +answer but with vain and vague lamentation, will not turn himself and love +her for all her crying: the mystery of things and thoughts, the tyranny of +times and laws, is heavy upon them to the end. All forms of life but these +are free to be fair and happy: only from east to west the prison-houses +are full of the wailing of women.</p> + +<p><a name="f54" id="f54" href="#f54.1">[54]</a> Night, or the darkness of worlds yet undivided and chaotic, is always +typified by Blake as a “forest” dark with involved and implicated leaf or +branch. Compare “The Tiger.”</p> + +<p><a name="f55" id="f55" href="#f55.1">[55]</a> Along this page a serpent of imperious build rears the strong and +sinuous length of his dusky glittering body, and spits forth keen +undulating fire.</p> + +<p><a name="f56" id="f56" href="#f56.1">[56]</a> It is possible that Blake intended here some grotesque emblematic +reference to the riots witnessed by himself, in which Lord Mansfield’s +house and MSS. were destroyed by fire. At all events, here alone is there +any visible allusion to a matter of recent history.</p> + +<p><a name="f57" id="f57" href="#f57.1">[57]</a> That is, being unable to reconcile qualities, to pass beyond the +legal and logical grounds of good and evil into the secret places where +they are not. The whole argument hinges on this difference between +Pantheism, which can, and Theism, which cannot, and is therefore no surer +or saner than a mere religion based on Church or Bible, nor less +incompetent to include, to expound, to redeem the world.</p> + +<p><a name="f58" id="f58" href="#f58.1">[58]</a> Compare, for the doctrine as to delusion and jealousy being +<i>feminine</i> principles (destructive by their weakness, not by their +strength), this strange expostulation with God, recalling the tone of +earlier prophets:—</p> + +<p class="poem">“Why art thou silent and invisible,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Father of Jealousy?</span><br /> +Why dost thou hide thyself in clouds<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">From every searching eye?</span><br /> +<br /> +Why darkness and obscurity<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In all thy words and laws,</span><br /> +That none dare eat the fruit but from<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The wily serpent’s jaws?</span><br /> +Or is it because Jealousy<small>[A]</small><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gives feminine applause?”</span></p> + +<p class="note"><small>[A]</small>(This word, half rubbed off in the MS., may be “secrecy”; and the point would remain the same.)</p> + +<p><a name="f59" id="f59" href="#f59.1">[59]</a> Leutha, the spirit or guardian goddess of natural pleasure and +physical beauty, is sacrificed as a ransom to redeem the spirit or +guardian god of prohibitive law or judicial faith; to him she is +sacrificed that through her he may be saved. Thus, in the <i>Visions of the +Daughters of Albion</i>, the maiden who “plucks Leutha’s flower,” who trusts +and indulges Nature, has her “virgin mantle torn in twain by the terrible +thunders” of religious and moral law: woman was sacrificed and man “fast +bound in misery” during the eighteen centuries—through which the mother +goddess lay asleep, to weep over her children at her waking; as in the +Prophecy of <i>Europe</i> Time the father and Space the mother of men are +afflicted and spellbound until the sleep of faith be slept out. There +again the emblematic name of Leutha recurs in passing.</p> + +<p><a name="f60" id="f60" href="#f60.1">[60]</a> That is of course the reprobate according to theology, such as the +heretical prophet himself: the class of men upon which is laid the burden +of the sins of the elect, as Satan’s upon Rintrah in the myth.</p> + +<p><a name="f61" id="f61" href="#f61.1">[61]</a> This line appears to have been too much for the writer in the <i>Life</i>, +who here breaks his quotation short off by the head, annihilating with a +quite ingenious violence at once grammar, sense, and sound. It is but a +small nut to have broken his critical tooth upon; the evident meaning +being simply this: that within the centre of everything living by animal +or vegetative life there is by way of kernel something imperishable; the +fleshly or material life of form contains the infinite spiritual life, +lurking under leaf or latent under limb: man and flower and beast have +each the separate secret of a soul or divisible indestructible spirit +(compare even the <i>Songs of Innocence</i>); but while the earthly and fleshly +form remains there stand as wardens of the ways the two material giants, +Strength and Force, binding the soul in the body with chains of flesh and +sex, the spirit in the petals with bonds of vegetable form, fashioned +fastenings of chalice and anther, sprinklings of dusty gold on leaf or +pistil; always, without hammer or rivet of Vulcanic forging, able to hold +fast Prometheus in blind bondage to the flesh and form of things; so that +except by inspiration there can be no chance of seeing what does exist and +work in man or beast or flower; only by vision or by death shall one be +brought safe past the watch guarded by the sentinels of material form and +bodily life, the crude tributary “Afrites” (as in the Æschylean myth) of +the governing power which fashions and fetters life in men and things. And +thus this, the singing of birds and dancing of flowers, the springing of +colour and kindling of music at each day’s dawn, is a symbol—“a vision of +the lamentation of Beulah over Ololon”—of the dwellers in that milder and +moonlight-coloured world of reflex mortal spirits over the imperishable +influences of a higher spiritual world, which descending upon earth must +be clothed with material mystery and become subject to sensuous form and +likeness in the body of the shadow of death. This glorious passage, almost +to be matched for wealth of sound, for growth and gradation of floral and +musical splendour, for mastery of imperial colour, even against the great +interlude or symphony of flowers in <i>Maud</i>, was not cast at random into +the poem, but has also a “soul” or meaning in it—though the ways of +seeing and understanding are somewhat too closely guarded by “Og and +Anak.” Reading it as an excerpt indeed one need hardly wish to see beyond +the form or material figure. That “innumerable dance” of tree and flower +and herb is not unfit for comparison with the old <ins class="correction" title="anêrithmon gelasma">ἀνήριθμον +γέλασμα</ins> of the waves of the sea.