,libraries47 ,,william ,,blake ,illustration3 ,,from ,,blair',s ,,grave3 ,,the ,,last ,,judgment ,engraved by ,l4 ,schiavonetti after ,blake's design4 #ahjh ,,william ,,blake ,a ,,study ,,of ,,his ,,life ,,and ,,art ,,work ,,by ,,irene ,,langridge ,,london ,,george ,,bell ,,and ,,sons #aijd ,,chiswick ,,press3 ,,charles ,,whittingham ,,and ,,co4 ,,tooks ,,court1 ,,chancery ,,lane1 ,,london4 ,,preface ,some years ago1 ,i became deeply interested in ,william ,blake1 and made myself familiar with all that our public collections in ,london contain of his art-work4 ,it seemed to me that this work was still so little known and appreciated by the public1 that a short book might well be written to serve as a pointer to our national ,blake treasures4 ,the standard works on ,blake--,gilchrist's ,life1 ,mr4 ,a4 ,c4 ,swinburne's ,critical ,essay1 ,messrs4 ,ellis and ,yeats' exhaustive volumes1 and ,mr4 ,w4 ,m4 ,rossetti's ,aldine ,essay--are of great literary excellence and high critical quality1 and must ever remain the great authorities on the subject2 but1 owing to these works being either out of print1 very lengthy1 very expensive1 or unillustrated1 a want may be supplied by1 and an opportunity of usefulness open to1 such a book as the present one4 ,different in scope as it is from any other book on ,blake1 and modest in aim1 it deals with the poet-artist as he is manifested in those works of his which are accessible to the public4 ,in seeking to sketch again his artistic personality1 ,i have been guided by the conclusions of his eminent biographers and critics wherever they coincided with my own intuitive convictions4 ,but in the study of a character and work so out of the usual1 so exotic and strange as those of ,blake1 unanimity of opinion and judgement is hardly to be hoped for1 and the variety of points of view from which each new student sees him1 may assist to the rounding and filling out of the portrait drawn in so masterly a manner in the first instance by ,alexander ,gilchrist4 ,my best thanks are due to ,mr4 ,a4 ,b4 ,langridge for reading my proofs and for the photographs which he took expressly to illustrate this volume4 ,also to ,mr4 ,frederic ,shields for numerous acts of kindness and the loan of original ,blake drawings1 to ,sir ,charles ,dilke1 to ,messrs4 ,chatto and ,windus1 to ,mr4 ,laurence ,binyon1 ,mr4 ,g4 ,k4 ,fortescue1 and to ,dr4 ,g4 ,c4 ,williamson for help given to me in various ways4 ,,contents ,,chapter ,,page ,i4 ,,early ,,years #a ,,ii4 ,,life ,,at ,,felpham #ba ,,iii4 ,,the ,,procession ,,of ,,the ,,pilgrims #cb ,,iv4 ,,declining ,,years #de ,v4 ,,his ,,religious ,,views #eg ,,vi4 ,,his ,,mystical ,,nature #gb ,,vii4 ,,his ,,art ,,work #hj ,songs of ,innocence4 ,book of ,thel4 ,gates of ,paradise4 ,songs of ,experience4 ,tales for ,children4 ,,viii4 ,,the ,,prophetic ,,books #aja ,vision of the ,daughters of ,albion4 ,america4 ,europe4 ,,ix4 ,,the ,,prophetic ,,books1 continued #aaf ,book of ,urizen4 ,the ,small ,book of ,designs4 ,the ,large ,book of ,designs4 ,song of ,los4 ,book of ,los4 ,jerusalem4 ,milton4 ,x4 ,,work ,,in ,,illustration #acf ,young's ,night ,thoughts4 ,blair's ,grave4 ,thornton's ,pastorals4 ,the ,book of ,job4 ,,xi4 ,,work ,,in ,,the ,,exhibition ,,of #aijd #aei ,,xii4 ,,engravings ,,and ,,drawings ,,in ,,the ,,print ,,room #agf ,the ,canterbury ,pilgrimage4 ,dante4 ,pencil ,sketches4 ,works in the ,national ,gallery4 ,,index #aie ,,illustrations ,,to ,,face ,,page ,,the ,,last ,,judgment 7from ,blair's ,grave7 ,frontispiece ,,portrait ,,of ,,blake #a ,,the ,,little ,,girl ,,lost 7from ,songs of ,experience7 #ab ,,the ,,divine ,,image 7from ,songs of ,innocence7 #af ,,america1 a page from #bj ,,the ,,lazar ,,house #bb ,,europe1 a page from #bd ,,los1 ,,enitharmon1 ,,and ,,orc 7from ,urizen7 #bf ,,the ,,re-,,union ,,of ,,the ,,soul ,,and ,,the ,,body 7from ,the ,grave7 #cb ,,the ,,pilgrimage ,,to ,,canterbury 7,stothard7 #cf ,,chaucer',s ,,canterbury ,,pilgrims 7,blake7 #cf ,,satan ,,tormenting ,,job #dd ,,blake',s ,,room ,,in ,,fountain ,,court 7,f4 ,j4 ,shields7 #ec ,,death',s ,,door 7from ,the ,grave7 #ff ,,the ,,shepherd 7from ,songs of ,innocence7 #hj ,,frontispiece ,,from ,,songs ,,of ,,innocence #hd ,,the ,,lamb 7from ,songs of ,innocence7 #hf ,,the ,,marriage ,,of ,,heaven ,,and ,,hell1 a page from #ij ,i ,,want1 ,i ,,want 7from ,gates of ,paradise7 #id ,,the ,,deluge 7after a ,plate in ,gates of ,paradise7 #if ,,the ,,tyger 7from ,songs of ,experience7 #ih ,,infant ,,joy 7from ,songs of ,innocence7 #ajj ,,visions ,,of ,,the ,,daughters ,,of ,,albion1 a page from #ajf ,,america1 the ,frontispiece to #ajh ,,america1 a page from #aaj ,,europe1 the ,frontispiece to 7,the ,ancient of ,days7 #aab ,,europe1 the first page from #aad ,,urizen1 the title-page from #aaf ,,urizen1 ,plate ,,vi from #aah ,,the ,,small ,,book ,,of ,,designs1 ,plate ,,ix from #abj ,,the ,,accusers 7from ,the ,large ,book of ,designs7 #abb ,,jerusalem1 page #cc from #abh ,,robert 7from ,milton7 #acd ,,time ,,speeding ,,away 7page #be from ,night ,thoughts7 #ach ,,death ,,of ,,the ,,strong ,,wicked ,,man 7from ,the ,grave7 #adj ,,the ,,soul ,,reluctantly ,,parting ,,from ,,the ,,body 7from ,the ,grave7 #add ,,thornton',s ,,virgil',s ,,pastorals1 woodcuts from #adf ,,the ,,book ,,of ,,job1 ,plate ,,ii #aej ,,the ,,book ,,of ,,job1 ,plate ,v #aeb ,,the ,,book ,,of ,,job1 ,plate ,,xiv #aed ,,the ,,nativity #afb ,,the ,,flight ,,into ,,egypt #afh ,,oberon1 ,,titania1 ,,and ,,puck #agj ,,vision ,,of ,,queen ,,katherine #agd ,,the ,,circle ,,of ,,the ,,lustful 7from ,dante7 #ahj ,,pencil ,,sketch ,,for ,,death',s ,,door #ahd ,,head ,,of ,,an ,,old ,,man #ahf ,,the ,,whore ,,of ,,babylon #ahh ,,david ,,delivered ,,out ,,of ,,deep ,,waters #aij ,,the ,,spiritual ,,form ,,of ,,pitt ,,guiding ,,behemoth #aib ,,books ,,on ,,blake ,,binyon1 ,,robert ,,laurence4 ,william ,blake3 being all his woodcuts photographically reproduced in facsimile4 ,london1 #aijb4 #do4 ,the ,unicorn ,press3 ,little ,engravings1 ,no4 #b4 ,,cunningham1 ,,allan4 ,the ,lives of the most eminent ,british ,painters1 ,sculptors and ,architects4 ,london1 #ahbi-cc4 #abo4 ,part of ,the ,family ,library1 #f vols4 ,note3 a second edition of this work was published in #ahcj-cg1 in #afo1 #f vols4 ,,ellis1 ,e4 ,j41 and ,,yeats1 ,w4 ,b4 ,the works of ,william ,blake1 poetic1 symbolic1 and critical4 ,edited with lithographs of the illustrated ,prophetic ,books1 and a memoir and interpretation4 ,london1 ,b4 ,quaritch1 #ahic4 #ho4 #c vols4 ,,garnett 7,,sir7 ,,richard4 ,william ,blake1 ,painter and ,poet4 ,london1 #ahie4 #hj pp4 folio4 ,the ,portfolio ,monographs1 ,no4 #bb4 ,,gilchrist1 ,,alexander4 ,the ,life of ,w4 ,blake1 ',pictor ,ignotus4' ,with selections from his poems and other writings4 ,edited by ,anne ,gilchrist1 with the assistance of ,d4 ,g4 and ,w4 ,m4 ,rossetti4 ,london1 #ahfc4 #ho4 #b vols4 ,note3 a second enlarged edition was published in #ahhj4 ,london1 ,macmillan ,co4 #ho4 #b vols4 ,,malkin1 ,,thomas ,w4 ,a ,father's ,memoirs of his ,child4 ,london1 #ahjf4 #ho4 ,,rossetti1 ,w4 ,m4 ,the ,poetical ,works of ,william ,blake4 ,edited with a prefatory memoir4 ,london1 #ahgd4 #ho4 ,the ,aldine ,poets4 ,george ,bell ,sons4 ,,scott1 ,,william ,,bell4 ,exhibition of the ,works of ,william ,blake4 ,with introductory memoir4 ,london1 ,the ,burlington ,fine ,arts ,club1 #ahgf4 #do4 ,,scott1 ,,william ,,bell4 ,william ,blake4 ,etchings from his works 7with descriptive text74 ,london1 ,chatto and ,windus1 #ahgh4 ,folio4 ,,smetham1 ,,james4 ,essay on ,blake4 7,reprinted in ,gilchrist's work1 q4v41 from the ,london ,quarterly ,review74 ,,swinburne1 ,a4 ,c4 ,william ,blake4 ,a critical essay1 with illustrations from ,blake's designs in facsimile1 coloured and plain4 ,second edition4 ,london1 #ahfh4 #ho4 ,illustration3 ,,william ,,blake ,,william ,,blake ,,chapter ,i ,,early ,,years ,the work of one of the greatest spirits that ever made ,art his medium has yet its way to make among the general public4 ,the world entertained the angel unawares1 for three-quarters of a century have passed since the death of ,william ,blake1 and still his name and his work are but indifferently known4 ,yet to those that know them1 the designs from his pencil1 and the poems from his pen1 are among the most precious things that ,art has bequeathed to us4 ,it is my purpose in the following pages to tell over again the main outlines of his life1 quite shortly and simply1 for the great biography on ,blake 7that of ,alexander ,gilchrist7 can be consulted by all1 and contains almost every detail known about him4 ,to this monumental work1 and to ,messrs4 ,ellis and ,yeats's more recently issued and exhaustive ,commentary on ,blake1 ,i owe all my facts4 ,a brief memoir is a necessary preface to the review ,i propose making of those engraved and painted books1 pictures1 drawings and engravings of ,blake's which our ,national ,collections possess4 ,william ,blake was one of those unique beings who live above this actual world1 in the high places of imagination4 ,at four years old he saw his first vision1 as his wife reminded him in old age1 in the presence of ,mr4 ,crabb ,robinson3 ,you know1 dear1 the first time you saw ,god was when you were four years old1 and ,he put ,his head to the window and set you screaming4 ,quaintly1 crudely1 as the story is told by ,mrs4 ,blake1 it bears testimony to the fact that the visionary faculty was developed in ,blake from the beginning4 ,imagination claimed him definitely as her child from that early day when1 having rambled far afield into the country 7as it was his pastime to do throughout life71 he saw1 in a meadow near ,dulwich1 a tree amongst whose branches glistening angels clustered and sang4 ,it may be1 as one of ,blake's critics suggests1 that ,nature was herself the basis of the supernatural beauty he saw1 though he was all unwitting of it4 ,standing beneath a tree laden with delicate pink blossom1 and gazing up into the rosy gloom1 ,blake may well have translated this pulsating beauty into a miracle4 ,above among the greenery he may have seemed to catch glimpses of aspiring hands and faces among the crowding wings of flame and rose and sun-kissed gold4 ,a little breeze would set angelic wings and garments all a-moving and a-fluttering1 and a thrush's voice suddenly cleaving the silence seem an angel's song indeed1 too exquisite to be endured without tears1 to the quivering1 spell-bound wanderer4 ,such may have been the explanation of this early vision1 but ,blake himself never attributed any natural cause to such spiritual manifestations4 ,everything was alive to him with a strange inner life3 the vegetable world1 as he called it1 was but the shadow of the real world of imagination1 whose spiritual population was more clearly discernible to his highly-wrought consciousness1 than natural phenomena themselves4 ,narrowly did he escape a whipping from his father1 the worthy hosier1 for what that matter-of-fact man could not but consider a most impudent invention on the child's part4 ,the incident was a foreshadowing of the poet-painter's life4 ,the mysterious regions in which his spirit wandered so fearlessly1 and which his poems and his drawings represented to the world1 had but scanty attraction for his time4 ,it would be truer perhaps to say that they were more often regarded with fear and repulsion4 ,the mortal who dares to raise even the corner of the veil that so discreetly hides from our material world the many other existent conditions of consciousness1 the great ,beyond of ,spirit ,life1 does so at his own risk1 and with the certainty of earning his fellow men's distrust and disapproval4 ,the outlook on that immensity has a tendency1 it is true1 to endanger the perfect mental equilibrium2 but though the age--professing faith in a set of decent religious formulae1 but in reality sceptical of all spiritual life and destiny--called ,blake mad1 he was recognized by a few chosen spirits as a great master and seer4 ,the story of his life contains but few incidents1 but through these incidents we see a soul travelling4 ,william ,blake was born in #ageg at #bh1 ,broad ,street1 ,carnaby ,market1 ,soho4 ,the old house still stands1 but looks very dirty and depressing1 like the street1 which1 since ,blake played in it1 has suffered a dingy declension4 ,messrs4 ,ellis and ,yeats1 who have added some biographical details to ,gilchrist's ,life1 state that ,william's father1 the hosier1 ,james ,blake1 was the son of an ,irishman1 one ,john ,o',neil4 ,john ,o',neil married a girl from ,rathmines1 ,dublin1 called ,ellen ,blake1 and as he soon afterwards got into debt and trouble of one sort and another1 he dropped his name of ,o',neil and adopted his wife's maiden name4 ,this fact1 if established beyond doubt1 would seem to be of singular importance1 as the presence of ,irish blood in ,william ,blake would account for several strange characteristics which are not otherwise understandable4 ,the ,kelts are always particularly sensitive and open to spiritual experience4 ,imagination1 second sight1 and acute psychic consciousness1 seem to be the peculiar attributes of the race2 and these gifts are seldom to be found in a pure ,anglo-,saxon4 ,there were four other children1 ,james1 of whom we shall hear again1 ,robert1 our artist's beloved younger brother1 ,john1 a ne'er-do-weel1 and a girl of whom not much is known4 ,very early ,william developed a taste for art1 and his father1 with more sense than usually characterizes the parents of great men1 allowed him to follow his bent1 and sent him1 from the age of ten to fourteen1 to the drawing class of one ,pars1 in the ,strand4 ,we read of his attending picture sales and occasionally buying drawings and prints after ,raphael1 ,michael ,angelo1 ,albert ,duerer1 and other old masters at prices which would make the modern collector green with envy4 ,but we do not hear of ,blake's attending any other school either before or after leaving ,pars for the purpose of furthering his general education4 ,all the knowledge that he acquired outside ,art was self-chosen and self-taught4 ,a sound general education is the firmest basis on which to build a tower of observation from which the world and life may be surveyed with judgement4 ,blake's beautiful and fantastic house of thought1 however1 was erected on no such foundation4 ,perhaps instinct guided his choice of mental food3 certain it is that the peculiar education he gave himself enabled him to preserve his own personality in all its vital energy4 ,pars appears to have been the ,squarcione of that generation4 ,he had been sent to ,greece by the ,dilettante ,society to study ruined temples and broken statues4 ,on his return to ,england he set up a school in the ,strand to teach drawing from plaster casts after the antique4 ,when he was fourteen1 with a view to getting a trade by which he could earn his daily bread1 ,blake's father determined to apprentice him to an engraver4 ,he