diff options
| author | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-02-05 23:58:40 -0800 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-02-05 23:58:40 -0800 |
| commit | 6167d65c1af8004a7e0f6a78fa46ba73b7cf0e25 (patch) | |
| tree | e0872cb2c884e41dd654ac3d19e14831e4282e02 | |
| parent | bfaf5a453334ccc72fe61919d49d62fe5a8ef7b4 (diff) | |
50 files changed, 17 insertions, 6949 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8daeb52 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #52300 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/52300) diff --git a/old/52300-0.txt b/old/52300-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 48a5231..0000000 --- a/old/52300-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,3126 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook, William Blake, by Richard Garnett - - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world 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 -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - - -Title: William Blake - Painter and Poet - - -Author: Richard Garnett - - - -Release Date: June 11, 2016 [eBook #52300] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILLIAM BLAKE*** - - -E-text prepared by Cathy Maxam and the Online Distributed Proofreading -Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by -Internet Archive (https://archive.org) - - - -Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this - file which includes the original illustrations. - See 52300-h.htm or 52300-h.zip: - (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/52300/52300-h/52300-h.htm) - or - (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/52300/52300-h.zip) - - - Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive. See - https://archive.org/details/gri_33125007593565 - - - - - -[Illustration: _London. Published as the Act directs March 8. 1823 by -Willm Blake N3 Fountain Court Strand_ - -_The Sons of God. Design from the Book of Job._] - - -WILLIAM BLAKE - -Painter and Poet - -by - -RICHARD GARNETT, LL.D. - -Keeper of the Printed Books in the British Museum - - - - - - - -[Illustration] - -London -Seeley and Co. Limited, Essex Street, Strand -New York, Macmillan and Co. -1895 - - - - -LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - - -_PLATES_ - - PAGE - - The Sons of God. From the Book of Job _Frontispiece_ - - The Lamb, and Infant Joy. Songs of Innocence _to face_ 20 - - The Fly, and the Tiger. Songs of Experience ” ” 24 - - The Book of Thel, title-page. In facsimile by W. Griggs ” ” 33 - - ” ” page vi. ” ” ” ” 36 - - America, page ” ” 42 - - ” page ” ” 48 - - -_ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT_ - - Morning, or Glad Day. From an engraving by W. Blake 11 - - Illustration from “David Simple.” Engraved by W. Blake after - T. Stothard, R.A. 17 - - From a coloured copy of the “Songs of Innocence and Experience.” - British Museum 22 - - Frontispiece of Mary Wollstonecraft’s “Stories” 24 - - Page of Young’s “Night Thoughts.” Illustrated by W. Blake 26 - - I want! I want!--Help! Help!--Aged Ignorance!--Death’s Door 28 - - Design from the “Book of Urizen.” By W. Blake 34 - - The Ancient of Days setting a Compass to the Earth. From a - water-colour drawing by W. Blake. British Museum 39 - - Sweeping the Parlour in the Interpreter’s House 40 - - Design from “Milton.” By W. Blake 47 - - Portrait of William Blake. From the engraving by L. Schiavonetti, - after T. Phillips, R.A. 50 - - The Reunion of Soul and Body. From Blair’s “Grave,” illustrated - by W. Blake 53 - - The Babylonian Woman on the Seven-headed Beast. From a water-colour - drawing by W. Blake. British Museum 55 - - Portrait of Wilson Lowry. By John Linnell. Engraved by Blake - and Linnell 61 - - The Resurrection of the Dead. From a water-colour drawing by - W. Blake. British Museum 63 - - Woodcut from Thornton’s Pastoral 64 - - The Destruction of Job’s Sons and Daughters. From the “Book of - Job.” By W. Blake 67 - - With dreams upon my bed thou scarest me. From the “Book of Job.” - By W. Blake 69 - - Behemoth and Leviathan. From the “Book of Job.” By W. Blake 71 - - - - -WILLIAM BLAKE - - - - -CHAPTER I - - _Preliminary observations--Blake’s - Birth--Education--Marriage--Early Poems--Drawings and - Engravings._ - - -The position of William Blake among artists is exceptional. Of no -other painter of like distinction, save Dante Rossetti, can it be said -that his fame as a poet has fully rivalled his fame as a painter; much -less that, in the opinion of some, his fame as a seer ought to have -exceeded both. Many painters, from Reynolds downwards, have written -admirably upon art; in some instances, notably Haydon’s, the worth of -their precepts greatly exceeds that of their performance. But, Rossetti -always excepted, perhaps no other painter of great distinction, -save Michael Angelo alone, has achieved high renown in poetry, and -the compass of Michael Angelo’s poetical work is infinitesimal in -comparison with his work as an artist. Again, the literary achievements -of an Angelo or a Reynolds admit of clear separation from their -performances as artists. The critic who approaches them from the -artistic side may, if he pleases, omit the literary side entirely from -consideration. This is impossible with Blake, for not only do the -artistic and the poetical monuments of his genius nearly balance each -other in merit and in their claim upon the attention of posterity, -but they are the offspring of the same creative impulse, and are -indissolubly fused together by the process adopted for their execution. -A study of Blake, therefore, must include more literary discussion -than would be allowable in a monograph on any other artist. The poet -and painter in Blake, moreover, are but manifestations of the more -comprehensive character of seer, which suggests inquiries alien to both -these arts; while the personal character of the man is so fascinating, -and his intellectual character so perplexing, that the investigation -of either of them might afford, and often has afforded, material for -a prolonged discussion. In the following pages it will be our object, -whenever compelled to quit the safe ground of biographical narrative, -to subordinate all else to the consideration of Blake as an artist; -but the Blake of the brush is too emphatically the Blake of the pen -to be long dissociated from him, and neither can be detached from the -background of abnormal visionary faculty. - - * * * * * - -From a certain point of view, artists may be regarded as divisible into -three classes: those who regard the material world as an unquestionable -solid reality, whose accurate representation is the one mission of -Art; those to whom it is a mere hieroglyphic of an essential existence -transcending it; and those who, uniting the two conceptions, are at the -same time idealists and realists. The greatest artists generally belong -to the latter class, and with reason, for a literal adherence to matter -of fact almost implies defect of imagination; while an extravagant -idealism may be, to say the least, a convenient excuse for defects of -technical skill. It is difficult to know whether to class the works -of the very greatest artists as realistic or idealistic. Take Albert -Dürer’s _Melancholia_. It is a hieroglyph, a symbol, an expression -of something too intense to be put into words; a delineation of what -the painter beheld with the inner eye alone. Yet every detail is as -correct and true to fact as the most uninspired Dutchman could have -made it. Take Titian’s _Bacchus and Ariadne_, and observe how separate -details which the artist may have actually noticed, are combined into -a whole which has never been beheld, save by the spiritual vision, -since the last thyrsus was brandished by the last Mænad. Yet, though -the creators of such scenes are the greatest, some realists, such as -Velasquez, have in virtue of surpassing technical execution asserted -a nearly equal rank. The case is different when we come to the -enthusiasts and visionaries, whose art is wholly symbolic, who have -given us little that can be enjoyed as art for art’s sake, without -reference to the ideas of which it is made the vehicle. In many very -interesting artists, such as Wiertz and Calvert and Vedder, and in -many isolated works of great masters, such as Giorgione’s _Venetian -Pastoral_, the feeling is so much in excess of the execution--admirable -as this may be--that the result is rather a poem than a picture. But -only one artist who has deliberately made himself the prophet of this -tendency, who has avowedly and defiantly discarded all purpose from his -works save that of spiritual suggestiveness, seems to have ever been -admitted as a candidate for very high artistic honours, and he is our -countryman, William Blake. - -This circumstance alone should render Blake an interesting object of -study, even for those who can see no merit in his works: indeed, the -less the merit the more remarkable the phenomenon. He is, moreover, -a most peculiar and enigmatical character, both intellectually and -morally. As an art critic he is of all the most dogmatic, trenchant, -and revolutionary. As a poet, were nineteen-twentieths of his -compositions to be discarded as rubbish, lyrics would remain not only -exquisite in themselves, but possessing the incommunicable and Sapphic -quality that a single stanza, even a single phrase, would often suffice -to make the writer immortal. The question of his sanity is as well -adapted to furnish the world with an interminable subject of discussion -as the execution of Charles I. or the assassination of Cæsar. Finally, -it is very significant that while no man ever wilfully put more -obstacles into the way of his success than Blake, whether as artist, -thinker, or poet, and he did in fact succeed in condemning himself to -poverty and obscurity, the verdict of his contemporaries is now so far -reversed that the drawings which a kind friend overpaid, as he thought, -at fifty guineas, are worth a thousand pounds. - -What manner of man was he to whose shade the world has made this -practical apology? - -William Blake was born on November 28th,[1] 1757, at 28, Broad Street, -Golden Square. By a singular coincidence this was the very year which -a still more celebrated mystic, Swedenborg, had announced as that -of the Last Judgment in a spiritual sense, which was by no means to -preclude the world from going on in externals pretty much as usual. -Blake’s father, James Blake, was a hosier in moderately prosperous -circumstances, whose father is stated by Blake’s most elaborate -commentators, Messrs. Ellis and Yeats, to have been originally named -O’Neil, and to have assumed his wife’s name as a means of escape from -pecuniary difficulties. This wife, however, was not the mother of -James. This genealogy is not supported by any strong authority, and -is at variance with another, also indifferently supported, according -to which the artist’s family were connected with the admiral’s. We -must leave the question where we find it, merely remarking that -Blake’s parents were certainly Protestants, and that we can detect no -specifically Irish trait in his character or his works. He had three -brothers--one, James, mild and unassuming like his father; another, -Robert, who died young, apparently with more affinity to William; the -third, John, a scapegrace. There was also a sister who never married, -and is described as a thorough gentlewoman, reserved and proud. None of -the family except William and Robert seem to have shown any artistic -talent. With William it must have been precocious, for, ere he had -attained the age of ten, his father, who as a small tradesman might -rather have been expected to have thwarted the boy’s inclinations, -placed him at “Mr. Pars’ drawing school in the Strand.” Here he learned -to draw from plaster casts--the life was denied him--and with the aid -of his father and a friendly auctioneer collected prints, then to be -picked up cheap, showing from the very first, as he afterwards related, -a complete independence of the pseudo-classic taste of the day. At four -he had had his first vision, when “God put his forehead to the window, -which set him screaming.” At eight or ten he saw a tree filled with -angels, and angelic figures walking among haymakers. “The child is -father to the man.” - -At the age of fourteen Blake was apprenticed to the engraver -Basire. Ryland had been thought of, but Blake, according to a story -which he must have narrated, but may not improbably have imagined, -demurred, declaring that the fashionable engraver looked as if he -would one day be hanged, as he actually was. Basire’s practice lay -chiefly in engraving antiquities, and the last five years of Blake’s -apprenticeship were chiefly spent in drawing tombs and architectural -details in Westminster Abbey a most advantageous discipline, which -imbued his mind with the Gothic spirit, an influence already in the -air, evincing itself in Götz von Berlichingens, Rowley Poems, Percy -Relics, and Castles of Otranto; and, by directing him to English -history and Shakespeare, powerfully stimulated and felicitously guided -the poetical genius of which he was shortly to give proof. He drew, -Malkin tells us, the monuments of kings and queens in every point -of view he could catch, frequently standing on them. The heads he -considered as portraits, and all the ornaments appeared as miracles -of art to his Gothicised imagination. Nor could a better environment -for a mystic be desired than the venerable and generally solitary -temple, “the height, the space, the gloom, the glory,” with its music, -its memories, and its constant sense of the presence of the dead. -The bent of his mind at the time is shown by his first engraving, -_Joseph of Arimathea among the Rocks of Albion_, copied, as he states, -from a scarce Italian print. If this was indeed the case, it may be -queried whether the title at least was not his--Joseph, according -to the legend, having been the first missionary to Britain. The -original, if original there was, certainly was not the work of Michael -Angelo, to whom Blake chose to attribute it. Scarcely was he out of -his articles than he produced (1779) two engravings from the history -of England, _The Penance of Jane Shore_ and _King Edward and Queen -Eleanor_. These were after two water-colour drawings, selected from a -much greater number with which he had amused the leisure hours of his -apprenticeship. Mr. Gilchrist says that these and other works of the -period have little of the peculiar Blakean quality, except the striking -design _Morning, or Glad Day_, dated 1780, a facsimile of which is -given here. This, indeed, is Blake all over, and would have made an -excellent frontispiece for the poems with which he was about to herald -the dawn of a new era in English poetry, though in all probability -designed as an illustration of the lines in _Romeo and Juliet_; - - Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day - Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops. - -A naked Apollo-like figure, wearing the dawn for a halo, in whom one -fancifully traces a resemblance to Goethe, alights throbbing with joy -and victory on the peak of a mountain, while the waning moon, as would -seem, sets behind him, and a winged beetle scuds away. - -The poems to which reference has been made had meanwhile been slowly -accumulating; if the language of the advertisement which heralded their -publication is to be taken literally, they were now complete. Before -appearing as a poet, however, Blake had to undergo his probation as -a lover. He became enamoured of a pretty girl variously called Polly -or Clara Woods. She rejected him. He fell into a melancholy, and was -sent to Richmond for change of air. There he lodged with a nursery -gardener named Boucher. The daughter of the house, Catherine, had been -frequently asked whom she would like to marry, and had always replied -that she had not seen the man. Coming on the night of Blake’s arrival -into the room where he was sitting with the rest of the family, she -grew faint from the presentiment that she beheld her destined husband. -On subsequently hearing of his disappointment with Clara Woods, she -told him that she pitied, and he told her that he loved. They were -married on August 18, 1782, Blake having, it is said, proved their -mutual constancy by refraining from seeing her for a year, while he was -toiling to save enough to render their marriage not utterly imprudent. -His first care afterwards was to teach her to read and write, to which -he afterwards added enough of the pictorial art to enable her to colour -his drawings. A more devoted wife never lived, though her devotion wore -in the eyes of strangers an aspect of formality, and was always tinged -with awe. - -_Poetical Sketches_, 1783, were the first-fruits of Blake’s genius, -composed, as asserted in the advertisement prefixed by his friends, -between 1768 and 1777.[2] They are the only examples of his literary -work devoid of artistic illustration; we ought not, consequently, to -spend much time upon them, yet they are the most memorable of his -works, for they are nothing short of miraculous, and alone among his -productions mark an era. For a hundred and thirty years English poetry -had been mainly artificial, the product of conscious effort ranging -down from the superb art of _Paradise Lost_ to the prettinesses -of Pope’s imitators, but seldom or never wearing the aspect of a -spontaneous growth. This young obscure engraver was the first to show -that it was still possible to sing as the bird sings; he and no other -was the morning star which announced the new day of English poetry. Had -even the verses been of inferior quality, such inspiration would have -sufficed for fame, but Blake is as exquisite as original, and warbles -such nightingale notes as England had not heard since Andrew Marvell -forsook song for satire. The songs of Dryden, indeed, have great merit, -but how they savour of the study compared with the artless melody of a -strain like this! - -[Illustration: _Morning, or Glad Day. From an engraving by W. Blake._] - - How sweet I roamed from field to field, - And tasted all the summer’s pride, - Till I the Prince of Love beheld, - Who in the sunny beams did glide! - - He showed me lilies for my hair, - And blushing roses for my brow; - He led me through his gardens fair, - Where all his golden pleasures grow. - - With sweet May dews my wings were wet, - And Phœbus fired my vocal rage; - He caught me in his silken net, - And shut me in his golden cage. - - He loves to sit and hear me sing, - Then, laughing, sports and plays with me; - Then stretches out my golden wing, - And mocks my loss of liberty. - -This is such a song as Marlowe might have written, but for a delicate -eighteenth-century suggestion in the style, whose aroma is not quite -that of the Elizabethan era. It is none the less one of the pieces -which none but Blake could have produced. The characteristics of his -style, indeed, are much less apparent in this early volume than in his -subsequent productions. They are most conspicuous in the _Mad Song_, -but a more pleasing if less intense example is the following: - -SONG. - - Love and harmony combine, - And around our souls entwine, - While thy branches mix with mine - And our roots together join. - - Joys upon our branches sit, - Chirping loud and singing sweet; - Like gentle streams beneath our feet - Innocence and virtue meet. - - Thou the golden fruit dost bear, - I am clad in flowers fair; - Thy sweet boughs perfume the air, - And the turtle buildeth there. - - There she sits and feeds her young, - Sweet I hear her mournful song; - And thy lovely leaves among, - There is Love: I hear his tongue. - - There his charm’d nest he doth lay, - There he sleeps the night away, - There he sports along the day, - And doth among our branches play. - -Not the least remarkable of the _Poetical Sketches_ are “Samson” and -other short pieces in blank verse. They are marvellously Tennysonian; -if imitation there was, it obviously was not on Blake’s part. Who would -have hesitated to ascribe these lines, addressed to the Evening Star, -to the Laureate? - - Let thy west wind sleep on - The lake; speak silence with thy glimmering eyes, - And wash the dusk with silver. - -Even more marvellous than the sentiment is the metre, which cannot be -judged by a short passage. Well might it be said, “Thou hast hid these -things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them unto babes,” when -the secret of melodious blank verse, withheld since the Civil War from -all the highly cultured and in many respects highly gifted bards of -England, is disclosed on the sudden to this half-educated young man. -It is exemplified on a larger scale by the accompanying fragments of -an intended tragedy on _Edward the Third_, which proves two things: -first, that Blake was destitute of all dramatic faculty; secondly, -that, notwithstanding, few have so thoroughly assimilated Shakespeare. -Shakespeare stands almost alone among great poets in having had hardly -any direct imitators. Every one, of course, has profited by the study -of his art; but those most deeply indebted to him in this respect have -felt the least disposed to reproduce his style. The reason is evident. -Other writers are partial, Shakespeare is universal; the model is too -vast for study. A deliberate imitation of Shakespeare would assuredly -be a failure: imitation is only practicable when it is not deliberate -but unconscious, the effluence of a mind so saturated with Shakespeare -that it can for the time only express itself in Shakespearian numbers, -and think under Shakespearian forms. Blake must have been in such a -situation when he attempted _Edward the Third_, the direct fruit of -his roamings among the regal tombs in the Abbey with Shakespeare’s -historical plays in his hand. The drama is childish, but the feeling -approaches Shakespeare as nearly as Keats’s early poems approach -Spenser. The imitation, being spontaneous and unsought, is never -senile, but every line reveals a youth whose soul is with Shakespeare, -though his body may be in Golden Square. Yet the reproduction of -Shakespeare’s manner is never so exact as to conceal the fact that the -poet is writing in the eighteenth and not in the sixteenth century. -The following passage may serve as an example both of the closeness of -Blake’s affinity with Shakespeare and of the _nuances_ of difference -that serve to vindicate his originality. - - Last night beneath - The moon I walked abroad when all had pitched - Their tents, and all were still. - I heard a blooming youth singing a song - He had composed, and at each pause he wiped - His dropping eyes. The ditty was “If he - Returned victorious he should wed a maiden - Fairer than snow and rich as midsummer.” - Another wept, and wished health to his father. - I chid them both, but gave them noble hopes. - These are the minds that glory in the battle, - And leap and dance to hear the trumpet sound. - -This is beautiful description, sentiment and metre, but these beauties -sum up the attractions of Blake’s dramatic fragment. The dramatic -element is wanting, there is no action. This deficiency runs through -his whole work, pictorial as well as literary, and explains why one -capable of such sublime conceptions was nevertheless incapable of -taking rank with the Miltons and Michael Angelos. His productions -are full of tremendous scenes, the strivings and agonies of colossal -unearthly powers realised by his own mind with a vividness which proves -the intensity of his conceptions. Yet he seldom impresses the beholder -with any sentiment of awe or terror. The cause is not solely the -fantastic character of these conceptions, for the effect is the same -when he deals with mankind, and represents it in the most thrilling -crises of which humanity is capable. His representation of the plague, -for instance, engraved in Gilchrist’s biography, excites strong -interest and curiosity, but nothing of the shuddering dismay with which -we should view such a scene in actual life, and which is so powerfully -conveyed in such works as Géricault’s _Wreck of the Medusa_ and Poole’s -_Solomon Eagle_. The reason seems to be that Blake was not only a -visionary but also a mystic, and that mysticism is hardly compatible -with tragic passion. The visionary, as in the instances of Dante and -Bunyan, may realise every detail of his ideal conceptions with the -force of actual perception, but it is the very essence of the mystic’s -creed that things are not what they seem, and the man who knows himself -to be depicting a hieroglyphic will never grasp his subject with the -force of him who feels that he is dealing with a concrete reality. The -Hindoos are a nation of mystics who regard existence as an illusion, -and their art labours under the same defects as Blake’s; their drama -especially, with all the charm of lovely arabesque, makes nothing of -the strongest situations, save when these are of the pathetic order. -For although the mystic cannot be exciting, he can be tender: and while -Blake’s efforts at the delineation of frantic passion or overwhelming -catastrophes usually (there are exceptions) leave us unmoved, nothing -can be more pathetic than some of his delineations, such, for example, -as the famous illustration to Blair, of an old man approaching the -grave. - -It seems almost strange that verses, as contrary to the spirit of -the age that gave them birth as prophetic of the ideals of the age -to come, should have found friends willing to defray their cost. If, -however, it is true that Flaxman was among these friends, Blake had -met with one congenial spirit. A clergyman named Matthews, incumbent -of Percy Chapel, Charlotte Street, is mentioned as another patron, -and as the writer of the well-meaning but too apologetic preface. -Through him Blake seems to have become acquainted with Flaxman. To the -few then able to appreciate the poems, they might well have seemed -indicative of a great poetical career, for they are exactly the sweet, -wild, untaught, prelusive music wherewith youth, as yet unschooled by -criticism and unawakened to its really profound problems, is wont to -essay its art. Why was it that Blake, though rivalling these early -attempts in his _Songs of Innocence_ and _Songs of Experience_, never -progressed further; and in by far the greater part of his subsequent -poetry went off altogether upon a wrong track, so far at least as -concerned poetry? Partly, we think, because his mind was almost -entirely deficient in the plastic element. He could reproduce a scene -ready depicted for him, as in his illustrations to Job; he could embody -a solitary thought with exquisite beauty, whether in poetry or in -painting; but he could not combine his ideas into a whole. His faculty -was purely lyrical, and when this evanescent endowment forsook him, -devoid as he was of all plastic literary power, he had no Oenone or -Ulysses to replace his Claribels and Eleanores. His verse became a mere -accompaniment of his pictorial art, and harmonising with its vagueness -and obscurity, necessarily lacked the symmetry with which a colourist -can dispense, but which is essential to a poet. Even more remarkable -than the music of Blake’s early verses, unparalleled in their age, is -the fact, vouched for by J. T. Smith, the biographer of Nollekens and -Keeper of Prints at the British Museum, that he had composed tunes for -them, which he could only repeat by ear from his ignorance of musical -notation. Some of these, Smith says, were exquisitely beautiful. - -At the appearance of the _Poetical Sketches_ (1783), Blake had for a -year been a married man, and was actively striving to make a living -as an engraver. Most of his work of this nature at this time was -executed after Stothard. It cannot be disputed that this graceful -artist largely influenced Blake’s style in its more idyllic aspects; -whether, as he was afterwards inclined to assert, Stothard’s invention -owed something to him is not easy to determine. In 1784 he lost his -father, a mild, pious man, who had well performed his duty to his son. -Blake’s elder brother James took his business, and the artist, who had -probably inherited some little property, returned from Green Street -to Broad Street, and, establishing himself next door to his brother, -launched into speculation as a print-seller in partnership with a -former fellow apprentice named Parker, taking his brother Robert as a -gratuitous pupil. In 1785 he sent four drawings to the Academy. Three, -illustrative of the story of Joseph, were shown in the International -Exhibition of 1862, and are described by Gilchrist as “full of soft -tranquil beauty, specimens of Blake’s earlier style; a very different -one from that of his later and better-known works.” This is probably -as much as to say that he then wrought much under the influence of -Stothard, after whom he engraved the subject from _David Simple_ given -here; for the earlier design illustrative of the passage in _Romeo and -Juliet_ is characteristically Blakean. Mr. Gilchrist adds, “the design -is correct and blameless, not to say tame (for Blake), the colour full, -harmonious and sober.” Mr. Rossetti says that the figure of Joseph, in -the third drawing, “is especially pure and impulsive.” - -[Illustration: _Illustration from “David Simple.” Engraved by W. Blake -after T. Stothard, R.A._] - -In 1787 Blake’s experiment in print-selling came to an end, through -disagreements, it is said, with his partner; but as neither appears to -have afterwards pursued the calling, it is probable that it had never -been profitable. Parker obtained some distinction as an engraver, -chiefly after Stothard, and died in 1805. In February, 1787, Blake had -sustained a severe loss in the death of his brother and pupil Robert. -Blake himself nursed the patient for some weeks, and when at last -the end came, it is not surprising that he should have beheld his -brother’s spirit “arise and clap its hands for joy.” Not long after, -as he asserted, the spirit appeared to him in a dream, and revealed to -him that process of printing from copper plates which, as we shall see, -had the most decisive influence upon his work as an artist. Writing -to Hayley in 1800, he says, “Thirteen years ago I lost a brother, and -with his spirit I converse daily and hourly in the spirit, and see him -in remembrance in the regions of my imagination. I hear his advice, -and even now write from his dictate.” “The ruins of Time,” he finely -subjoins, “build mansions in Eternity.” - -From this time Blake’s sole assistant was his wife, whom he carefully -instructed, and who tinted many of the coloured drawings which -henceforth form the more characteristic portion of his work. After -giving up his business as a print-seller, he removed from Broad Street -to 28, Poland Street. Messrs. Ellis and Yeats conjecture that this may -have been to escape the blighting influence of his commercial brother -next door, but it is more probable that his venture had impoverished -him, and that he was obliged to give up housekeeping. - - - - -CHAPTER II - - _Blake’s Technical Methods--“Songs of Innocence” and “Songs of - Experience”--Life in Poland Street and in Lambeth--Mystical - Poetry and Art._ - - -It was during his residence in Poland Street that Blake first appeared -in that mingled character of poet and painter which marks him off -so conspicuously from other painters and other poets. Painting has -often been made the handmaid of poetry; it was Blake’s idea, without -infringing upon this relationship, to make poetry no less the handmaid -of painting by employing his verse, engraved and beautified with -colour, to enhance the artistic value of his designs, as well as to -provide them with the needful basis of subject. The same principle -may probably be recognised in those Oriental scrolls where the -graceful labour of the scribe is as distinctly a work of art as the -illustration of the miniaturist; but of these Blake can have known -nothing. Necessity was with him the mother of invention. Since the -appearance of _Poetical Sketches_ he had written much that he desired -to publish--but how to pay for printing? So severely had he suffered by -his unfortunate commercial adventure that when at length, as he firmly -believed, the new process by which his song and his design could be -facsimiled together was revealed by his brother’s spirit in a dream, a -half-crown was the only coin his wife and he possessed between them in -the world. One shilling and tenpence of this was laid out in providing -the necessary materials. - -The technical method to which Blake now resorted is thus described -by Mr. Gilchrist: “It was quite an original one. It consisted of a -species of engraving in relief, both words and designs. The verse was -written and the designs and marginal embellishments outlined on the -copper with an impervious liquid, probably the ordinary stopping-out -varnish of engravers. Then all the white parts or lights, the remainder -of the plate that is, were eaten away with aquafortis or other acid, -so that the outline of letter and design was left prominent, as in -stereotype. From these plates he printed off in any tint, yellow, -brown, blue, required to be the prevailing or ground colour in his -facsimiles; red he used for the letterpress. The page was then -coloured up by hand in imitation of the original drawing with more -or less variety of detail in the local hues. He ground and mixed his -water-colours himself on a piece of statuary marble, after a method of -his own, with common carpenter’s glue diluted. The colours he used were -few and simple: indigo, cobalt, gamboge, vermilion, Frankfort-black -freely, ultramarine rarely, chrome not at all. These he applied with -a camel’s-hair brush, not with a sable, which he disliked. He taught -Mrs. Blake to take off the impressions with care and delicacy, which -such plates signally needed; and also to help in tinting them from -his drawings with right artistic feeling; in all of which tasks she, -to her honour, much delighted. The size of the plates was small, for -the sake of economising copper, something under five inches by three. -The number of engraved pages in the _Songs of Innocence_ alone was -twenty-seven. They were done up in boards by Mrs. Blake’s hand, forming -a small octavo; so that the poet and his wife did everything in making -the book, writing, designing, printing, engraving,--everything except -manufacturing the paper; the very ink, or colour rather, they did make. -Never before, surely, was a man so literally the author of his own -book.” - -[Illustration: The Lamb. Infant Joy. _From Blake’s “Songs of -Innocence.”_] - -The total effect of this process is tersely expressed by Mr. -Rossetti, “The art is made to permeate the poetry.” It resulted in -the publication of _Songs of Innocence_ in 1789, two years after its -discovery or revelation. Other productions, of that weird and symbolic -character in which Blake came more and more to delight, followed -in quick succession. These will claim copious notice, but for the -present we may pass on to _Songs of Experience_, produced in 1794, so -much of a companion volume to _Songs of Innocence_ that the two are -usually found within the same cover. Neither attracted much attention -at the time. Charles Lamb says: “I have heard of his poems, but have -never seen them.” He is, however, acquainted with “Tiger, tiger,” -which he pronounces “glorious.” The price of the two sets when issued -together was from thirty shillings to two guineas--an illustration -of the material service which Art can render to Poetry when it is -considered that, published simply as poems, they would in that age -have found no purchasers at eighteenpence. This price was nevertheless -absurdly below their real value, and was enhanced even during the -artist’s lifetime. It came to be five guineas, and late in his life -friends, from the munificent Sir Thomas Lawrence downwards, would -commission sets tinted by himself at from ten to twenty guineas as a -veiled charity. - -Of the poems and illustrations in _Songs of Innocence_ and _Songs of -Experience_ Gilchrist justly declares that their warp and woof are -formed in one texture, and that to treat of them separately is like -pulling up a daisy by the roots out of the green sward in which it -springs. One essential characteristic inspires them both, and may be -defined as childish fearlessness, the innocent courage of the infant -who puts his hand upon the serpent and the cockatrice. Any one but -Blake would have feared to publish designs and verses apparently so -verging upon the trivial, and which indeed would have been trivial--and -worse, affected--if the emanation of almost any other brain, or the -execution of almost any other hand. Being his, their sincerity is -beyond question, and they are a valuable psychological document as -establishing the possibility of a man of genius and passion reaching -thirty with the simplicity of a child. Hardly anything else in -literature or art, unless some thought in Shakespeare, so powerfully -conveys the impression of a pure elemental force, something absolutely -spontaneous, innocent of all contact with and all influence from the -refinements of culture. They certainly are not as a rule powerful, -and contrast forcibly with the lurid and gigantic conceptions which -if we did not remember that the same Dante depicted _The Tower of -Famine_ and _Matilda gathering Flowers_, we could scarcely believe -to have proceeded from the same mind. Their impressiveness proceeds -from a different source; their primitive innocence and simplicity, and -the rebuke which they seem to administer to artifice and refinement. -Even great artists and inspired poets, suddenly confronted with such -pure unassuming nature, may be supposed to feel as the disciples -must have felt when the Master set the little child among them. No -more characteristic examples could have been given than “The Lamb” -and “Infant Joy” from _Songs of Innocence_, and “The Fly” and “The -Tiger” from _Songs of Experience_ selected for reproduction here from -an uncoloured copy in the library of the British Museum. There is -frequently a great difference in the colouring of the copies. That in -the Museum Print Room is in full rich colour, while others are very -lightly and delicately tinted. - -[Illustration: _From a coloured copy of the “Songs of Innocence and -Experience.” British Museum._] - -It is of course much easier to convey an idea of the merits of -Blake’s verse than of his painting, for the former loses nothing by -transcription, and the latter everything. The merit of the latter, -too, is a variable quantity, depending much upon the execution of the -coloured plates. The uncoloured are but phantoms of Blake’s ideas. The -general characteristics of his art in these books may be described -as caressing tenderness and gentle grace, evinced in elegant human -figures, frequently drooping like willows or recumbent like river -deities, and in sinuous stems and delicate sprays, often as profuse as -delicate. The foliated ornament in “On Another’s Sorrow,” for instance, -seems like a living thing, and would almost speak without the aid of -the accompanying verse. The figures usually are too small to impress by -themselves, and rather seem subsidiary parts of the general design than -the dominant factors. They mingle with the inanimate nature portrayed, -as one note of a multitudinous concert blends with another. Yet “The -Little Girl Found” tells its story by itself powerfully enough; and -the innocent Bacchanalianism of the chorus in the “Laughing Song” is -conveyed with truly Lyæan spirit and energy. - -The prevalent cheerfulness of the _Songs of Innocence_ is of course -modified in _Songs of Experience_. The keynote of the former is -admirably struck in the introductory poem:-- - - Piping down the valleys wild, - Piping songs of pleasant glee, - On a cloud I saw a child, - And he laughing said to me. - - “Pipe a song about a Lamb!” - So I piped with merry cheer. - “Piper, pipe that song again.” - So I piped; he wept to hear. - - “Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe; - Sing thy songs of happy cheer!” - So I sang the same again. - While he wept with joy to hear. - - “Piper, sit thee down and write - In a book, that all may read.” - So he vanished from my sight; - And I plucked a hollow reed. - - And I made a rural pen, - And I stained the water clear, - And I wrote my happy songs - Every child may joy to hear. - -[Illustration: _Frontispiece of Mary Wollstonecraft’s “Stories.”_] - -This incarnate enigma among men could manifestly be as transparent as -crystal when he knew exactly what he wished to say--a remark which may -not be useless to the student of his mystical and prophetical writings. -The character of _Songs of Experience_, published in 1794, when he had -attained the age so often fatal to men of genius, is conveyed more -symbolically, yet intelligibly, in “The Angel”:-- - - I dreamt a dream! What can it mean? - And that I was a maiden Queen - Guarded by an Angel mild: - Witless woe was ne’er beguiled! - - And I wept both night and day, - And he wiped my tears away; - And I wept both day and night, - And hid from him my heart’s delight. - - So he took his wings and fled; - Then the man blushed very red. - I dried my tears and armed my fears - With ten thousand shields and spears. - - Soon my Angel came again; - I was armed, he came in vain; - For the time of youth was fled, - And gray hairs were on my head. - -[Illustration: The Fly. The Tyger. _From Blake’s “Songs of -Experience.”