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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. 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