took him first to ,rylands1 an eminent engraver with a ,court appointment1 but the boy said after the interview1 ,father1 ,i do not like that man's face4 ,he looks as if he would live to be hanged4 ,strange forecast this proved to be1 for in #aghc ,rylands was indeed hanged for forgery4 ,blake was finally apprenticed to ,basire1 a sound craftsman1 but of a somewhat hard and dry manner4 ,basire's style as an engraver set its stamp on ,blake1 there is no doubt4 ,it would have hampered most men severely1 rendering their work formal and immobile1 but ,blake turned it to a strange account1 and it became expressive in his hands4 ,when in his later years he found that he had outgrown it1 he modified it to suit his new requirements1 but it had been a laborious and useful servant1 if not a gracious one4 ,during his apprenticeship ,basire set him to draw all the mediaeval tombs and monuments in ,westminster ,abbey and other churches for a certain publication to be brought out by the firm4 ,in doing this ,blake imbibed large draughts of the intense and fervent ,gothic spirit4 ,its deep innerness1 its passionate aspiration1 its whimsicality1 and its quaint decorative exuberance1 expressed alike in angels and gargoyles1 found and touched a vibrating chord in his heart4 ,gothic art entered into him and became part of him4 ,its influence was strong1 though it took a characteristically ,blakeian expression always1 and those long mornings spent among the slanting sunbeams and the whispering silence of the chapels around the ,king ,confessor's tomb1 were among the truly eventful incidents of his life4 ,in many of his designs a ,gothic church with spires and buttresses like ,westminster1--often a mere symbol sufficient to recall it1 occasionally carefully and elaborately drawn in--stands as an embodiment of ,blake's idea of worship4 ,strange thoughts must have come to him among those forests of slender pillars and arches6 ,some hint of them is conveyed by an engraving he did during the period of drawing in the ,abbey4 ,it is after a drawing 7probably one bought by him cheap at a sale room7 by ,michael ,angelo1 and has the imaginative inscription written on it by ,blake1 ,joseph of ,arimathea among the ,rocks of ,albion4 ,this is one of the ,gothic artists who built the cathedrals in what we call the dark ages1 wandering about in sheepskin and goatskin1 of whom the world was not worthy4 ,joseph of ,arimathea1 it will be remembered1 is supposed to have come to ,glastonbury in #fc ,a4,d4 and built the first ,christian ,church4 ,he did not always work in the ,abbey in quiet4 ,there is a story told by ,messrs4 ,ellis and ,yeats1 of how he was plagued by the ,westminster boys till he laid his grievance before the ,dean1 who thereupon deprived the boys of the right to wander about the ,abbey at their pleasure1 a right denied to them to this day4 ,at twenty1 ,blake's apprenticeship to ,basire being ended1 he attended the ,academy schools and drew from the antique under ,keeper ,moser1 picking out for his chief delight and most ardent study the drawings of ,michael ,angelo and ,raphael--a very barbaric choice it was considered1 according to the decadent taste of the period4 ,moser recommended him to give up poring over those old hard1 stiff1 dry1 unfinished works of art1 and to turn his attention to ,le ,brun and ,rubens1 some of whose drawings he fetched out for ,blake's inspection4 ,blake1 however1 who was never able to conceal his thoughts1 nor to express them in anything but forcible terms1 burst out1 ,these things that you call finished1 are not even begun2 how then can they be finished8 and comments on the incident1 which he relates in his ,,ms4 notes on ,reynolds' ,discourses1 made in his old age1 that the man who does not know the beginning1 cannot know the end of art4 ,by this he meant1 that to be preoccupied as were ,rubens and ,le ,brun1 with the merely faithful representation of the beauty of the body1 to dwell as an end in itself on the wonder of white shoulders1 tapering fingers1 and too luscious flesh1 to linger in the folds and intricacies of silk and velvet robes1 and to spend strength and power on these things1 was mere foolishness and blundering4 ,physical beauty1 splendour of colour1 only thrilled and arrested him when he recognized in them the symbols of an idea1 when they seemed to hint of things rarer and more excellent than any purely natural or intrinsic attribute4 ,if he could discriminate its eternal inner message1 and could make it visible to the world1 then was physical beauty worthy of reproduction4 ,but he seldom dwelt on beauty for its own sake1 but only when it was spiritually significant2 so it is easy to see why he was inaccessible to the influence of such artists as ,rubens and ,le ,brun4 ,at the ,academy ,schools he had the opportunity of drawing from the living model1 and profited by it to a certain limited extent4 ,but he always had an aversion to it1 declaring that to his whimsical nature it smelt of mortality4 ,however he might and did justify his negligence of this important branch of technique1 his art was necessarily weakened by it4 ,technique is the language of art1 and is only to be obtained by frequent and laboriously faithful reference to nature4 ,it is true that ,blake's strong power of generalizing1 along with his marvellous gift of recalling at desire things discriminated by him1 made the achievement of technique through methods of life study a less urgent necessity to him than to other men who had no such retentive artistic memories4 ,essential lines ,blake never failed to give1 but by intention rather than from any inability he seldom gives more than these essential lines in the figures he drew and painted4 ,after all it is possible that his power of delineating swift movement1 and the great range of emotions that correspond to that1 might have been injured or lost by too close an application to the artificially posed human figure4 ,we have seen much life lost in the too close study of life1 as in the otherwise exquisite work of ,lord ,leighton4 ,blake believed that to draw from the typical forms seen by him in vision was his true purpose and aim1 and the study of individual human forms filled his eye with confusion1 for1 as he was for ever asserting1 ,nature seemed to him but a faint and garbled version of the grand originals seen in imagination1 that is1 in truth4 ,while ,blake was educating himself in art1 he had to earn his livelihood by engraver's work1 and between #aggi and #aghb one or two booksellers employed him to engrave designs after various artists4 ,among these artists was ,stothard1 to whom1 in #aghb1 ,blake was introduced4 ,stothard brought ,flaxman and ,blake together1 and the three became warm friends4 ,it was only after many years1 and then through the machinations of an evil man 7the publisher ,cromek71 that ,blake became estranged from ,stothard1 and partially also from ,flaxman4 ,in #aghj ,blake exhibited his first picture in the ,academy1 ,the ,death of ,earl ,godwin4 ,it was only the twelfth exhibition of the institution1 and the first to be held at ,somerset ,house4 ,how curiously do its four hundred and eighty-seven exhibits 7including wax work and a design for a fan7 contrast with our mammoth ,academies of to-day6 ,sir ,joshua ,reynolds1 ,mary ,moser1 ,gainsborough1 ,angelica ,kauffman1 ,cosway and ,fuseli1 were all contributors in the year of grace #aghj4 ,blake was in sympathy with none of them save ,fuseli1 who1 