_] - -Generally speaking, the _Songs of Experience_ may be said to answer to -their title. They exhibit an awakening of thought and an occupation -with metaphysical problems alien to the _Songs of Innocence_. Such a -stanza as this shows that Blake’s mind had been busy:-- - - Nought loves another as itself - Nor venerates another so; - Nor is it possible to thought - A greater than itself to know. - -These ideas, however, are always conveyed, as in the remainder of the -poem quoted, through the medium of a concrete fact represented by the -poet. Perhaps the finest example of this fusion of imagination and -thought is this stanza of the most striking and best known of all the -poems, “The Tiger”:-- - - When the stars threw down their spears - And watered heaven with their tears, - Did he smile his work to see? - Did He who made the lamb make thee? - -An evident, though probably unconscious, reminiscence of “When the -morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy,” -and like it for that extreme closeness to the inmost essence of things -which the author of the Book of Job enjoyed in virtue of the primitive -simplicity of his age and environment, and Blake through a childlike -temperament little short of preternatural in an age like ours. It may -be added, that although the pieces in _Songs of Innocence_ and _Songs -of Experience_ are of very unequal degrees of poetical merit, none want -the infallible mark of inspired poetry--spontaneous, inimitable melody. - -[Illustration: _Page of Young’s “Night Thoughts.” Illustrated by W. -Blake._] - -Both the simplicity and the melody, however, are absent from the -remarkable works with which Blake had been occupying himself during the -interval between the publication of the two series of his songs, which, -with their successors, have given him a peculiar and unique reputation -in their own weird way, but could not by themselves have given him the -reputation of a poet. Blake’s plain prose, as we shall see, is much -more effective. In a strictly artistic point of view, nevertheless, -these compositions reveal higher capacities than would have been -inferred from the idyllic beauty of the pictorial accompaniments of -_Songs of Innocence and Experience_. Before discussing these it will -be convenient to relate the chief circumstances of Blake’s life during -the period of their production, and up to the remarkable episode -of his migration to Felpham. They were not memorable or striking, -but one of them had considerable influence upon his development. In -1791 he was employed by Johnson, the Liberal publisher of St. Paul’s -Churchyard, and as such a minor light of his time, to illustrate Mary -Wollstonecraft’s _Tales for Children_ with six plates, both designed -and engraved by him, one of which accompanies this essay. They are -much in the manner of Stothard. This commission brought Blake as a -guest to Johnson’s house, where he became acquainted with a republican -coterie--Mary Wollstonecraft, Godwin, Paine, Holcroft, Fuseli--with -whose political opinions he harmonised well, though totally dissimilar -in temperament from all of them, except Fuseli, who gave him several -tokens of interest and friendship. These acquaintanceships, and the -excitement of the times, led Blake to indite, and, which is more -extraordinary, Johnson to publish, the first of an intended series -of seven poetical books on the French Revolution. This, Gilchrist -tells us, was a thin quarto, without illustrations, published without -Blake’s name, and priced at a shilling. Gilchrist probably derived -this information from a catalogue, for he carefully avoids claiming to -have seen the book, which seems to have also escaped the researches of -all Blake’s other biographers. It must be feared that it is entirely -lost. Gilchrist must, however, have known something more of it if his -assertion that the other six books were actually written but not -printed, “events taking a different turn from the anticipated one,” is -based upon anything besides conjecture. - -[Illustration: _9_ I want! I want! _10_ Help! Help!] - -[Illustration: _11_ Aged Ignorance. _15_ Death’s Door.] - -In 1793 Blake removed from Poland Street to Hercules Buildings, -Lambeth, then a row of suburban cottages with little gardens. Here he -engraved his friend Flaxman’s designs for the _Odyssey_, to replace -plates engraved by Piroli and lost in the voyage from Italy, whence -Flaxman had returned after seven years’ absence. In 1795 he designed -three illustrations for Stanley’s translation of Burger’s “Lenore,” -and in 1796 executed a much more important work, 537 drawings for an -edition of Young’s _Night Thoughts_ projected by a publisher named -Edwards. Forty-three were engraved and published in 1797, but the -undertaking was carried no further for want of encouragement, and the -designs, after remaining long in the publisher’s family, eventually -came into the hands of Mr. Bain of the Haymarket, who is still the -possessor. The most important are described by Mr. Frederic Shields -in the appendix to the second volume of Gilchrist’s biography. Mr. -Shields’ descriptions are so fascinating[3] that from them alone one -would be inclined to rate the drawings very high: but Mr. Gilchrist -thinks these ill adapted for the special purpose of book illustration -which they were destined to subserve, and reminds us that the absence -of colour is a grave loss. Blake is said to have been paid only a -guinea a plate for the forty-three engravings, on which he worked -for a year. The Lambeth period, however, seems not to have been an -unprosperous one, for he had many pupils. Several curious anecdotes of -it were related after his death on the alleged authority of Mrs. Blake, -but their truth seems doubtful. It is certain that during this period -he met with the most constant of his patrons, Mr. Thomas Butts, who for -nearly thirty years continued a steady buyer of his drawings, and but -for whom he would probably have fallen into absolute distress. - -It is now time to speak of the literary works--“pictured poesy,” -like the woven poesy of _The Witch of Atlas_--produced during this -period. In 1789, the year of publication of the _Songs of Innocence_, -the series opens with _Thel_. In 1790 comes _The Marriage of Heaven -and Hell_; in 1793, _The Gates of Paradise_, _The Vision of the -Daughters of Albion_, and _America_; in 1794, _Europe_, _A Prophecy_, -and _Urizen_; in 1795, _The Song of Los_, and _The Book of Ahaniah_. -In 1797 Blake seems to have written, or to have begun to write, the -mystical poem ultimately entitled _Vala_, never published by him, and -more than fifty years after his death found in Linnell’s possession -in such a state of confusion that it took Messrs. Ellis and Yeats days -to arrange the MS., which they fondly deem to be now in proper order. -It is printed in the third volume of their work on Blake. _Tiriel_ is -undated, but would seem to be nearly contemporary with _Thel_. - -_The Gates of Paradise_ constitutes an exception to the general spirit -of the works of this period, the accompanying text, though mystical -enough, being lyrical and not epical. The seventeen beautiful designs, -emblematical of the incidents necessarily associated with human nature, -are well described by Allan Cunningham as “a sort of devout dream, -equally wild and lovely.” - -The merits of this remarkable series of works will always be a matter -of controversy. “Whether,” as Blake himself says, “whether this is -Jerusalem or Babylon, we know not.” It must be so, for they are -purely subjective, there is no objective criterion; they admit of -comparison with nothing, and can be tested by no recognised rules. In -the whole compass of human creation there is perhaps hardly anything -so distinctively an emanation of the mind that gave it birth. Visions -they undoubtedly are, and, as Messrs. Ellis and Yeats well say, -they are manifestly not the production of a pretender to visionary -powers. Whatever Blake has here put down, pictorially or poetically, -is evidently a record of something actually discerned by the inner -eye. This, however, leaves the question of their value still open. -To the pictorial part, indeed, almost all are agreed in attaching a -certain value, though the warmth of appreciation is widely graduated. -But literary estimation is not only discrepant but hostile; some -deem them revelation, others rhapsody. The one thing certain is the -general tendency towards Pantheism which Mr. Swinburne has made the -theme of an elaborate essay. To us they seem an exemplification of -the truth that no man can serve two masters. Blake had great gifts, -both as poet and artist, and he aspired not only to employ both, but -to combine both in the same work. At first this was practicable, but -soon the artistic faculty grew while the poetical dwindled. Not only -did the visible speech of painting become more important to him than -the viewless accents of verse, but his poetry became infected with the -artistic method. He allowed a latitude to his language which he ought -to have reserved for his form and colour, and became as hieroglyphic -in a speech where hieroglyphs are illegitimate as in one where they are -permissible. This is proved by the fact that the decline in the purity -of poetical form and in the perspicuity of poetical language proceed -_pari passu_. _Thel_, the earliest, is also both the most luminous and -the most musical of these pieces. Could Blake have schooled himself to -have written such blank verse as he had already produced in _Edward the -Third_ and _Samson_, _Thel_ would have been a very fine poem. Even as -it is its lax, rambling semi-prose is full of delicate modulations: - - The daughters of the Seraphim led round their sunny flocks, - All but the youngest; she in paleness sought the secret air - To fade away like morning beauty from her mortal day. - Down by the river of Adera her soft voice is heard, - And thus her gentle lamentation falls like morning dew. - -In every succeeding production, however, there is less of metrical -beauty, and thought and expression grow continually more and more -amorphous. Blake may not improbably have been influenced by Ossian, -whose supposed poems were popular in his day, and from whom some of -his proper names, such as Usthona, seem to have been adopted. Many -then deemed that Ossian had demonstrated form to be a mere accident -of poetry instead of, as in truth it is, an indissoluble portion of -its essence. There is certainly a strong family resemblance between -Blake’s shadowy conceptions and Ossian’s misty sublimities. On the -other hand, he may be credited with having made a distinguished -disciple in Walt Whitman, who would not, we think, have written as he -did if Blake had never existed. What was pardonable in one so utterly -devoid of the sentiment of beautiful form as Whitman, was less so -in one so exquisitely gifted as Blake. Both derive some advantages -from their laxity, especially the poet of Democracy, but both suffer -from the inability of poetry, divorced from metrical form, to take a -serious hold upon the memory. One reads and admires, and by and by -the sensation is of the passage of a great procession of horsemen and -footmen and banners, but no distinct impression of a single countenance. - -The general effect of these strange works upon the average mind is -correctly expressed by Gilchrist, when he says, speaking of _Europe_: -“It is hard to trace out any distinct subject, any plan or purpose, -or to determine whether it mainly relates to the past, the present, -or things to come. And yet its incoherence has a grandeur about it as -of the utterance of a man whose eyes are fixed on strange and awful -sights, invisible to bystanders.” What, then, did Blake suppose himself -to behold? Messrs. Ellis and Yeats have devoted an entire volume of -their three-volume work on Blake to the exposition of his visions. -Their comment is often highly suggestive, but it is seldom convincing. -When the right interpretation of a symbol has been found, it is usually -self-evident. Not so with their explanations, which appear neither -demonstrably wrong nor demonstrably right. Not that Blake talked -aimless nonsense; we are conscious of a general drift of thought in -some particular direction which seems to us to offer a general affinity -to the thought of the ancient Gnostics. It would be interesting if some -competent person would endeavour to determine whether the resemblance -goes any deeper than externals. Blake certainly knew nothing of the -Gnostics at first hand, nor is it probable that he could have gained -any knowledge of them from the mystical writers he did study, Behmen -and Swedenborg. But similar tendencies will frequently incarnate -themselves in individuals at widely remote periods of the world’s -history without evidence of direct filiation. Even so exceptional a -personage as Blake cannot be considered apart from his age, and his -age, among its other aspects, was one of mesmerism and illuminism. The -superficial resemblance of his writings to those of the Gnostics is -certainly remarkable. Both embody their imaginations in concrete forms; -both construct elaborate cosmogonies and obscure myths; both create -hierarchies of principalities and powers, and equip their spiritual -potentates with sonorous appellations; both disparage matter and its -Demiurgus. “I fear,” said Blake to Robinson, “that Wordsworth loves -nature, and nature is the work of the devil. The devil is in us as far -as we are nature.” The chief visible difference, that the Gnostics’ -philosophy tends to asceticism, and Blake’s to enjoyment, may perhaps -be explained by the consideration that he was a poet, and that they -were philosophers and divines. Perhaps the best preparation for any -student of Blake who might wish to investigate this subject further -would be to read the article in the _Dictionary of Christian Biography_ -upon the _Pistis Sophia_, the only Gnostic book that has come down -to us, and one which Blake would have delighted in illustrating. The -Gnostic belief in the all-importance of the transcendent knowledge -which comes of immediate perception (γνῶσις) reappears in him with -singular intensity. “Men are admitted into heaven,” he says, “not -because they have curbed and governed their passions, or have no -passions, but because they have cultivated their understandings. The -fool shall not enter into heaven, let him be ever so holy.” Nothing in -Blake, perhaps, is so Gnostic as the strange poem, _The Everlasting -Gospel_, first published by Mr. Rossetti, though many things in it -would have shocked the Gnostics. - -[Illustration: TITLE PAGE FROM THE BOOK OF THEL.] - -The strictly literary criticism of Blake’s mystical books may be almost -confined to the _Book of Thel_, for this alone possesses sufficient -symmetry to allow a judgment to be formed upon it as a whole. The -others are like quagmires occasionally gay with brilliant flowers; but -_Thel_, though its purpose may be obscure, is at all events coherent, -with a beginning and an end. Thel, “youngest daughter of the Seraphim,” -roves through the lower world lamenting the mortality of beautiful -things, including her own. All things with which she discourses offer -her consolation, but to no purpose. At last she enters the realm of -Death himself. - - The eternal gates’ terrific porter lifted the northern bar; - Thel entered in and saw the secrets of the land unknown. - She saw the couches of the dead, and where the fibrous root - Of every heart on earth infixes deep its restless twists: - A land of sorrows and of tears, where never a smile was seen. - - She wandered in the land of clouds, through valleys dark listening - Dolours and lamentations; waiting oft beside a dewy grave - She stood in silence, listening to the voices of the ground, - Till to her own grave-plot she came, and there she sat down, - And heard this voice of sorrow breathed from the hollow pit. - -The effect of the voice of sorrow upon Thel is answerable to that of -the spider upon little Miss Muffet. This abrupt conclusion injures -the effect of a piece which otherwise may be compared to a strain -of soothing music, suggestive of many things, but giving definite -expression to none. Messrs. Ellis and Yeats, however, have no -difficulty in assigning a meaning. Thel, according to them, is “the -pure spiritual essence,” her grief is the dread of incarnation, and her -ultimate flight is a return “to the land of pure unembodied innocence -from whence she came.” Yet her forsaking this land is represented -as her own act, and it is difficult to see how she could have “led -round her sunny flocks” in it if she had not been embodied while she -inhabited it. At the same time, if Messrs. Ellis and Yeats are right, -no interpretation of Blake can be disproved by any inconsistency that -it may seem to involve. “The surface,” they say, “is perpetually, as -it were, giving way before one, and revealing another surface below -it, and that again dissolves when we try to study it. The making of -religions melts into the making of the earth, and that fades away into -some allegory of the rising and the setting of the sun. It is all like -a great cloud full of stars and shapes, through which the eye seeks a -boundary in vain.” - -[Illustration: _Design from the “Book of Urizen.” By W. Blake._] - -Mr. Yeats, putting his interpretation of Blake’s symbolism more -tersely into the preface to his excellent edition of the Poetical -Works, describes it as shadowing forth the endless conflict between -the Imagination and the Reason, which, we may add, the Gnostics -would have expressed as the strife between the Supreme Deity and the -god of this world, the very phrase which Mr. Yeats himself uses in -describing Urizen, Blake’s Evil Genius, “the maker of dead law and -blind negation,” contrasted as the Gnostics would have contrasted him -with Los, the deity of the living world. Blake, therefore, has points -of contact with the representatives of the French Revolution on one -side, and with Coleridge on the other. Mr. Yeats’s interpretation is -in itself coherent and plausible, but the question whether it can be -fairly deduced from Blake himself is one on which few are entitled to -pronounce, and the causes of Blake’s obscurity are not so visible as -its consequences. To us, as already said, much of it appears to arise -from his imperfect discrimination between the provinces of speech and -of painting. His discourse frequently seems a hieroglyphic which would -have been more intelligible if it could have been expressed in the -manner proper to hieroglyphics by pictorial representation. As Mr. -Smetham says of some of the designs, “Thought cannot fathom the secret -of their power, and yet the power is there.” It seems evident that the -poem, when a complete lyric, generally preceded the picture in Blake’s -mind, and that the latter must usually be taken as a gloss, in which -he seeks to illustrate by means of visible representation what he was -conscious of having left obscure by verbal expression. The exquisite -song of the Sunflower, for example, certainly existed before the very -slight accompanying illustration. - - Ah Sunflower, weary of time, - Who counted the steps of the sun, - Seeking after that sweet golden clime - Where the traveller’s journey is done. - - Where the youth, pined away with desire, - And the pale virgin shrouded in snow, - Arise from their graves and aspire - Where my sunflower wishes to go. - -The first of these stanzas is perfectly clear: the second requires -no interpretation to a poetical mind, but will not bear construing -strictly, and its comprehension is certainly assisted by the slight -fugitive design lightly traced around the border. Generally the -pictorial illustration of Blake’s thought is much more elaborate, but -in _Songs of Innocence and Experience_ it almost always seems to have -grown out of the poem. In the less inspired _Prophetical Books_, on the -other hand, the pictorial representation, even when present only to the -artist’s mind, seems to have frequently suggested or modified the text. -An example may be adduced from _The Book of Thel_. - - Why an ear, a whirlpool fierce to draw creations in? - -Blake had noted the external likeness of the convolutions of the ear to -the convolutions of a whirlpool; therefore the ear shall be described -as actually being what it superficially resembles, and because the -whirlpool sucks in ships, the ear shall suck in creations. It must also -be remembered that Blake’s belief that his works were given him by -inspiration prevented his revising them, and that they were stereotyped -by the method of their publication. No considerable productions of -the human mind, it is probable, so nearly approach the character of -absolutely extemporaneous utterances. - -Before passing from the literary to the artistic expression of Blake’s -genius in these books, something must be said of the remarkable -appendix to _The Marriage of Heaven and Hell_ entitled _Proverbs of -Hell_. These are a number of aphoristic sayings, impregnated with -Blake’s peculiarities of thought and expression, but for the most part -so shrewd and pithy as to demonstrate the author’s sanity, at least at -this time of his life. The following are some of the more striking:-- - - Drive your cart and your plough over the bones of the dead. - The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. - A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees. - All wholesome food is caught without a net or a trap. - If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise. - The fox condemns the trap, not himself. - The eagle never lost so much time as when he submitted to learn of - the crow. - The fox provides for himself, but God provides for the lion. - He who has suffered you to impose on him, knows you. - The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction. - One law for the lion and ox is oppression. - The best wine is the oldest, the best water the newest. - -These are not the scintillations of reason which may occasionally -illumine the chaos of a madman’s brain, but bespeak a core of good -sense quite inconsistent with general mental disturbance, though -sufficiently compatible with delusion on particular subjects. With -incomparable art, Shakespeare has imparted a touch of wildness to -Hamlet’s shrewdest sayings; but Blake speaks rather as Polonius would -have spoken if it had been possible for Polonius to speak in tropes. - -[Illustration: FINAL PAGE FROM THE BOOK OF THEL.] - -From the difficult subject of the interpretation of Blake’s mystical -designs we pass with satisfaction to the artistic qualities of the -designs themselves. On this point there is an approximation to -unanimity. To some the sublime, to others the grotesque, may seem to -preponderate, but all will allow them to be among the most remarkable -and original series of conceptions that ever emanated from a mortal -brain. To whatever exceptions they may be liable, it enlarges one’s -apprehension of the compass of human faculties to know that human -faculties have been adequate to their production. They may be ranked -with the most imaginative passages of _Paradise Lost_, and of Byron’s -_Cain_ as an endeavour of the mind to project itself beyond the visible -and tangible, and to create for itself new worlds of grandeur and of -gloom in height and abyss and interstellar space. Wonderful indeed is -the range of imagination displayed, even though we cannot shut our -eyes to some palpable repetitions. In the opinion, however, of even -so sympathetic a critic as Dr. Wilkinson, Blake deserves censure for -having degenerated into mere monstrosity. “Of the worst aspect of -Blake’s genius,” he says, “it is painful to speak. In his _Prophecies -of America_, his _Visions of the Daughters of Albion_, and a host of -unpublished drawings, earth-born might has banished the heavenlier -elements of art, and exists combined with all that is monstrous and -diabolical. The effect of these delineations is greatly heightened by -the antiquity which is engraven on the faces of those who do and suffer -in them. We have the impression that we are looking down into the hells -of the ancient people, the Anakim, the Nephilim, and the Rephaim. Their -human forms are gigantic petrifactions, from which the fires of lust -and intense selfish passion have long dissipated what was animal and -vital, leaving stony limbs and countenances expressive of despair and -stupid cruelty.” We, on the other hand, should rather criticise Blake -for having failed to be as appalling as he meant to be. His power, as -it seems to us, consisted rather in the vivid imagination than in the -actual rendering of scenes of awe and horror. Far inferior artists have -produced more thrilling effects of this sort with much simpler means. -It would be wrong to say that his visions appear unreal, but they do -appear at a remove from reality, a world seen through a glass darkly, -its phantasm rather than its portrait. This, however, only applies to -the inventions of Blake’s own brain, which, if we may judge by the -moderate development of the back head in Deville’s cast, lacked the -force of the animal propensities requisite for the portrayal of cruelty -and horror. He could render the conceptions of others with startling -force--witness the impressive delineation reproduced by us of the -Architect of the Universe at work with his compasses; and the simple -pencil outline of Nebuchadnezzar in Mr. Rossetti’s book, engraved by -Gilchrist, where the human quadruped creeps away with an expression of -overwhelming and horror-stricken dismay. This power of interpretation -was to find yet finer expression in the illustration of the Book of Job. - -Blake’s technical defects are indicated by Messrs. Ellis and Yeats -as consisting mainly in imperfect treatment of the human form from -want of anatomical knowledge. He had always disliked that close study -of the life which alone could have made him an able draughtsman; it -“obliterated” him, he said, and had resolved to quarrel with almost -all the artists from whom he might have learned. It must be remembered -in his excuse that consummate colouring and consummate draughtsmanship -are seldom found associated. Those who may feel disappointed with the -reproductions of Blake’s mystical designs must also remember that -these are but shadows of the artist’s thought, which needed for its -full effect the application of colour by his own hand. “Much,” says -Dante Rossetti, “which seems unaccountably rugged and incomplete is -softened by the sweet, liquid, rainbow tints of the coloured copies -into mysterious brilliancy.” The effect thus obtained may perhaps be -best shown by Mr. Gilchrist’s eloquent description of the illuminated -drawings in Lord Crewe’s copy of _America_. “Turning over the leaves, -it is sometimes like an increase of daylight in the retina, so fair -and open is the effect of particular pages. The skies of sapphire, -or gold, rayed with hues of sunset, against which stand out leaf or -blossom, or pendent branch, gay with bright-plumaged birds; the strips -of emerald sward below, gemmed with flower and lizard, and enamelled -snake, refresh the eye continually. Some of the illustrations are of a -more sombre kind. There is one in which a little corpse, white as snow, -lies gleaming on the floor of a green over-arching cave, which close -inspection proves to be a field of wheat, whose slender interlacing -stalks, bowed by the full ear and by a gentle breeze, bend over the -dead infant. The delicate network of stalks, which is carried up -one side of the page, the main picture being at the bottom, and the -subdued yet vivid green light shed over the whole, produce a lovely -decorative effect. Decorative effect is, in fact, never lost sight of, -even where the motive of the design is ghastly or terrible.” Whatever -the imperfections of Blake’s peculiar sphere, it _was_ his sphere, and -probably the only department of art in which he could have obtained -greatness even if his technical accomplishment had been as complete -as it was the reverse. When painting on more orthodox lines he is -often surprisingly tame and conventional. How remote he was from the -inane when he could revel in his own conceptions may, notwithstanding -the tremendous disadvantages inherent in reproduction, be judged from -the illustrations to his mystical books selected for this monograph, -the frontispiece and Plate IV. of _Thel_, and the two subjects from -_America_. - -[Illustration: _The Ancient of Days setting a Compass to the Earth. -From a water-colour drawing by W. Blake. British Museum._] - - - - -CHAPTER III - - _Blake’s removal to Felpham--Intercourse with Hayley--Return - to London--“Jerusalem”--Connection with Cromek--Illustrations - of Blair’s “Grave”--Illustration of Chaucer’s “Canterbury - Pilgrims”--Exhibition of his Works and “Descriptive Catalogue.”_ - - -Blake was now about to make a change in his external environment, -which would have been momentous to any artist whose themes had been -less exclusively discerned by the inner eye. It is an extraordinary -fact, but there is absolutely no evidence that the poet who “made -a rural pen” had as yet ever seen the country beyond the immediate -neighbourhood of London. It is vain to speculate upon the precise -modification which might have been wrought in his genius by rural -nurture or foreign travel. Now he was actually to become a denizen -of the country for some years. An introduction from Flaxman had made -him acquainted with William Hayley, a Sussex squire and scholar, now -chiefly remembered as his patron and the biographer of Cowper, but -esteemed in his own day as one of the best representatives of English -poetry at what seemed the period of its deepest decrepitude, though -he is unaccountably omitted in Porson’s catalogue of the bards of -the epoch.[4] Hayley, having lost his son, a pupil of Flaxman, and -his friend Cowper within a week of each other in the spring of 1800, -resolved to solace his grief by writing Cowper’s life, and suggested -that Blake should live near him during the progress of the work to -execute the engravings by which it was to be illustrated. In August, -1800, Blake removed from Lambeth to Felpham, near Bognor, on the -Sussex coast, where Hayley occupied a marine villa, his own residence -at Eastham being let on account of the embarrassment of his affairs. -The cottage was not provided by him for Blake, but the rent was paid -by Blake himself. The change from Lambeth to a beautiful country of -groves, meadows, and cornfields, with sails in the distance, - - Half lost in the liquid azure bloom of a crescent of sea, - The shining sapphire-spangled marriage ring of the land, - -affected Blake with enthusiastic delight. “Felpham,” he wrote to -Flaxman, “is a sweet place for study, because it is more spiritual than -London. Heaven opens here on all sides her golden gates; her windows -are not obstructed by vapours; voices of celestial inhabitants are more -distinctly heard, and their forms more distinctly seen, and my cottage -is also a shadow of their houses.” He continues: “I am more famed in -Heaven for my works than I could well conceive. In my brain are studies -and chambers with books and pictures of old, which I wrote and painted -in ages of eternity before my mortal life; and those works are the -delight and study of archangels. Why then should I be anxious about -the riches or fame of mortality?” It is clear that, notwithstanding -his theories of the deadness of the material creation, Blake valued -natural beauty as an instrument for bringing him into more intimate -connection with the visionary world. At first the desired effect was -fully produced. Blake began to compose, or rather, according to his -own account, to take down from supernatural dictation the _Jerusalem_, -the most important in some respects of his mystical writings. Walking -by the shore--the very shore where Cary was afterwards to encounter -Coleridge--he habitually met Moses and the Prophets, Homer, Dante, -and Milton. “All,” he said, “majestic shadows, gray but luminous, and -superior to the common height.” A description so fine, that some may -be inclined to deem it something more than a mere fancy. Unfortunately -he also fell in with a fairies’ funeral, a stumbling-block to the most -resolute faith. By and by, however, the dampness of the cottage proved -provocative of rheumatism, and, which was much more disastrous, the -mental climate proved unsympathetic. Hayley’s patronage of so strange -a creature as he must have thought Blake does him the highest honour. -He appears throughout, not only as a very kind man, but, what is less -usual in a literary personage, a very patient one. He actually -instructed Blake in Greek. His kindness and patience did not, however, -render him any the better poet; he was an elegant _dilettante_ at -the best, and Blake must have chafed at the obligation under which -he felt himself to illustrate his verses. One ballad of some merit, -however, “Little Tom the Sailor,” inspired Blake with a striking if -somewhat rude design, and he adorned Hayley’s library with ideal -portraits of illustrious authors. The engraving work which he had to -execute for Hayley’s life of Cowper was also little to his taste, but -there seems no valid reason to charge him with neglect of it. His own -self-reproach, indeed, ran in quite a different channel: he accused -himself most seriously of unfaithfulness to his high vocation as a -revealer and interpreter of spiritual things. Absence from town led him -to write frequently to his friend and patron Butts, and these letters -are invaluable indications not only of the frame of his mind at the -time, but of its general habit. “I labour,” he says, “incessantly, I -accomplish not one-half of what I intend, because my abstract folly -hurries me often away while I am at work, carrying me over mountains -and valleys, which are not real, into a land of abstraction where -spectres of the dead wander. This I endeavour to prevent; I, with my -whole might, chain my feet to the world of duty and reality. But in -vain! the faster I bind, the lighter is the ballast; for I, so far -from being bound down, take the world with me in my flights, and often -it seems lighter than a ball of wool rolled by the wind.… If we fear -to do the dictates of our angels, and tremble at the tasks set before -us, if we refuse to do spiritual acts because of natural fears or -natural desires, who can describe the dismal torments of such a state?… -Though I have been very unhappy, I am so no longer. I have travelled -through perils and darkness not unlike a champion. I have conquered and -shall go on conquering. Nothing can withstand the fury of my course -among the stars of God and in the abysses of the accuser.” In plain -English Hayley strongly advised Blake to give up his mystical poetry -and design and devote himself solely to engraving, and Blake looked -upon the advice as a suggestion of the adversary. We do not know what -Hayley said. If he thought that one of the _Poetical Sketches_ or the -_Songs of Innocence_ was worth many pages of _Urizen_ apart from the -illustrations, he had reason for what he thought. But Blake’s lyrical -gift had all but forsaken him; he was incapable of emitting “wood-notes -wild,” and the only way in which he could give literary expression to -the inspiration by which he justly deemed himself visited was through -his rhythmical form, which to Hayley may well have seemed monstrous. -It is highly probable that the pictorial part of Blake’s work found no -more favour with Hayley than the poetical; at all events it is very -certain that he greatly preferred his engraving, and wished Blake to -follow the art by which he had the best prospect of providing for -himself. Johnson and Fuseli, by Blake’s own admission, had given the -same advice; and an obscure line in one of his rather undignified -and splenetic epigrams against his well-intentioned friend may be -interpreted as meaning that Hayley had tried to bring his wife’s -influence to bear upon him for this end. In any case he lost temper -with Hayley, and wrote to Butts (July, 1803): “Mr. Hayley approves of -my designs as little as he does of my poems, and 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 pestered with his genteel ignorance and -polite disapprobation. I know myself both poet and painter, and it -is not his affected contempt that can move to anything but a more -assiduous pursuit of both arts.” Two months afterwards he returned -to London, but on better terms with Hayley; partly on account of the -latter’s generous conduct in providing for his defence against a charge -of using seditious language, trumped up against him by a soldier whom -he had turned out of his garden. “Perhaps,” he wrote to Butts, “this -was suffered to give opportunity to those whom I doubted to clear -themselves of all imputation.” The case was tried in January, 1804, and -terminated in Blake’s triumphant acquittal. An old man who had attended -the trial as a youth said that he remembered nothing of it except -Blake’s flashing eye. - -[Illustration: _From Blake’s “America.”_] - -The engravings executed by Blake for Hayley during his residence at -Felpham were six for the life and letters of Cowper; four original -designs for ballads by Hayley, including “Poor Tom,” and six engravings -after Maria T. Flaxman for Hayley’s _Triumphs of Temper_. He did some -work for Hayley after his return to town--engravings for the _Life of -Romney_, and original designs for Hayley’s _Ballads on Animals_--and -corresponded with him in a friendly spirit, but the intimacy gradually -died away. - -Blake was profoundly influenced by his residence at Felpham in -one respect; he became acquainted with opposition, and distinctly -realised a power antagonistic to his aspirations. He was thus stung -into self-assertion, and became hostile to the artists whose aims and -methods he was unable to reconcile with his ideas. The first hints -of this attitude appear in the praises he bestows upon the work of -his own which chiefly occupied him at Felpham, the _Jerusalem_. “I -may praise it,” he says, “since I dare not pretend to be any other -than the secretary; the authors are in eternity. I consider it as the -grandest poem that this world contains. Allegory addressed to the -intellectual powers, while it is altogether hidden from the corporeal -understanding, is my definition of the most sublime poetry.” Blake’s -allegory so effectually eludes both the reason and the understanding -that Messrs. Ellis and Yeats frankly tell us that it is not for a -moment to be supposed that their own elaborate interpretation will -convey any idea to the mind unless it is read conjointly with the poem; -and if such is the commentary what must the text be? If they are right -the confusion is greatly increased by a wrong arrangement, and by the -numerous interpolations which Blake subsequently introduced into the -poem, which, though nominally issued in 1804, was not, they think, -actually completed until about 1820. It suffers from being nearer prose -than any of his former books. “When this verse was dictated to me,” he -says, “I considered a monotonous cadence, like that used by Milton, -Shakespeare, and all writers of English blank verse, derived from the -modern bondage of rhyming, to be a necessary and indispensable part of -the verse. But I soon found that in the mouth of a true orator such -monotony was not only awkward, but as much a bondage as rhyme itself.” -What can be said of the ears that could find Shakespeare’s and Milton’s -blank verse monotonous? The truth is that Blake’s originally exquisite -perception of harmony had waned with his lyrical faculty, and he scoffs -at what he is no longer able to produce. Yet the general grandiose -effect of _Jerusalem_ is undeniable. Little as we can attach any -definite idea to it, it simultaneously awes and soothes like one of the -great inarticulate voices of nature, the booming of the billows, or -the whisper of the winds in the wood. Occasionally we encounter some -beautiful little vignette like this:-- - - She creates at her will a little moving night and silence, - With spaces of sweet gardens and a tent of elegant beauty, - Closed in by sandy deserts, and a night of stars shining; - A little tender moon, and hovering angels on the wing, - And the male gives a time and revolution to her space - Till the time of love is passed in ever-varying delights: - For all things exist in the human imagination. - -This seems an illustration of what we have said of the dependence -of Blake’s poetry upon his pictorial imagination, for it is clearly -nothing but a magnificent expansion of the midsummer night idyl of the -glowworm shining for her mate, “with her little drop of moonlight,” as -Beddoes beautifully says. - -In artistic merit _Jerusalem_ is fully equal to any of Blake’s works. -There is less of the grotesque than in the others, and even more of the -impressive. Much, however, depends upon the colouring, which varies -greatly in different copies. Mr. Gilchrist warns us that it cannot -be judged aright if we have not seen the “incomparable” copy in the -possession of Lord Crewe. “It is printed in a warm reddish-brown, the -exact colour of a very fine photograph; and the broken blending of -the deeper lines with the more tender shadows--all sanded over with a -sort of golden mist peculiar to Blake’s mode of execution--makes still -more striking the resemblance to the then undiscovered handling of -Nature herself.” The general character of the design is excellently -described by Gilchrist. “The subjects are vague and mystic as the poem -itself. Female figures lie among waves full of reflected stars: a -strange human image, with a swan’s head and wings, floats on water in a -kneeling attitude and drinks; lovers embrace in an open water-lily; an -eagle-headed creature sits and contemplates the sun; serpent-women are -coiled with serpents; Assyrian-looking, human-visaged bulls are seen -yoked to the plough or the chariot; rocks swallow or vomit forth human -forms, or appear to amalgamate with them; angels cross each other over -wheels of flame; and flames and hurrying figures wreathe and wind among -the lines.” It may indeed, like Blake’s other productions of the kind, -be described as a gigantic arabesque, imbued with a passion and pathos -not elsewhere attempted in this branch of art. - -[Illustration: _Design from “Milton.” By W. Blake._] - -The subject of _Milton_, from which one of our illustrations -is selected, is, in Mr. Swinburne’s words, the incarnation and -descent into earth and hell of Milton, who represents redemption -by inspiration. Something similar, as we have seen, is the idea of -Blake’s fine mystical book, _Thel_, and the pilgrimage through a -lower sphere is also found in the oldest Assyrian poetry. The book, -like _Jerusalem_, is dated 1804, but, like its companion, must have -been composed at Felpham. Nothing save actual and present contact with -country scenes could have inspired such a passage as this, the crown of -all Blake’s unrhymed poetry:-- - - Thou hearest the nightingale begin the song of spring: - The lark sitting upon his earthly bed, just as the sun - Appears, listens silent: then springing from the wavy corn-field loud - He leads the choir of day: trill, trill, trill, trill: - Mounting upon the wings of light into the great expanse; - Re-echoing against the lovely blue and shining heavenly shell: - His little throat labours with inspiration, every feather - On throat and breast and wings vibrates with the effluence divine: - All nature listens silent to him, and the awful sun - Stands still upon the mountain looking on this little bird - With eyes of soft humility, and wonder, love, and awe. - -Such a passage shows how greatly Blake might have gained as a poet had -he been more intimate with external nature. Very splendid lines might -be quoted from “Milton,” such as “A cloudy heaven mingled with stormy -seas in loudest ruin,” but they are glowing light upon a black core of -obscurity. Mr. Housman’s judgment applies to it as to all the works of -its class. “They are the sign chiefly of a beautiful nature wasted for -lack of equipment in formulating disputatively what grew out of his -better work with all the thoughtlessness and glory of a flower.”[5] - -[Illustration: _From Blake’s “America.”