</p> + +<p><a name="f62" id="f62" href="#f62.1">[62]</a> One may fear that some such symbolic stuff as this is really at the +root of the admirable poem christened by its editor with the name of +<i>Broken Love</i>: which I gravely suspect was meant for insertion in some +fresh instalment of prophetic rhapsody by way of complement or sequel to +<i>Jerusalem</i>. The whole tone of it, and especially that of some rejected +stanzas, is exactly in the elemental manner of the scenes (where scene is +none) between Albion, Jerusalem, and Vala the Spectre of Jerusalem (books +1st and 2nd):—</p> + +<p class="poem">“Thou hast parted from my side—<br /> +Once thou wast a virgin bride:<br /> +Never shalt thou a true love find—<br /> +My Spectre follows thee behind.<br /> +<br /> +“When my love did first begin,<br /> +Thou didst call that love a sin;<br /> +Secret trembling, night and day,<br /> +Driving all my loves away.”</p> + +<p>These two stanzas (recalling so many other passages where Blake has +enforced his doctrines as to the fatal tendency of the fears and +jealousies, the abstinence and doubt, produced by theoretic virtue and +hatched by artificial chastity) stood originally as third and fourth in +the poem. They are cancelled in Blake’s own MS.; but in that MS. the poem +ends as follows, in a way (I fear) conclusive as to the justice of my +suggestion; I mark them conjecturally, as I suppose the dialogue to stand, +by way of helping the reader to some glimpse of the point here and there.</p> + +<p class="poem">“When wilt thou return and view<br /> +My loves and them to life renew?<br /> +When wilt thou return and live?<br /> +When wilt thou pity as I forgive?”<br /> +<br /> +“Never, never, I return;<br /> +Still for victory I burn.<br /> +Living, thee alone I’ll have;<br /> +And when dead I’ll be thy grave.<br /> +<br /> +“Through the heaven and earth and hell<br /> +Thou shalt never, never quell:<br /> +I will fly and thou pursue;<br /> +Night and morn the flight renew.”</p> + +<p>(This I take to be the jealous lust of power and exclusive love speaking +through the incarnate “female will.” See <i>Jerusalem</i> again.)</p> + +<p class="poem">“And I, to end thy cruel mocks,<br /> +Annihilate thee on the rocks,<br /> +And another form create<br /> +To be subservient to my fate.<br /> +<br /> +“Till I turn from female love<br /> +And root up the infernal grove,<br /> +I shall never worthy be<br /> +To step into eternity.”</p> + +<p>(This stanza ought probably to be omitted; but I retain it as being +carefully numbered for insertion by Blake: though he by some evident slip +of mind or pen has put it before the preceding one.)</p> + +<p class="poem">“Let us agree to give up love<br /> +And root up the infernal grove,<br /> +Then shall we return and see<br /> +The worlds of happy eternity.<br /> +<br /> +“And throughout all eternity<br /> +I forgive you, you forgive me;<br /> +As our dear Redeemer said,<br /> +This the wine and this the bread.”</p> + +<p>That is perfect <i>Jerusalem</i> both for style and matter. The struggle of +either side for supremacy—the flight and pursuit—the vehemence and +perversion—the menace and the persuasion—the separate Spectre or +incarnation of sex “annihilated on the rocks” of rough law or stony +circumstance and necessity—the final vision of an eternity where the +jealous divided loves and personal affections “born of shame and pride” +shall be destroyed or absorbed in resignation of individual office and +quality—all this belongs but too clearly to the huge prophetic roll. Few +however will be desirous, and none will be wise, to resign for these +gigantic shadows of formless and baseless fancy the splendid exposition +given by the editor (p. 76 of vol. ii). Seen by that new external +illumination, though it be none of the author’s kindling, his poem stands +on firmer feet and is clothed with a nearer light.</p> + +<p><a name="f63" id="f63" href="#f63.1">[63]</a> In the mythologic scheme, also, Los god of time and Albion father of +the races of men are rival powers; and the “Spectre” or satellite deity +reproaches his lord with resignation of the world and all its ways and +generations (which should have been subject only to the Time-Spirit) to +the guidance of the nations sprung from the patriarch Albion (called in +Biblical records after Jewish names, here spoken of by their English or +other titles, more or less burlesque and barbaric) who have taken upon +themselves to subdue even Time himself to this work and divide his spoils. +So closely is the bare mythical construction enwound with the symbolic or +doctrinal passages which are meant to give it such vitality and such +coherence as they may.</p> + +<p><a name="f64" id="f64" href="#f64.1">[64]</a> Who adore nature as she appears to the Deist, who select this and +reject that, assume and presume according to moral law and custom, instead +of accepting the Pantheistic revelation which consecrates all things and +absorbs all contraries.</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><strong>Transcriber’s Note:</strong></p> + +<p>Images have been moved from the middle of a paragraph to a nearby paragraph break.</p> + +<p>The text in the list of illustrations is presented as in the original text, but the links +navigate to the page number closest to the illustration’s loaction in this document.</p> + +<p>Inconsistencies in +spelling and hyphenation have been retained from the original.</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILLIAM BLAKE***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 35995-h.txt or 35995-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/5/9/9/35995">http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/9/9/35995</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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