although a man greatly overrated in his day1 had a real sense of the potency of the invisible world1 mainly1 however1 of that portion of it concerned with arch-fiends1 witches1 demons1 and baleful omens4 ,in #aghb ,blake married ,catherine ,bouchier1 and set up housekeeping in ,green ,street4 ,it appears that he had been much in love with a girl called ,pollie ,wood1 who had jilted him4 ,going to stay at ,richmond in a state of deep depression1 he made the acquaintance of ,catherine ,bouchier4 ,messrs4 ,ellis and ,yeats have added this detail to the first biographer's story4 ,when she first entered the room where he sat1 she was overcome by such intense emotion that she had to withdraw for awhile4 ,she afterwards admitted that at that moment she became suddenly aware that she was in the presence of her future husband4 ,small wonder that ,blake felt an irresistible affinity for this charming dark-eyed girl whose fervent susceptible spirit responded so mysteriously to his own4 ,no marriage was ever more happy4 ,catherine was of humble origin1 and practically no education1 for at the time of her marriage she was unable to read or write1 but nevertheless she possessed the rare and delicate qualities necessary for the mate of a man like ,blake4 ,she early realized that the man she had married was no ordinary one1 and to be of service to her dear ,mr4 ,blake 7as she always called him with quaint reverence71 to enter into his thoughts1 to smooth the path of his material life1 and to conform her young and unlessoned girlhood to his difficult standard of plain living and high thinking1 became her one absorbing object4 ,there were a few rough passages in the early days of married life1 which ,gilchrist indicates1 but they soon disappeared4 ,it was merely the friction and heat given off1 before the two strong natures were fused into a perfect union4 ,catherine's nature appears to have been a compound of ardent worship and pregnant sympathy4 ,never did a woman so forget herself in reverencing1 nigh worshipping1 the man she had chosen to marry4 ,during an unusually long1 and in many respects a peculiarly isolated life1 these two lived together1 the one master mind and purpose informing both4 ,no words could do full justice to the beautiful life of ,catherine ,blake4 ,it is true that no ordinary man could have drawn such harmony from the vivacious1 impulsive1 passionate nature of the girl4 ,all the generous love that her nature possessed she lavished on ,blake1 and her complete absorption in him seems to have satisfied the maternal cravings which were to have no other satisfaction1 for ,william and ,catherine had no children4 ,the work of caring for the few rooms which were all that ,blake's means allowed1 and his ambition desired1 for the housing of their bodies1 this ,catherine did with the thoroughness of the true aesthete4 ,she cooked1 sewed1 swept1 dusted1 and washed1 and yet found time to learn from her husband how to read and write1 the use of the graver1 and even to colour with neat and precise hand some of the prints he made4 ,added to this she was soon able to read with intelligence the books he praised1 and listened wondering to the songs he made1 finding them of a heavenly significance and beauty2 and when his tense nerves and superabundant physical energy drove ,blake forth to stretch his limbs and cool his brain in long country walks of thirty1 and occasionally forty miles at a stretch1 ,catherine went with him1 and cheerfully tramped along beside him1 silent or responsive as he set the mood4 ,again1 when in the night time visions appeared to his teeming ever-inventive brain1 and he must needs get up and write or draw while the divine mania was upon him1 then ,catherine arose softly and sat beside that wondrous husband in her white nightgown1 her whole consciousness hanging upon his least movement or utterance1 and her whole being thrilling sympathetically to those invisible presences which moved his spirit4 ,like ,mary1 she kept all these things in her heart and pondered them4 ,speaking of his wife1 one cannot but recall that in ,blake's mysterious and unorthodox creed the doctrine of free love was a very favourite one1 on which in his poetry he was never tired of insisting4 ,yet he seems to have desired freedom1 only1 as ,mr4 ,swinburne finely shows1 for the soul's sake4 ,if love is bound1 he argued1 what merit is there in faithfulness8 ,love1 to be what love in perfect development should be1--to be what ,love in its very essence predicates1--must be free4 ,such a creed1 proclaimed by the lips of the most austere of men in matters sensual1 seems to shadow forth one dimly apprehended aspect of a truth1 which may be realized perhaps1 in a future and more perfect state of society4 ,in a myrtle shade1 and ,william ,bond1 are two among the poems in ,blake's ,,ms4 book1 which have their origin in thoughts about free love4 ,the year after his marriage1 #aghb-hc1 ,blake had to turn to engraving in real earnest to pay for the necessities of the modest menage in ,green ,street4 ,we find him engaged mainly in engraving plates after ,stothard's refined and graceful designs4 ,in after years1 when he was estranged from ,stothard1 ,blake used to say that many of these same designs contained ideas stolen from himself4 ,there can be small doubt that ,stothard did owe something to ,blake's influence4 ,fuseli frankly declared that ,blake is damned good to steal from1 and accordingly adopted his ideas1 and in one instance1 at least1 a complete design4 ,a kind and appreciative couple1 the ,rev4 ,henry and ,mrs4 ,mathew1 received ,blake in their drawing-room about this time1 and gave him an honoured place among their guests4 ,it was they who paid in part for the production of his ,poetical ,sketches1 and ,flaxman1 who had always a strong admiration of ,blake's poetical genius1 helped1--an act of beautiful generosity in a young artist with his own way to make4 ,the ,poetical ,sketches are among the tenderest lyric notes uttered by ,blake1 and their bird-like spontaneity and lilt recall1 says ,dante ,gabriel ,rossetti1 the best period of ,english song-writing1 whose rarest treasures lie scattered among the plays of our ,elizabethan dramatists4 ,these wild wood-notes gushing unselfconscious from a heart glad with youth and fair visions are in strange contrast to the artificial1 trifling1 and unsatisfying poetry of the age4 ,blake himself writes in the ,poem to the ,muses3 ,how have you left the ancient love ,that bards of old enjoy'd in you6 ,the languid strings do scarcely move1 ,the sound is forced1 the notes are few4 ,what can be said of that perfect lyric1 written when ,blake was but fourteen1 ,my silks and fine array1 and that other which ,i shall surely be forgiven for quoting as it stands3 ,how sweet ,i roamed from field to field ,and tasted all the summer's pride1 ,till ,i the ,prince of ,love beheld ,who in the sunny beams did glide4 ,he show'd me lilies for my hair1 ,and blushing roses for my brow2 ,he led me through his gardens fair ,where all his golden pleasures grow4 ,with sweet ,maydews my wings are wet1 ,and ,phoebus fired my vocal rage2 ,he caught me in his silken net1 ,and shut me in his golden cage4 ,he loves to sit and hear me sing1 ,then1 laughing1 sports and plays with me2 ,then stretches out my golden wing1 ,and mocks my loss of liberty4 ,illustration3 ,,printed ,,and ,,coloured ,,plate ,,from ,,songs ,,of ,,experience1 #agid ,to a poetically sensitive mind1 verses like