_] - -Several lyrical poems printed in Blake’s works may be assigned to this -date. Some, such as “The Crystal Cabinet” and “The Mental Traveller,” -are extremely mystical; others, such as “Mary,” are of simply human -interest; others, such as “Auguries of Innocence,” seem little remote -from nonsense. “The Everlasting Gospel” expresses his profoundest ideas -with startling crudity. None are wholly unmelodious, but the old -bewitching melody has gone from all, unless from the lines introductory -to “Milton”:-- - - And did those feet in ancient time - Walk upon England’s mountains green; - And was the holy Lamb of God - On England’s pleasant pastures seen? - - And did the countenance divine - Shine forth upon our clouded hills? - And was Jerusalem builded here - Among these dark Satanic mills? - - Bring me my bow of burning gold, - Bring me my arrows of desire: - Bring me my spear: O clouds unfold! - Bring me my chariot of fire! - - I will not cease from mental fight, - Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, - Till we have built Jerusalem - In England’s green and pleasant land. - -[Illustration: _Portrait of William Blake. From the engraving by L. -Schiavonetti, after T. Phillips, R.A._] - -Blake, who had settled at 17, South Molton Street, Oxford Street, was -in the meantime dealing with a very different patron from Hayley, -Robert Cromek, a “stickit” engraver turned print-seller, who tricked -if he did not actually defraud him, but who is entitled to the credit -of having recognised his genius, and of having brought forward works -of his more adapted to attract public notice than anything he had -yet done. These were the twelve illustrations to Blair’s _Grave_, -full of Blake’s peculiar genius and at the same time intelligible to -all. They had been executed in 1804 and 1805. Cromek, who afterwards -admitted that they were worth sixty guineas, obtained them for twenty -from the artist, who had intended to publish them himself. It had been -understood that Blake should have engraved them, but Cromek, wisely -from his own point of view, but wrongfully as regarded Blake, intrusted -the task to Schiavonetti. As a frontispiece, they were accompanied -by a portrait of Blake from a drawing by Phillips, also engraved by -Schiavonetti, which we have reproduced. Thanks to Cromek’s judicious -engineering, and the popularity of the poem illustrated, the adventure -proved a considerable success. “It is the only volume with Blake’s -name on the title-page,” says Mr. Gilchrist, “which is not scarce.” -The publication took place in 1808. In the interval Cromek, calling -upon Blake, had seen a pencil sketch of a design for the procession of -Chaucer’s Canterbury Pilgrims. Failing to obtain a finished drawing -from the artist, who resented his previous treatment, he proposed -the subject to Stothard, withholding as apart from all questions of -Stothard’s “frigid and exemplary” character would be most natural -for him to do, all mention of Blake’s drawing. Stothard accepted the -commission; his elaborate oil picture was exhibited in 1807 with great -success, but at the cost of a breach with Blake, who went so far in -his denunciation, not only of Cromek’s underhand dealing but of the -defects which he found in Stothard’s work, that when he afterwards -sought a reconciliation Stothard remained impervious. Determined to -vindicate his superiority, Blake completed, exhibited, and engraved his -own fresco. The exhibition, accompanied by a remarkable “descriptive -catalogue,” to which we shall return--was not the success it might -have been in the hands of the shrewd Cromek. The exhibition room was -watched by Blake’s brother James, whom Crabb Robinson asked whether -he should be allowed to come again free in consideration of having -bought four copies of the descriptive catalogue. “As long as you live,” -answered the overjoyed custodian. The success of the engraving was -proportionate to that of the exhibition; though it might have been -otherwise if the roughness of the original design had been smoothed -down by the deft Schiavonetti. “Blake’s production,” says Mr. Rossetti, -“is as unattractive as Stothard’s is facile; as hard and strong as -Stothard’s is limp; one face in Blake’s design means as much on the -part of the artist, and takes as much scrutiny and turning over of -thought on the part of the spectator, as all the pretty _fantoccini_ -and their sprightly little horses in Stothard’s work.” The engraving of -the _Pilgrimage_ in Gilchrist’s biography evinces the justice of this -criticism; though Ellis and Yeats rightly add that Blake has given all -his personages the eyes of visionaries. “A work of wonderful power and -spirit, hard and dry, yet with grace,” says Charles Lamb. The original -fresco was purchased by Elijah’s raven, the ever-ready Butts. - -We must now return to the illustrations to Blair’s _Grave_, which are -not only the most popular of Blake’s works, but among his greatest. -He showed in general more vigour in dealing with the conceptions -of another than with his own, the latter imbibing an element of -fanciful grace from the gentle spirit which produced them. Hence _The -Soul Exploring the Recesses of the Grave_, reproduced from _Thel_, -though one of the most poetical of the designs, is one of the least -powerful. His rendering of Blair’s thoughts is marvellously direct and -impressive, whether the passion depicted be joy, as in _The Reunion -of the Soul and the Body_ (given here), or horror, as in _The Death -of the Strong Wicked Man_, or an intermediate shade, as in _The Soul -hovering over the Body_. None of these and few of the series, once -seen, will easily be forgotten. The most famous, and deservedly so, -is the marvellous one, a combination of two designs in _America_ and -_The Gates of Paradise_, where the aged man, impelled by a strong -wind, totters towards the portal of the sepulchre, on the summit of -which sits the rejuvenated spirit, personified by a strong youth, -rejoicing in his deliverance, but dazzled by the as yet unwonted -light. In all these designs the element of seemly, yet slightly -formal and conventional grace which Blake had learned from Stothard, -is very conspicuous. The least successful, as seems to us, is _The -Last Judgment_, where Blake appears as a minor Michael Angelo, but -this work as engraved differs widely from his description of the work -as exhibited. It may well be believed that the modified version was -distinguished by great splendour of colouring. - -Other works of this period were two small frescoes exhibited at the -Academy in 1808, _Christ in the Sepulchre_ and _Jacob’s Dream_; the -“ornamental device” engraved (by Cromek) along with the frontispiece -to Malkin’s _Father’s Memoirs of his Child_, a graceful and pathetic -composition; three illustrations to Shakespeare, one of which, the -highly imaginative conception of the appearance of the Ghost to Hamlet, -is engraved in Gilchrist’s biography; _The Babylonian Woman on the -Seven-headed Beast_ (1809) reproduced here; a continuous series of -designs produced for Mr. Butts, to be mentioned more fully hereafter; -and the pictures displayed along with _The Canterbury Pilgrims_ at -its exhibition (1809). We must now devote some attention to Blake’s -appearance as an æsthetic writer in the _Descriptive Catalogue_ he put -forth on this occasion, with which his other principal deliverances on -the subject of art may be advantageously grouped. - -[Illustration: _The Reunion of Soul and Body. From Blair’s “Grave,” -illustrated by W. Blake._] - -Blake’s _Descriptive Catalogue_ and his _Appeal to the Public_ to judge -between himself and his rivals in the department of engraving, are a -singular mixture of gold and clay. The dignity which characterised -his demeanour in life forsakes him as soon as he takes the pen into -his hand, and he reviles Stothard, Woollett, and others in a -strain inconsistent with self-respect on his own part, even had his -criticism been well founded. As a matter of fact, it seems to have had -no foundation, and assuredly has not affected the reputation of his -antagonists in the smallest degree. At the same time it is impossible -not to be moved by his earnestness. He is evidently contending for -principles of great importance to himself, and through the mist of his -confused and ungrammatical expression we seem to catch glimpses of high -and serious truth. A refreshing contrast is afforded by the passages -devoted to Chaucer, which are truly admirable for their felicitous -insight into the old poet. “For all who have read Blake,” justly say -Messrs. Ellis and Yeats, “Chaucer is something more than the sweet -spinner of rhyming gossip that he seems to most.” Like Ruskin, and -indeed all men of creative power, Blake is on much safer ground when -he extols than when he censures. To much the same period belongs a -remarkable paper on his _Last Judgment_, published by Gilchrist from -his MS. Nothing of his admits us so fully into the sanctuary of his -mind. “_The Last Judgment_,” he begins, “is not fable or allegory, but -vision. Fable, or allegory, is a totally distinct and inferior kind of -poetry. Vision, or imagination, is a representation of what actually -exists, really and unchangeably.” Then follows an extremely graphic and -vivid description of the painting, interspersed with profound remarks, -such as “Man passes on, but states remain for ever; he passes through -them like a traveller, who may as well suppose that the places he has -passed through exist no more as a man may suppose that the states he -has passed through exist no more; everything is eternal.” “I have seen, -when at a distance, multitudes of men in harmony appear like a single -infant.”[6] “In Hell all is self-righteousness; there is no such -thing there as forgiveness of sin. He who does forgive sin is crucified -as an abettor of criminals.” “Angels are happier than men and devils, -because they are not always prying after good and evil in one another, -and eating the tree of knowledge for Satan’s gratification.” “_The Last -Judgment_ is an overwhelming of bad art and science.” Finally, in words -that state his own case as respects his reputed delusions, he says: “I -assert for myself that I do not behold the outward creation, and that -to me it is hindrance and not action. ‘What!’ it will be questioned, -‘when the sun rises, do you not see a round disc of fire, somewhat -like a guinea?’ Oh! no! no! I see an innumerable company of the -heavenly host, crying, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty!’ I -question not my corporeal eye, any more than I would question a window -concerning a sight. I look through it, and not with it.” - -[Illustration: _The Babylonian Woman on the Seven-headed Beast. From a -water-colour drawing by W. Blake. British Museum._] - -Blake’s conception of the sun may be compared with Dante’s vision of -the angels with the cloud:-- - - Then lifting up mine eyes, as the tears came, - I saw the Angels, like a rain of manna, - In a long flight flying back heavenward; - Having a little cloud in front of them, - After the which they went, and said, “Hosanna!” - And if they had said more, you should have heard. - -An earlier acquaintance with Dante would undoubtedly have exerted a -great influence upon Blake. - -Not the least interesting part of Blake’s catalogue is his description -of the pictures accompanying his _Canterbury Pilgrims_, which include -the strange patriotic allegories of _Nelson guiding Leviathan_ and -_Pitt guiding Behemoth_, the latter of which is now in the National -Gallery; _Satan calling up his Legions_; _The Bard_, described by -Rossetti as “a gorgeous piece of colour tone”; an idyll, charming in -conception whatever it may have been in execution, representing goats -nibbling the vine leaves that form the sole drapery of savage maidens; -and Arthur’s battle of Camlan, whence only three--the strongest, the -most beautiful, and the ugliest of champions--escaped with their lives. -This picture Seymour Kirkup thought Blake’s best, and Allan Cunningham -his worst. Kirkup, Mr. Swinburne tells us, remembered to the last -“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.” Blake’s estimate of -his powers, as conveyed in his descriptions of his works, certainly -does not err on the side of modesty; perhaps he thought with Goethe -that “Nur die Lumpen sind bescheiden.” It is a more serious matter that -the descriptions are crammed with statements far more significant than -Blake’s visions of a condition of mental disorder, such as that the -Greek marbles are copies of the works of the Asiatic patriarchs; that -no one painted in oil, except by accident, before Vandyke; that ancient -British heroes dwell to this day on Snowdon “in naked simplicity”: -a species of Welsh Mahatmas, as it would appear. It would have been -a judicious emendation if any one had suggested the substitution of -“lying spirits” when the artist spoke of himself as “molested by -blotting and blurring demons.” - -More important than these idle extravagances, though extravagant -enough, are the annotations on Reynolds’s discourses, written a few -years afterwards. To read Blake’s abuse of this great artist with -any patience, one must remember that his expressions require to be -translated out of his peculiar dialect into ordinary speech; as when, -for example, he says that Correggio is a most effeminate and cruel -demon, he only means that he is a bad model for artists to follow. -Yet there is a great and serious truth lying at the bottom of Blake’s -declamation, and his protest against the apparent tendency of Reynolds -to inculcate the feasibility of manufacturing genius by study was not -uncalled for. What he did not sufficiently remember was that the number -of artists capable of what Plato calls divine insanity, must always be -very small, and that Reynolds’s precepts may be very serviceable for -the rank and file of the great army. As his denunciation of Reynolds -was partly prompted by personal grievances (not the less real, if -the apparent paradox may be excused, for being imaginary), it is the -more to his honour to find him breaking out into genuine admiration -whenever, in Swedenborg’s phrase, the dry rod blossoms as Reynolds -affirms a truth. It is also pleasant to receive Samuel Palmer’s -assurance that Blake’s splenetic outbreaks in print astonished those -accustomed to his catholicity of criticism in conversation. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - - _Blake’s Life in South Molton Street and Fountain - Court--Acquaintance with Linnell and Varley--Drawings - of Visionary Heads--Miscellaneous Works in Private - Collections--Illustrations of “Job”--Work as an - Engraver--Acquaintance with Crabb Robinson--Illustrations of - Dante--Declining health and death--General observations--His - principal Biographer and Critics._ - - -Very little is known of Blake’s life for several years after his -exhibition. William Carey, a rare example of disinterestedness among -picture-dealers, for he praised Blake enthusiastically without having -dealt with him, says in his exposition of West’s _Death on the Pale -Horse_ (1817), “So entire is the uncertainty in which he is involved -that after many inquiries I meet with some in doubt whether he is -still in existence. But I have accidentally learned since I commenced -these remarks that he is now a resident in London.” He was, in fact, -continuing to live on his second floor in South Molton Street, poor, -but content, subsisting from day to day by hack work as an engraver, -and the occasional sale of a water-colour design or a coloured copy -of one of his books, but nowise squalid, abject, or destitute. He -was no longer able to publish on his own account as of old, and the -poems which he continued to produce abundantly, all of which have -perished, met with the reception which was to be expected from earthly -publishers. Blake smiled in pity, assured that, in his own figurative -language, they were handsomely printed and bound in heaven, and eagerly -perused by spiritual intelligences. “I should be sorry,” he afterwards -said to Crabb Robinson, “if I had any earthly fame, for whatever -natural glory a man has is so much taken from his spiritual glory.” -He certainly had not thought so when he published his catalogue; but -there is no question of his perfect sincerity when he added, “I wish -to do nothing for profit. I wish to live for art.” Though he had said -“Thought is act: Christ’s acts were nothing to Cæsar’s if this is not -so”; so intense was his own devotion to labour that for two years he -never quitted his lodging, except (for the ridiculous will intrude -where it is not wanted--imps grin in the cells of anchorites--) for -a pot of porter. Even while he engraved he read, as the plate-marks -on his books attest. Flaxman, his steady friend from youth, found him -some work in engraving, and praised him in conversation. “But Blake’s a -wild enthusiast, isn’t he?” “Some think _me_ an enthusiast,” answered -Flaxman, who was, in truth, more than half a Swedenborgian. - -From this hermit’s existence Blake once more emerges, in 1818, into -comparative publicity through the intimacy he formed with a young -painter of promise, which he was destined to more than redeem. This -was John Linnell, who was introduced to him by Mr. George Cumberland, -of Bristol, an enlightened patron of art. At this time Linnell was -largely engaged in portrait painting, and the plate of the portrait -selected here for reproduction, that of Wilson Lowry, Esq., appears to -have been worked upon by both him and Blake, bearing the name of each. -Linnell, though neither gentle nor mystical, lived much in the world -of the spirit, and, without sharing Blake’s peculiarities, was rather -attracted than repelled by them. Within a few days after making Blake’s -acquaintance he had found him work to the amount of fifteen guineas, -and gradually introduced him to patrons, including Sir Thomas Lawrence, -a great gentleman as well as a fine painter, who took the notice of -Blake which it became him to take in his position as President of the -Royal Academy. Blake never encountered hostility from artists of true -eminence. Reynolds advised him wisely, though he would not think so. -Lawrence patronised him; and Flaxman, Fuseli, Stothard, Linnell were, -so far as he permitted them, real friends. Within a few years Linnell -had introduced him to a younger circle, ready in a measure to sit at -his feet, and the rejected stone was honourably built into the corner. -Of these we shall have to speak afterwards, but one important intimacy -mainly belongs to the period of 1818-21. This was his acquaintance -with John Varley, famed as one of the fathers of English water-colour -painting, but even more renowned as an astrologer. Indeed, some of -the stories told of his successful predictions are less startling to -the uninitiated than to astrologers themselves, who cannot comprehend -on what principle of the art they could be made. They certainly were -not arrived at by vision or revelation, for the good Varley was a most -unspiritual personage, the very antipodes of seer or anchorite, big, -sanguine, jovial, and everlastingly in the claws of the bailiffs. -Astrology, therefore, a study which, with all its fascination for an -imaginative mind, requires nothing but observation and calculation, was -the only occult science open to him; for magic, although a diabolical -pursuit, occasionally demands an amount of fasting inconvenient even -for a saint. Varley would have wished to go further, and finding the -perception of visions inconsistent with his own corporeal and spiritual -constitution, was delighted to make the acquaintance of one who to this -end needed but to open his eyes. He speedily developed the practical -idea that Blake should depict the spiritual entities which he beheld. -Blake forthwith set to work, and ere long the portfolios of Varley and -Linnell were enriched with those ghosts of fleas, portraits of Edward -the Third, and men who built the pyramids, which are better known to -many than anything he ever did, and are assuredly no mean examples of -his imaginative power. “All,” says Gilchrist, “are marked by a decisive -portrait-like character, and are evidently literal portraits of what -Blake’s imaginative eye beheld.”[7] This is corroborated by the account -of Varley, who says, “On hearing of this spiritual apparition of a -Flea, I asked him if he could draw for me the resemblance of what he -saw. He instantly said, ‘I see him now before me.’ I therefore gave -him a paper and a pencil, with which he drew the portrait of which a -facsimile is given in this number [of Varley’s _Zodiacal Physiognomy_]. -I felt convinced by his mode of proceeding that he had a real image -before him; for he left off and began on another part of the paper to -make a separate drawing of the mouth of the Flea, which the spirit -having opened he was prevented from proceeding with the first sketch -till he had closed it.” It was “an idea with the force of a sensation,” -as Peacock’s philosopher classifies the apparition in _Nightmare -Abbey_. Shelley, who also saw visions, has enriched his note-books -with similar delineations of imaginary figures, generally vague and -careless, but sometimes very Blake-like. One of Linnell’s most spirited -studies from life, engraved in Story’s biography, represents Blake and -Varley in discussion. - -[Illustration: _Portrait of Wilson Lowry. By John Linnell. Engraved by -Blake and Linnell._] - -These drawings were mostly executed in 1819 and 1820. In the latter -year Blake lost his chief patron Butts, whose walls, indeed, had -become so crowded with his works that he had almost ceased to give him -commissions. The greater part of the collection was dispersed in 1852, -but the zeal of Mr. W. M. Rossetti traced most of its constituents out, -and reference to his notes, printed in the second volume of Gilchrist’s -biography, will enable us to convey some faint notion of its manifold -opulence. Putting the _Job_ aside for the present, the most remarkable -appear to be the nine designs for _Paradise Lost_, the property of -Mr. J. C. Strange, in which, says Mr. Rossetti, Blake is king of all -his powers of design, draughtsmanship, conception, spiritual meaning, -and impression. Another set, belonging to Mr. Aspland, of Liverpool, -omits one subject and adds four. Another set of Miltonic designs for -_Comus_, rather distinguished by grace than grandeur, has been recently -published by Mr. Quaritch. Another set of no less than one hundred and -eighteen designs for Gray’s works, in 1860 in the possession of the -Duke of Hamilton, are reputed to rank among Blake’s finest productions, -but have not been inspected by any one competent to describe them. -Among others especially commended by Mr. Rossetti are _The Sacrifice -of Jephthah’s Daughter_, _Ruth_, _The Judgment of Paris_, _The Wise -and Foolish Virgins_, _Fire_, _Famine_, _Samson subdued_, _The Finding -of Moses_, _Moses erecting the Brazen Serpent_, _The Ghost of Samuel -appearing to Saul_, _The Entombment_, _The Sealing of the Sepulchre_, -_The Angel rolling the Stone from the Sepulchre_, _The River of Life_, -and _Hecate_. To these may be added _The Resurrection of the Dead_, now -in the British Museum, reproduced by us. Many others, not belonging to -the Butts collection, are described with equal enthusiasm; and, apart -from all questions of technical execution, usually splendid, but lost -upon those who have not access to the original works, it may be said -that the conceptions, as described by Mr. Rossetti, would be impossible -to one unendowed with the highest artistic imagination, and that the -body is worthy of the spirit. - -[Illustration: _The Resurrection of the Dead. From a water-colour -drawing by W. Blake. British Museum._] - -Prominent among these designs are the set of illustrations to _Job_, -now the property of the Earl of Crewe. A duplicate set belonged to -Mr. Linnell, who, “discounting as it were,” says Gilchrist, “Blake’s -bill on posterity when no one else would,” commissioned this from -him, tracing the outlines from Butt’s copy himself, and handing -them over to Blake to complete. This was done in September, 1821, -and when the drawings were completed in 1823 Linnell went further -still, and commissioned Blake to engrave them, a stroke which has -probably effected more than anything else for the artist’s fame, for -the drawings which have set him on such a pinnacle, if unengraved, -would have remained virtually unknown to the world. The terms also -were liberal. Blake was to receive £100 for the twenty-two plates and -£100 more out of the profits. When the publication barely covered -its expenses, Linnell, reflecting that the plates remained in his -possession in virtue of the agreement, not unreasonably but very -handsomely allowed Blake £50 more. But for this manna from heaven -Blake’s last years would have been spent in engraving pigs and poultry -after Morland. Linnell, who was himself an excellent engraver, further -conferred an important benefit upon him by making him acquainted with -the best style of Italian engraving. Blake proved a docile pupil at -sixty-five, and his plates to _Job_ are not only technically the best -he ever executed, but occupy an important place in the history of the -art. - -The glory of _Job_, however, is not in the engraving, but in the -invention, which, beautiful in the soft and idyllic passages, rises -into sublimity when the theme appeals strongly to the creative -imagination. It is especially remarkable as being one of the very -few instances of a worthy representation of the Almighty. The tender -humanities of Christian art are absent: all is awful, Hebraic, and -strictly monotheistic. Among the most remarkable designs may be -noted that where the exulting fiend pulls down the mansion upon -Job’s sons and daughters (reproduced here); the frantic speed of the -messenger of evil, who bursts out with his tale before he is well -within hearing, while another follows with equal haste hard upon him, -and the uninterested sheep graze on undisturbed; the terrible scene -where Satan, a figure repeated in essentials from works of earlier -date, smites the prostrate Job with sore boils; Eliphaz besieged with -phantoms, to all seeming not less real than himself (also given here); -the morning stars singing together; the downfall of the wicked; and -the Lord answering Job out of the whirlwind. Passages even of the -less striking designs often have a singular fascination, such as the -night-piercing stars in the Elihu scene, which would be impressive -in the absence of any human figure; Behemoth and Leviathan, the _ne -plus ultra_ of grotesque grandeur, which we have also given; and -the bowed backs of Job’s accusing friends when the Lord blesses -him.[8] On the whole, though others of Blake’s designs may be more -transcendent of ordinary human faculty, he has scarcely executed -anything displaying all his faculties so well combined and in such -perfect equilibrium; and, were it necessary to rest his fame upon one -set of works, this would probably be selected. As a scriptural theme -it appealed with especial strength to English sympathies, and having -been selected by Gilchrist for reproduction, it is more widely known -than any of his works except the illustrations to Blair’s _Grave_. -“The original water-colour designs,” Rossetti says, “are much larger -than the engravings, and generally pale in colour, with a less full -and concentrated effect than the engravings, and by no means equal to -them in power and splendid decorative treatment of the light and shade. -On the other hand, they are often completer and naturally freer in -expression, and do not exhibit a certain tendency to over-sturdiness of -build and physiognomy in the figures.” Fine as is the figure of Satan -in _The Destruction of Job’s Sons and Daughters_, it is, Mr. Rossetti -thinks, much finer in the water colour. On the other hand, “the effect -of sublimity and multitude in _When the morning stars sang together_ -is centupled in the engraving by adding the upraised arms of two other -angels to right and left, passing out of the composition.” The whole -account suggests how desirable it would be to have many of Blake’s -unpublished water colours translated into black and white, could -engraver or etcher of the needful force be found. - -[Illustration: _Woodcut from Thornton’s Pastoral._] - -In 1821 Blake had performed another work of moment, his first and -last wood-engravings. These were to illustrate Phillips’s imitation -of Virgil’s first pastoral, republished by Dr. Thornton, a physician -and botanist. Blake was a novice in this branch of art, and the cuts -answer to Dr. Thornton’s own description of them: “They display less -of art than of genius.” But nothing could more effectually confirm the -principle enunciated by their critic in the _Athenæum_: “Amid all -drawbacks there exists a power in the work of the man of genius which -no one but himself can utter fully.” Rude as they are, their force is -extraordinary; few things can be more truly magical than the glimpse -of distant sea in the second of those engraved by Gilchrist. At the -same time they are not in the least Virgilian, and in this respect -form an instructive contrast with the exquisite though unfinished -Virgilian illustrations of Samuel Palmer. Palmer, though putting in -a cypress now and then as a tribute to _couleur locale_, provides -Virgil substantially with the same style of illustration as he had -been producing all his life for other ends, and yet this seems as -appropriate to the text as Blake’s is discrepant. It is interesting -to speculate what effect an Italian residence of two or three years, -such as Palmer had enjoyed, would have produced upon Blake beyond the -inevitable one of dissipating his monstrous delusions about Italian -artists. He would probably have gone chiefly with the view of studying -Michael Angelo, but we suspect that the influences of Italian landscape -would in the long run have proved fully as potent. - -In 1821 Blake removed from South Molton Street to Fountain Court, -Strand, near the Savoy, where he occupied two rooms on the first floor. -The reason may have been that the house was kept by a brother-in-law -of Mrs. Blake’s named Baines, the only trace we have of any connection -with his wife’s family. Economy too may have had its influence; his -means were very low, not yet improved by the donation of £25 he -received from the Academy next year, or his arrangement with Linnell in -the year following. At the worst, however, the rooms were always clean -and neat, thanks to Mrs. Blake’s industry and devotion; and Blake’s -manner always had the simplicity and dignity of a gentleman. That his -circumstances improved was almost entirely the doing of Linnell, who -not only provided for his wants by commissions, but made him what -his genius had never made him, the patriarch of a band of admirers, -almost disciples. Coming frequently to visit Linnell at Hampstead, -Blake fell in with a group of young men who resorted thither, four of -whom at least--Samuel Palmer, Edward Calvert, George Richmond, and -F. O. Finch--became artists of great distinction. One characteristic -these young men had in common: they were as far as possible from the -theory of art for art’s sake, but only valued art as the outward and -visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace of consecration to the -Power behind Nature. The biographies of Palmer and Calvert disclose -the priestlike spirit in which they wrought, a spirit akin to that -of their pre-Raphaelite successors, but apparently less impregnated -with the ordinary atmosphere of the studio. These were just the men to -treat the aged Blake as the antediluvian youth ought to have treated -the aged Jubal; and the patriarchal influence is visible both in their -writings and their works, not always to the advantage of the latter, -if we may judge by the examples preserved of Palmer’s early labours. -But all seemed fair in the light of fond retrospect. Twenty-eight years -after Blake’s death Samuel Palmer addressed a letter to Mr. Gilchrist, -long and full of interesting particulars relating to Blake’s opinions -on art; but the gist of the estimate of the man is conveyed in few -words. “In him you saw at once the Maker, the Inventor; one of the -few in any age; a fitting companion for Dante. He was energy itself, -and shed around him a kindling influence, an atmosphere of life, full -of the ideal. He was a man without a mask; his aim single, his path -straightforwardness, and his wants few; so he was free, noble, and -happy.” - -[Illustration: _The Destruction of Job’s Sons and Daughters. From the -“Book of Job.” By W. Blake._] - -A very important witness to Blake’s demeanour and opinions in his later -years is Henry Crabb Robinson the diarist, whom we have already met -as a visitor to Blake’s exhibition, and who had made him the subject -of an essay in a German periodical. Robinson was the right man in the -right place, not being a mystic or enthusiast to fall down at Blake’s -feet, nor yet a man of the world to deride him as a visionary, but -an inquisitive observer of great intellectual range and most kindly -and tolerant disposition, ready to allow that things might exist of -which his philosophy had not dreamed, and whom abnormal opinions, -if held in evident sincerity, might startle but could hardly shock. -“It is strange,” says he, “that I who have no imagination, nor any -power beyond that of a logical understanding, should yet have a great -respect for religious mystics.” Thrown into Blake’s company in 1825, -he has recorded his conversations with him at considerable length in -his delightful diary, as yet but partially published. His description -of Blake’s “interesting appearance” agrees with that of his own -circle. “He is pale, with a Socratic countenance, and an expression -of great sweetness, though with something of languor about it except -when animated, and then he has about him an air of inspiration. The -tone and manner are incommunicable. There are a natural sweetness and -gentility about him which are delightful.” Having heard of Blake’s -visions, Robinson was not surprised to find him asserting that the -visionary gift was innate in all men, and only torpid for want of -cultivation; but he must have had much ado to digest such statements as -that the world was flat, that Wordsworth was a Pagan, and that “what -are called the vices in the natural world are the highest sublimities -in the spiritual world.” Not understanding that by atheism Blake -meant, in his own words, “whatever assumes the reality of the natural -and unspiritual world,” Robinson was naturally aghast when Locke was -classed with atheists, and ventured what must have appeared to him the -conclusive rejoinder that Locke had written in defence of Christianity. -Blake, who probably understood Robinson’s definition of atheism as -little as Robinson did his, “made no reply.” Some of Blake’s remarks -are well worthy of preservation. “Art is inspiration. When Michael -Angelo, or Raphael, or Mr. Flaxman does any of his fine things, he does -them in the spirit.” “Irving is a _sent_ man. But they who are sent go -further sometimes than they ought.” “Dante saw devils where I see none.” - -[Illustration: _With Dreams upon my Bed thou scarest me. From the “Book -of Job.” By W. Blake._] - -Dante must have been much in Blake’s thoughts just then, for Robinson -found him occupied with the long series of illustrations of the poet -commissioned by Linnell, the last important work of his life. The -history of the commission is thus related by Linnell’s biographer, -Mr. Story. “Although the _Job_ had been paid for, Linnell continued -to give him money weekly. Blake said, ‘I do not know how I shall ever -repay you.’ Linnell replied, ‘I do not want you to repay me. I am only -too glad to be able to serve you. What I would like, however, if you -do anything for me, is that you should make some designs for Dante’s -_Inferno_, _Purgatorio_, and _Paradiso_.’ Blake entered upon the work -with alacrity, concurrently with the engraving of the _Job_ designs, -and the two together occupied the old man for the rest of his life.” -During all this period Linnell was remitting Blake money, as the -latter’s notes in acknowledgment prove. Linnell undoubtedly acquired -the designs at a low price, but immediately upon Blake’s death he -endeavoured to dispose of them for the benefit of the widow. Failing in -this he kept them, never attempting to make anything by them; and they -are still in the possession of his family. - -Blake studied Italian to qualify himself more effectually for his task, -and is said to have acquired it; when Robinson saw him, however, at -an early stage of the commission it is true, he was working by the -aid of Cary’s English version. He executed no less than ninety-eight -drawings, several of which were left in an unfinished state. Seven have -been engraved. The merits of the series have been variously estimated. -Mr. Rossetti considers them “on the whole a very fine series, though -not uniformly equal in merit.” Mr. Yeats, so well qualified by his own -imaginative gift to enter into the merit of Blake’s work, thinks them -the finest of all his productions. Robinson, who saw Blake at work -upon them, says, “They evince a power I should not have anticipated of -grouping, and of throwing grace and interest over conceptions monstrous -and horrible.” For our own part, we must regretfully admit that when -we saw them at the Old Masters’ exhibition the monstrosity and horror -appeared more evident than the grace and interest. We could not deem -Dante’s conceptions adequately rendered; the colour, too, often seemed -harsh and extravagant. Blake went on working upon them until his death, -when Mrs. Blake sent them to Linnell. They thus escaped the fate -of Blake’s other artistic and literary remains left in his widow’s -possession, which after her death were appropriated, apparently without -any legal authority, by a person named Tatham, who had been much -about Blake in his later years, and who ultimately destroyed them in -deference to the mandate of a religious sect with which he had become -connected![9] - -[Illustration: _Behemoth and Leviathan. From the “Book of Job.” By W. -Blake._] - -The end was now near. During 1827 Blake’s health greatly failed from -catarrh and dysentery, and he could no longer go up to Hampstead to -see Linnell. Linnell wished him to quit the damp neighbourhood of the -river, and live in his own house in Cirencester Place, part only of -which he used as a studio. But Blake said, “I cannot get my mind out -of a state of terrible fear at such a step.” He also said, “I am too -much attached to Dante to think much of anything else.” One of his last -works was the colouring of _The Ancient of Days_ for the elder Tatham, -who paid him at a higher rate than he was accustomed to receive. Blake -accordingly worked his hardest, and when it was finished “threw it -from him, and with an air of exulting triumph exclaimed, ‘There, that -will do, I cannot mend it.’” Later still he exclaimed to his wife, -“You have ever been an angel to me, I will draw you,” and produced a -sketch, “interesting, but not like.” On August 12 he died, “composing -and uttering songs to his Maker.” He was buried in Bunhill Fields, in a -grave which cannot now be identified. It is little to the honour of his -countrymen that no public memorial of him should exist. A better one -could not be than his own _Death’s Door_ in the illustration to Blair’s -_Grave_, treated as a bas-relief with the necessary modifications. - -The artist whose life had been spent in a condition so little remote -from penury did not leave a single debt, and the accumulated stock of -his works sufficed to support his widow in comfort for the four years -for which she survived him. Friends, indeed, aided, Linnell and Tatham -successively giving her house-room, and others assiduously recommending -her stores of drawings to wealthy patrons. She died in Upper Charlotte -Street, Fitzroy Square, and was buried beside her husband in Bunhill -Fields. - - * * * * * - -The artistic processes used by Blake are a subject of considerable -discussion. Notwithstanding his constant description of his pictures -as “frescoes,” it seems certain that he never resorted to fresco in -the ordinary acceptation of the term. Linnell, who must have been -exceedingly familiar with his work, told Mr. Gilchrist: “He evidently -founded his claim to the name fresco on the material he used, which -was water-colour on a plaster ground (literally glue and whiting); -but he always called it either fresco, gesso, or plaster.” Linnell -added that when he himself obtained from Italy the first copy that -ever came to England of Cennino Cennini’s _Trattato della Pittura_, -a sixteenth-century treatise, edited in 1822 from the original MS., -Blake, who was soon able to read it, “was gratified to find that he -had been using the same materials and methods in painting as Cennini -describes, particularly the carpenter’s glue.” “Unfortunately,” says -Linnell, “he laid this ground on too much like plaster to a wall,” and -when this was so applied to canvas or linen the picture was sure to -crack, and many of Blake’s best works have suffered great injury. Oil -he disliked and vituperated. The reason probably was that, contrary to -what might have been expected, his system of execution was by no means -bold and dashing, but deliberate and even slow. He drew a rough dotted -line with pencil, then with ink, then colour, filling in cautiously -and carefully. All the grand efforts of design, he thought, depended -on niceties not to be got at once. He seems, in fact, to have worked -very much in the spirit of the mediæval illuminators, and the general -aspect of a page of one of his Prophetical Books reminds us forcibly of -one of their scrolls. Whether any direct influence from them upon him -is traceable would be difficult to determine. Keats had evidently seen -illuminated manuscripts, and been deeply impressed by them; but nearly -forty years elapsed between the publication of the first of Blake’s -Prophetical Books and the composition of Keats’s _Eve of St. Mark_. In -one respect Blake certainly differed from the ancient miniaturists; he -wrought mainly from reminiscence, and disliked painting with his eye on -the object. His memory for natural forms must have been very powerful. - -Blake is endowed in a very marked degree with the interest ascribed -by Goethe to _Problematische Naturen_, men who must always remain -more or less of a mystery to their fellows. In ancient times, and -perhaps in some countries at the present day, he would have been -accepted as a seer; in his own age and country the question was rather -whether he should be classed with visionaries or with lunatics. A -visionary he certainly was, and few will believe either that his -visions had any objective reality, or that he himself intended them -to be received merely as symbols. “You can see what I do, if you -choose,” he said to his friends. He thus confused fancy with fact; -unquestionably, therefore, he laboured under delusions. But delusions -do not necessarily amount to insanity, and, however Blake erred in -form, it may be doubted whether in essentials he was not nearer the -truth than most so-called poets and artists. Every poet and artist -worthy of the name will confess that his productions, when really good -for anything, are the suggestion of a power external to himself, of an -influence which he may to a certain extent guide, but cannot originate -or summon up at his will; and in the absence of which he is helpless. -In personifying this influence as the Muse, or howsoever he may prefer -to describe it, such an one is usually fully aware that, in obedience -to a law of the human mind, he is bestowing personality and visibility -upon what is actually invisible and impersonal, but not on that account -unreal. Some there are, however, whose perceptions are so lively, or -their power of dealing with abstractions so limited, that the mental -influences of which they are conscious appear to them in the light of -personalities. Such was Blake, and the peculiarity in him was probably -closely connected with the childlike disposition which rendered him -so amiable as a man. As a child it naturally never occurred to him to -question the reality of his visions, and he grew up without acquiring -the critical habit of mind which would have led him to do so. With him -“the vision splendid” did _not_ - - Die away, - And fade into the light of common day. - -Such a state of mind is quite compatible with sanity. The question is -not whether the person - - Gives to airy nothings - A local habitation and a name, - -but whether he allows his conduct to be actuated by them to the extent -of inverting the rules of right and wrong, wasting his substance, -or becoming offensive to others or dangerous to himself. It is even -possible to travel far in this direction without arriving at the -confines of insanity. Prince Polignac brought the monarchy of the -Restoration to ruin in deference to imaginary revelations from the -Virgin Mary, yet no court of law would ever have placed him under -restraint. With Blake not the faintest suggestion of such a thing -is possible. Except for one or two incidents, related upon doubtful -authority, he appears throughout his life in the light of an exemplary -citizen, and in his unselfishness and unworldliness contrasts with his -Sadducæan neighbours in a way that forbids us to call him mentally -diseased, though he may have been mentally warped. The value of his -mystical utterances is quite another question. The occasional splendour -of the poetry in which they are couched will not be disputed, any more -than their general confusion and obscurity. Commentators have striven -hard to elicit the sunbeam from the cucumber; we pass no judgment on -their efforts, further than may seem to be implied in the observation -that in our opinion the chief mission of Blake’s mystical poetry was to -be the vehicle of his finest and most characteristic art. His ideas, -many profound and worthy of close attention, may, we think, be more -advantageously collected from his prose aphorisms and the fragments -of his conversation; and in this respect he is by no means singular. -The one great achievement which unquestionably entitles him to the -distinction of an inspired man, is to have produced in boyhood, without -set purpose or any clear consciousness of what he was doing, lyrics -recalling the golden prime of English poetry, and instinct with a music -to which, since Chatterton was no more, no contemporary save Burns was -capable of making the slightest approach. It is true that reaction -against artifice and conventionality was in the air of the time, and -was already announced by evident symptoms. To compare, however, the -highly creditable efforts in this direction of even such poets as -Cowper and Mickle with the achievements of this stripling is to become -sensible at once of the difference between talent and inspiration. - -Blake’s gifts and shortcomings as an artist are sufficiently revealed -by the examples of his work which accompany this essay. It need merely -be remarked here that, apart from the great army of artists of genius -who move on recognised lines, transmitting the succession from the age -of Zeuxis and Phidias to our own, there is, as it were, a parallel -column skirting it on the by-roads of art; and that at certain periods -of Art’s history the genius which has forsaken the more conspicuous -of her manifestations has seemed to take refuge with etchers, or -designers, or delineators of the life of the people. It has frequently -happened of late that men whose work was chiefly done for books and -periodicals, and who during their lives were scarcely regarded as -artists at all, have upon their deaths been deservedly exalted to very -high places. Blake is perhaps the most striking and remarkable example -of this class. - -Blake’s peculiarities as a man, and the anecdotes of which he became -the subject, secured him earlier attention as artist and poet than -his works would have obtained on their own account. Not long after -his death he was made (1830) the subject of one of Allan Cunningham’s -_Lives of British Painters_, in the main a fair and impartial -biography, rather in advance of than behind its time. Cunningham, -however, possessed no sort of spiritual kinship with Blake, who found -his first really congenial commentator in a veteran philosopher, still -happily spared to us, Dr. James Garth Wilkinson, who in 1839, the -year of the first collected edition of Shelley’s poems, republished -_Songs of Innocence and Experience_ with an anonymous preface claiming -for Blake something like his proper position as a lyric poet, and -accompanied by judicious remarks upon his paintings. Dr. Wilkinson -would probably have expressed himself still more decidedly if he had -written a few years later, but the movement towards the exaltation of -the more spiritual aspects of English poetry as typified in Wordsworth -and Shelley was as yet but incipient, and the stars of Tennyson and -Browning were hardly above the horizon. Little further seems to -have been done for Blake, until, about 1855, the late Mr. Alexander -Gilchrist began to write his biography, published in 1862, a labour -of love and diligence which will never be superseded, especially -since the revision it has received in the definitive edition of 1880, -brought out by his widow. The value of Gilchrist’s labours is greatly -enhanced by the accompanying illustrations, which allow a fairly -adequate conception to be formed of Blake’s pictorial genius, by the -reprint of much of his most characteristic literary work, and by the -copious descriptions of his drawings by Mr. W. M. Rossetti and Mr. F. -Shields. Since Gilchrist wrote, Mr. Swinburne (1868) has investigated -Blake’s thought with special reference to its Pantheistic tendency, and -Messrs. Ellis and Yeats, in a most comprehensive work in three volumes -(1891), including additional biographical particulars and copious -illustrations, which comprise the previously unpublished “Vala,” have -striven to present Blake’s mysticism as a coherent system of thought. -Valuable monographs are also prefixed to the editions of Blake’s -poems by Rossetti (1883) and Yeats (1893), and to the selection from -his literary works by Mr. Housman (1893), this last perhaps on the -whole, after Gilchrist’s biography, the most desirable possession for -the literary student of Blake. Of the numerous detached essays upon -Blake the most important, perhaps, are that by the late Mr. Smetham, -republished in his Essays, and in the second volume of Gilchrist’s -biography, and that by James Thomson, author of _The City of Dreadful -Night_, appended to his _Shelley, a Poem_ (1884). - -It is exceedingly difficult to obtain a proper idea of Blake as an -artist, from the extent to which his designs depend upon colouring, and -the great inequality of this colouring, which is often not his own. In -Mr. Gilchrist’s opinion, the copy of _The Song of Los_, in the Print -Room of the British Museum, and a volume of miscellaneous designs, in -the same collection, represent him with adequate fairness; and these -fortunately are public property. The finest specimens of his work -seen by his biographer are apparently in the collection of the Earl -of Crewe, and therefore not generally accessible. Those belonging to -private collectors must of necessity be continually changing hands, -and few students have the time or the opportunity to make the thorough -investigation of them accomplished by Mr. Rossetti. Fortunately the -illustrations in Gilchrist’s biography, where the whole of the _Job_ -series is reissued, suffice to establish Blake’s genius as a designer, -even though destitute of the charm of colour. Mr. Bell Scott has -executed effective etchings after him; Mr. Quaritch has republished the -drawings for _Comus_; in 1876 the _Songs of Innocence and Experience_ -and the Prophetic Books up to _Los_ were reprinted together, but -only to the extent of a hundred copies, nor was the execution very -satisfactory. It cannot be said that Messrs. Ellis and Yeats have -entirely overcome the difficulties of reproduction; yet, perhaps, for -those unable to obtain access to the copies tinted by the artist, or -even to the uncoloured plates in the original edition, nothing so -well displays the wilder and more weird aspects of his genius as the -reprints in their third volume, especially those from _Jerusalem_. - -Blake’s character and works will long remain the subject of criticism -and speculation, for the world does not easily forgo its interest in -what Goethe calls “problematic natures.” By another famous saying -of Goethe’s he cannot profit, “He who has sufficed his own age has -sufficed all ages,” nor can he be reckoned among those who have been -in advance of their age, except in those exquisite early songs which -died away before the actual arrival of the better time. But it would -not be too much to say of him that he revealed possibilities, both in -poetry and painting, which without him we should hardly have suspected, -and which remain an unexhausted seed-field of inspiration for his -successors. It is labour lost to strive to make him transparent, but -even where he is most opaque - - Sparks spring out of the ground, - Like golden sand scattered upon the darkness. - -Nor is the general tendency of art towards a world of purity, -harmony, and joy unrepresented in him; sometimes this even seems the -conclusion to which all else is merely subservient, as in the series of -illustrations to Job, the ideal representation of his own history. - -[Illustration: _Sweeping the Parlour in the Interpreter’s House._] - - - - -FOOTNOTES - - -[1] November 20 has been stated as the date, but the above is shown -to be correct by the horoscope drawn for November 28, 7.45 P.M. in -_Urania, or the Astrologer’s Chronicle_, 1825, published therefore in -Blake’s lifetime, and undoubtedly derived from Varley. - -[2] If, however, the “Kitty” of “I love the jocund dance” is Catherine -Boucher, this poem at least must be later than 1780, unless the name -has been substituted for another, as has been known to happen. - -[3] As for example “Man lies by a rock-bound shore, his thoughts flying -forth from him in likeness of delicate airy figures driven by the wind -to perish in the endless sea as soon as born.” In the absence of the -drawings themselves such descriptions affect us like the projects for -unwritten stories in Hawthorne’s _American Note Book_. - -[4] - - Poetis nos laetamur tribus, - Pye, Petro Pindar, parvo Pybus; - Si ulterius ire pergis, - Adde his Sir James Bland Burges. - -[5] Blake is seldom detected in borrowing, but when he tells us that - - Milton’s shadow fell - Precipitant, loud thundering, into the sea of Time and space, - -he is clearly, though perhaps unconsciously, reminiscent of Dyer’s - - Towers - Tumbling all precipitate down dashed, - Rattling around, loud thundering to the Moon. - -[6] The same remark is the subject of one of the finest passages of -Lucretius:-- - - Praeterea, magnae legiones quom loca cursu - Camporum complent, belli simulacra cientes, - Fulgur ibi ad cœlum se tollit, totaque circum - Aere renidescit tellus, subterque virum vi - Excitur pedibus sonitus, clamoreque montes - Icti rejectant voces ad sidera mundi; - Et circumvolitant equites, mediosque repente - Tramittunt, valido quatientes impete, campos; - Et tamen est quidam locus altis montibus, unde - Stare videntur, et in campis consistere fulgur. - -[7] Not always without assistance from the eyes of others; for the -portrait of Edward the First is clearly a reminiscence of that which in -Blake’s time adorned Goldsmith’s History. - -[8] It is observable that Job’s wife, so disadvantageously treated in -Scripture, is by Blake represented as the sufferer’s loving companion -throughout. This was probably out of tenderness to Mrs. Blake, from -whom, indeed, upon a comparison between her portrait as a young woman -and the ideal representation of the Patriarch’s spouse, his model for -the latter would seem to have been derived; but if so the inference -seems justified that Blake regarded the story of Job as emblematic of -his own history. - -[9] It must be now about thirty-five years since we received a visit -from this person; how he had found us out we cannot recollect. He -stated that he had lived by painting miniatures, and, having been -deprived of his customers by photography, proposed to devote himself -to historical painting, to the great prospective advantage of British -art. He considered his forte to be the delineation of bare arms, and -wished to be recommended to a subject which would afford scope for the -exercise of this department of the pictorial faculty. We suggested -the interment of the young princes in the Tower; he thanked us and -departed; and we saw no more of him. He admitted having parted with -all the relics of Blake that had been in his possession, but sought to -convey that they had been sold, not destroyed, which may be partly true. - - - - -INDEX - - - “America,” 29, 38, 40, 52 - - “Appeal to the Public,” 52 - - Aspland, Mr., 62 - - - “Babylonian Woman, The”, 52 - - Bain, Thomas, 29 - - “Bard, The”, 56 - - Basire, James, 8 - - Blair’s _Grave_, Illustrations to, 49, 51, 52, 72 - - Blake, Catherine, 10, 18, 20, 29, 66, 70 - - Blake, James, 7, 8, 16 - - Blake, John, 8 - - Blake, Robert, 8, 17, 18 - - Blake, William; - his birth and parentage, 7; - sent to Pars School, 8; - apprenticed to Basire, 9; - marries Catherine Boucher, 10; - settles in Poland Street, 18; - removes to Lambeth, 28; - his sojourn at Felpham and intercourse with Hayley, 47; - returns to London, 49; - his friendship with Linnell and Varley, 59, 60; - his death, 72 - - Bognor, 41 - - “Book of Ahaniah, The”, 29 - - Boucher, Catherine see Blake, Catherine - - British Museum, 22, 62, 77 - - Butts, Thomas, 29, 43, 44, 52, 61, 62 - - - Calvert, Edward, 66 - - “Canterbury Pilgrims, The”, 52, 56 - - Carey, William, 58 - - Cennini, Cennino, 73 - - “Christ in the Sepulchre,” 54 - - “Comus,” 62 - - Cowper, William, 41, 43, 44, 75 - - Crewe, Earl of, 38, 46, 62, 77 - - Cromek, Robert, 49, 51, 52 - - Cumberland, George, 59 - - Cunningham, Allan, 30, 56, 76 - - - Dante, Illustrations to, 69, 70 - - “Death on the Pale Horse,” 58 - - Descriptive Catalogue by Blake, 52 - - Deville, 38 - - - Eartham, 41 - - “Edward III.,” 13, 31 - - Ellis and Yeats, Messrs., 8, 18, 30, 32, 33, 35, 38, 45, 51, 54, 70, - 76, 77 - - “Europe,” 31 - - “Everlasting Gospel, The”, 33 - - - Felpham, 27, 41, 42, 44, 45, 48 - - Finch, G. O., 66 - - Flaxman, 15, 28, 41, 42, 59, 69 - - Fuseli, 27, 44, 59 - - - “Gates of Paradise, The”, 29, 30, 52 - - Gilchrist, Alexander, 9, 14, 16, 19, 27, 29, 31, 38, 46, 49, 51, 52, - 54, 60-62, 65, 66, 68, 73, 76 - - Godwin, William, 27 - - Gray, Illustrations to works of, 62 - - - Hamilton, Duke of, 62 - - Hayley, William, 18, 42-44, 49 - - Holcroft, 27 - - Housman, 48, 77 - - - “Jacob’s Dream,” 52 - - “Jerusalem,” 42, 45, 46, 48 - - Job, Illustrations to the Book of, 62, 64, 70, 77, 78 - - Johnson (publisher), 27, 44 - - “Joseph of Arimathæa,” 9 - - - Lamb, Charles, 20, 51 - - Lawrence, Sir Thomas, 21, 59 - - Linnell, John, 30, 59, 60, 62, 64, 69, 72, 73 - - “Los, The Song of”, 29 - - - Malkin, 9, 52 - - “Marriage of Heaven and Hell, The”, 29, 36 - - Matthews, 15 - - “Milton,” 46, 48, 49 - - “Morning,”, 9 - - - “Nelson guiding Leviathan,” 56 - - - O’Neil, 8 - - Ossian, 31 - - - Paine, Tom, 27 - - Palmer, Samuel, 57, 66, 68 - - _Paradise Lost_, Illustrations for, 62 - - Parker, Robert, 16, 17 - - Pars, William, 8 - - “Penance of Jane Shore,” 9 - - Phillips, Thomas, 49 - - Piroli, 28 - - “Pitt guiding Behemoth,” 56 - - “Poetical Sketches,” 10, 13, 16, 19, 43 - - “Prophecies of America,” 37 - - “Proverbs of Hell,” 36 - - - Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 57, 59 - - Richmond, George, 66 - - Robinson, Crabb, 32, 51, 59, 68-70 - - Rossetti, Dante, 38 - - Rossetti, William, 17, 20, 33, 38, 51, 61, 62, 65, 70, 76, 77 - - Ryland, William, 8 - - - “Samson,” 31 - - “Satan calling up his Legions,” 56 - - Schiavonetti, 49, 51 - - Shields, Frederick, 29, 76 - - “Simple, David”, 16 - - Smetham, 77 - - Smith, J. T., 16 - - “Songs of Experience,” 15, 20, 21, 23-25, 27, 35, 76, 77 - - “Songs of Innocence,” 15, 20, 21, 23, 25, 27, 29, 35, 43, 76, 77 - - Stothard, Thomas, 16, 17, 51, 54, 59 - - Strange, J. C., 62 - - Swinburne, A. C., 30, 47, 56, 76 - - - Tatham, 70, 71, 72 - - “Thel, The Book of”, 29, 31, 33, 36, 40, 47 - - Thomson, James, 77 - - Thornton, Dr., 65 - - “Tiriel,” 30 - - - “Urizen,” 29, 43 - - - “Vala,” 29, 77 - - Varley, John, 56, 60 - - “Vision of the Daughters of Albion,” 29, 37 - - - Whitman, Walt, 31 - - Wilkinson, J. Garth, 76 - - Wollstonecraft, Mary, 27 - - Woollett, 54 - - - Young’s _Night Thoughts_, Illustrations to, 29 - - - -***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILLIAM BLAKE*** - - -******* This file should be named 52300-0.txt or 52300-0.zip ******* - - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/5/2/3/0/52300 - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive -specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this -eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook -for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, -performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given -away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks -not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the -trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. - -START: FULL LICENSE - -THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE -PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK - -To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full -Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at -www.gutenberg.org/license. - -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works - -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or -destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your -possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a -Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound -by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the -person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph -1.E.8. - -1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this -agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. - -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the -Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection -of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual -works in the collection are in the public domain in the United -States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the -United States and you are located in the United States, we do not -claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, -displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as -all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope -that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting -free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm -works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the -Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily -comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the -same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when -you share it without charge with others. - -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are -in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, -check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this -agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, -distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any -other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no -representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any -country outside the United States. - -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: - -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other -immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear -prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work -on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the -phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, -performed, viewed, copied or distributed: - - This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and - most other parts of the world 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 www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the - United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you - are located before using this ebook. - -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is -derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not -contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the -copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in -the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are -redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply -either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or -obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any -additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms -will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works -posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the -beginning of this work. - -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. - -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg-tm License. - -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including -any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access -to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format -other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official -version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site -(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense -to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means -of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain -Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the -full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. - -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -provided that - -* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed - to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has - agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid - within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are - legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty - payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in - Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg - Literary Archive Foundation." - -* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm - License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all - copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue - all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm - works. - -* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of - any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of - receipt of the work. - -* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than -are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing -from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The -Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. - -1.F. - -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project -Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may -contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate -or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other -intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or -other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or -cannot be read by your equipment. - -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right -of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. - -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium -with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you -with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in -lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person -or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second -opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If -the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing -without further opportunities to fix the problem. - -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO -OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT -LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. - -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of -damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement -violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the -agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or -limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or -unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the -remaining provisions. - -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in -accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the -production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, -including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of -the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this -or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or -additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any -Defect you cause. - -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm - -Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of -computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It -exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations -from people in all walks of life. - -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future -generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see -Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at -www.gutenberg.org - -Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation - -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by -U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. - -The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the -mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its -volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous -locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt -Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to -date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and -official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact - -For additional contact information: - - Dr. Gregory B. Newby - Chief Executive and Director - gbnewby@pglaf.org - -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide -spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. - -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND -DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular -state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate - -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. - -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. - -Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To -donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate - -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. - -Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project -Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be -freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and -distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of -volunteer support. - -Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in -the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. - diff --git a/old/52300-0.zip b/old/52300-0.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 5b4a79d..0000000 --- a/old/52300-0.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h.zip b/old/52300-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 700e244..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/52300-h.htm b/old/52300-h/52300-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index 5bf31d6..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/52300-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,3823 +0,0 @@ -<!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=UTF-8" /> -<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of William Blake, by Richard Garnett</title> -<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> -<style type="text/css"> - -a { - text-decoration: none; -} - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - -h1,h2,h3,h4 { - text-align: center; - clear: both; -} - -hr { - width: 33%; - margin-left: 33.5%; - margin-right: 33.5%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - clear: both; -} - -hr.tb { - width: 45%; - margin-left: 27.5%; - margin-right: 27.5%; -} - -hr.chap { - width: 65%; - margin-left: 17.5%; - margin-right: 17.5%; -} - -li.ifrst { - margin-top: 2em; - padding-left: 2em; - text-indent: -2em; -} - -li.indx { - margin-top: .5em; - padding-left: 2em; - text-indent: -2em; -} - -li.isub1 { - padding-left: 4em; - text-indent: -2em; -} - -p { - margin-top: 0.5em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: 0.5em; - text-indent: 1em; -} - -table { - width: 90%; - margin-left: 5%; - margin-right: 5%; - max-width: 100%; -} - -td { - padding-left: 2.25em; - padding-right: 0.25em; - text-indent: -2em; - vertical-align: top; -} - -ul { - list-style-type: none; -} - -.blockquote { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - -.blockquote p { - text-align: center; - text-indent: 0em; -} - -.blue { - border: thin solid blue; - display: inline-block; - text-indent: 0; - padding: 0 0.25em 0 0.25em; -} - -.caption { - text-align: center; - margin-bottom: 1em; - font-size: 90%; - text-indent: 0em; -} - -.center { - text-align: center; - text-indent: 0em; -} - -.ditto-narrow { - margin-left: 0.5em; - margin-right: 0.5em; -} - -.ditto-wide { - margin-left: 2em; - margin-right: 2em; -} - -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; -} - -.figright { - float: right; - clear: right; - margin-left: 1em; - margin-bottom: 1em; - margin-top: 1em; - margin-right: 0; - padding: 0; - text-align: center; -} - -.footnotes { - border: dashed 1px; -} - -.footnote { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; - font-size: 0.9em; -} - -.footnote .label { - position: absolute; - right: 84%; - text-align: right; -} - -.fnanchor { - vertical-align: super; - font-size: .8em; - text-decoration: none; -} - -.noindent { - text-indent: 0em; -} - -.larger { - font-size: 150%; -} - -.pagenum { - position: absolute; - right: 4%; - font-size: smaller; - text-align: right; - font-style: normal; -} - -.plate-container { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; -} - -.plate-web { - padding: 0.5em; - border: thin solid blue; -} - -.plate-ereader { - display: none; -} - -.poetry-container { - text-align: center; - margin: 1em; -} - -.poetry { - display: inline-block; - text-align: left; -} - -.poetry .stanza { - margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em; -} - -.poetry .verse { - text-indent: -3em; - padding-left: 3em; -} - -.poetry .indent1 { - text-indent: -2em; -} - -.poetry .indent2 { - text-indent: -1em; -} - -.poetry .indent4 { - text-indent: 1em; -} - -.poetry .indent10 { - text-indent: 10em; -} - -.smaller { - font-size: 80%; -} - -.smcapuc { - font-variant: small-caps; - font-style: normal; - text-transform: lowercase; -} - -.tdr { - text-align: right; -} - -.tdc { - text-align: center; -} - -.titlepage { - text-align: center; - margin-top: 3em; - text-indent: 0em; -} - -.transnote { - background-color: #E6E6FA; - color: black; - text-align: center; - font-size: smaller; - padding: 0.5em; - margin-bottom: 5em; -} - -@media handheld { - -img { - max-width: 100%; - width: auto; - height: auto; -} - -.poetry { - display: block; - margin-left: 1.5em; -} - -.blockquote { - margin-left: 5%; - margin-right: 5%; -} - -.plate-web { - display: none; -} - -.plate-ereader { - display: block; -} - -.transnote { - display: none; -} -} - - 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; } - </style> -</head> -<body> -<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, William Blake, by Richard Garnett</h1> -<p>This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States -and most other parts of the world 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>. If you are not -located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this ebook.</p> -<p>Title: William Blake</p> -<p> Painter and Poet</p> -<p>Author: Richard Garnett</p> -<p>Release Date: June 11, 2016 [eBook #52300]</p> -<p>Language: English</p> -<p>Character set encoding: UTF-8</p> -<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILLIAM BLAKE***</p> -<p> </p> -<h4>E-text prepared by Cathy Maxam<br /> - and 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<br /> - (<a href="https://archive.org">https://archive.org</a>)</h4> -<p> </p> -<table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff; width: auto; margin: 0 auto;" cellpadding="10"> - <tr> - <td valign="top"> - Note: - </td> - <td> - Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive. See - <a href="https://archive.org/details/gri_33125007593565"> - https://archive.org/details/gri_33125007593565</a> - </td> - </tr> -</table> -<p> </p> -<div class="transnote"> -<p>Images <span class="blue">outlined in blue</span> are clickable for larger versions.</p> -</div> -<hr class="full" /> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> - -<div class="plate-container" style="width: 220px;" id="plate1"> - -<div class="plate-web"> - -<a href="images/plate1.jpg"><img src="images/plate1-small.jpg" width="200" height="269" alt="" /></a> - -</div> - -<div class="plate-ereader"> - -<img src="images/plate1-ereader.jpg" width="483" height="650" alt="" /> - -</div> - -<p class="caption smaller"><i>London. Published as the Act directs March 8. 1823 by Will<sup>m</sup> Blake N3 Fountain Court Strand</i></p> - -<p class="caption"><i>The Sons of God. Design from the Book of Job.</i></p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p> - -<p class="titlepage"><span class="larger">WILLIAM BLAKE</span><br /> -<br /> -<i>PAINTER AND POET</i></p> - -<p class="titlepage"><i>By</i><br /> -<br /> -<span class="larger">RICHARD GARNETT, LL.D.</span><br /> -<i>Keeper of the Printed Books in the British Museum</i></p> - -<div class="figcenter titlepage" style="width: 175px;"> - -<img src="images/titlepage.jpg" width="175" height="200" alt="Portfolio Artistic Monographs, With many illustrations" /> - -</div> - -<p class="titlepage smaller">LONDON<br /> -SEELEY AND CO. LIMITED, ESSEX STREET, STRAND<br /> -NEW YORK, MACMILLAN AND CO.<br /> -1895</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p> - -<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> - -<table summary="List of illustrations"> - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdc"><i>PLATES</i></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td></td><td class="tdr">PAGE</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>The Sons of God. From the Book of Job</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#plate1"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>The Lamb, and Infant Joy. Songs of Innocence</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#plate2"><i>to face</i> 20</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>The Fly, and the Tiger. Songs of Experience</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#plate3"><span class="ditto-narrow">”</span> <span class="ditto-narrow">”</span> 24</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>The Book of Thel, title-page. In facsimile by W. Griggs</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#plate4"><span class="ditto-narrow">”</span> <span class="ditto-narrow">”</span> 33</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><span class="ditto-wide">”</span> <span class="ditto-wide">”</span>page vi.<span class="ditto-wide">”</span> <span class="ditto-wide">”</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#plate5"><span class="ditto-narrow">”</span> <span class="ditto-narrow">”</span> 36</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>America, page</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#plate6"><span class="ditto-narrow">”</span> <span class="ditto-narrow">”</span> 42</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><span class="ditto-wide">”</span> page</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#plate7"><span class="ditto-narrow">”</span> <span class="ditto-narrow">”</span> 48</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2" class="tdc"><i>ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT</i></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Morning, or Glad Day. From an engraving by W. Blake</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_11">11</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Illustration from “David Simple.” Engraved by W. Blake after T. Stothard, R.A.</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_17">17</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>From a coloured copy of the “Songs of Innocence and Experience.” British Museum</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_22">22</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Frontispiece of Mary Wollstonecraft’s “Stories”</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_24">24</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Page of Young’s “Night Thoughts.” Illustrated by W. Blake</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_26">26</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>I want! I want!—Help! Help!—Aged Ignorance!—Death’s Door</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_28">28</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Design from the “Book of Urizen.” By W. Blake</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_34">34</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>The Ancient of Days setting a Compass to the Earth. From a water-colour drawing by W. Blake. British Museum</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_40">39</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Sweeping the Parlour in the Interpreter’s House</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_40">40</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Design from “Milton.” By W. Blake</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_47">47</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Portrait of William Blake. From the engraving by L. Schiavonetti, after T. Phillips, R.A.</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_50">50</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>The Reunion of Soul and Body. From Blair’s “Grave,” illustrated by W. Blake</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_53">53</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>The Babylonian Woman on the Seven-headed Beast. From a water-colour drawing by W. Blake. British Museum</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_55">55</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Portrait of Wilson Lowry. By John Linnell. Engraved by Blake and Linnell</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_61">61</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>The Resurrection of the Dead. From a water-colour drawing by W. Blake. British Museum</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_63">63</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Woodcut from Thornton’s Pastoral</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_64">64</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>The Destruction of Job’s Sons and Daughters. From the “Book of Job.” By W. Blake</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_67">67</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>With dreams upon my bed thou scarest me. From the “Book of Job.” By W. Blake</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_69">69</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Behemoth and Leviathan. From the “Book of Job.” By W. Blake</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_71">71</a></td> - </tr> -</table> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p> - -<h1>WILLIAM BLAKE</h1> - -<h2>CHAPTER I</h2> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p><i>Preliminary observations—Blake’s Birth—Education—Marriage—Early Poems—Drawings -and Engravings.</i></p> - -</div> - -<p>The position of William Blake among artists is exceptional. Of no -other painter of like distinction, save Dante Rossetti, can it be said -that his fame as a poet has fully rivalled his fame as a painter; -much less that, in the opinion of some, his fame as a seer ought -to have exceeded both. Many painters, from Reynolds downwards, have -written admirably upon art; in some instances, notably Haydon’s, the -worth of their precepts greatly exceeds that of their performance. But, -Rossetti always excepted, perhaps no other painter of great distinction, -save Michael Angelo alone, has achieved high renown in poetry, and the -compass of Michael Angelo’s poetical work is infinitesimal in comparison -with his work as an artist. Again, the literary achievements of an Angelo -or a Reynolds admit of clear separation from their performances as artists. -The critic who approaches them from the artistic side may, if he pleases, -omit the literary side entirely from consideration. This is impossible -with Blake, for not only do the artistic and the poetical monuments of -his genius nearly balance each other in merit and in their claim upon the -attention of posterity, but they are the offspring of the same creative -impulse, and are indissolubly fused together by the process adopted for -their execution. A study of Blake, therefore, must include more literary -discussion than would be allowable in a monograph on any other artist. -The poet and painter in Blake, moreover, are but manifestations of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> -more comprehensive character of seer, which suggests inquiries alien to -both these arts; while the personal character of the man is so fascinating, -and his intellectual character so perplexing, that the investigation of either -of them might afford, and often has afforded, material for a prolonged -discussion. In the following pages it will be our object, whenever compelled -to quit the safe ground of biographical narrative, to subordinate all -else to the consideration of Blake as an artist; but the Blake of the brush -is too emphatically the Blake of the pen to be long dissociated from him, -and neither can be detached from the background of abnormal visionary -faculty.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>From a certain point of view, artists may be regarded as divisible into -three classes: those who regard the material world as an unquestionable solid -reality, whose accurate representation is the one mission of Art; those to -whom it is a mere hieroglyphic of an essential existence transcending it; -and those who, uniting the two conceptions, are at the same time idealists -and realists. The greatest artists generally belong to the latter class, and -with reason, for a literal adherence to matter of fact almost implies defect -of imagination; while an extravagant idealism may be, to say the least, -a convenient excuse for defects of technical skill. It is difficult to know -whether to class the works of the very greatest artists as realistic or -idealistic. Take Albert Dürer’s <i>Melancholia</i>. It is a hieroglyph, a -symbol, an expression of something too intense to be put into words; a -delineation of what the painter beheld with the inner eye alone. Yet -every detail is as correct and true to fact as the most uninspired Dutchman -could have made it. Take Titian’s <i>Bacchus and Ariadne</i>, and -observe how separate details which the artist may have actually noticed, -are combined into a whole which has never been beheld, save by the -spiritual vision, since the last thyrsus was brandished by the last Mænad. -Yet, though the creators of such scenes are the greatest, some realists, -such as Velasquez, have in virtue of surpassing technical execution asserted -a nearly equal rank. The case is different when we come to the enthusiasts -and visionaries, whose art is wholly symbolic, who have given us -little that can be enjoyed as art for art’s sake, without reference to the -ideas of which it is made the vehicle. In many very interesting artists, such -as Wiertz and Calvert and Vedder, and in many isolated works of great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> -masters, such as Giorgione’s <i>Venetian Pastoral</i>, the feeling is so much in -excess of the execution—admirable as this may be—that the result is -rather a poem than a picture. But only one artist who has deliberately -made himself the prophet of this tendency, who has avowedly and defiantly -discarded all purpose from his works save that of spiritual -suggestiveness, seems to have ever been admitted as a candidate for very -high artistic honours, and he is our countryman, William Blake.</p> - -<p>This circumstance alone should render Blake an interesting object of -study, even for those who can see no merit in his works: indeed, the less -the merit the more remarkable the phenomenon. He is, moreover, a most -peculiar and enigmatical character, both intellectually and morally. As -an art critic he is of all the most dogmatic, trenchant, and revolutionary. -As a poet, were nineteen-twentieths of his compositions to be discarded -as rubbish, lyrics would remain not only exquisite in themselves, but -possessing the incommunicable and Sapphic quality that a single stanza, -even a single phrase, would often suffice to make the writer immortal. -The question of his sanity is as well adapted to furnish the world with -an interminable subject of discussion as the execution of Charles I. or -the assassination of Cæsar. Finally, it is very significant that while no -man ever wilfully put more obstacles into the way of his success than -Blake, whether as artist, thinker, or poet, and he did in fact succeed in -condemning himself to poverty and obscurity, the verdict of his contemporaries -is now so far reversed that the drawings which a kind friend -overpaid, as he thought, at fifty guineas, are worth a thousand pounds.</p> - -<p>What manner of man was he to whose shade the world has made this -practical apology?</p> - -<p>William Blake was born on November 28th,<a name="FNanchor_1" id="FNanchor_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> 1757, at 28, Broad -Street, Golden Square. By a singular coincidence this was the very year -which a still more celebrated mystic, Swedenborg, had announced as that -of the Last Judgment in a spiritual sense, which was by no means to preclude -the world from going on in externals pretty much as usual. Blake’s -father, James Blake, was a hosier in moderately prosperous circumstances, -whose father is stated by Blake’s most elaborate commentators, Messrs. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>Ellis and Yeats, to have been originally named O’Neil, and to have -assumed his wife’s name as a means of escape from pecuniary difficulties. -This wife, however, was not the mother of James. This genealogy is -not supported by any strong authority, and is at variance with another, -also indifferently supported, according to which the artist’s family were -connected with the admiral’s. We must leave the question where we find -it, merely remarking that Blake’s parents were certainly Protestants, and -that we can detect no specifically Irish trait in his character or his works. -He had three brothers—one, James, mild and unassuming like his father; -another, Robert, who died young, apparently with more affinity to -William; the third, John, a scapegrace. There was also a sister who -never married, and is described as a thorough gentlewoman, reserved -and proud. None of the family except William and Robert seem to -have shown any artistic talent. With William it must have been -precocious, for, ere he had attained the age of ten, his father, who as a -small tradesman might rather have been expected to have thwarted the -boy’s inclinations, placed him at “Mr. Pars’ drawing school in the -Strand.” Here he learned to draw from plaster casts—the life was denied -him—and with the aid of his father and a friendly auctioneer collected -prints, then to be picked up cheap, showing from the very first, as he -afterwards related, a complete independence of the pseudo-classic taste of -the day. At four he had had his first vision, when “God put his forehead -to the window, which set him screaming.” At eight or ten he saw -a tree filled with angels, and angelic figures walking among haymakers. -“The child is father to the man.”