these remain like a beautiful echo in the memory1 having a musical charm apart from the sense of the words4 ,although in this little book it is my purpose to dwell mainly on ,blake's manifestation of himself as a designer and painter1 ,i cannot avoid lingering sometimes on his poetical expression4 ,for the creative impulse that clothed its thought in a garment of words is the same as that which is embodied in plastic forms and symbolic colouring4 ,blake's invention had two outlets1 but was itself one stream of energy only4 ,the lines to the ,evening ,star are incomparably sweet and haunting3 ,thou fair-hair'd angel of the evening1 ,now1 whilst the sun rests on the mountains1 light ,thy brilliant torch of love2 thy radiant crown ,put on1 and smile upon our evening bed6 ,smile on our loves1 and whilst thou drawest round ,the curtains of the sky1 scatter thy dew ,on every flower that closes its sweet eyes ,in timely sleep4 ,let thy west wind sleep on ,the lake2 speak silence with thy glimmering eyes1 ,and wash the dusk with silver4 ,soon1 full soon1 ,dost thou withdraw2 then the wolf rages wide1 ,and then the lion glares through the dim forest1 ,the fleeces of our flocks are covered with ,thy sacred dew2 protect them with thine influence4 ,the lingering subtle and most musical sweetness of such lines as those quoted above1 ,let thy west wind sleep on the lake2 speak silence with thy glimmering eyes1 and wash the dusk with silver1 can be surpassed by none of the great masters of melody4 ,so unaccustomed were the ears of the time to such perfectly natural bursts of song1 that the ,rev4 ,henry ,mathew considered it necessary to apologize to the refined and fastidious for calling attention to them1 hoping their poetic originality merits some respite from oblivion4 ,blake might well seem strange to these borne people1 for he was no other than the herald and forerunner of the poetic renaissance of the beginning of the nineteenth century4 ,in the ,mathew's drawing-room1 surrounded by a wondering group of dilettanti1 above whom he towered head and shoulders intellectually1 he was encouraged to sing his ,songs of ,innocence1 which he had already written1 though not produced1 to his own music4 ,blake had then a mode of musical expression as well as an artistic and a literary one1 though no record of it has been preserved4 ,with these three keys he unlocked the doors of materialism outwards1 on to the vistas of ,god-thrilled ,eternity4 ,in #aghd ,blake exhibited two drawings in the ,royal ,academy1 ,war1 unchained by an ,angel--,fire1 ,pestilence and ,famine following1 and ,a ,breach in the ,city--the ,morning after a ,battle4 ,it is obvious from these that his style was already formed in all its strength and almost terrifying individuality4 ,during this year ,blake's father died1 and ,william and ,catherine returned to ,broad ,street and took up their abode next to the paternal dwelling now occupied by the elder brother ,james4 ,james1 though a ,swedenborgian and accounting himself a godly person1 was also a busy seeker after this world's good things1 and seems to have had little in common with ,william1 though for some years friendly relations were maintained between them4 ,blake set up a shop as printseller and engraver in ,broad ,street in company with a man named ,parker1 whose acquaintance he had made in the old ,basire days1 but it was a short-lived affair1 and soon came to an end4 ,it was in this year that ,william's younger brother ,robert became his pupil4 ,nothing much can be discovered about the personality of ,robert1 but from ,blake's own writings and designs we are able to see how close a tie of affection existed between these two brothers4 ,robert only lived three years after becoming ,william's house-mate and pupil4 ,in his final illness it was not ,catherine but ,william who nursed him day and night untiringly1 with passionate love and care2 and when at last the end came1 ,blake saw his brother's soul fare forth1 clapping its hands for joy1 from the mortal tenement--a vision to bear fruit afterwards in his designs for ,blair's ,grave4 ,then he was beset with sheer physical exhaustion1 and going to bed1 slept for three days and three nights4 ,many years after we find him going back into this period of personal sorrow1 to extract therefrom comfort for ,hayley1 who had lost his son4 ,i know1 he writes to him1 that our deceased friends are more really with us than when they were apparent to our mortal part4 ,thirteen years ago ,i lost a brother1 and with his spirit ,i converse daily and hourly in the spirit1 and see him in remembrance in the regions of my imagination4 ,i hear his advice and even now write from his dictate4 ,forgive me for expressing to you my enthusiasm1 which ,i wish all to partake of1 since it is to me a source of immortal joy1 even in this world4 ,may you continue to be so more and more1 and to be more and more persuaded that every mortal loss is an immortal gain4 ,the ruins of time build mansions in ,eternity3--from all of which it is easy to see that ,robert's influence on the soul of ,william augmented after his death4 ,in #aghh ,blake removed from ,broad ,street to ,no4 #bh1 ,poland ,street1 which lies in its immediate neighbourhood4 ,a coolness may have sprung up between ,james and ,william1 for the brothers saw little of each other now4 ,the following characteristic story1 taken from ,mr4 ,tatham's ,,ms41 and retold by ,messrs4 ,ellis and ,yeats1 helps to draw in ,blake's psychological portrait4 ,in ,poland ,street ,blake's windows looked over ,astley's ,yard1--,astley of circus fame4 ,one day on looking out he saw a boy limping up and down1 dragging a heavy block chained to his foot4 ,it was a hobble used for horses1 and ,blake1 with his brain on fire and pity and rage tearing at his heart1 was soon down in the yard among the circus company4 ,he gave them a passionate speech on liberty1 appealed to them as true men and ,britons not to punish a fellow-countryman in a manner that would degrade a slave1 and finally saw the crowd yield to his eloquence1 and his point was gained4 ,the boy was loosed1 and ,blake returned to his own world of work and vision4 ,some hours after1 ,mr4 ,astley1 who had been out during the incident related1 called on ,blake1 and stormed and raved at what he called his interference4 ,at first ,blake was as angry as ,astley1 his blood was up1 and there seemed every prospect of a very violent quarrel4 ,but suddenly1 in the midst of his anger1 ,blake remembered that the amelioration of the boy's condition was his first object1 and1 quickly changing his tactics1 he so worked on the higher moral nature which ,astley evidently possessed1 that he completely won him over to his views1 and the two men parted--friends4 ,ever after1 however1 as ,messrs4 ,ellis and ,yeats point out1 the chain remained with ,blake as the symbol of cruel oppression and slavery1 and we shall see him using it in his designs again and again as such4 ,illustration3 ,,printed ,,and ,,coloured ,,plate ,,from ,,songs ,,of ,,innocence1 #aghi ,in #agij he produced the ,songs of ,innocence1 printed and published1 as well as designed1 engraved1 and composed by himself4 ,in the long and romantic history of art1 nothing is more strange than the story of how this little book came into being4 ,blake was unknown to the world and had no credit with publishers1 nor had he the wherewithal to publish at his own expense the poems which he had written and called ,songs of ,innocence4 ,yet he greatly desired to see them set forth in a book with appropriate and significant designs4 ,but how was this to be accomplished8 ,he pondered the matter long1 till at last light and leading came4 ,in the silence of one midnight his dead brother ,robert appeared to him and instructed him as to the method--an entirely original one--which he should use4 ,the very next day1 ,blake being urgent to begin his work1 his wife went out early with half-a-crown 7all the money they had in the world71 and laid out one and tenpence on the necessary material4 ,and in faith and gladness1 relying on that mystical power in himself which took and used his hand and eye and brain almost without his will1 he began to make the first of his lovely engraved and painted books4 ,this is the alpha of a long series of engraved books which issued from his hand at intervals for some years4 ,while in ,poland ,street he wrote1 but did not publish till long after1 the ,ghost of ,abel1 in #aghi the ,book of ,thel1 in #agij the ,marriage of ,heaven and ,hell1 and in #agia a poem1 the first of a projected series of seven books1 called ,the ,french ,revolution4 ,this so-called poem owed its birth to the fact that about this period ,blake became one of a literary1 artistic1 and political set who met at the house of ,johnson the publisher4 ,at these gatherings ,mary ,wollstonecraft arrayed her charms to storm the citadel of ,fuseli's cynical heart1 unavailingly4 ,among other guests were ,tom ,paine1 author of ,the ,rights of ,man1 whom eventually ,blake was the means of saving1 by a timely word of warning1 from arrest in ,england4 ,he judiciously advised his flight to ,france1 at the right moment for his safety4 ,godwin and ,holcroft and several revolutionary dreamers were members of this coterie4 ,blake's enthusiasm was set all aglow by a philosophy which saw in the ,french ,revolution a great renovating process1--the fire to burn up the ignorance and superstition and class boundaries of the ancient order1 the introduction of a new reign of righteousness and peace4 ,in effect1 this new philosophy which fired the imagination of ,blake had a basis of materialism and violence which would have found no answering response in his soul1 had he sought to investigate it4 ,his sympathy with the group was intellectual1 and with the higher manifestations of its creed alone4 ,it led to no political action4 ,he had far other work to do than that of a political agitator1 but all expansive doctrines which made for liberty and individuality fired the imagination and fed the intellect of ,blake4 ,democracy was his ideal1 and democratic virtues won his admiration2 indeed1 he dared to flaunt the bonnet rouge of liberty in ,london streets in this agitated period1 but after the ,days of ,terror in '#ib he tore off the white cockade and never again donned the ,cap of ,liberty4 ,but if his work was not to be in the political arena1 he was in his own way hastening the coming of that better and more immaterial kingdom which these young liberators only half conceived4 ,in #agib died the great leader of ,english art1 ,sir ,joshua ,reynolds4 ,his work1 concerned as it was with the exquisite graces of this passing world1 had nothing to say to ,blake1 who regarded it in the light of his own artistic standpoint1 with positive aversion4 ,it often happens that a man who feels it his burning mission to work out and reveal some hitherto neglected or unseen aspect of truth1 does so at the cost of a one-sidedness which is a necessary defect of his quality4 ,blake could no more appreciate ,sir ,joshua--at least at this stage of his being--than ,sir ,joshua could appreciate ,blake4 ,the veteran ,reynolds once told him1 when a young man1 to work with less extravagance and more simplicity1 and to correct his drawing4 ,blake never got over that4 ,we can imagine the suppressed heat with which he listened choking to the advice of the popular artist who was so utterly ignorant of his aims and ideals4 ,to us1 who may enter into the soul of each1 it is given to realize that they1 and all the company of the world's great artists1 have furthered the true work of art2 have all helped1 and are helping1 according to their gifts and in their degree1 to rear the walls and set with windows and crown with battlements and towers1 the palace of beauty for the soul of man to dwell in with delight and worship4 ,that the workers have not always recognized each other is matter for regret1 though it is scarcely perhaps to be wondered at1 seeing that each is set on emphasizing and relieving against its background the one point which seems to him necessary and valuable4 ,the characteristic notes which ,blake appended to ,reynolds' ,discourses many years later1 express much of his dislike4 ,truly1 it is easy to conceive of a mind offering nothing but delight and admiration to ,reynolds' practice1 yet excited to a grave disapproval by much of his theory1 or what he states as his theory4 ,for ,reynolds actually taught that genius--such as his own1 for instance--was a state to be inducted into by precept1 and evolved through study1 instead of being a thing of fire1 a tongue of flame from on high1 set on a man as a seal1 from which he cannot escape4 ,i am reminded of ,rossetti here1 who quite sincerely told ,mr4 ,hall ,caine1 ,i paint by a set of unwritten but clearly-defined rules1 which ,i could teach to any man as systematically as you could teach arithmetic4 ,ah6 that such genius might thus be taught6 ,however1 ,reynolds1 his practice and theory alike1 were by ,blake swept into a limbo of unconditional condemnation1 though occasionally1 in spite of the prejudice he nursed against ,sir ,joshua1 he flashed out notes of emphatic approval1 on certain utterances in the great man's ,discourses4 ,illustration3 ,,page ,,from ,,america1 ,a ,,prophecy1 #agic ,printed in blue1 from the ,print ,room copy ,,chapter ,,ii ,,life ,,at ,,felpham ,in #agic ,blake removed across the river to ,hercules ,buildings1 ,lambeth1 where he lived for seven years of great mental and spiritual vitality1 seeing visions and dreaming dreams and embodying them in beautiful designs4 ,he was a tireless worker1 never resting1 and sleeping much less than other men4 ,these ,lambeth days were days of comparative prosperity with the ,blakes1 whose wants were so simple and few4 ,the little house in which they lived possessed rustic charms--a garden with a summer-house1 and a vine climbing over the back of the house1 whose leaves made a pleasant rustling in summer4 ,a view of the river1 too1 could not have failed to add a significant charm to the place4 ,on its shining surface might be descried ships like souls faring to the world's great market-place1 to barter and to receive merchandise2 while others1 with white sails set1 slipped quietly down the river and out to the wide mysterious sea4 ,blake had a few pupils1 too1 and at this period he made the acquaintance of ,mr4 ,butts1 who was a staunch friend and true appreciator for thirty years4 ,during all that time he was a constant buyer of our artist's work1 and bought sometimes at the rate of one drawing a week4 ,in time ,mr4 ,butts' spacious house in ,fitzroy ,square became a regular ,blake ,gallery4 ,the average price he paid was ,l#a to #cjs4 a design or picture4 ,to ,mr4 ,butts' great honour be it said that he never assumed the airs of a patron1 never tried to bind or hamper ,blake's genius1 or to dictate or direct his choice of subjects or