</p> - -<p>At the age of fourteen Blake was apprenticed to the engraver Basire. -Ryland had been thought of, but Blake, according to a story which he -must have narrated, but may not improbably have imagined, demurred, -declaring that the fashionable engraver looked as if he would one day be -hanged, as he actually was. Basire’s practice lay chiefly in engraving -antiquities, and the last five years of Blake’s apprenticeship were chiefly -spent in drawing tombs and architectural details in Westminster Abbey -a most advantageous discipline, which imbued his mind with the Gothic -spirit, an influence already in the air, evincing itself in Götz von -Berlichingens, Rowley Poems, Percy Relics, and Castles of Otranto; -and, by directing him to English history and Shakespeare, powerfully<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> -stimulated and felicitously guided the poetical genius of which he was -shortly to give proof. He drew, Malkin tells us, the monuments of kings -and queens in every point of view he could catch, frequently standing on -them. The heads he considered as portraits, and all the ornaments -appeared as miracles of art to his Gothicised imagination. Nor could a -better environment for a mystic be desired than the venerable and -generally solitary temple, “the height, the space, the gloom, the glory,” -with its music, its memories, and its constant sense of the presence of the -dead. The bent of his mind at the time is shown by his first engraving, -<i>Joseph of Arimathea among the Rocks of Albion</i>, copied, as he states, from -a scarce Italian print. If this was indeed the case, it may be queried -whether the title at least was not his—Joseph, according to the legend, -having been the first missionary to Britain. The original, if original -there was, certainly was not the work of Michael Angelo, to whom Blake -chose to attribute it. Scarcely was he out of his articles than he produced -(1779) two engravings from the history of England, <i>The Penance -of Jane Shore</i> and <i>King Edward and Queen Eleanor</i>. These were after -two water-colour drawings, selected from a much greater number with -which he had amused the leisure hours of his apprenticeship. Mr. -Gilchrist says that these and other works of the period have little of the -peculiar Blakean quality, except the striking design <i>Morning, or Glad -Day</i>, dated 1780, a facsimile of which is given here. This, indeed, is -Blake all over, and would have made an excellent frontispiece for the -poems with which he was about to herald the dawn of a new era in -English poetry, though in all probability designed as an illustration of -the lines in <i>Romeo and Juliet</i>;</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day</div> -<div class="verse">Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">A naked Apollo-like figure, wearing the dawn for a halo, in whom one -fancifully traces a resemblance to Goethe, alights throbbing with joy -and victory on the peak of a mountain, while the waning moon, as -would seem, sets behind him, and a winged beetle scuds away.</p> - -<p>The poems to which reference has been made had meanwhile been -slowly accumulating; if the language of the advertisement which -heralded their publication is to be taken literally, they were now complete. -Before appearing as a poet, however, Blake had to undergo his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> -probation as a lover. He became enamoured of a pretty girl variously -called Polly or Clara Woods. She rejected him. He fell into a -melancholy, and was sent to Richmond for change of air. There he -lodged with a nursery gardener named Boucher. The daughter of the -house, Catherine, had been frequently asked whom she would like to -marry, and had always replied that she had not seen the man. Coming -on the night of Blake’s arrival into the room where he was sitting with -the rest of the family, she grew faint from the presentiment that she -beheld her destined husband. On subsequently hearing of his disappointment -with Clara Woods, she told him that she pitied, and he told her -that he loved. They were married on August 18, 1782, Blake having, -it is said, proved their mutual constancy by refraining from seeing her -for a year, while he was toiling to save enough to render their marriage -not utterly imprudent. His first care afterwards was to teach her to -read and write, to which he afterwards added enough of the pictorial art -to enable her to colour his drawings. A more devoted wife never lived, -though her devotion wore in the eyes of strangers an aspect of formality, -and was always tinged with awe.</p> - -<p><i>Poetical Sketches</i>, 1783, were the first-fruits of Blake’s genius, -composed, as asserted in the advertisement prefixed by his friends, -between 1768 and 1777.<a name="FNanchor_2" id="FNanchor_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> They are the only examples of his literary -work devoid of artistic illustration; we ought not, consequently, to -spend much time upon them, yet they are the most memorable of his -works, for they are nothing short of miraculous, and alone among his productions -mark an era. For a hundred and thirty years English poetry -had been mainly artificial, the product of conscious effort ranging down -from the superb art of <i>Paradise Lost</i> to the prettinesses of Pope’s -imitators, but seldom or never wearing the aspect of a spontaneous -growth. This young obscure engraver was the first to show that it was -still possible to sing as the bird sings; he and no other was the morning -star which announced the new day of English poetry. Had even the -verses been of inferior quality, such inspiration would have sufficed for -fame, but Blake is as exquisite as original, and warbles such nightingale -notes as England had not heard since Andrew Marvell forsook song for -satire. The songs of Dryden, indeed, have great merit, but how they -savour of the study compared with the artless melody of a strain like -this!</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 475px;"> - -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> - -<img src="images/illus-p11.jpg" width="475" height="650" alt="" /> - -<p class="caption"><i>Morning, or Glad Day. From an engraving by W. Blake.</i></p> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">How sweet I roamed from field to field,</div> -<div class="verse indent1">And tasted all the summer’s pride,</div> -<div class="verse">Till I the Prince of Love beheld,</div> -<div class="verse indent1">Who in the sunny beams did glide!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">He showed me lilies for my hair,</div> -<div class="verse indent1">And blushing roses for my brow;</div> -<div class="verse">He led me through his gardens fair,</div> -<div class="verse indent1">Where all his golden pleasures grow.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">With sweet May dews my wings were wet,</div> -<div class="verse indent1">And Phœbus fired my vocal rage;</div> -<div class="verse">He caught me in his silken net,</div> -<div class="verse indent1">And shut me in his golden cage.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">He loves to sit and hear me sing,</div> -<div class="verse indent1">Then, laughing, sports and plays with me;</div> -<div class="verse">Then stretches out my golden wing,</div> -<div class="verse indent1">And mocks my loss of liberty.</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">This is such a song as Marlowe might have written, but for a delicate -eighteenth-century suggestion in the style, whose aroma is not quite that -of the Elizabethan era. It is none the less one of the pieces which none -but Blake could have produced. The characteristics of his style, indeed, -are much less apparent in this early volume than in his subsequent -productions. They are most conspicuous in the <i>Mad Song</i>, but a more -pleasing if less intense example is the following:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<p class="center">SONG.</p> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Love and harmony combine,</div> -<div class="verse">And around our souls entwine,</div> -<div class="verse">While thy branches mix with mine</div> -<div class="verse">And our roots together join.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Joys upon our branches sit,</div> -<div class="verse">Chirping loud and singing sweet;</div> -<div class="verse">Like gentle streams beneath our feet</div> -<div class="verse">Innocence and virtue meet.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Thou the golden fruit dost bear,</div> -<div class="verse">I am clad in flowers fair;</div> -<div class="verse">Thy sweet boughs perfume the air,</div> -<div class="verse">And the turtle buildeth there.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">There she sits and feeds her young,</div> -<div class="verse">Sweet I hear her mournful song;</div> -<div class="verse">And thy lovely leaves among,</div> -<div class="verse">There is Love: I hear his tongue.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">There his charm’d nest he doth lay,</div> -<div class="verse">There he sleeps the night away,</div> -<div class="verse">There he sports along the day,</div> -<div class="verse">And doth among our branches play.</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">Not the least remarkable of the <i>Poetical Sketches</i> are “Samson” and -other short pieces in blank verse. They are marvellously Tennysonian; -if imitation there was, it obviously was not on Blake’s part. Who would -have hesitated to ascribe these lines, addressed to the Evening Star, to the -Laureate?</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse indent10">Let thy west wind sleep on</div> -<div class="verse">The lake; speak silence with thy glimmering eyes,</div> -<div class="verse">And wash the dusk with silver.</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>Even more marvellous than the sentiment is the metre, which cannot be -judged by a short passage. Well might it be said, “Thou hast hid -these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them unto babes,” -when the secret of melodious blank verse, withheld since the Civil -War from all the highly cultured and in many respects highly gifted -bards of England, is disclosed on the sudden to this half-educated -young man. It is exemplified on a larger scale by the accompanying -fragments of an intended tragedy on <i>Edward the Third</i>, which proves -two things: first, that Blake was destitute of all dramatic faculty; -secondly, that, notwithstanding, few have so thoroughly assimilated -Shakespeare. Shakespeare stands almost alone among great poets in -having had hardly any direct imitators. Every one, of course, has profited -by the study of his art; but those most deeply indebted to him in this -respect have felt the least disposed to reproduce his style. The reason is -evident. Other writers are partial, Shakespeare is universal; the model -is too vast for study. A deliberate imitation of Shakespeare would -assuredly be a failure: imitation is only practicable when it is not -deliberate but unconscious, the effluence of a mind so saturated with -Shakespeare that it can for the time only express itself in Shakespearian -numbers, and think under Shakespearian forms. Blake must have been in -such a situation when he attempted <i>Edward the Third</i>, the direct fruit<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> -of his roamings among the regal tombs in the Abbey with Shakespeare’s -historical plays in his hand. The drama is childish, but the feeling -approaches Shakespeare as nearly as Keats’s early poems approach Spenser. -The imitation, being spontaneous and unsought, is never senile, but -every line reveals a youth whose soul is with Shakespeare, though his -body may be in Golden Square. Yet the reproduction of Shakespeare’s -manner is never so exact as to conceal the fact that the poet is writing in -the eighteenth and not in the sixteenth century. The following passage -may serve as an example both of the closeness of Blake’s affinity with -Shakespeare and of the <i>nuances</i> of difference that serve to vindicate his -originality.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse indent10">Last night beneath</div> -<div class="verse">The moon I walked abroad when all had pitched</div> -<div class="verse">Their tents, and all were still.</div> -<div class="verse">I heard a blooming youth singing a song</div> -<div class="verse">He had composed, and at each pause he wiped</div> -<div class="verse">His dropping eyes. The ditty was “If he</div> -<div class="verse">Returned victorious he should wed a maiden</div> -<div class="verse">Fairer than snow and rich as midsummer.”</div> -<div class="verse">Another wept, and wished health to his father.</div> -<div class="verse">I chid them both, but gave them noble hopes.</div> -<div class="verse">These are the minds that glory in the battle,</div> -<div class="verse">And leap and dance to hear the trumpet sound.</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">This is beautiful description, sentiment and metre, but these beauties -sum up the attractions of Blake’s dramatic fragment. The dramatic -element is wanting, there is no action. This deficiency runs through his -whole work, pictorial as well as literary, and explains why one capable of -such sublime conceptions was nevertheless incapable of taking rank with -the Miltons and Michael Angelos. His productions are full of -tremendous scenes, the strivings and agonies of colossal unearthly powers -realised by his own mind with a vividness which proves the intensity of -his conceptions. Yet he seldom impresses the beholder with any -sentiment of awe or terror. The cause is not solely the fantastic -character of these conceptions, for the effect is the same when he deals -with mankind, and represents it in the most thrilling crises of which -humanity is capable. His representation of the plague, for instance, -engraved in Gilchrist’s biography, excites strong interest and curiosity, -but nothing of the shuddering dismay with which we should view such a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> -scene in actual life, and which is so powerfully conveyed in such works -as Géricault’s <i>Wreck of the Medusa</i> and Poole’s <i>Solomon Eagle</i>. The -reason seems to be that Blake was not only a visionary but also a mystic, -and that mysticism is hardly compatible with tragic passion. The -visionary, as in the instances of Dante and Bunyan, may realise every -detail of his ideal conceptions with the force of actual perception, but it -is the very essence of the mystic’s creed that things are not what they -seem, and the man who knows himself to be depicting a hieroglyphic will -never grasp his subject with the force of him who feels that he is dealing -with a concrete reality. The Hindoos are a nation of mystics who -regard existence as an illusion, and their art labours under the same -defects as Blake’s; their drama especially, with all the charm of lovely -arabesque, makes nothing of the strongest situations, save when these are -of the pathetic order. For although the mystic cannot be exciting, he -can be tender: and while Blake’s efforts at the delineation of frantic -passion or overwhelming catastrophes usually (there are exceptions) -leave us unmoved, nothing can be more pathetic than some of his -delineations, such, for example, as the famous illustration to Blair, of -an old man approaching the grave.</p> - -<p>It seems almost strange that verses, as contrary to the spirit of the -age that gave them birth as prophetic of the ideals of the age to come, -should have found friends willing to defray their cost. If, however, it is -true that Flaxman was among these friends, Blake had met with one congenial -spirit. A clergyman named Matthews, incumbent of Percy Chapel, -Charlotte Street, is mentioned as another patron, and as the writer of -the well-meaning but too apologetic preface. Through him Blake seems -to have become acquainted with Flaxman. To the few then able to -appreciate the poems, they might well have seemed indicative of a great -poetical career, for they are exactly the sweet, wild, untaught, prelusive -music wherewith youth, as yet unschooled by criticism and unawakened -to its really profound problems, is wont to essay its art. Why was it -that Blake, though rivalling these early attempts in his <i>Songs of Innocence</i> -and <i>Songs of Experience</i>, never progressed further; and in by far the -greater part of his subsequent poetry went off altogether upon a wrong -track, so far at least as concerned poetry? Partly, we think, because his -mind was almost entirely deficient in the plastic element. He could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> -reproduce a scene ready depicted for him, as in his illustrations to Job; -he could embody a solitary thought with exquisite beauty, whether in -poetry or in painting; but he could not combine his ideas into a whole. -His faculty was purely lyrical, and when this evanescent endowment -forsook him, devoid as he was of all plastic literary power, he had no -Oenone or Ulysses to replace his Claribels and Eleanores. His verse -became a mere accompaniment of his pictorial art, and harmonising with -its vagueness and obscurity, necessarily lacked the symmetry with which -a colourist can dispense, but which is essential to a poet. Even more -remarkable than the music of Blake’s early verses, unparalleled in their -age, is the fact, vouched for by J. T. Smith, the biographer of Nollekens -and Keeper of Prints at the British Museum, that he had composed tunes -for them, which he could only repeat by ear from his ignorance of -musical notation. Some of these, Smith says, were exquisitely beautiful.</p> - -<p>At the appearance of the <i>Poetical Sketches</i> (1783), Blake had for a -year been a married man, and was actively striving to make a living as -an engraver. Most of his work of this nature at this time was executed -after Stothard. It cannot be disputed that this graceful artist largely -influenced Blake’s style in its more idyllic aspects; whether, as he was -afterwards inclined to assert, Stothard’s invention owed something to him -is not easy to determine. In 1784 he lost his father, a mild, pious man, -who had well performed his duty to his son. Blake’s elder brother James -took his business, and the artist, who had probably inherited some little -property, returned from Green Street to Broad Street, and, establishing -himself next door to his brother, launched into speculation as a print-seller -in partnership with a former fellow apprentice named Parker, taking -his brother Robert as a gratuitous pupil. In 1785 he sent four drawings -to the Academy. Three, illustrative of the story of Joseph, were shown -in the International Exhibition of 1862, and are described by Gilchrist as -“full of soft tranquil beauty, specimens of Blake’s earlier style; a very -different one from that of his later and better-known works.” This is -probably as much as to say that he then wrought much under the influence -of Stothard, after whom he engraved the subject from <i>David Simple</i> -given here; for the earlier design illustrative of the passage in <i>Romeo -and Juliet</i> is characteristically Blakean. Mr. Gilchrist adds,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> “the design -is correct and blameless, not to say tame (for Blake), the colour full, -harmonious and sober.” Mr. Rossetti says that the figure of Joseph, -in the third drawing, “is especially pure and impulsive.”</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 350px;"> - -<img src="images/illus-p17.jpg" width="350" height="535" alt="" /> - -<p class="caption"><i>Illustration from “David Simple.” Engraved by W. Blake after T. Stothard, R.A.</i></p> - -</div> - -<p>In 1787 Blake’s experiment in print-selling came to an end, through -disagreements, it is said, with his partner; but as neither appears to have -afterwards pursued the calling, it is probable that it had never been profitable. -Parker obtained some distinction as an engraver, chiefly after -Stothard, and died in 1805. In February, 1787, Blake had sustained -a severe loss in the death of his brother and pupil Robert. Blake -himself nursed the patient for some weeks, and when at last the end<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> -came, it is not surprising that he should have beheld his brother’s spirit -“arise and clap its hands for joy.” Not long after, as he asserted, the -spirit appeared to him in a dream, and revealed to him that process of -printing from copper plates which, as we shall see, had the most decisive -influence upon his work as an artist. Writing to Hayley in 1800, he -says, “Thirteen years ago I lost a brother, and with his spirit I converse -daily and hourly in the spirit, and see him in remembrance in the regions -of my imagination. I hear his advice, and even now write from his -dictate.” “The ruins of Time,” he finely subjoins, “build mansions -in Eternity.”</p> - -<p>From this time Blake’s sole assistant was his wife, whom he carefully -instructed, and who tinted many of the coloured drawings which henceforth -form the more characteristic portion of his work. After giving up -his business as a print-seller, he removed from Broad Street to 28, Poland -Street. Messrs. Ellis and Yeats conjecture that this may have been -to escape the blighting influence of his commercial brother next door, -but it is more probable that his venture had impoverished him, and that -he was obliged to give up housekeeping.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER II</h2> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p><i>Blake’s Technical Methods—“Songs of Innocence” and “Songs of Experience”—Life in -Poland Street and in Lambeth—Mystical Poetry and Art.</i></p> - -</div> - -<p>It was during his residence in Poland Street that Blake first appeared -in that mingled character of poet and painter which marks him off so -conspicuously from other painters and other poets. Painting has often -been made the handmaid of poetry; it was Blake’s idea, without -infringing upon this relationship, to make poetry no less the handmaid -of painting by employing his verse, engraved and beautified -with colour, to enhance the artistic value of his designs, as well as to -provide them with the needful basis of subject. The same principle may -probably be recognised in those Oriental scrolls where the graceful -labour of the scribe is as distinctly a work of art as the illustration -of the miniaturist; but of these Blake can have known nothing. -Necessity was with him the mother of invention. Since the appearance -of <i>Poetical Sketches</i> he had written much that he desired to publish—but -how to pay for printing? So severely had he suffered by his -unfortunate commercial adventure that when at length, as he firmly -believed, the new process by which his song and his design could be -facsimiled together was revealed by his brother’s spirit in a dream, a -half-crown was the only coin his wife and he possessed between them in -the world. One shilling and tenpence of this was laid out in providing -the necessary materials.</p> - -<p>The technical method to which Blake now resorted is thus described -by Mr. Gilchrist:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> “It was quite an original one. It consisted of a species -of engraving in relief, both words and designs. The verse was written -and the designs and marginal embellishments outlined on the copper -with an impervious liquid, probably the ordinary stopping-out varnish -of engravers. Then all the white parts or lights, the remainder of the -plate that is, were eaten away with aquafortis or other acid, so that -the outline of letter and design was left prominent, as in stereotype. -From these plates he printed off in any tint, yellow, brown, blue, required -to be the prevailing or ground colour in his facsimiles; red he used for the -letterpress. The page was then coloured up by hand in imitation of the -original drawing with more or less variety of detail in the local hues. -He ground and mixed his water-colours himself on a piece of statuary -marble, after a method of his own, with common carpenter’s glue -diluted. The colours he used were few and simple: indigo, cobalt, -gamboge, vermilion, Frankfort-black freely, ultramarine rarely, chrome -not at all. These he applied with a camel’s-hair brush, not with a sable, -which he disliked. He taught Mrs. Blake to take off the impressions -with care and delicacy, which such plates signally needed; and also -to help in tinting them from his drawings with right artistic feeling; in -all of which tasks she, to her honour, much delighted. The size of the -plates was small, for the sake of economising copper, something under -five inches by three. The number of engraved pages in the <i>Songs of -Innocence</i> alone was twenty-seven. They were done up in boards by -Mrs. Blake’s hand, forming a small octavo; so that the poet and his -wife did everything in making the book, writing, designing, printing, -engraving,—everything except manufacturing the paper; the very ink, -or colour rather, they did make. Never before, surely, was a man so -literally the author of his own book.”</p> - -<div class="plate-container" style="width: 320px;" id="plate2"> - -<div class="plate-web"> - -<a href="images/plate2.jpg"><img src="images/plate2-small.jpg" width="300" height="200" alt="" /></a> - -</div> - -<div class="plate-ereader"> - -<img src="images/plate2-ereader.jpg" width="650" height="433" alt="" /> - -</div> - -<p class="caption">The Lamb. Infant Joy. <i>From Blake’s “Songs of Innocence.”</i></p> - -</div> - -<p>The total effect of this process is tersely expressed by Mr. Rossetti, -“The art is made to permeate the poetry.” It resulted in the publication -of <i>Songs of Innocence</i> in 1789, two years after its discovery or revelation. -Other productions, of that weird and symbolic character in which Blake -came more and more to delight, followed in quick succession. These will -claim copious notice, but for the present we may pass on to <i>Songs of -Experience</i>, produced in 1794, so much of a companion volume to <i>Songs -of Innocence</i> that the two are usually found within the same cover. -Neither attracted much attention at the time. Charles Lamb says: “I -have heard of his poems, but have never seen them.” He is, however, -acquainted with “Tiger, tiger,” which he pronounces “glorious.” The -price of the two sets when issued together was from thirty shillings to -two guineas—an illustration of the material service which Art can render<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> -to Poetry when it is considered that, published simply as poems, they -would in that age have found no purchasers at eighteenpence. This price -was nevertheless absurdly below their real value, and was enhanced even -during the artist’s lifetime. It came to be five guineas, and late in his -life friends, from the munificent Sir Thomas Lawrence downwards, would -commission sets tinted by himself at from ten to twenty guineas as a -veiled charity.</p> - -<p>Of the poems and illustrations in <i>Songs of Innocence</i> and <i>Songs of Experience</i> -Gilchrist justly declares that their warp and woof are formed in -one texture, and that to treat of them separately is like pulling up a -daisy by the roots out of the green sward in which it springs. One -essential characteristic inspires them both, and may be defined as childish -fearlessness, the innocent courage of the infant who puts his hand upon -the serpent and the cockatrice. Any one but Blake would have feared to -publish designs and verses apparently so verging upon the trivial, and -which indeed would have been trivial—and worse, affected—if the -emanation of almost any other brain, or the execution of almost any -other hand. Being his, their sincerity is beyond question, and they are a -valuable psychological document as establishing the possibility of a man -of genius and passion reaching thirty with the simplicity of a child. -Hardly anything else in literature or art, unless some thought in -Shakespeare, so powerfully conveys the impression of a pure elemental -force, something absolutely spontaneous, innocent of all contact with -and all influence from the refinements of culture. They certainly -are not as a rule powerful, and contrast forcibly with the lurid and -gigantic conceptions which if we did not remember that the same Dante -depicted <i>The Tower of Famine</i> and <i>Matilda gathering Flowers</i>, we could -scarcely believe to have proceeded from the same mind. Their impressiveness -proceeds from a different source; their primitive innocence and -simplicity, and the rebuke which they seem to administer to artifice and -refinement. Even great artists and inspired poets, suddenly confronted -with such pure unassuming nature, may be supposed to feel as the disciples -must have felt when the Master set the little child among them. No -more characteristic examples could have been given than “The Lamb” -and “Infant Joy” from <i>Songs of Innocence</i>, and “The Fly” and “The -Tiger” from <i>Songs of Experience</i> selected for reproduction here from an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> -uncoloured copy in the library of the British Museum. There is -frequently a great difference in the colouring of the copies. That in -the Museum Print Room is in full rich colour, while others are very -lightly and delicately tinted.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 350px;"> - -<img src="images/illus-p22.jpg" width="350" height="535" alt="" /> - -<p class="caption"><i>From a coloured copy of the “Songs of Innocence and Experience.” British Museum.</i></p> - -</div> - -<p>It is of course much easier to convey an idea of the merits of Blake’s -verse than of his painting, for the former loses nothing by transcription, -and the latter everything. The merit of the latter, too, is a variable -quantity, depending much upon the execution of the coloured plates. -The uncoloured are but phantoms of Blake’s ideas. The general -characteristics of his art in these books may be described as caressing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> -tenderness and gentle grace, evinced in elegant human figures, frequently -drooping like willows or recumbent like river deities, and in sinuous -stems and delicate sprays, often as profuse as delicate. The foliated ornament -in “On Another’s Sorrow,” for instance, seems like a living thing, -and would almost speak without the aid of the accompanying verse. -The figures usually are too small to impress by themselves, and rather -seem subsidiary parts of the general design than the dominant factors. -They mingle with the inanimate nature portrayed, as one note of a -multitudinous concert blends with another. Yet “The Little Girl -Found” tells its story by itself powerfully enough; and the innocent -Bacchanalianism of the chorus in the “Laughing Song” is conveyed -with truly Lyæan spirit and energy.</p> - -<p>The prevalent cheerfulness of the <i>Songs of Innocence</i> is of course -modified in <i>Songs of Experience</i>. The keynote of the former is admirably -struck in the introductory poem:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Piping down the valleys wild,</div> -<div class="verse indent1">Piping songs of pleasant glee,</div> -<div class="verse">On a cloud I saw a child,</div> -<div class="verse indent1">And he laughing said to me.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“Pipe a song about a Lamb!”</div> -<div class="verse indent1">So I piped with merry cheer.</div> -<div class="verse">“Piper, pipe that song again.”</div> -<div class="verse indent1">So I piped; he wept to hear.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe;</div> -<div class="verse indent1">Sing thy songs of happy cheer!”</div> -<div class="verse">So I sang the same again.</div> -<div class="verse indent1">While he wept with joy to hear.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“Piper, sit thee down and write</div> -<div class="verse indent1">In a book, that all may read.”</div> -<div class="verse">So he vanished from my sight;</div> -<div class="verse indent1">And I plucked a hollow reed.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">And I made a rural pen,</div> -<div class="verse indent1">And I stained the water clear,</div> -<div class="verse">And I wrote my happy songs</div> -<div class="verse indent1">Every child may joy to hear.</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span></p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 350px;"> - -<img src="images/illus-p24.jpg" width="350" height="618" alt="" /> - -<p class="caption"><i>Frontispiece of Mary Wollstonecraft’s “Stories.”</i></p> - -</div> - -<p>This incarnate enigma among men could manifestly be as transparent -as crystal when he knew exactly what he wished to say—a remark which -may not be useless to the student of his mystical and prophetical -writings. The character of <i>Songs of Experience</i>, published in 1794, when -he had attained the age so often fatal to men of genius, is conveyed -more symbolically, yet intelligibly, in “The Angel”:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">I dreamt a dream! What can it mean?</div> -<div class="verse">And that I was a maiden Queen</div> -<div class="verse">Guarded by an Angel mild:</div> -<div class="verse">Witless woe was ne’er beguiled!</div> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span></div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">And I wept both night and day,</div> -<div class="verse">And he wiped my tears away;</div> -<div class="verse">And I wept both day and night,</div> -<div class="verse">And hid from him my heart’s delight.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">So he took his wings and fled;</div> -<div class="verse">Then the man blushed very red.</div> -<div class="verse">I dried my tears and armed my fears</div> -<div class="verse">With ten thousand shields and spears.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Soon my Angel came again;</div> -<div class="verse">I was armed, he came in vain;</div> -<div class="verse">For the time of youth was fled,</div> -<div class="verse">And gray hairs were on my head.</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> - -<div class="plate-container" style="width: 300px;" id="plate3"> - -<div class="plate-web"> - -<a href="images/plate3.jpg"><img src="images/plate3-small.jpg" width="280" height="200" alt="" /></a> - -</div> - -<div class="plate-ereader"> - -<img src="images/plate3-ereader.jpg" width="650" height="464" alt="" /> - -</div> - -<p class="caption">The Fly. The Tyger. <i>From Blake’s “Songs of Experience.”</i></p> - -</div> - -<p>Generally speaking, the <i>Songs of Experience</i> may be said to answer to -their title. They exhibit an awakening of thought and an occupation -with metaphysical problems alien to the <i>Songs of Innocence</i>. Such a -stanza as this shows that Blake’s mind had been busy:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">Nought loves another as itself</div> -<div class="verse indent1">Nor venerates another so;</div> -<div class="verse">Nor is it possible to thought</div> -<div class="verse indent1">A greater than itself to know.</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>These ideas, however, are always conveyed, as in the remainder of -the poem quoted, through the medium of a concrete fact represented by -the poet. Perhaps the finest example of this fusion of imagination and -thought is this stanza of the most striking and best known of all the -poems, “The Tiger”:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">When the stars threw down their spears</div> -<div class="verse">And watered heaven with their tears,</div> -<div class="verse">Did he smile his work to see?</div> -<div class="verse">Did He who made the lamb make thee?</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">An evident, though probably unconscious, reminiscence of “When the -morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy,” -and like it for that extreme closeness to the inmost essence of things -which the author of the Book of Job enjoyed in virtue of the primitive -simplicity of his age and environment, and Blake through a childlike -temperament little short of preternatural in an age like ours. It may -be added, that although the pieces in <i>Songs of Innocence</i> and -<i>Songs of Experience</i> are of very unequal degrees of poetical merit, none -want the infallible mark of inspired poetry—spontaneous, inimitable -melody.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> - -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> - -<img src="images/illus-p26.jpg" width="500" height="615" alt="" /> - -<p class="caption"><i>Page of Young’s “Night Thoughts.” Illustrated by W. Blake.</i></p> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span></p> - -<p>Both the simplicity and the melody, however, are absent from the -remarkable works with which Blake had been occupying himself during -the interval between the publication of the two series of his songs, -which, with their successors, have given him a peculiar and unique -reputation in their own weird way, but could not by themselves have -given him the reputation of a poet. Blake’s plain prose, as we shall see, -is much more effective. In a strictly artistic point of view, nevertheless, -these compositions reveal higher capacities than would have been inferred -from the idyllic beauty of the pictorial accompaniments of <i>Songs of -Innocence and Experience</i>. Before discussing these it will be convenient -to relate the chief circumstances of Blake’s life during the period of -their production, and up to the remarkable episode of his migration -to Felpham. They were not memorable or striking, but one of them -had considerable influence upon his development. In 1791 he was -employed by Johnson, the Liberal publisher of St. Paul’s Churchyard, -and as such a minor light of his time, to illustrate Mary Wollstonecraft’s -<i>Tales for Children</i> with six plates, both designed and engraved by him, -one of which accompanies this essay. They are much in the manner of -Stothard. This commission brought Blake as a guest to Johnson’s -house, where he became acquainted with a republican coterie—Mary -Wollstonecraft, Godwin, Paine, Holcroft, Fuseli—with whose political -opinions he harmonised well, though totally dissimilar in temperament -from all of them, except Fuseli, who gave him several tokens of -interest and friendship. These acquaintanceships, and the excitement -of the times, led Blake to indite, and, which is more extraordinary, -Johnson to publish, the first of an intended series of seven poetical -books on the French Revolution. This, Gilchrist tells us, was a thin -quarto, without illustrations, published without Blake’s name, and priced -at a shilling. Gilchrist probably derived this information from a -catalogue, for he carefully avoids claiming to have seen the book, which -seems to have also escaped the researches of all Blake’s other biographers. -It must be feared that it is entirely lost. Gilchrist must, however, have -known something more of it if his assertion that the other six books<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> -were actually written but not printed, “events taking a different turn -from the anticipated one,” is based upon anything besides conjecture.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> - -<img src="images/illus-p28a.jpg" width="500" height="275" alt="" /> - -<p class="caption"><i>9</i> I want! I want! <i>10</i> Help! Help!</p> - -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> - -<img src="images/illus-p28b.jpg" width="500" height="275" alt="" /> - -<p class="caption"><i>11</i> Aged Ignorance. <i>15</i> Death’s Door.</p> - -</div> - -<p>In 1793 Blake removed from Poland Street to Hercules Buildings, -Lambeth, then a row of suburban cottages with little gardens. Here he -engraved his friend Flaxman’s designs for the <i>Odyssey</i>, to replace plates -engraved by Piroli and lost in the voyage from Italy, whence Flaxman<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> -had returned after seven years’ absence. In 1795 he designed three -illustrations for Stanley’s translation of Burger’s “Lenore,” and in 1796 -executed a much more important work, 537 drawings for an edition -of Young’s <i>Night Thoughts</i> projected by a publisher named Edwards. -Forty-three were engraved and published in 1797, but the undertaking -was carried no further for want of encouragement, and the designs, -after remaining long in the publisher’s family, eventually came into the -hands of Mr. Bain of the Haymarket, who is still the possessor. -The most important are described by Mr. Frederic Shields in the -appendix to the second volume of Gilchrist’s biography. Mr. Shields’ -descriptions are so fascinating<a name="FNanchor_3" id="FNanchor_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> that from them alone one would be -inclined to rate the drawings very high: but Mr. Gilchrist thinks these -ill adapted for the special purpose of book illustration which they -were destined to subserve, and reminds us that the absence of colour is -a grave loss. Blake is said to have been paid only a guinea a plate -for the forty-three engravings, on which he worked for a year. The -Lambeth period, however, seems not to have been an unprosperous one, -for he had many pupils. Several curious anecdotes of it were related -after his death on the alleged authority of Mrs. Blake, but their -truth seems doubtful. It is certain that during this period he met -with the most constant of his patrons, Mr. Thomas Butts, who for -nearly thirty years continued a steady buyer of his drawings, and but -for whom he would probably have fallen into absolute distress.</p> - -<p>It is now time to speak of the literary works—“pictured poesy,” like -the woven poesy of <i>The Witch of Atlas</i>—produced during this period. -In 1789, the year of publication of the <i>Songs of Innocence</i>, the series -opens with <i>Thel</i>. In 1790 comes <i>The Marriage of Heaven and Hell</i>; in -1793, <i>The Gates of Paradise</i>, <i>The Vision of the Daughters of Albion</i>, and -<i>America</i>; in 1794, <i>Europe</i>, <i>A Prophecy</i>, and <i>Urizen</i>; in 1795, <i>The Song -of Los</i>, and <i>The Book of Ahaniah</i>. In 1797 Blake seems to have written, -or to have begun to write, the mystical poem ultimately entitled <i>Vala</i>, -never published by him, and more than fifty years after his death found -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>in Linnell’s possession in such a state of confusion that it took Messrs. -Ellis and Yeats days to arrange the MS., which they fondly deem to be -now in proper order. It is printed in the third volume of their work on -Blake. <i>Tiriel</i> is undated, but would seem to be nearly contemporary -with <i>Thel</i>.</p> - -<p><i>The Gates of Paradise</i> constitutes an exception to the general spirit -of the works of this period, the accompanying text, though mystical -enough, being lyrical and not epical. The seventeen beautiful designs, -emblematical of the incidents necessarily associated with human nature, -are well described by Allan Cunningham as “a sort of devout dream, -equally wild and lovely.”</p> - -<p>The merits of this remarkable series of works will always be a matter -of controversy. “Whether,” as Blake himself says, “whether this is -Jerusalem or Babylon, we know not.” It must be so, for they are purely -subjective, there is no objective criterion; they admit of comparison with -nothing, and can be tested by no recognised rules. In the whole compass -of human creation there is perhaps hardly anything so distinctively an -emanation of the mind that gave it birth. Visions they undoubtedly are, -and, as Messrs. Ellis and Yeats well say, they are manifestly not the -production of a pretender to visionary powers. Whatever Blake has here -put down, pictorially or poetically, is evidently a record of something -actually discerned by the inner eye. This, however, leaves the question -of their value still open. To the pictorial part, indeed, almost all are -agreed in attaching a certain value, though the warmth of appreciation is -widely graduated. But literary estimation is not only discrepant but -hostile; some deem them revelation, others rhapsody. The one thing -certain is the general tendency towards Pantheism which Mr. Swinburne -has made the theme of an elaborate essay. To us they seem an exemplification -of the truth that no man can serve two masters. Blake had -great gifts, both as poet and artist, and he aspired not only to employ -both, but to combine both in the same work. At first this was practicable, -but soon the artistic faculty grew while the poetical dwindled. Not -only did the visible speech of painting become more important to him -than the viewless accents of verse, but his poetry became infected with -the artistic method. He allowed a latitude to his language which he -ought to have reserved for his form and colour, and became as hieroglyphic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> -in a speech where hieroglyphs are illegitimate as in one where they are -permissible. This is proved by the fact that the decline in the purity of -poetical form and in the perspicuity of poetical language proceed <i>pari -passu</i>. <i>Thel</i>, the earliest, is also both the most luminous and the most -musical of these pieces. Could Blake have schooled himself to have -written such blank verse as he had already produced in <i>Edward the Third</i> -and <i>Samson</i>, <i>Thel</i> would have been a very fine poem. Even as it is its -lax, rambling semi-prose is full of delicate modulations:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">The daughters of the Seraphim led round their sunny flocks,</div> -<div class="verse">All but the youngest; she in paleness sought the secret air</div> -<div class="verse">To fade away like morning beauty from her mortal day.</div> -<div class="verse">Down by the river of Adera her soft voice is heard,</div> -<div class="verse">And thus her gentle lamentation falls like morning dew.</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>In every succeeding production, however, there is less of metrical -beauty, and thought and expression grow continually more and more -amorphous. Blake may not improbably have been influenced by Ossian, -whose supposed poems were popular in his day, and from whom some of -his proper names, such as Usthona, seem to have been adopted. Many -then deemed that Ossian had demonstrated form to be a mere accident of -poetry instead of, as in truth it is, an indissoluble portion of its essence. -There is certainly a strong family resemblance between Blake’s shadowy -conceptions and Ossian’s misty sublimities. On the other hand, he -may be credited with having made a distinguished disciple in Walt -Whitman, who would not, we think, have written as he did if Blake -had never existed. What was pardonable in one so utterly devoid -of the sentiment of beautiful form as Whitman, was less so in one so -exquisitely gifted as Blake. Both derive some advantages from their -laxity, especially the poet of Democracy, but both suffer from the inability -of poetry, divorced from metrical form, to take a serious hold upon the -memory. One reads and admires, and by and by the sensation is of the -passage of a great procession of horsemen and footmen and banners, but -no distinct impression of a single countenance.</p> - -<p>The general effect of these strange works upon the average mind -is correctly expressed by Gilchrist, when he says, speaking of <i>Europe</i>:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> “It -is hard to trace out any distinct subject, any plan or purpose, or to determine -whether it mainly relates to the past, the present, or things to come. -And yet its incoherence has a grandeur about it as of the utterance of a -man whose eyes are fixed on strange and awful sights, invisible to bystanders.” -What, then, did Blake suppose himself to behold? Messrs. -Ellis and Yeats have devoted an entire volume of their three-volume -work on Blake to the exposition of his visions. Their comment is often -highly suggestive, but it is seldom convincing. When the right interpretation -of a symbol has been found, it is usually self-evident. -Not so with their explanations, which appear neither demonstrably -wrong nor demonstrably right. Not that Blake talked aimless -nonsense; we are conscious of a general drift of thought in some -particular direction which seems to us to offer a general affinity -to the thought of the ancient Gnostics. It would be interesting -if some competent person would endeavour to determine whether the -resemblance goes any deeper than externals. Blake certainly knew -nothing of the Gnostics at first hand, nor is it probable that he could -have gained any knowledge of them from the mystical writers he did -study, Behmen and Swedenborg. But similar tendencies will frequently -incarnate themselves in individuals at widely remote periods of the world’s -history without evidence of direct filiation. Even so exceptional a -personage as Blake cannot be considered apart from his age, and his age, -among its other aspects, was one of mesmerism and illuminism. The -superficial resemblance of his writings to those of the Gnostics is certainly -remarkable. Both embody their imaginations in concrete forms; both -construct elaborate cosmogonies and obscure myths; both create hierarchies -of principalities and powers, and equip their spiritual potentates with -sonorous appellations; both disparage matter and its Demiurgus. “I -fear,” said Blake to Robinson, “that Wordsworth loves nature, and -nature is the work of the devil. The devil is in us as far as we are -nature.” The chief visible difference, that the Gnostics’ philosophy -tends to asceticism, and Blake’s to enjoyment, may perhaps be explained -by the consideration that he was a poet, and that they were philosophers -and divines. Perhaps the best preparation for any student of Blake who -might wish to investigate this subject further would be to read the article -in the <i>Dictionary of Christian Biography</i> upon the <i>Pistis Sophia</i>, the only -Gnostic book that has come down to us, and one which Blake would have -delighted in illustrating. The Gnostic belief in the all-importance of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> -transcendent knowledge which comes of immediate perception (γνῶσις) -reappears in him with singular intensity. “Men are admitted into -heaven,” he says, “not because they have curbed and governed their -passions, or have no passions, but because they have cultivated their -understandings. The fool shall not enter into heaven, let him be ever so -holy.” Nothing in Blake, perhaps, is so Gnostic as the strange poem, <i>The -Everlasting Gospel</i>, first published by Mr. Rossetti, though many things -in it would have shocked the Gnostics.</p> - -<div class="plate-container" style="width: 220px;" id="plate4"> - -<div class="plate-web"> - -<a href="images/plate4.jpg"><img src="images/plate4-small.jpg" width="200" height="275" alt="" /></a> - -</div> - -<div class="plate-ereader"> - -<img src="images/plate4-ereader.jpg" width="473" height="650" alt="" /> - -</div> - -<p class="caption">TITLE PAGE FROM THE BOOK OF THEL.</p> - -</div> - -<p>The strictly literary criticism of Blake’s mystical books may be almost -confined to the <i>Book of Thel</i>, for this alone possesses sufficient symmetry -to allow a judgment to be formed upon it as a whole. The others are -like quagmires occasionally gay with brilliant flowers; but <i>Thel</i>, though -its purpose may be obscure, is at all events coherent, with a beginning -and an end. Thel, “youngest daughter of the Seraphim,” roves through -the lower world lamenting the mortality of beautiful things, including -her own. All things with which she discourses offer her consolation, -but to no purpose. At last she enters the realm of Death himself.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">The eternal gates’ terrific porter lifted the northern bar;</div> -<div class="verse">Thel entered in and saw the secrets of the land unknown.</div> -<div class="verse">She saw the couches of the dead, and where the fibrous root</div> -<div class="verse">Of every heart on earth infixes deep its restless twists:</div> -<div class="verse">A land of sorrows and of tears, where never a smile was seen.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">She wandered in the land of clouds, through valleys dark listening</div> -<div class="verse">Dolours and lamentations; waiting oft beside a dewy grave</div> -<div class="verse">She stood in silence, listening to the voices of the ground,</div> -<div class="verse">Till to her own grave-plot she came, and there she sat down,</div> -<div class="verse">And heard this voice of sorrow breathed from the hollow pit.</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>The effect of the voice of sorrow upon Thel is answerable to that of -the spider upon little Miss Muffet. This abrupt conclusion injures the -effect of a piece which otherwise may be compared to a strain of soothing -music, suggestive of many things, but giving definite expression to none. -Messrs. Ellis and Yeats, however, have no difficulty in assigning a -meaning. Thel, according to them, is “the pure spiritual essence,” her -grief is the dread of incarnation, and her ultimate flight is a return “to -the land of pure unembodied innocence from whence she came.” Yet her -forsaking this land is represented as her own act, and it is difficult to see<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> -how she could have “led round her sunny flocks” in it if she had not -been embodied while she inhabited it. At the same time, if Messrs. -Ellis and Yeats are right, no interpretation of Blake can be disproved -by any inconsistency that it may seem to involve. “The surface,” -they say, “is perpetually, as it were, giving way before one, and revealing -another surface below it, and that again dissolves when we try to -study it. The making of religions melts into the making of the earth, -and that fades away into some allegory of the rising and the setting of -the sun. It is all like a great cloud full of stars and shapes, through -which the eye seeks a boundary in vain.”</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> - -<img src="images/illus-p34.jpg" width="500" height="520" alt="" /> - -<p class="caption"><i>Design from the “Book of Urizen.” By W. Blake.</i></p> - -</div> - -<p>Mr. Yeats, putting his interpretation of Blake’s symbolism more -tersely into the preface to his excellent edition of the Poetical Works, -describes it as shadowing forth the endless conflict between the Imagination<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> -and the Reason, which, we may add, the Gnostics would have -expressed as the strife between the Supreme Deity and the god of this -world, the very phrase which Mr. Yeats himself uses in describing -Urizen, Blake’s Evil Genius, “the maker of dead law and blind negation,” -contrasted as the Gnostics would have contrasted him with Los, -the deity of the living world. Blake, therefore, has points of contact -with the representatives of the French Revolution on one side, and with -Coleridge on the other. Mr. Yeats’s interpretation is in itself coherent -and plausible, but the question whether it can be fairly deduced from -Blake himself is one on which few are entitled to pronounce, and the causes -of Blake’s obscurity are not so visible as its consequences. To us, as -already said, much of it appears to arise from his imperfect discrimination -between the provinces of speech and of painting. His discourse frequently -seems a hieroglyphic which would have been more intelligible if it could -have been expressed in the manner proper to hieroglyphics by pictorial representation. -As Mr. Smetham says of some of the designs, “Thought -cannot fathom the secret of their power, and yet the power is there.” It -seems evident that the poem, when a complete lyric, generally preceded the -picture in Blake’s mind, and that the latter must usually be taken as a -gloss, in which he seeks to illustrate by means of visible representation -what he was conscious of having left obscure by verbal expression. The -exquisite song of the Sunflower, for example, certainly existed before the -very slight accompanying illustration.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Ah Sunflower, weary of time,</div> -<div class="verse">Who counted the steps of the sun,</div> -<div class="verse">Seeking after that sweet golden clime</div> -<div class="verse">Where the traveller’s journey is done.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Where the youth, pined away with desire,</div> -<div class="verse">And the pale virgin shrouded in snow,</div> -<div class="verse">Arise from their graves and aspire</div> -<div class="verse">Where my sunflower wishes to go.</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>The first of these stanzas is perfectly clear: the second requires no -interpretation to a poetical mind, but will not bear construing strictly, -and its comprehension is certainly assisted by the slight fugitive design -lightly traced around the border. Generally the pictorial illustration of -Blake’s thought is much more elaborate, but in <i>Songs of Innocence and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> -Experience</i> it almost always seems to have grown out of the poem. In the -less inspired <i>Prophetical Books</i>, on the other hand, the pictorial representation, -even when present only to the artist’s mind, seems to have -frequently suggested or modified the text. An example may be adduced -from <i>The Book of Thel</i>.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">Why an ear, a whirlpool fierce to draw creations in?</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>Blake had noted the external likeness of the convolutions of the ear -to the convolutions of a whirlpool; therefore the ear shall be described -as actually being what it superficially resembles, and because the whirlpool -sucks in ships, the ear shall suck in creations. It must also be -remembered that Blake’s belief that his works were given him by -inspiration prevented his revising them, and that they were stereotyped -by the method of their publication. No considerable productions of the -human mind, it is probable, so nearly approach the character of -absolutely extemporaneous utterances.</p> - -<p>Before passing from the literary to the artistic expression of Blake’s -genius in these books, something must be said of the remarkable -appendix to <i>The Marriage of Heaven and Hell</i> entitled <i>Proverbs of Hell</i>. -These are a number of aphoristic sayings, impregnated with Blake’s -peculiarities of thought and expression, but for the most part so shrewd -and pithy as to demonstrate the author’s sanity, at least at this time of -his life. The following are some of the more striking:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">Drive your cart and your plough over the bones of the dead.</div> -<div class="verse">The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.</div> -<div class="verse">A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.</div> -<div class="verse">All wholesome food is caught without a net or a trap.</div> -<div class="verse">If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.</div> -<div class="verse">The fox condemns the trap, not himself.</div> -<div class="verse">The eagle never lost so much time as when he submitted to learn of the crow.</div> -<div class="verse">The fox provides for himself, but God provides for the lion.</div> -<div class="verse">He who has suffered you to impose on him, knows you.</div> -<div class="verse">The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.</div> -<div class="verse">One law for the lion and ox is oppression.</div> -<div class="verse">The best wine is the oldest, the best water the newest.</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>These are not the scintillations of reason which may occasionally -illumine the chaos of a madman’s brain, but bespeak a core of good<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> -sense quite inconsistent with general mental disturbance, though -sufficiently compatible with delusion on particular subjects. With -incomparable art, Shakespeare has imparted a touch of wildness to -Hamlet’s shrewdest sayings; but Blake speaks rather as Polonius would -have spoken if it had been possible for Polonius to speak in tropes.</p> - -<div class="plate-container" style="width: 220px;" id="plate5"> - -<div class="plate-web"> - -<a href="images/plate5.jpg"><img src="images/plate5-small.jpg" width="200" height="255" alt="" /></a> - -</div> - -<div class="plate-ereader"> - -<img src="images/plate5-ereader.jpg" width="510" height="650" alt="" /> - -</div> - -<p class="caption">FINAL PAGE FROM THE BOOK OF THEL.</p> - -</div> - -<p>From the difficult subject of the interpretation of Blake’s mystical -designs we pass with satisfaction to the artistic qualities of the designs -themselves. On this point there is an approximation to unanimity. To -some the sublime, to others the grotesque, may seem to preponderate, -but all will allow them to be among the most remarkable and original -series of conceptions that ever emanated from a mortal brain. To whatever -exceptions they may be liable, it enlarges one’s apprehension of the -compass of human faculties to know that human faculties have been -adequate to their production. They may be ranked with the most -imaginative passages of <i>Paradise Lost</i>, and of Byron’s <i>Cain</i> as an -endeavour of the mind to project itself beyond the visible and tangible, -and to create for itself new worlds of grandeur and of gloom in -height and abyss and interstellar space. Wonderful indeed is the range -of imagination displayed, even though we cannot shut our eyes to some -palpable repetitions. In the opinion, however, of even so sympathetic -a critic as Dr. Wilkinson, Blake deserves censure for having degenerated -into mere monstrosity. “Of the worst aspect of Blake’s genius,” he -says, “it is painful to speak. In his <i>Prophecies of America</i>, his <i>Visions -of the Daughters of Albion</i>, and a host of unpublished drawings, earth-born -might has banished the heavenlier elements of art, and exists -combined with all that is monstrous and diabolical. The effect of these -delineations is greatly heightened by the antiquity which is engraven -on the faces of those who do and suffer in them. We have the -impression that we are looking down into the hells of the ancient -people, the Anakim, the Nephilim, and the Rephaim. Their human -forms are gigantic petrifactions, from which the fires of lust and -intense selfish passion have long dissipated what was animal and vital, -leaving stony limbs and countenances expressive of despair and stupid -cruelty.” We, on the other hand, should rather criticise Blake for -having failed to be as appalling as he meant to be. His power, as it -seems to us, consisted rather in the vivid imagination than in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> -actual rendering of scenes of awe and horror. Far inferior artists have -produced more thrilling effects of this sort with much simpler means. -It would be wrong to say that his visions appear unreal, but they do -appear at a remove from reality, a world seen through a glass darkly, -its phantasm rather than its portrait. This, however, only applies to the -inventions of Blake’s own brain, which, if we may judge by the moderate -development of the back head in Deville’s cast, lacked the force of the -animal propensities requisite for the portrayal of cruelty and horror. -He could render the conceptions of others with startling force—witness -the impressive delineation reproduced by us of the Architect of the -Universe at work with his compasses; and the simple pencil outline of -Nebuchadnezzar in Mr. Rossetti’s book, engraved by Gilchrist, where -the human quadruped creeps away with an expression of overwhelming -and horror-stricken dismay. This power of interpretation was to find -yet finer expression in the illustration of the Book of Job.</p> - -<p>Blake’s technical defects are indicated by Messrs. Ellis and Yeats as -consisting mainly in imperfect treatment of the human form from want -of anatomical knowledge. He had always disliked that close study -of the life which alone could have made him an able draughtsman; -it “obliterated” him, he said, and had resolved to quarrel with almost -all the artists from whom he might have learned. It must be remembered -in his excuse that consummate colouring and consummate -draughtsmanship are seldom found associated. Those who may feel -disappointed with the reproductions of Blake’s mystical designs must also -remember that these are but shadows of the artist’s thought, which -needed for its full effect the application of colour by his own hand. -“Much,” says Dante Rossetti, “which seems unaccountably rugged and -incomplete is softened by the sweet, liquid, rainbow tints of the coloured -copies into mysterious brilliancy.” The effect thus obtained may perhaps -be best shown by Mr. Gilchrist’s eloquent description of the illuminated -drawings in Lord Crewe’s copy of <i>America</i>. “Turning over the leaves, -it is sometimes like an increase of daylight in the retina, so fair and -open is the effect of particular pages. The skies of sapphire, or gold, -rayed with hues of sunset, against which stand out leaf or blossom, -or pendent branch, gay with bright-plumaged birds; the strips of -emerald sward below, gemmed with flower and lizard, and enamelled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> -snake, refresh the eye continually. Some of the illustrations are of a -more sombre kind. There is one in which a little corpse, white as snow, -lies gleaming on the floor of a green over-arching cave, which close -inspection proves to be a field of wheat, whose slender interlacing stalks, -bowed by the full ear and by a gentle breeze, bend over the dead infant. -The delicate network of stalks, which is carried up one side of the page, -the main picture being at the bottom, and the subdued yet vivid green -light shed over the whole, produce a lovely decorative effect. Decorative -effect is, in fact, never lost sight of, even where the motive of the design -is ghastly or terrible.” Whatever the imperfections of Blake’s peculiar -sphere, it <i>was</i> his sphere, and probably the only department of art in which -he could have obtained greatness even if his technical accomplishment -had been as complete as it was the reverse. When painting on more -orthodox lines he is often surprisingly tame and conventional. How -remote he was from the inane when he could revel in his own conceptions -may, notwithstanding the tremendous disadvantages inherent in reproduction, -be judged from the illustrations to his mystical books selected -for this monograph, the frontispiece and Plate IV. of <i>Thel</i>, and the two -subjects from <i>America</i>.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span></p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 425px;"> - -<img src="images/illus-p39.jpg" width="425" height="650" alt="" /> - -<p class="caption"><i>The Ancient of Days setting a Compass to the Earth. From a water-colour drawing by -W. Blake. British Museum.</i></p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER III</h2> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p><i>Blake’s removal to Felpham—Intercourse with Hayley—Return to London—“Jerusalem”—Connection -with Cromek—Illustrations of Blair’s “Grave”—Illustration of Chaucer’s -“Canterbury Pilgrims”—Exhibition of his Works and “Descriptive Catalogue.”</i></p> - -</div> - -<p>Blake was now about to make a change in his external environment, -which would have been momentous to any artist whose themes had been -less exclusively discerned by the inner eye. It is an extraordinary fact, -but there is absolutely no evidence that the poet who “made a rural pen” -had as yet ever seen the country beyond the immediate neighbourhood -of London. It is vain to speculate upon the precise modification which -might have been wrought in his genius by rural nurture or foreign -travel. Now he was actually to become a denizen of the country for -some years. An introduction from Flaxman had made him acquainted -with William Hayley, a Sussex squire and scholar, now chiefly remembered -as his patron and the biographer of Cowper, but esteemed in his -own day as one of the best representatives of English poetry at what -seemed the period of its deepest decrepitude, though he is unaccountably -omitted in Porson’s catalogue of the bards of the epoch.<a name="FNanchor_4" id="FNanchor_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> Hayley, having -lost his son, a pupil of Flaxman, and his friend Cowper within a week of -each other in the spring of 1800, resolved to solace his grief by writing -Cowper’s life, and suggested that Blake should live near him during the -progress of the work to execute the engravings by which it was to -be illustrated. In August, 1800, Blake removed from Lambeth to -Felpham, near Bognor, on the Sussex coast, where Hayley occupied a -marine villa, his own residence at Eastham being let on account of -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>the embarrassment of his affairs. The cottage was not provided by him -for Blake, but the rent was paid by Blake himself. The change from -Lambeth to a beautiful country of groves, meadows, and cornfields, -with sails in the distance,</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">Half lost in the liquid azure bloom of a crescent of sea,</div> -<div class="verse">The shining sapphire-spangled marriage ring of the land,</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">affected Blake with enthusiastic delight. “Felpham,” he wrote to -Flaxman, “is a sweet place for study, because it is more spiritual than -London. Heaven opens here on all sides her golden gates; her windows -are not obstructed by vapours; voices of celestial inhabitants are more -distinctly heard, and their forms more distinctly seen, and my cottage is -also a shadow of their houses.” He continues: “I am more famed -in Heaven for my works than I could well conceive. In my brain are -studies and chambers with books and pictures of old, which I wrote -and painted in ages of eternity before my mortal life; and those works -are the delight and study of archangels. Why then should I be -anxious about the riches or fame of mortality?” It is clear that, -notwithstanding his theories of the deadness of the material creation, -Blake valued natural beauty as an instrument for bringing him into -more intimate connection with the visionary world. At first the -desired effect was fully produced. Blake began to compose, or rather, -according to his own account, to take down from supernatural -dictation the <i>Jerusalem</i>, the most important in some respects of his -mystical writings. Walking by the shore—the very shore where Cary was -afterwards to encounter Coleridge—he habitually met Moses and the -Prophets, Homer, Dante, and Milton. “All,” he said, “majestic -shadows, gray but luminous, and superior to the common height.” -A description so fine, that some may be inclined to deem it something -more than a mere fancy. Unfortunately he also fell in with a fairies’ -funeral, a stumbling-block to the most resolute faith. By and by, however, -the dampness of the cottage proved provocative of rheumatism, and, -which was much more disastrous, the mental climate proved unsympathetic. -Hayley’s patronage of so strange a creature as he must have -thought Blake does him the highest honour. He appears throughout, -not only as a very kind man, but, what is less usual in a literary personage,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> -a very patient one. He actually instructed Blake in Greek. His -kindness and patience did not, however, render him any the better poet; -he was an elegant <i>dilettante</i> at the best, and Blake must have chafed -at the obligation under which he felt himself to illustrate his verses. One -ballad of some merit, however, “Little Tom the Sailor,” inspired Blake -with a striking if somewhat rude design, and he adorned Hayley’s library -with ideal portraits of illustrious authors. The engraving work which he -had to execute for Hayley’s life of Cowper was also little to his taste, -but there seems no valid reason to charge him with neglect of it. His -own self-reproach, indeed, ran in quite a different channel: he accused -himself most seriously of unfaithfulness to his high vocation as a -revealer and interpreter of spiritual things. Absence from town -led him to write frequently to his friend and patron Butts, and these -letters are invaluable indications not only of the frame of his mind at the -time, but of its general habit. “I labour,” he says, “incessantly, I -accomplish not one-half of what I intend, because my abstract folly -hurries me often away while I am at work, carrying me over mountains -and valleys, which are not real, into a land of abstraction where spectres -of the dead wander. This I endeavour to prevent; I, with my whole -might, chain my feet to the world of duty and reality. But in vain! the -faster I bind, the lighter is the ballast; for I, so far from being bound -down, take the world with me in my flights, and often it seems lighter -than a ball of wool rolled by the wind.… If we fear to do -the dictates of our angels, and tremble at the tasks set before us, if -we refuse to do spiritual acts because of natural fears or natural desires, -who can describe the dismal torments of such a state?… Though -I have been very unhappy, I am so no longer. I have travelled through -perils and darkness not unlike a champion. I have conquered and shall -go on conquering. Nothing can withstand the fury of my course among -the stars of God and in the abysses of the accuser.” In plain English -Hayley strongly advised Blake to give up his mystical poetry and design -and devote himself solely to engraving, and Blake looked upon the -advice as a suggestion of the adversary. We do not know what Hayley -said. If he thought that one of the <i>Poetical Sketches</i> or the <i>Songs of -Innocence</i> was worth many pages of <i>Urizen</i> apart from the illustrations,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> -he had reason for what he thought. But Blake’s lyrical gift had all -but forsaken him; he was incapable of emitting “wood-notes wild,” and -the only way in which he could give literary expression to the inspiration -by which he justly deemed himself visited was through his rhythmical -form, which to Hayley may well have seemed monstrous. It is highly -probable that the pictorial part of Blake’s work found no more favour -with Hayley than the poetical; at all events it is very certain that -he greatly preferred his engraving, and wished Blake to follow the -art by which he had the best prospect of providing for himself. Johnson -and Fuseli, by Blake’s own admission, had given the same advice; and an -obscure line in one of his rather undignified and splenetic epigrams -against his well-intentioned friend may be interpreted as meaning that -Hayley had tried to bring his wife’s influence to bear upon him for -this end. In any case he lost temper with Hayley, and wrote to Butts -(July, 1803): “Mr. Hayley approves of my designs as little as he does -of my poems, and 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 pestered with -his genteel ignorance and polite disapprobation. I know myself both -poet and painter, and it is not his affected contempt that can move to -anything but a more assiduous pursuit of both arts.” Two months -afterwards he returned to London, but on better terms with Hayley; -partly on account of the latter’s generous conduct in providing for his -defence against a charge of using seditious language, trumped up against -him by a soldier whom he had turned out of his garden. “Perhaps,” -he wrote to Butts, “this was suffered to give opportunity to those whom -I doubted to clear themselves of all imputation.” The case was tried -in January, 1804, and terminated in Blake’s triumphant acquittal. An -old man who had attended the trial as a youth said that he remembered -nothing of it except Blake’s flashing eye.</p> - -<div class="plate-container" style="width: 220px;" id="plate6"> - -<div class="plate-web"> - -<a href="images/plate6.jpg"><img src="images/plate6-small.jpg" width="200" height="280" alt="" /></a> - -</div> - -<div class="plate-ereader"> - -<img src="images/plate6-ereader.jpg" width="464" height="650" alt="" /> - -</div> - -<p class="caption"><i>From Blake’s “America.”</i></p> - -</div> - -<p>The engravings executed by Blake for Hayley during his residence -at Felpham were six for the life and letters of Cowper; four original -designs for ballads by Hayley, including “Poor Tom,” and six engravings -after Maria T. Flaxman for Hayley’s <i>Triumphs of Temper</i>. He did -some work for Hayley after his return to town—engravings for the <i>Life -of Romney</i>, and original designs for Hayley’s <i>Ballads on Animals</i>—and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> -corresponded with him in a friendly spirit, but the intimacy gradually -died away.</p> - -<p>Blake was profoundly influenced by his residence at Felpham in one -respect; he became acquainted with opposition, and distinctly realised a -power antagonistic to his aspirations. He was thus stung into self-assertion, -and became hostile to the artists whose aims and methods he -was unable to reconcile with his ideas. The first hints of this attitude -appear in the praises he bestows upon the work of his own which chiefly -occupied him at Felpham, the <i>Jerusalem</i>. “I may praise it,” he says, -“since I dare not pretend to be any other than the secretary; the authors -are in eternity. I consider it as the grandest poem that this world contains. -Allegory addressed to the intellectual powers, while it is altogether -hidden from the corporeal understanding, is my definition of the most -sublime poetry.” Blake’s allegory so effectually eludes both the reason -and the understanding that Messrs. Ellis and Yeats frankly tell us that -it is not for a moment to be supposed that their own elaborate interpretation -will convey any idea to the mind unless it is read conjointly with -the poem; and if such is the commentary what must the text be? If -they are right the confusion is greatly increased by a wrong arrangement, -and by the numerous interpolations which Blake subsequently introduced -into the poem, which, though nominally issued in 1804, was not, they -think, actually completed until about 1820. It suffers from being -nearer prose than any of his former books. “When this verse was dictated -to me,” he says, “I considered a monotonous cadence, like that -used by Milton, Shakespeare, and all writers of English blank verse, -derived from the modern bondage of rhyming, to be a necessary and -indispensable part of the verse. But I soon found that in the mouth of -a true orator such monotony was not only awkward, but as much a -bondage as rhyme itself.” What can be said of the ears that could find -Shakespeare’s and Milton’s blank verse monotonous? The truth is that -Blake’s originally exquisite perception of harmony had waned with his -lyrical faculty, and he scoffs at what he is no longer able to produce. Yet -the general grandiose effect of <i>Jerusalem</i> is undeniable. Little as we can -attach any definite idea to it, it simultaneously awes and soothes like one -of the great inarticulate voices of nature, the booming of the billows, or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> -the whisper of the winds in the wood. Occasionally we encounter some -beautiful little vignette like this:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">She creates at her will a little moving night and silence,</div> -<div class="verse">With spaces of sweet gardens and a tent of elegant beauty,</div> -<div class="verse">Closed in by sandy deserts, and a night of stars shining;</div> -<div class="verse">A little tender moon, and hovering angels on the wing,</div> -<div class="verse">And the male gives a time and revolution to her space</div> -<div class="verse">Till the time of love is passed in ever-varying delights:</div> -<div class="verse">For all things exist in the human imagination.</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>This seems an illustration of what we have said of the dependence of -Blake’s poetry upon his pictorial imagination, for it is clearly nothing but -a magnificent expansion of the midsummer night idyl of the glowworm -shining for her mate, “with her little drop of moonlight,” as Beddoes -beautifully says.</p> - -<p>In artistic merit <i>Jerusalem</i> is fully equal to any of Blake’s works. -There is less of the grotesque than in the others, and even more of the -impressive. Much, however, depends upon the colouring, which varies -greatly in different copies. Mr. Gilchrist warns us that it cannot be -judged aright if we have not seen the “incomparable” copy in the -possession of Lord Crewe. “It is printed in a warm reddish-brown, -the exact colour of a very fine photograph; and the broken blending of -the deeper lines with the more tender shadows—all sanded over with a -sort of golden mist peculiar to Blake’s mode of execution—makes still -more striking the resemblance to the then undiscovered handling of -Nature herself.” The general character of the design is excellently -described by Gilchrist. “The subjects are vague and mystic as the poem -itself. Female figures lie among waves full of reflected stars: a strange -human image, with a swan’s head and wings, floats on water in a kneeling -attitude and drinks; lovers embrace in an open water-lily; an eagle-headed -creature sits and contemplates the sun; serpent-women are coiled -with serpents; Assyrian-looking, human-visaged bulls are seen yoked to -the plough or the chariot; rocks swallow or vomit forth human forms, -or appear to amalgamate with them; angels cross each other over wheels -of flame; and flames and hurrying figures wreathe and wind among the -lines.” It may indeed, like Blake’s other productions of the kind, be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> -described as a gigantic arabesque, imbued with a passion and pathos not -elsewhere attempted in this branch of art.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 350px;"> - -<img src="images/illus-p47.jpg" width="350" height="525" alt="" /> - -<p class="caption"><i>Design from “Milton.” By W. Blake.</i></p> - -</div> - -<p>The subject of <i>Milton</i>, from which one of our illustrations is selected, -is, in Mr. Swinburne’s words, the incarnation and descent into earth and -hell of Milton, who represents redemption by inspiration. Something -similar, as we have seen, is the idea of Blake’s fine mystical book, <i>Thel</i>,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> -and the pilgrimage through a lower sphere is also found in the oldest -Assyrian poetry. The book, like <i>Jerusalem</i>, is dated 1804, but, like its -companion, must have been composed at Felpham. Nothing save actual -and present contact with country scenes could have inspired such a passage -as this, the crown of all Blake’s unrhymed poetry:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">Thou hearest the nightingale begin the song of spring:</div> -<div class="verse">The lark sitting upon his earthly bed, just as the sun</div> -<div class="verse">Appears, listens silent: then springing from the wavy corn-field loud</div> -<div class="verse">He leads the choir of day: trill, trill, trill, trill:</div> -<div class="verse">Mounting upon the wings of light into the great expanse;</div> -<div class="verse">Re-echoing against the lovely blue and shining heavenly shell:</div> -<div class="verse">His little throat labours with inspiration, every feather</div> -<div class="verse">On throat and breast and wings vibrates with the effluence divine:</div> -<div class="verse">All nature listens silent to him, and the awful sun</div> -<div class="verse">Stands still upon the mountain looking on this little bird</div> -<div class="verse">With eyes of soft humility, and wonder, love, and awe.</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>Such a passage shows how greatly Blake might have gained as a poet -had he been more intimate with external nature. Very splendid lines -might be quoted from “Milton,” such as “A cloudy heaven mingled -with stormy seas in loudest ruin,” but they are glowing light upon a black -core of obscurity. Mr. Housman’s judgment applies to it as to all the -works of its class. “They are the sign chiefly of a beautiful nature -wasted for lack of equipment in formulating disputatively what grew -out of his better work with all the thoughtlessness and glory of a -flower.”<a name="FNanchor_5" id="FNanchor_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p> - -<div class="plate-container" style="width: 220px;" id="plate7"> - -<div class="plate-web"> - -<a href="images/plate7.jpg"><img src="images/plate7-small.jpg" width="200" height="275" alt="" /></a> - -</div> - -<div class="plate-ereader"> - -<img src="images/plate7-ereader.jpg" width="473" height="650" alt="" /> - -</div> - -<p class="caption"><i>From Blake’s “America.”</i></p> - -</div> - -<p>Several lyrical poems printed in Blake’s works may be assigned to -this date. Some, such as “The Crystal Cabinet” and “The Mental -Traveller,” are extremely mystical; others, such as “Mary,” are of -simply human interest; others, such as “Auguries of Innocence,” seem -little remote from nonsense. “The Everlasting Gospel” expresses his -profoundest ideas with startling crudity. None are wholly unmelodious,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> -but the old bewitching melody has gone from all, unless from the lines -introductory to “Milton”:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">And did those feet in ancient time</div> -<div class="verse indent1">Walk upon England’s mountains green;</div> -<div class="verse">And was the holy Lamb of God</div> -<div class="verse indent1">On England’s pleasant pastures seen?</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">And did the countenance divine</div> -<div class="verse indent1">Shine forth upon our clouded hills?</div> -<div class="verse">And was Jerusalem builded here</div> -<div class="verse indent1">Among these dark Satanic mills?</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Bring me my bow of burning gold,</div> -<div class="verse indent1">Bring me my arrows of desire:</div> -<div class="verse">Bring me my spear: O clouds unfold!</div> -<div class="verse indent1">Bring me my chariot of fire!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">I will not cease from mental fight,</div> -<div class="verse indent1">Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,</div> -<div class="verse">Till we have built Jerusalem</div> -<div class="verse indent1">In England’s green and pleasant land.</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span></p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> - -<img src="images/illus-p50.jpg" width="500" height="650" alt="" /> - -<p class="caption"><i>Portrait of William Blake. From the engraving by L. Schiavonetti, after T. Phillips, R.A.</i></p> - -</div> - -<p>Blake, who had settled at 17, South Molton Street, Oxford Street, -was in the meantime dealing with a very different patron from Hayley, -Robert Cromek, a “stickit” engraver turned print-seller, who tricked if -he did not actually defraud him, but who is entitled to the credit of having -recognised his genius, and of having brought forward works of his more -adapted to attract public notice than anything he had yet done. These -were the twelve illustrations to Blair’s <i>Grave</i>, full of Blake’s peculiar -genius and at the same time intelligible to all. They had been executed -in 1804 and 1805. Cromek, who afterwards admitted that they were -worth sixty guineas, obtained them for twenty from the artist, who had -intended to publish them himself. It had been understood that Blake -should have engraved them, but Cromek, wisely from his own point of -view, but wrongfully as regarded Blake, intrusted the task to Schiavonetti. -As a frontispiece, they were accompanied by a portrait of Blake from a -drawing by Phillips, also engraved by Schiavonetti, which we have reproduced. -Thanks to Cromek’s judicious engineering, and the popularity -of the poem illustrated, the adventure proved a considerable success. “It -is the only volume with Blake’s name on the title-page,” says -Mr. Gilchrist, “which is not scarce.” The publication took place in 1808.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> -In the interval Cromek, calling upon Blake, had seen a pencil sketch -of a design for the procession of Chaucer’s Canterbury Pilgrims. -Failing to obtain a finished drawing from the artist, who resented his previous -treatment, he proposed the subject to Stothard, withholding as apart -from all questions of Stothard’s “frigid and exemplary” character would -be most natural for him to do, all mention of Blake’s drawing. Stothard -accepted the commission; his elaborate oil picture was exhibited in 1807 -with great success, but at the cost of a breach with Blake, who went so -far in his denunciation, not only of Cromek’s underhand dealing but of -the defects which he found in Stothard’s work, that when he afterwards -sought a reconciliation Stothard remained impervious. Determined to -vindicate his superiority, Blake completed, exhibited, and engraved his own -fresco. The exhibition, accompanied by a remarkable “descriptive -catalogue,” to which we shall return—was not the success it might have -been in the hands of the shrewd Cromek. The exhibition room was -watched by Blake’s brother James, whom Crabb Robinson asked whether -he should be allowed to come again free in consideration of having -bought four copies of the descriptive catalogue. “As long as you live,” -answered the overjoyed custodian. The success of the engraving was -proportionate to that of the exhibition; though it might have been -otherwise if the roughness of the original design had been smoothed down -by the deft Schiavonetti. “Blake’s production,” says Mr. Rossetti, “is -as unattractive as Stothard’s is facile; as hard and strong as Stothard’s is -limp; one face in Blake’s design means as much on the part of the artist, -and takes as much scrutiny and turning over of thought on the part of -the spectator, as all the pretty <i>fantoccini</i> and their sprightly little horses -in Stothard’s work.” The engraving of the <i>Pilgrimage</i> in Gilchrist’s -biography evinces the justice of this criticism; though Ellis and Yeats -rightly add that Blake has given all his personages the eyes of visionaries. -“A work of wonderful power and spirit, hard and dry, yet with grace,” -says Charles Lamb. The original fresco was purchased by Elijah’s raven, -the ever-ready Butts.</p> - -<p>We must now return to the illustrations to Blair’s <i>Grave</i>, which are -not only the most popular of Blake’s works, but among his greatest. -He showed in general more vigour in dealing with the conceptions of -another than with his own, the latter imbibing an element of fanciful -grace from the gentle spirit which produced them. Hence <i>The Soul<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> -Exploring the Recesses of the Grave</i>, reproduced from <i>Thel</i>, though one of -the most poetical of the designs, is one of the least powerful. His -rendering of Blair’s thoughts is marvellously direct and impressive, -whether the passion depicted be joy, as in <i>The Reunion of the Soul and -the Body</i> (given here), or horror, as in <i>The Death of the Strong Wicked -Man</i>, or an intermediate shade, as in <i>The Soul hovering over the Body</i>. -None of these and few of the series, once seen, will easily be forgotten. -The most famous, and deservedly so, is the marvellous one, a combination -of two designs in <i>America</i> and <i>The Gates of Paradise</i>, where the aged -man, impelled by a strong wind, totters towards the portal of the -sepulchre, on the summit of which sits the rejuvenated spirit, personified -by a strong youth, rejoicing in his deliverance, but dazzled by the as -yet unwonted light. In all these designs the element of seemly, yet -slightly formal and conventional grace which Blake had learned from -Stothard, is very conspicuous. The least successful, as seems to us, is -<i>The Last Judgment</i>, where Blake appears as a minor Michael Angelo, -but this work as engraved differs widely from his description of the -work as exhibited. It may well be believed that the modified version -was distinguished by great splendour of colouring.</p> - -<p>Other works of this period were two small frescoes exhibited at the -Academy in 1808, <i>Christ in the Sepulchre</i> and <i>Jacob’s Dream</i>; the -“ornamental device” engraved (by Cromek) along with the frontispiece -to Malkin’s <i>Father’s Memoirs of his Child</i>, a graceful and pathetic -composition; three illustrations to Shakespeare, one of which, the highly -imaginative conception of the appearance of the Ghost to Hamlet, is -engraved in Gilchrist’s biography; <i>The Babylonian Woman on the Seven-headed -Beast</i> (1809) reproduced here; a continuous series of designs -produced for Mr. Butts, to be mentioned more fully hereafter; and the -pictures displayed along with <i>The Canterbury Pilgrims</i> at its exhibition -(1809). We must now devote some attention to Blake’s appearance as -an æsthetic writer in the <i>Descriptive Catalogue</i> he put forth on this -occasion, with which his other principal deliverances on the subject of art -may be advantageously grouped.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span></p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 435px;"> - -<img src="images/illus-p52.jpg" width="435" height="600" alt="" /> - -<p class="caption"><i>The Reunion of Soul and Body. From Blair’s “Grave,” illustrated by W. Blake.</i></p> - -</div> - -<p>Blake’s <i>Descriptive Catalogue</i> and his <i>Appeal to the Public</i> to judge -between himself and his rivals in the department of engraving, are a -singular mixture of gold and clay. The dignity which characterised his -demeanour in life forsakes him as soon as he takes the pen into his hand,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> -and he reviles Stothard, Woollett, and others in a strain inconsistent with -self-respect on his own part, even had his criticism been well founded. -As a matter of fact, it seems to have had no foundation, and assuredly -has not affected the reputation of his antagonists in the smallest degree. -At the same time it is impossible not to be moved by his earnestness. -He is evidently contending for principles of great importance to himself, -and through the mist of his confused and ungrammatical expression we -seem to catch glimpses of high and serious truth. A refreshing contrast -is afforded by the passages devoted to Chaucer, which are truly admirable -for their felicitous insight into the old poet. “For all who have read -Blake,” justly say Messrs. Ellis and Yeats, “Chaucer is something more -than the sweet spinner of rhyming gossip that he seems to most.” Like -Ruskin, and indeed all men of creative power, Blake is on much safer -ground when he extols than when he censures. To much the same -period belongs a remarkable paper on his <i>Last Judgment</i>, published by -Gilchrist from his MS. Nothing of his admits us so fully into the -sanctuary of his mind. “<i>The Last Judgment</i>,” he begins, “is not fable -or allegory, but vision. Fable, or allegory, is a totally distinct and inferior -kind of poetry. Vision, or imagination, is a representation of what -actually exists, really and unchangeably.” Then follows an extremely -graphic and vivid description of the painting, interspersed with profound -remarks, such as “Man passes on, but states remain for ever; he passes -through them like a traveller, who may as well suppose that the places -he has passed through exist no more as a man may suppose that the states -he has passed through exist no more; everything is eternal.” “I have -seen, when at a distance, multitudes of men in harmony appear like a -single infant.”<a name="FNanchor_6" id="FNanchor_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> “In Hell all is self-righteousness; there is no such -thing there as forgiveness of sin. He who does forgive sin is crucified -as an abettor of criminals.” “Angels are happier than men and devils, -because they are not always prying after good and evil in one another, -and eating the tree of knowledge for Satan’s gratification.” “<i>The Last -Judgment</i> is an overwhelming of bad art and science.” Finally, -in words that state his own case as respects his reputed delusions, he -says: “I assert for myself that I do not behold the outward creation, -and that to me it is hindrance and not action. ‘What!’ it will be -questioned, ‘when the sun rises, do you not see a round disc of fire, -somewhat like a guinea?’ Oh! no! no! I see an innumerable -company of the heavenly host, crying, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord -God Almighty!’ I question not my corporeal eye, any more than I -would question a window concerning a sight. I look through it, and -not with it.”</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 465px;"> - -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> - -<img src="images/illus-p55.jpg" width="465" height="550" alt="" /> - -<p class="caption"><i>The Babylonian Woman on the Seven-headed Beast. From a water-colour drawing by -W. Blake. British Museum.</i></p> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span></p> - -<p>Blake’s conception of the sun may be compared with Dante’s vision -of the angels with the cloud:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">Then lifting up mine eyes, as the tears came,</div> -<div class="verse indent1">I saw the Angels, like a rain of manna,</div> -<div class="verse indent2">In a long flight flying back heavenward;</div> -<div class="verse">Having a little cloud in front of them,</div> -<div class="verse indent1">After the which they went, and said, “Hosanna!”</div> -<div class="verse indent2">And if they had said more, you should have heard.</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>An earlier acquaintance with Dante would undoubtedly have -exerted a great influence upon Blake.</p> - -<p>Not the least interesting part of Blake’s catalogue is his description -of the pictures accompanying his <i>Canterbury Pilgrims</i>, which include the -strange patriotic allegories of <i>Nelson guiding Leviathan</i> and <i>Pitt guiding -Behemoth</i>, the latter of which is now in the National Gallery; <i>Satan -calling up his Legions</i>; <i>The Bard</i>, described by Rossetti as “a gorgeous -piece of colour tone”; an idyll, charming in conception whatever it may -have been in execution, representing goats nibbling the vine leaves that -form the sole drapery of savage maidens; and Arthur’s battle of Camlan, -whence only three—the strongest, the most beautiful, and the ugliest of -champions—escaped with their lives. This picture Seymour Kirkup -thought Blake’s best, and Allan Cunningham his worst. Kirkup, Mr. -Swinburne tells us, remembered to the last<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> “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.” Blake’s estimate of his powers, as conveyed in his -descriptions of his works, certainly does not err on the side of modesty; -perhaps he thought with Goethe that “Nur die Lumpen sind bescheiden.” -It is a more serious matter that the descriptions are crammed with -statements far more significant than Blake’s visions of a condition of -mental disorder, such as that the Greek marbles are copies of the works -of the Asiatic patriarchs; that no one painted in oil, except by accident, -before Vandyke; that ancient British heroes dwell to this day on -Snowdon “in naked simplicity”: a species of Welsh Mahatmas, as it -would appear. It would have been a judicious emendation if any one -had suggested the substitution of “lying spirits” when the artist spoke -of himself as “molested by blotting and blurring demons.”</p> - -<p>More important than these idle extravagances, though extravagant -enough, are the annotations on Reynolds’s discourses, written a few years -afterwards. To read Blake’s abuse of this great artist with any patience, -one must remember that his expressions require to be translated out of -his peculiar dialect into ordinary speech; as when, for example, he says -that Correggio is a most effeminate and cruel demon, he only means that -he is a bad model for artists to follow. Yet there is a great and serious -truth lying at the bottom of Blake’s declamation, and his protest against -the apparent tendency of Reynolds to inculcate the feasibility of manufacturing -genius by study was not uncalled for. What he did not sufficiently -remember was that the number of artists capable of what Plato -calls divine insanity, must always be very small, and that Reynolds’s precepts -may be very serviceable for the rank and file of the great army. -As his denunciation of Reynolds was partly prompted by personal -grievances (not the less real, if the apparent paradox may be excused, -for being imaginary), it is the more to his honour to find him breaking -out into genuine admiration whenever, in Swedenborg’s phrase, the dry -rod blossoms as Reynolds affirms a truth. It is also pleasant to receive -Samuel Palmer’s assurance that Blake’s splenetic outbreaks in print -astonished those accustomed to his catholicity of criticism in conversation.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p><i>Blake’s Life in South Molton Street and Fountain Court—Acquaintance with Linnell and -Varley—Drawings of Visionary Heads—Miscellaneous Works in Private Collections—Illustrations -of “Job”—Work as an Engraver—Acquaintance with Crabb Robinson—Illustrations -of Dante—Declining health and death—General observations—His -principal Biographer and Critics.</i></p> - -</div> - -<p>Very little is known of Blake’s life for several years after his exhibition. -William Carey, a rare example of disinterestedness among -picture-dealers, for he praised Blake enthusiastically without having dealt -with him, says in his exposition of West’s <i>Death on the Pale Horse</i> -(1817), “So entire is the uncertainty in which he is involved that after -many inquiries I meet with some in doubt whether he is still in existence. -But I have accidentally learned since I commenced these remarks that he -is now a resident in London.” He was, in fact, continuing to live on -his second floor in South Molton Street, poor, but content, subsisting -from day to day by hack work as an engraver, and the occasional -sale of a water-colour design or a coloured copy of one of his books, -but nowise squalid, abject, or destitute. He was no longer able to -publish on his own account as of old, and the poems which he continued -to produce abundantly, all of which have perished, met with -the reception which was to be expected from earthly publishers. Blake -smiled in pity, assured that, in his own figurative language, they were -handsomely printed and bound in heaven, and eagerly perused by -spiritual intelligences. “I should be sorry,” he afterwards said to -Crabb Robinson, “if I had any earthly fame, for whatever natural -glory a man has is so much taken from his spiritual glory.” He certainly -had not thought so when he published his catalogue; but there -is no question of his perfect sincerity when he added, “I wish to -do nothing for profit. I wish to live for art.” Though he had said<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> -“Thought is act: Christ’s acts were nothing to Cæsar’s if this is not so”; -so intense was his own devotion to labour that for two years he never -quitted his lodging, except (for the ridiculous will intrude where it is -not wanted—imps grin in the cells of anchorites—) for a pot of porter. -Even while he engraved he read, as the plate-marks on his books attest. -Flaxman, his steady friend from youth, found him some work in -engraving, and praised him in conversation. “But Blake’s a wild -enthusiast, isn’t he?” “Some think <i>me</i> an enthusiast,” answered Flaxman, -who was, in truth, more than half a Swedenborgian.</p> - -<p>From this hermit’s existence Blake once more emerges, in 1818, -into comparative publicity through the intimacy he formed with a -young painter of promise, which he was destined to more than redeem. -This was John Linnell, who was introduced to him by Mr. George -Cumberland, of Bristol, an enlightened patron of art. At this time -Linnell was largely engaged in portrait painting, and the plate of the -portrait selected here for reproduction, that of Wilson Lowry, Esq., -appears to have been worked upon by both him and Blake, bearing the -name of each. Linnell, though neither gentle nor mystical, lived much -in the world of the spirit, and, without sharing Blake’s peculiarities, was -rather attracted than repelled by them. Within a few days after making -Blake’s acquaintance he had found him work to the amount of fifteen -guineas, and gradually introduced him to patrons, including Sir Thomas -Lawrence, a great gentleman as well as a fine painter, who took the -notice of Blake which it became him to take in his position as President -of the Royal Academy. Blake never encountered hostility from artists -of true eminence. Reynolds advised him wisely, though he would not -think so. Lawrence patronised him; and Flaxman, Fuseli, Stothard, -Linnell were, so far as he permitted them, real friends. Within a few -years Linnell had introduced him to a younger circle, ready in a -measure to sit at his feet, and the rejected stone was honourably built -into the corner. Of these we shall have to speak afterwards, but one -important intimacy mainly belongs to the period of 1818-21. This -was his acquaintance with John Varley, famed as one of the fathers of -English water-colour painting, but even more renowned as an astrologer. -Indeed, some of the stories told of his successful predictions are less -startling to the uninitiated than to astrologers themselves, who cannot comprehend -on what principle of the art they could be made. They certainly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> -were not arrived at by vision or revelation, for the good Varley was a -most unspiritual personage, the very antipodes of seer or anchorite, big, -sanguine, jovial, and everlastingly in the claws of the bailiffs. Astrology, -therefore, a study which, with all its fascination for an imaginative mind, -requires nothing but observation and calculation, was the only occult -science open to him; for magic, although a diabolical pursuit, occasionally -demands an amount of fasting inconvenient even for a saint. Varley -would have wished to go further, and finding the perception of visions -inconsistent with his own corporeal and spiritual constitution, was delighted -to make the acquaintance of one who to this end needed but to open -his eyes. He speedily developed the practical idea that Blake should -depict the spiritual entities which he beheld. Blake forthwith set to -work, and ere long the portfolios of Varley and Linnell were enriched -with those ghosts of fleas, portraits of Edward the Third, and men who -built the pyramids, which are better known to many than anything -he ever did, and are assuredly no mean examples of his imaginative power. -“All,” says Gilchrist, “are marked by a decisive portrait-like character, -and are evidently literal portraits of what Blake’s imaginative eye -beheld.”<a name="FNanchor_7" id="FNanchor_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> This is corroborated by the account of Varley, who says, -“On hearing of this spiritual apparition of a Flea, I asked him -if he could draw for me the resemblance of what he saw. He instantly -said, ‘I see him now before me.’ I therefore gave him a paper and a -pencil, with which he drew the portrait of which a facsimile is given -in this number [of Varley’s <i>Zodiacal Physiognomy</i>]. I felt convinced by -his mode of proceeding that he had a real image before him; for he left -off and began on another part of the paper to make a separate drawing of -the mouth of the Flea, which the spirit having opened he was prevented -from proceeding with the first sketch till he had closed it.” It was “an -idea with the force of a sensation,” as Peacock’s philosopher classifies the -apparition in <i>Nightmare Abbey</i>. Shelley, who also saw visions, has -enriched his note-books with similar delineations of imaginary figures, -generally vague and careless, but sometimes very Blake-like. One of -Linnell’s most spirited studies from life, engraved in Story’s biography, -represents Blake and Varley in discussion.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span></p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> - -<img src="images/illus-p61.jpg" width="500" height="650" alt="" /> - -<p class="caption"><i>Portrait of Wilson Lowry. By John Linnell. Engraved by Blake and Linnell.</i></p> - -</div> - -<p>These drawings were mostly executed in 1819 and 1820. In the -latter year Blake lost his chief patron Butts, whose walls, indeed, had -become so crowded with his works that he had almost ceased to give him -commissions. The greater part of the collection was dispersed in 1852, -but the zeal of Mr. W. M. Rossetti traced most of its constituents out, -and reference to his notes, printed in the second volume of Gilchrist’s -biography, will enable us to convey some faint notion of its manifold<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> -opulence. Putting the <i>Job</i> aside for the present, the most remarkable -appear to be the nine designs for <i>Paradise Lost</i>, the property of Mr. -J. C. Strange, in which, says Mr. Rossetti, Blake is king of all his powers -of design, draughtsmanship, conception, spiritual meaning, and impression. -Another set, belonging to Mr. Aspland, of Liverpool, omits one -subject and adds four. Another set of Miltonic designs for <i>Comus</i>, -rather distinguished by grace than grandeur, has been recently published -by Mr. Quaritch. Another set of no less than one hundred and eighteen -designs for Gray’s works, in 1860 in the possession of the Duke of -Hamilton, are reputed to rank among Blake’s finest productions, but -have not been inspected by any one competent to describe them. Among -others especially commended by Mr. Rossetti are <i>The Sacrifice of Jephthah’s -Daughter</i>, <i>Ruth</i>, <i>The Judgment of Paris</i>, <i>The Wise and Foolish Virgins</i>, -<i>Fire</i>, <i>Famine</i>, <i>Samson subdued</i>, <i>The Finding of Moses</i>, <i>Moses erecting -the Brazen Serpent</i>, <i>The Ghost of Samuel appearing to Saul</i>, <i>The Entombment</i>, -<i>The Sealing of the Sepulchre</i>, <i>The Angel rolling the Stone from the Sepulchre</i>, -<i>The River of Life</i>, and <i>Hecate</i>. To these may be added <i>The Resurrection -of the Dead</i>, now in the British Museum, reproduced by us. Many -others, not belonging to the Butts collection, are described with equal -enthusiasm; and, apart from all questions of technical execution, usually -splendid, but lost upon those who have not access to the original works, -it may be said that the conceptions, as described by Mr. Rossetti, would be -impossible to one unendowed with the highest artistic imagination, and -that the body is worthy of the spirit.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> - -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> - -<img src="images/illus-p63.jpg" width="500" height="685" alt="" /> - -<p class="caption"><i>The Resurrection of the Dead. From a water-colour drawing by W. Blake. -British Museum.</i></p> - -</div> - -<p>Prominent among these designs are the set of illustrations to <i>Job</i>, now -the property of the Earl of Crewe. A duplicate set belonged to Mr. -Linnell, who, “discounting as it were,” says Gilchrist, “Blake’s bill on -posterity when no one else would,” commissioned this from him, -tracing the outlines from Butt’s copy himself, and handing them over -to Blake to complete. This was done in September, 1821, and when the -drawings were completed in 1823 Linnell went further still, and commissioned -Blake to engrave them, a stroke which has probably effected -more than anything else for the artist’s fame, for the drawings which have -set him on such a pinnacle, if unengraved, would have remained virtually -unknown to the world. The terms also were liberal. Blake was to -receive £100 for the twenty-two plates and £100 more out of the profits.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> -When the publication barely covered its expenses, Linnell, reflecting that -the plates remained in his possession in virtue of the agreement, not -unreasonably but very handsomely allowed Blake £50 more. But for -this manna from heaven Blake’s last years would have been spent in -engraving pigs and poultry after Morland. Linnell, who was himself an -excellent engraver, further conferred an important benefit upon him -by making him acquainted with the best style of Italian engraving. Blake -proved a docile pupil at sixty-five, and his plates to <i>Job</i> are not only -technically the best he ever executed, but occupy an important place in -the history of the art.</p> - -<p>The glory of <i>Job</i>, however, is not in the engraving, but in the invention, -which, beautiful in the soft and idyllic passages, rises into sublimity -when the theme appeals strongly to the creative imagination. It is especially -remarkable as being one of the very few instances of a worthy representation -of the Almighty. The tender humanities of Christian art are -absent: all is awful, Hebraic, and strictly monotheistic. Among the -most remarkable designs may be noted that where the exulting fiend pulls -down the mansion upon Job’s sons and daughters (reproduced here); the -frantic speed of the messenger of evil, who bursts out with his tale before -he is well within hearing, while another follows with equal haste hard -upon him, and the uninterested sheep graze on undisturbed; the terrible -scene where Satan, a figure repeated in essentials from works of earlier -date, smites the prostrate Job with sore boils; Eliphaz besieged with -phantoms, to all seeming not less real than himself (also given here); the -morning stars singing together; the downfall of the wicked; and the -Lord answering Job out of the whirlwind. Passages even of the less -striking designs often have a singular fascination, such as the night-piercing -stars in the Elihu scene, which would be impressive in the -absence of any human figure; Behemoth and Leviathan, the <i>ne plus ultra</i> -of grotesque grandeur, which we have also given; and the bowed backs -of Job’s accusing friends when the Lord blesses him.<a name="FNanchor_8" id="FNanchor_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> On the whole, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>though others of Blake’s designs may be more transcendent of ordinary -human faculty, he has scarcely executed anything displaying all his faculties -so well combined and in such perfect equilibrium; and, were it necessary -to rest his fame upon one set of works, this would probably be selected. -As a scriptural theme it appealed with especial strength to English -sympathies, and having been selected by Gilchrist for reproduction, it is -more widely known than any of his works except the illustrations to Blair’s -<i>Grave</i>. “The original water-colour designs,” Rossetti says, “are much -larger than the engravings, and generally pale in colour, with a less full -and concentrated effect than the engravings, and by no means equal -to them in power and splendid decorative treatment of the light and -shade. On the other hand, they are often completer and naturally freer -in expression, and do not exhibit a certain tendency to over-sturdiness of -build and physiognomy in the figures.” Fine as is the figure of Satan in -<i>The Destruction of Job’s Sons and Daughters</i>, it is, Mr. Rossetti thinks, -much finer in the water colour. On the other hand, “the effect of sublimity -and multitude in <i>When the morning stars sang together</i> is centupled in -the engraving by adding the upraised arms of two other angels to right and -left, passing out of the composition.” The whole account suggests how -desirable it would be to have many of Blake’s unpublished water colours -translated into black and -white, could engraver or -etcher of the needful force -be found.</p> - -<div class="figright" style="width: 300px;"> - -<img src="images/illus-p65.jpg" width="300" height="165" alt="" /> - -<p class="caption"><i>Woodcut from Thornton’s Pastoral.</i></p> - -</div> - -<p>In 1821 Blake had -performed another work -of moment, his first and -last wood-engravings. -These were to illustrate -Phillips’s imitation of -Virgil’s first pastoral, republished by Dr. Thornton, a physician and -botanist. Blake was a novice in this branch of art, and the cuts answer -to Dr. Thornton’s own description of them: “They display less of art -than of genius.” But nothing could more effectually confirm the principle -enunciated by their critic in the <i>Athenæum</i>:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> “Amid all drawbacks there -exists a power in the work of the man of genius which no one but himself -can utter fully.” Rude as they are, their force is extraordinary; few -things can be more truly magical than the glimpse of distant sea in the -second of those engraved by Gilchrist. At the same time they are not -in the least Virgilian, and in this respect form an instructive contrast -with the exquisite though unfinished Virgilian illustrations of Samuel -Palmer. Palmer, though putting in a cypress now and then as a tribute -to <i>couleur locale</i>, provides Virgil substantially with the same style of -illustration as he had been producing all his life for other ends, and yet -this seems as appropriate to the text as Blake’s is discrepant. It is interesting -to speculate what effect an Italian residence of two or three years, -such as Palmer had enjoyed, would have produced upon Blake beyond -the inevitable one of dissipating his monstrous delusions about Italian -artists. He would probably have gone chiefly with the view of studying -Michael Angelo, but we suspect that the influences of Italian landscape -would in the long run have proved fully as potent.</p> - -<p>In 1821 Blake removed from South Molton Street to Fountain -Court, Strand, near the Savoy, where he occupied two rooms on the first -floor. The reason may have been that the house was kept by a brother-in-law -of Mrs. Blake’s named Baines, the only trace we have of any connection -with his wife’s family. Economy too may have had its influence; -his means were very low, not yet improved by the donation of £25 he -received from the Academy next year, or his arrangement with Linnell in -the year following. At the worst, however, the rooms were always clean -and neat, thanks to Mrs. Blake’s industry and devotion; and Blake’s -manner always had the simplicity and dignity of a gentleman. That his -circumstances improved was almost entirely the doing of Linnell, who -not only provided for his wants by commissions, but made him what his -genius had never made him, the patriarch of a band of admirers, almost -disciples. Coming frequently to visit Linnell at Hampstead, Blake fell -in with a group of young men who resorted thither, four of whom at -least—Samuel Palmer, Edward Calvert, George Richmond, and F. O. -Finch—became artists of great distinction. One characteristic these -young men had in common: they were as far as possible from the -theory of art for art’s sake, but only valued art as the outward and visible -sign of the inward and spiritual grace of consecration to the Power behind -Nature. The biographies of Palmer and Calvert disclose the priestlike<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> -spirit in which they wrought, a spirit akin to that of their pre-Raphaelite -successors, but apparently less impregnated with the ordinary atmosphere -of the studio. These were just the men to treat the aged Blake as the -antediluvian youth ought to have treated the aged Jubal; and the -patriarchal influence is visible both in their writings and their works, not -always to the advantage of the latter, if we may judge by the examples<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> -preserved of Palmer’s early labours. But all seemed fair in the light of -fond retrospect. Twenty-eight years after Blake’s death Samuel Palmer -addressed a letter to Mr. Gilchrist, long and full of interesting particulars -relating to Blake’s opinions on art; but the gist of the estimate of -the man is conveyed in few words. “In him you saw at once the Maker, -the Inventor; one of the few in any age; a fitting companion for Dante. -He was energy itself, and shed around him a kindling influence, an -atmosphere of life, full of the ideal. He was a man without a mask; his -aim single, his path straightforwardness, and his wants few; so he was -free, noble, and happy.”</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 350px;"> - -<img src="images/illus-p67.jpg" width="350" height="475" alt="" /> - -<p class="caption"><i>The Destruction of Job’s Sons and Daughters. From the “Book of Job.” -By W. Blake.</i></p> - -</div> - -<p>A very important witness to Blake’s demeanour and opinions in his -later years is Henry Crabb Robinson the diarist, whom we have already -met as a visitor to Blake’s exhibition, and who had made him the subject -of an essay in a German periodical. Robinson was the right man in the -right place, not being a mystic or enthusiast to fall down at Blake’s feet, -nor yet a man of the world to deride him as a visionary, but an inquisitive -observer of great intellectual range and most kindly and tolerant disposition, -ready to allow that things might exist of which his philosophy -had not dreamed, and whom abnormal opinions, if held in evident -sincerity, might startle but could hardly shock. “It is strange,” says he, -“that I who have no imagination, nor any power beyond that of a logical -understanding, should yet have a great respect for religious mystics.” -Thrown into Blake’s company in 1825, he has recorded his conversations -with him at considerable length in his delightful diary, as yet but -partially published. His description of Blake’s “interesting appearance” -agrees with that of his own circle. “He is pale, with a Socratic countenance, -and an expression of great sweetness, though with something of -languor about it except when animated, and then he has about him an -air of inspiration. The tone and manner are incommunicable. There -are a natural sweetness and gentility about him which are delightful.” -Having heard of Blake’s visions, Robinson was not surprised to find him -asserting that the visionary gift was innate in all men, and only torpid -for want of cultivation; but he must have had much ado to digest such -statements as that the world was flat, that Wordsworth was a Pagan, and -that “what are called the vices in the natural world are the highest -sublimities in the spiritual world.” Not understanding that by atheism<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> -Blake meant, in his own words, “whatever assumes the reality of the -natural and unspiritual world,” Robinson was naturally aghast when Locke -was classed with atheists, and ventured what must have appeared to him -the conclusive rejoinder that Locke had written in defence of Christianity. -Blake, who probably understood Robinson’s definition of atheism -as little as Robinson did his, “made no reply.” Some of Blake’s remarks -are well worthy of preservation. “Art is inspiration. When Michael -Angelo, or Raphael, or Mr. Flaxman does any of his fine things, he does -them in the spirit.” “Irving is a <i>sent</i> man. But they who are sent go -further sometimes than they ought.” “Dante saw devils where I see -none.”</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> - -<img src="images/illus-p69.jpg" width="500" height="400" alt="" /> - -<p class="caption"><i>With Dreams upon my Bed thou scarest me. From the “Book of Job.” -By W. Blake.</i></p> - -</div> - -<p>Dante must have been much in Blake’s thoughts just then, for -Robinson found him occupied with the long series of illustrations of the -poet commissioned by Linnell, the last important work of his life. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> -history of the commission is thus related by Linnell’s biographer, Mr. -Story. “Although the <i>Job</i> had been paid for, Linnell continued to -give him money weekly. Blake said, ‘I do not know how I shall ever -repay you.’ Linnell replied, ‘I do not want you to repay me. I am -only too glad to be able to serve you. What I would like, however, if -you do anything for me, is that you should make some designs for -Dante’s <i>Inferno</i>, <i>Purgatorio</i>, and <i>Paradiso</i>.’ Blake entered upon the -work with alacrity, concurrently with the engraving of the <i>Job</i> -designs, and the two together occupied the old man for the rest of his -life.” During all this period Linnell was remitting Blake money, -as the latter’s notes in acknowledgment prove. Linnell undoubtedly -acquired the designs at a low price, but immediately upon Blake’s death -he endeavoured to dispose of them for the benefit of the widow. Failing -in this he kept them, never attempting to make anything by them; and -they are still in the possession of his family.</p> - -<p>Blake studied Italian to qualify himself more effectually for his task, -and is said to have acquired it; when Robinson saw him, however, at -an early stage of the commission it is true, he was working by the -aid of Cary’s English version. He executed no less than ninety-eight -drawings, several of which were left in an unfinished state. Seven have -been engraved. The merits of the series have been variously estimated. -Mr. Rossetti considers them “on the whole a very fine series, though not -uniformly equal in merit.” Mr. Yeats, so well qualified by his own -imaginative gift to enter into the merit of Blake’s work, thinks them the -finest of all his productions. Robinson, who saw Blake at work upon -them, says, “They evince a power I should not have anticipated of -grouping, and of throwing grace and interest over conceptions monstrous -and horrible.” For our own part, we must regretfully admit that when -we saw them at the Old Masters’ exhibition the monstrosity and horror -appeared more evident than the grace and interest. We could not deem -Dante’s conceptions adequately rendered; the colour, too, often seemed -harsh and extravagant. Blake went on working upon them until his -death, when Mrs. Blake sent them to Linnell. They thus escaped the -fate of Blake’s other artistic and literary remains left in his widow’s -possession, which after her death were appropriated, apparently without -any legal authority, by a person named Tatham, who had been much about<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> -Blake in his later years, and who ultimately destroyed them in deference -to the mandate of a religious sect with which he had become connected!<a name="FNanchor_9" id="FNanchor_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> - -<img src="images/illus-p71.jpg" width="400" height="550" alt="" /> - -<p class="caption"><i>Behemoth and Leviathan. From the “Book of Job.” By W. Blake.</i></p> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span></p> - -<p>The end was now near. During 1827 Blake’s health greatly failed -from catarrh and dysentery, and he could no longer go up to Hampstead -to see Linnell. Linnell wished him to quit the damp neighbourhood of -the river, and live in his own house in Cirencester Place, part only of -which he used as a studio. But Blake said, “I cannot get my mind out -of a state of terrible fear at such a step.” He also said, “I am too much -attached to Dante to think much of anything else.” One of his last -works was the colouring of <i>The Ancient of Days</i> for the elder Tatham, -who paid him at a higher rate than he was accustomed to receive. Blake -accordingly worked his hardest, and when it was finished “threw it from -him, and with an air of exulting triumph exclaimed, ‘There, that will -do, I cannot mend it.’” Later still he exclaimed to his wife, “You have -ever been an angel to me, I will draw you,” and produced a sketch, -“interesting, but not like.” On August 12 he died, “composing and -uttering songs to his Maker.” He was buried in Bunhill Fields, in a -grave which cannot now be identified. It is little to the honour of his -countrymen that no public memorial of him should exist. A better one -could not be than his own <i>Death’s Door</i> in the illustration to Blair’s -<i>Grave</i>, treated as a bas-relief with the necessary modifications.</p> - -<p>The artist whose life had been spent in a condition so little remote -from penury did not leave a single debt, and the accumulated stock -of his works sufficed to support his widow in comfort for the four years -for which she survived him. Friends, indeed, aided, Linnell and Tatham -successively giving her house-room, and others assiduously recommending -her stores of drawings to wealthy patrons. She died in Upper Charlotte -Street, Fitzroy Square, and was buried beside her husband in Bunhill -Fields.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The artistic processes used by Blake are a subject of considerable -discussion. Notwithstanding his constant description of his pictures as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> -“frescoes,” it seems certain that he never resorted to fresco in the -ordinary acceptation of the term. Linnell, who must have been exceedingly -familiar with his work, told Mr. Gilchrist: “He evidently founded -his claim to the name fresco on the material he used, which was water-colour -on a plaster ground (literally glue and whiting); but he always -called it either fresco, gesso, or plaster.” Linnell added that when he -himself obtained from Italy the first copy that ever came to England of -Cennino Cennini’s <i>Trattato della Pittura</i>, a sixteenth-century treatise, edited -in 1822 from the original MS., Blake, who was soon able to read it, “was -gratified to find that he had been using the same materials and methods -in painting as Cennini describes, particularly the carpenter’s glue.” “Unfortunately,” -says Linnell, “he laid this ground on too much like -plaster to a wall,” and when this was so applied to canvas or linen the -picture was sure to crack, and many of Blake’s best works have suffered -great injury. Oil he disliked and vituperated. The reason probably was -that, contrary to what might have been expected, his system of execution -was by no means bold and dashing, but deliberate and even slow. He -drew a rough dotted line with pencil, then with ink, then colour, filling -in cautiously and carefully. All the grand efforts of design, he thought, -depended on niceties not to be got at once. He seems, in fact, to have -worked very much in the spirit of the mediæval illuminators, and the -general aspect of a page of one of his Prophetical Books reminds us -forcibly of one of their scrolls. Whether any direct influence from them -upon him is traceable would be difficult to determine. Keats had -evidently seen illuminated manuscripts, and been deeply impressed by -them; but nearly forty years elapsed between the publication of the first -of Blake’s Prophetical Books and the composition of Keats’s <i>Eve of St. -Mark</i>. In one respect Blake certainly differed from the ancient miniaturists; -he wrought mainly from reminiscence, and disliked painting with -his eye on the object. His memory for natural forms must have been -very powerful.</p> - -<p>Blake is endowed in a very marked degree with the interest ascribed -by Goethe to <i>Problematische Naturen</i>, men who must always remain -more or less of a mystery to their fellows. In ancient times, and perhaps -in some countries at the present day, he would have been accepted as -a seer; in his own age and country the question was rather whether he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> -should be classed with visionaries or with lunatics. A visionary he -certainly was, and few will believe either that his visions had any -objective reality, or that he himself intended them to be received merely -as symbols. “You can see what I do, if you choose,” he said to his -friends. He thus confused fancy with fact; unquestionably, therefore, -he laboured under delusions. But delusions do not necessarily amount to -insanity, and, however Blake erred in form, it may be doubted whether -in essentials he was not nearer the truth than most so-called poets and -artists. Every poet and artist worthy of the name will confess that his -productions, when really good for anything, are the suggestion of a power -external to himself, of an influence which he may to a certain extent -guide, but cannot originate or summon up at his will; and in the absence -of which he is helpless. In personifying this influence as the Muse, or -howsoever he may prefer to describe it, such an one is usually fully aware -that, in obedience to a law of the human mind, he is bestowing personality -and visibility upon what is actually invisible and impersonal, but not -on that account unreal. Some there are, however, whose perceptions are -so lively, or their power of dealing with abstractions so limited, that the -mental influences of which they are conscious appear to them in the -light of personalities. Such was Blake, and the peculiarity in him was -probably closely connected with the childlike disposition which rendered -him so amiable as a man. As a child it naturally never occurred to him -to question the reality of his visions, and he grew up without acquiring -the critical habit of mind which would have led him to do so. With him -“the vision splendid” did <i>not</i></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse indent10">Die away,</div> -<div class="verse">And fade into the light of common day.</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">Such a state of mind is quite compatible with sanity. The question is -not whether the person</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse indent4">Gives to airy nothings</div> -<div class="verse">A local habitation and a name,</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">but whether he allows his conduct to be actuated by them to the extent -of inverting the rules of right and wrong, wasting his substance, or becoming -offensive to others or dangerous to himself. It is even possible -to travel far in this direction without arriving at the confines of insanity.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> -Prince Polignac brought the monarchy of the Restoration to ruin in -deference to imaginary revelations from the Virgin Mary, yet no court -of law would ever have placed him under restraint. With Blake not the -faintest suggestion of such a thing is possible. Except for one or -two incidents, related upon doubtful authority, he appears throughout -his life in the light of an exemplary citizen, and in his unselfishness -and unworldliness contrasts with his Sadducæan neighbours in a way that -forbids us to call him mentally diseased, though he may have been -mentally warped. The value of his mystical utterances is quite another -question. The occasional splendour of the poetry in which they are -couched will not be disputed, any more than their general confusion and -obscurity. Commentators have striven hard to elicit the sunbeam from -the cucumber; we pass no judgment on their efforts, further than may -seem to be implied in the observation that in our opinion the chief -mission of Blake’s mystical poetry was to be the vehicle of his finest and -most characteristic art. His ideas, many profound and worthy of close -attention, may, we think, be more advantageously collected from his -prose aphorisms and the fragments of his conversation; and in this -respect he is by no means singular. The one great achievement which -unquestionably entitles him to the distinction of an inspired man, is to -have produced in boyhood, without set purpose or any clear consciousness -of what he was doing, lyrics recalling the golden prime of English poetry, -and instinct with a music to which, since Chatterton was no more, no -contemporary save Burns was capable of making the slightest approach. -It is true that reaction against artifice and conventionality was in the air -of the time, and was already announced by evident symptoms. To compare, -however, the highly creditable efforts in this direction of even such -poets as Cowper and Mickle with the achievements of this stripling is to -become sensible at once of the difference between talent and inspiration.</p> - -<p>Blake’s gifts and shortcomings as an artist are sufficiently revealed -by the examples of his work which accompany this essay. It need merely -be remarked here that, apart from the great army of artists of genius who -move on recognised lines, transmitting the succession from the age of -Zeuxis and Phidias to our own, there is, as it were, a parallel column -skirting it on the by-roads of art; and that at certain periods of Art’s -history the genius which has forsaken the more conspicuous of her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> -manifestations has seemed to take refuge with etchers, or designers, or -delineators of the life of the people. It has frequently happened of late -that men whose work was chiefly done for books and periodicals, and who -during their lives were scarcely regarded as artists at all, have upon their -deaths been deservedly exalted to very high places. Blake is perhaps the -most striking and remarkable example of this class.</p> - -<p>Blake’s peculiarities as a man, and the anecdotes of which he became -the subject, secured him earlier attention as artist and poet than his -works would have obtained on their own account. Not long after his -death he was made (1830) the subject of one of Allan Cunningham’s -<i>Lives of British Painters</i>, in the main a fair and impartial biography, -rather in advance of than behind its time. Cunningham, however, -possessed no sort of spiritual kinship with Blake, who found his first -really congenial commentator in a veteran philosopher, still happily -spared to us, Dr. James Garth Wilkinson, who in 1839, the year -of the first collected edition of Shelley’s poems, republished <i>Songs of -Innocence and Experience</i> with an anonymous preface claiming for Blake -something like his proper position as a lyric poet, and accompanied by -judicious remarks upon his paintings. Dr. Wilkinson would probably -have expressed himself still more decidedly if he had written a few years -later, but the movement towards the exaltation of the more spiritual -aspects of English poetry as typified in Wordsworth and Shelley was as -yet but incipient, and the stars of Tennyson and Browning were hardly -above the horizon. Little further seems to have been done for Blake, -until, about 1855, the late Mr. Alexander Gilchrist began to write his -biography, published in 1862, a labour of love and diligence which will -never be superseded, especially since the revision it has received in the -definitive edition of 1880, brought out by his widow. The value of -Gilchrist’s labours is greatly enhanced by the accompanying illustrations, -which allow a fairly adequate conception to be formed of Blake’s pictorial -genius, by the reprint of much of his most characteristic literary work, and -by the copious descriptions of his drawings by Mr. W. M. Rossetti and Mr. -F. Shields. Since Gilchrist wrote, Mr. Swinburne (1868) has investigated -Blake’s thought with special reference to its Pantheistic tendency, -and Messrs. Ellis and Yeats, in a most comprehensive work in three -volumes (1891), including additional biographical particulars and copious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> -illustrations, which comprise the previously unpublished “Vala,” have -striven to present Blake’s mysticism as a coherent system of thought. -Valuable monographs are also prefixed to the editions of Blake’s poems -by Rossetti (1883) and Yeats (1893), and to the selection from his -literary works by Mr. Housman (1893), this last perhaps on the whole, -after Gilchrist’s biography, the most desirable possession for the literary -student of Blake. Of the numerous detached essays upon Blake the -most important, perhaps, are that by the late Mr. Smetham, republished -in his Essays, and in the second volume of Gilchrist’s biography, and that -by James Thomson, author of <i>The City of Dreadful Night</i>, appended -to his <i>Shelley, a Poem</i> (1884).</p> - -<p>It is exceedingly difficult to obtain a proper idea of Blake as an artist, -from the extent to which his designs depend upon colouring, and the great -inequality of this colouring, which is often not his own. In Mr. Gilchrist’s -opinion, the copy of <i>The Song of Los</i>, in the Print Room of the -British Museum, and a volume of miscellaneous designs, in the same -collection, represent him with adequate fairness; and these fortunately -are public property. The finest specimens of his work seen by his biographer -are apparently in the collection of the Earl of Crewe, and therefore -not generally accessible. Those belonging to private collectors must -of necessity be continually changing hands, and few students have the -time or the opportunity to make the thorough investigation of them -accomplished by Mr. Rossetti. Fortunately the illustrations in Gilchrist’s -biography, where the whole of the <i>Job</i> series is reissued, suffice to -establish Blake’s genius as a designer, even though destitute of the -charm of colour. Mr. Bell Scott has executed effective etchings after -him; Mr. Quaritch has republished the drawings for <i>Comus</i>; in 1876 the -<i>Songs of Innocence and Experience</i> and the Prophetic Books up to <i>Los</i> -were reprinted together, but only to the extent of a hundred copies, nor -was the execution very satisfactory. It cannot be said that Messrs. Ellis -and Yeats have entirely overcome the difficulties of reproduction; yet, -perhaps, for those unable to obtain access to the copies tinted by the -artist, or even to the uncoloured plates in the original edition, nothing so -well displays the wilder and more weird aspects of his genius as the -reprints in their third volume, especially those from <i>Jerusalem</i>.</p> - -<p>Blake’s character and works will long remain the subject of criticism<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> -and speculation, for the world does not easily forgo its interest in what -Goethe calls “problematic natures.” By another famous saying of -Goethe’s he cannot profit, “He who has sufficed his own age has sufficed -all ages,” nor can he be reckoned among those who have been in advance -of their age, except in those exquisite early songs which died away before -the actual arrival of the better time. But it would not be too much to -say of him that he revealed possibilities, both in poetry and painting, -which without him we should hardly have suspected, and which remain -an unexhausted seed-field of inspiration for his successors. It is labour -lost to strive to make him transparent, but even where he is most -opaque</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse indent4">Sparks spring out of the ground,</div> -<div class="verse">Like golden sand scattered upon the darkness.</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">Nor is the general tendency of art towards a world of purity, harmony, -and joy unrepresented in him; sometimes this even seems the conclusion -to which all else is merely subservient, as in the series of illustrations to -Job, the ideal representation of his own history.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> - -<img src="images/illus-p78.jpg" width="600" height="300" alt="" /> - -<p class="caption"><i>Sweeping the Parlour in the Interpreter’s House.</i></p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="footnotes"> - -<h2>FOOTNOTES</h2> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1" id="Footnote_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> November 20 has been stated as the date, but the above is shown to be correct by -the horoscope drawn for November 28, 7.45 <span class="smcapuc">P.M.</span> in <i>Urania, or the Astrologer’s Chronicle</i>, -1825, published therefore in Blake’s lifetime, and undoubtedly derived from Varley.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_2" id="Footnote_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> If, however, the “Kitty” of “I love the jocund dance” is Catherine Boucher, -this poem at least must be later than 1780, unless the name has been substituted for -another, as has been known to happen.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_3" id="Footnote_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> As for example “Man lies by a rock-bound shore, his thoughts flying forth from -him in likeness of delicate airy figures driven by the wind to perish in the endless sea -as soon as born.” In the absence of the drawings themselves such descriptions affect us -like the projects for unwritten stories in Hawthorne’s <i>American Note Book</i>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_4" id="Footnote_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">Poetis nos laetamur tribus,</div> -<div class="verse">Pye, Petro Pindar, parvo Pybus;</div> -<div class="verse">Si ulterius ire pergis,</div> -<div class="verse">Adde his Sir James Bland Burges.</div> -</div> -</div> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_5" id="Footnote_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Blake is seldom detected in borrowing, but when he tells us that</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse indent10">Milton’s shadow fell</div> -<div class="verse">Precipitant, loud thundering, into the sea of Time and space,</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">he is clearly, though perhaps unconsciously, reminiscent of Dyer’s</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse indent10">Towers</div> -<div class="verse">Tumbling all precipitate down dashed,</div> -<div class="verse">Rattling around, loud thundering to the Moon.</div> -</div> -</div> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_6" id="Footnote_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> The same remark is the subject of one of the finest passages of Lucretius:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">Praeterea, magnae legiones quom loca cursu</div> -<div class="verse">Camporum complent, belli simulacra cientes,</div> -<div class="verse">Fulgur ibi ad cœlum se tollit, totaque circum</div> -<div class="verse">Aere renidescit tellus, subterque virum vi</div> -<div class="verse">Excitur pedibus sonitus, clamoreque montes</div> -<div class="verse">Icti rejectant voces ad sidera mundi;</div> -<div class="verse">Et circumvolitant equites, mediosque repente</div> -<div class="verse">Tramittunt, valido quatientes impete, campos;</div> -<div class="verse">Et tamen est quidam locus altis montibus, unde</div> -<div class="verse">Stare videntur, et in campis consistere fulgur.</div> -</div> -</div> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_7" id="Footnote_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Not always without assistance from the eyes of others; for the portrait of Edward -the First is clearly a reminiscence of that which in Blake’s time adorned Goldsmith’s -History.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_8" id="Footnote_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> It is observable that Job’s wife, so disadvantageously treated in Scripture, is by Blake -represented as the sufferer’s loving companion throughout. This was probably out of -tenderness to Mrs. Blake, from whom, indeed, upon a comparison between her portrait -as a young woman and the ideal representation of the Patriarch’s spouse, his model for -the latter would seem to have been derived; but if so the inference seems justified that -Blake regarded the story of Job as emblematic of his own history.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_9" id="Footnote_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> It must be now about thirty-five years since we received a visit from this person; -how he had found us out we cannot recollect. He stated that he had lived by painting -miniatures, and, having been deprived of his customers by photography, proposed to -devote himself to historical painting, to the great prospective advantage of British art. -He considered his forte to be the delineation of bare arms, and wished to be recommended -to a subject which would afford scope for the exercise of this department of -the pictorial faculty. We suggested the interment of the young princes in the Tower; -he thanked us and departed; and we saw no more of him. He admitted having -parted with all the relics of Blake that had been in his possession, but sought to convey -that they had been sold, not destroyed, which may be partly true.</p> - -</div> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span></p> - -<h2>INDEX</h2> - -<ul> -<li class="ifrst">“America,” <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Appeal to the Public,” <a href="#Page_52">52</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Aspland, Mr., <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">“Babylonian Woman, The”, <a href="#Page_52">52</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bain, Thomas, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Bard, The”, <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Basire, James, <a href="#Page_8">8</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Blair’s <i>Grave</i>, Illustrations to, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="catherine">Blake, Catherine, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Blake, James, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Blake, John, <a href="#Page_8">8</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Blake, Robert, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Blake, William;</li> -<li class="isub1">his birth and parentage, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">sent to Pars School, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">apprenticed to Basire, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">marries Catherine Boucher, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">settles in Poland Street, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">removes to Lambeth, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his sojourn at Felpham and intercourse with Hayley, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">returns to London, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his friendship with Linnell and Varley, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his death, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bognor, <a href="#Page_41">41</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Book of Ahaniah, The”, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Boucher, Catherine see <a href="#catherine">Blake, Catherine</a></li> - -<li class="indx">British Museum, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Butts, Thomas, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Calvert, Edward, <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Canterbury Pilgrims, The”, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Carey, William, <a href="#Page_58">58</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Cennini, Cennino, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Christ in the Sepulchre,” <a href="#Page_54">54</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Comus,” <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Cowper, William, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Crewe, Earl of, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Cromek, Robert, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Cumberland, George, <a href="#Page_59">59</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Cunningham, Allan, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Dante, Illustrations to, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Death on the Pale Horse,” <a href="#Page_58">58</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Descriptive Catalogue by Blake, <a href="#Page_52">52</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Deville, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Eartham, <a href="#Page_41">41</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Edward III.,” <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ellis and Yeats, Messrs., <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Europe,” <a href="#Page_31">31</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Everlasting Gospel, The”, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Felpham, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Finch, G. O., <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Flaxman, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Fuseli, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">“Gates of Paradise, The”, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Gilchrist, Alexander, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60-62</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Godwin, William, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Gray, Illustrations to works of, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Hamilton, Duke of, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hayley, William, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42-44</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Holcroft, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>Housman, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">“Jacob’s Dream,” <a href="#Page_52">52</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Jerusalem,” <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Job, Illustrations to the Book of, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Johnson (publisher), <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Joseph of Arimathæa,” <a href="#Page_9">9</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Lamb, Charles, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Lawrence, Sir Thomas, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Linnell, John, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Los, The Song of”, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Malkin, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Marriage of Heaven and Hell, The”, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Matthews, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Milton,” <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Morning,”, <a href="#Page_9">9</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">“Nelson guiding Leviathan,” <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">O’Neil, <a href="#Page_8">8</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ossian, <a href="#Page_31">31</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Paine, Tom, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Palmer, Samuel, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Paradise Lost</i>, Illustrations for, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Parker, Robert, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Pars, William, <a href="#Page_8">8</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Penance of Jane Shore,” <a href="#Page_9">9</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Phillips, Thomas, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Piroli, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Pitt guiding Behemoth,” <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Poetical Sketches,” <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Prophecies of America,” <a href="#Page_37">37</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Proverbs of Hell,” <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Reynolds, Sir Joshua, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Richmond, George, <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Robinson, Crabb, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68-70</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Rossetti, Dante, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Rossetti, William, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ryland, William, <a href="#Page_8">8</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">“Samson,” <a href="#Page_31">31</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Satan calling up his Legions,” <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Schiavonetti, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Shields, Frederick, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Simple, David”, <a href="#Page_16">16</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Smetham, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Smith, J. T., <a href="#Page_16">16</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Songs of Experience,” <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23-25</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Songs of Innocence,” <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Stothard, Thomas, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Strange, J. C., <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Swinburne, A. C., <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Tatham, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Thel, The Book of”, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Thomson, James, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Thornton, Dr., <a href="#Page_65">65</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Tiriel,” <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">“Urizen,” <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">“Vala,” <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Varley, John, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Vision of the Daughters of Albion,” <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Whitman, Walt, <a href="#Page_31">31</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Wilkinson, J. Garth, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Wollstonecraft, Mary, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Woollett, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Young’s <i>Night Thoughts</i>, Illustrations to, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li> - -</ul> - -<p> </p> -<p> </p> -<hr class="full" /> -<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILLIAM BLAKE***</p> -<p>******* This file should be named 52300-h.htm or 52300-h.zip *******</p> -<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> -<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/5/2/3/0/52300">http://www.gutenberg.org/5/2/3/0/52300</a></p> -<p> -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed.</p> - -<p>Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive -specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this -eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook -for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, -performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given -away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks -not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the -trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. -</p> - -<h2>START: FULL LICENSE<br /> -<br /> -THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE<br /> -PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK</h2> - -<p>To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full -Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at -www.gutenberg.org/license.</p> - -<h3>Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works</h3> - -<p>1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or -destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your -possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a -Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound -by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the -person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph -1.E.8.</p> - -<p>1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this -agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.</p> - -<p>1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the -Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection -of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual -works in the collection are in the public domain in the United -States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the -United States and you are located in the United States, we do not -claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, -displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as -all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope -that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting -free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm -works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the -Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily -comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the -same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when -you share it without charge with others.</p> - -<p>1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are -in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, -check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this -agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, -distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any -other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no -representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any -country outside the United States.</p> - -<p>1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:</p> - -<p>1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other -immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear -prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work -on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the -phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, -performed, viewed, copied or distributed:</p> - -<blockquote><p>This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United - States and most other parts of the world 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>. If you - are not located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws - of the country where you are located before using this - ebook.</p></blockquote> - -<p>1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is -derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not -contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the -copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in -the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are -redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply -either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or -obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.</p> - -<p>1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any -additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms -will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works -posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the -beginning of this work.</p> - -<p>1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.</p> - -<p>1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg-tm License.</p> - -<p>1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including -any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access -to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format -other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official -version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site -(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense -to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means -of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain -Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the -full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.</p> - -<p>1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.</p> - -<p>1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -provided that</p> - -<ul> -<li>You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed - to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has - agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid - within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are - legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty - payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in - Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg - Literary Archive Foundation."</li> - -<li>You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm - License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all - copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue - all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm - works.</li> - -<li>You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of - any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of - receipt of the work.</li> - -<li>You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.</li> -</ul> - -<p>1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than -are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing -from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The -Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.</p> - -<p>1.F.</p> - -<p>1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project -Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may -contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate -or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other -intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or -other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or -cannot be read by your equipment.</p> - -<p>1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right -of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE.</p> - -<p>1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium -with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you -with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in -lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person -or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second -opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If -the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing -without further opportunities to fix the problem.</p> - -<p>1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO -OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT -LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.</p> - -<p>1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of -damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement -violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the -agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or -limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or -unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the -remaining provisions.</p> - -<p>1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in -accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the -production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, -including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of -the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this -or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or -additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any -Defect you cause. </p> - -<h3>Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm</h3> - -<p>Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of -computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It -exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations -from people in all walks of life.</p> - -<p>Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future -generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see -Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at -www.gutenberg.org.</p> - -<h3>Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation</h3> - -<p>The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by -U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.</p> - -<p>The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the -mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its -volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous -locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt -Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to -date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and -official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact</p> - -<p>For additional contact information:</p> - -<p> Dr. Gregory B. Newby<br /> - Chief Executive and Director<br /> - gbnewby@pglaf.org</p> - -<h3>Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation</h3> - -<p>Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide -spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS.</p> - -<p>The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND -DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular -state visit <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/donate">www.gutenberg.org/donate</a>.</p> - -<p>While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate.</p> - -<p>International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.</p> - -<p>Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To -donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate</p> - -<h3>Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works.</h3> - -<p>Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project -Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be -freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and -distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of -volunteer support.</p> - -<p>Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in -the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition.</p> - -<p>Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org</p> - -<p>This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.</p> - -</body> -</html> - diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/cover.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index ca1b7c7..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/cover.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p11.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/illus-p11.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index becf58a..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p11.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p17.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/illus-p17.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 8433663..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p17.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p22.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/illus-p22.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index e784258..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p22.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p24.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/illus-p24.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index f1b7d2b..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p24.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p26.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/illus-p26.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 64b109d..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p26.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p28a.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/illus-p28a.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index cf1127e..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p28a.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p28b.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/illus-p28b.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 5ce4602..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p28b.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p34.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/illus-p34.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index eb0327e..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p34.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p39.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/illus-p39.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 85e5011..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p39.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p47.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/illus-p47.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index ae1c231..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p47.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p50.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/illus-p50.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 9361041..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p50.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p52.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/illus-p52.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index de44a44..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p52.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p55.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/illus-p55.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 0f0dce1..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p55.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p61.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/illus-p61.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 56cffcf..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p61.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p63.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/illus-p63.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index b7c4794..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p63.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p65.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/illus-p65.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 4a6ed99..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p65.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p67.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/illus-p67.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 52f8fae..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p67.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p69.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/illus-p69.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index db6e34b..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p69.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p71.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/illus-p71.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 8302ad8..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p71.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p78.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/illus-p78.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 9e11619..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/illus-p78.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/plate1-ereader.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/plate1-ereader.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 700a97b..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/plate1-ereader.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/plate1-small.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/plate1-small.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index a137195..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/plate1-small.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/plate1.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/plate1.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index d8dd527..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/plate1.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/plate2-ereader.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/plate2-ereader.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 8e2b477..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/plate2-ereader.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/plate2-small.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/plate2-small.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 1c8abf5..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/plate2-small.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/plate2.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/plate2.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 080eb06..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/plate2.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/plate3-ereader.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/plate3-ereader.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 63710ac..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/plate3-ereader.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/plate3-small.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/plate3-small.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 8ba3380..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/plate3-small.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/plate3.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/plate3.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index d94fd2b..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/plate3.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/plate4-ereader.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/plate4-ereader.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 40c1a6e..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/plate4-ereader.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/plate4-small.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/plate4-small.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 355c64d..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/plate4-small.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/plate4.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/plate4.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index b080edc..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/plate4.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/plate5-ereader.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/plate5-ereader.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 50e620b..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/plate5-ereader.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/plate5-small.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/plate5-small.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index ccc4cc3..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/plate5-small.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/plate5.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/plate5.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index ba4e314..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/plate5.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/plate6-ereader.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/plate6-ereader.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index f144a14..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/plate6-ereader.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/plate6-small.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/plate6-small.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 2f67150..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/plate6-small.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/plate6.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/plate6.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 7638d33..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/plate6.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/plate7-ereader.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/plate7-ereader.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 1bc715a..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/plate7-ereader.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/plate7-small.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/plate7-small.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 1642817..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/plate7-small.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/plate7.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/plate7.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 5d12cf2..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/plate7.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/52300-h/images/titlepage.jpg b/old/52300-h/images/titlepage.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index ec80ae8..0000000 --- a/old/52300-h/images/titlepage.jpg +++ /dev/null |