treatment of them4 ,he seems to have realized that this man was a prince in ,israel1 and the lordship of his ideas not to be questioned1 but accepted humbly and with gratitude4 ,in a future chapter ,i hope to deal with the ,blake drawings and easel pictures done for ,mr4 ,butts1 which were available to the public in the ,exhibition at ,messrs4 ,carfax's ,rooms in ,ryder ,street1 held in #aijd4 ,blake seems to have enjoyed a little wave of recognition at ,lambeth--popularity it can hardly be called--but it was not long-lived4 ,at one time he was even suggested as drawing-master to the ,royal ,family1 but declined the position1 not from modesty1 but from devotion to his true metier--the preservation and expression of spiritual ideas--with which such a post would probably have interfered4 ,two acts of secret and most munificent generosity are recorded by ,tatham1 and quoted by ,messrs4 ,ellis and ,yeats1 concerning ,blake while at ,lambeth4 ,he gave ,l#dj 7he seldom after had half as much money beside him7 to a friend in distress1 and his deep sympathetic heart being moved by the sight of a sick young man1 an artist1 who daily passed their door1 he and his ,kate made the young man's acquaintance1 and for the love of ,christ and in memory of brother ,robert1 finally took him into their house and tended him till his death some months later4 ,while at ,lambeth he made three large and important drawings--,nebuchadnezzar1 an enlarged edition of the bearded figure on hands and knees which occurs in ,the ,marriage of ,heaven and ,hell2 ,the ,lazar ,house and ,the ,elohim creating ,adam4 ,he also made designs for ,young's ,night ,thoughts4 ,there were #ecg designs made1 and ,blake only took a year to do them4 ,a selected few were engraved4 ,while at ,lambeth he printed also his ,visions of the ,daughters of ,albion1 ,america1 ,europe1 ,urizen1 ,the ,gates of ,paradise1 ,the ,book of ,los1 ,the ,song of ,los1 and ,ahania4 ,the list implies steady application1 and untiring intellectual and spiritual energy4 ,illustration3 ,,the ,,lazar ,,house1 ,,from ,,milton ,water-colour1 #agie ,the introduction of our painter1 in #ahjj1 by his old friend ,flaxman1 to ,hayley1 poetaster and dilettante1 marks the beginning of a new epoch in his life4 ,hayley1 the friend of ,gibbon and1 later1 of ,cowper 7whose biography he wrote71 was a characteristic product of the last quarter of the eighteenth century1--that age of complaisant preoccupation with trifles4 ,this poetically barren interval before the birth of the wonderful new school of poetry had1 since the best days of ,cowper1 but one star above its horizon--or was it a will-o'-the-wisp8--the soi-disant poet ,hayley4 ,complaisantly he twinkled on his admiring world1 and1 striking the lyre with gracious hand1 sang with modest satisfaction ,the ,triumphs of ,temper4 ,this now forgotten work earned him the position of greatest of living poets1 and he assumed his high seat in the literary world with bustling alacrity4 ,above all things he aspired to culture1 not at the expense of a very continuous effort or strain1 it is true1 but he loved to collect around him artists and men of letters to whom he could play the part of a somewhat undersized ,lorenzo de' ,medici4 ,that they would respond gracefully1 and take their parts becomingly in this garden-comedy1 was all that he required of his court4 ,it will be remembered that ,romney was one of his artist friends1 and that the connection proved in a way economically disastrous to the painter1 for ,hayley was an extravagant man1 though he professed simple tastes1 and encouraged poor ,romney in his mania for building and other lavish expenditure4 ,his influence1 such as it was1 was stimulating to none of his friends1 though he meant well and kindly enough4 ,he affected the part of the country gentleman1 as well as that of the high priest of culture1 and delighted in patronage4 ,soon after his acquaintance with ,blake began1 his old friend ,cowper died under tragic conditions1 and a week later ,hayley's only child 7an illegitimate son7 died also4 ,the boy was a youth of promise1 and had been a pupil of ,flaxman4 ,so he had gratified as well as filled the poor father's heart4 ,hayley's trouble called forth a letter from ,blake1 which ,i quoted when writing on the death of ,robert1 and it seems to have touched1 perhaps comforted1 ,hayley1 who even in his deep affliction assumed a pose not natural or spontaneous4 ,blake was recommended by ,flaxman as an engraver and designer 7if the latter should be required71 and ,hayley proposed that the ,blakes should come and live at ,felpham1 near his own place of ,eartham in ,sussex1 in order that his new protege might engrave the illustrations to the life of ,cowper which he was now about to write1 under ,hayley's own eye4 ,the idea pleased ,blake1 while ,mrs4 ,blake1 he wrote1 is like a flame of many colours of precious jewels1 whenever she hears it named4 ,as a matter of fact1 ,hayley did not live at ,eartham now1 as the place was an expensive one to keep up1 but had built himself a wonderful turretted marine cottage1 with a library and covered court for equestrian exercise at ,felpham4 ,illustration3 ,,plate ,,from ,,europe1 ,,printed #agid ,coloured by hand ,in the ,september of #ahjj1 ,blake being then forty-three years old1 the husband and wife took up their abode in a pretty little cottage by the sea at ,felpham1 and began a new manner of life4 ,if ,hercules ,buildings1 ,lambeth1 had afforded ,blake hints and types of spiritual life and light1 how much larger a vista must have opened to him at ,felpham4 ,he used to wander musing along the seashore1 and more than once saw the yellow sands peopled by a host of souls long since departed from this earth--,moses and the ,prophets1 ,homer1 ,dante1 ,milton3 all1 ,blake said1 majestic shadows1 gray but luminous1 and superior to the common height of men4 ,many visions came to him at first4 ,it is not wonderful that this should have been so1 for there was nothing that did not teem with suggestions to his subjective mind1 and when he received a new influx of spiritual light1 as he seemed to have had at ,felpham1 then1 indeed1 were blossoms1 stars and stones1 nay1 the very air he breathed1 alive with a strange1 sentient1 crowding population1 to whose spiritual utterances he listened1 whose forms he strained his mental sight to realize4 ,in a letter to ,flaxman1 beginning1 ,dear ,sculptor of ,eternity1 ,blake writes in the first effervescence of delight3 ,felpham is a sweet place for study1 because it is more spiritual than ,london4 ,heaven opens here on all sides her golden gates2 her windows are not obstructed by vapours2 voices of celestial inhabitants are more distinctly heard1 and their forms more distinctly seen4 ,for a while all went very well indeed1 and the first part of his sojourn at ,felpham was a sort of charmed circle in his life4 ,mr4 ,hayley acts like a prince1 ,felpham is the sweetest spot on earth1 work will go on here with ,god-speed1 ,find that ,i can work with greater pleasure than ever1 are phrases which occur in the enthusiastic letters of the period4 ,but gradually ,hayley's constant companionship1 his amiable but fatuous and gushing friendship1 acted like the hated chain of slavery on ,blake's electric and expansive temperament4 ,hayley's mind was set on little things1 trivial business and futile undertakings1 and his vanity and self-satisfaction about all his doings came at last to be exasperating to ,blake4 ,in spite of his generosity1 his lavish but undiscerning praise1 and the commissions for engraving and designs with which he supplied our artist1 ,blake little by little found himself goaded to madness by the ever-flowing stream of ,hayley's conventionality and watery enthusiasms4 ,hayley attempted to enlarge ,blake's education by reading to him ,klopstock and translating as he went along--a proceeding that must have bored our fiery genius to tears4 ,he also1 with the kindest intentions in the world1 obtained commissions for ,blake to paint miniatures--hardly1 one would think1 a congenial form of art to him1 but one which at the beginning appears to have interested him nevertheless4 ,a couplet he wrote in the ,note-book at the time evidences the irritated nerves that ,hayley's unspiritual contact set on edge3 ,thy friendship oft has made my heart to ache4 ,do be my enemy for friendship's sake4 ,the letters1 too1 to ,mr4 ,butts give direct insight into his state of mind1 and the points of sharp disagreement and intellectual misunderstanding between the two men are easily traced4 ,it appears that ,hayley was as much averse to a page of ,blake's poetry as to a chapter in the ,bible4 ,blake the creator and artist was unintelligible and foreign to ,hayley1 who1 always satisfied with his own judgement1 sought to turn ,blake from designing and to chain him to the hack work of engraving4 ,illustration3 ,,los1 ,,enitharmon ,,and ,,orc ,colour-print from ,urizen1 #agid ,by degrees the visions that had so often and radiantly appeared to ,blake on his first coming to ,felpham seemed to forsake him4 ,as he became involved in ,hayley's pursuits1 and sought to work out ,hayley's plans for him1 the visions even appeared to be angry with him4 ,then1 indeed1 it seemed that he was in danger of bartering his birthright for a mess of pottage4 ,he writes to ,mr4 ,butts3 ,my unhappiness has arisen from a source which1 if explored too narrowly1 might hurt my pecuniary circumstances1 as my dependence is on engraving at present1 and particularly the engravings ,i have in hand for ,mr4 ,h41 and ,i find on all hands great objections to my doing anything but the mere drudgery of business1 and intimations that if ,i do not confine myself to this1 ,i shall not live4 ,this has always pursued me4444 ,this from ,johnson and ,fuseli brought me down here1 and this from ,mr4 ,h4 will bring me back again4 ,for that ,i cannot live without doing my duty to lay up treasures in heaven1 is certain and determined1 and to this ,i have long made up my mind4444 ,but1 he goes on to say1 if we fear to do the dictates of our angels1 and tremble at the tasks set before us2 if we refuse to do spiritual acts because of natural fears and natural desires1 who can describe the dismal torments of such a state8 ,i too well remember the threats ,i heard 7i4e41 in vision74 ,if you1 who are organized by ,divine ,providence for spiritual commission1 refuse and bury your talents in the earth1 even though you should want natural bread--sorrow and desperation pursue you through life1 and after death shame and confusion of face to eternity4 ,everyone in eternity will leave you1 aghast at the man who was crowned with glory and honour by his brethren and betrayed their cause to their enemies4 ,you will be called the base ,judas who betrayed his friend4 ,blake was the apostle and martyr of this devotion to the high spiritual mission of ,art4 ,he would make no compromise with the world4 ,in a letter to ,mr4 ,butts dated ,april #beth1 #ahjc1 he writes3 ,i can alone carry on my visionary studies in ,london unannoyed1 and that ,i may converse with my friends in ,eternity1 see visions1 dream dreams1 and prophesy and speak parables1 unobserved1 and at liberty from the doubts of other mortals1 perhaps doubts proceeding from kindness1 but doubts are always pernicious1 especially when we doubt our friends4 ,christ is very decided on this point3 ',he who is not with me is against me2' there is no medium or middle state2 and if a man is the enemy of my spiritual life1 while he pretends to be the friend of my corporeal1 he is a real enemy2 but the man may be the friend of my spiritual life while he seems the enemy of my corporeal1 though not vice versa4 ,this enemy to ,blake's spiritual life is certainly ,hayley4 ,he writes with unmistakable frankness of the ,hermit of ,eartham in a later letter3 ,mr4 ,h4 approves of my designs as little as he does of my poems1 and ,i have been forced to insist on his leaving me1 in both1 to my own self-will2 ,i am determined to be no longer pestered with his genteel ignorance and polite disapprobation4 ,i know myself both ,poet and ,painter1 and it is not his affected contempt that can move to anything but a more assiduous pursuit of both arts4 ,indeed1 by my late firmness ,i have brought down his affected loftiness1 and he begins to think ,i have some genius1 as if genius and assurance were the same thing6 ,but his imbecile attempts to depress me only deserve laughter4 ,he goes on to say that he will relinquish all engagements to design for ,hayley1 unless altogether left to my own judgement1 as you1 my dear friend1 have always left me2 for which ,i shall never cease to honour and respect you4 ,and for which1 we may add1 posterity also has good reason to laud and acclaim ,mr4 ,butts4 ,blake was not the man to be the creature of any patron1 spending his time and all his magnificent powers as the servant of another man's brain--especially when that brain was ,hayley's4 ,if the engravings and designs done for his patron had earned him thousands instead of a mere competence1 such work could not have tempted him from his chosen path of spiritual art4 ,finally1 in #ahjc1 he threw off the yoke decisively1 turned his back on patronage1 and returned with his faithful ,kate to the liberty and poverty of rooms in ,south ,molton ,street1 ,london1 after a three years' rural seclusion4 ,just before leaving ,felpham ,blake became involved in a very disagreeable affair with a drunken soldier named ,schofield1 which resulted in a trial for sedition4 ,the soldier1 who was forcibly removed by ,blake from his cottage garden1 where he was trespassing1 trumped up in revenge a set of ridiculous charges against him1 saying he had used seditious language against the king and government4 ,in the practical difficulties that all this gave rise to1 ,hayley came forward to ,blake's assistance1 and putting all the weight of his local position and popularity on the artist's side1 materially helped him before and at the time of the trial4 ,although he had been thrown from his horse and hurt a few days previously1 he insisted on being present to give evidence in his protege's favour1 who was of course acquitted4 ,warm-hearted ,blake felt a generous inrush of the old affection for his friend1 and a deep sense of gratitude helped to re-establish the old cordial relations between the two men4 ,it must not be inferred from this1 however1 that ,blake had altered his opinion that ,hayley was his spiritual enemy4 ,that1 he held1 ,hayley had proved himself to be4 ,but he now recognized that it was not malignity1 but deficiency of spiritual knowledge and insight that had made him act as he did4 ,it was the law of his being1 and ,blake1 having learned this through experience of his three years' stay at ,felpham1 expected no more from him than his capacity warranted1 and gave him his dues1 dwelling with gratitude on the fact that ,hayley was at least a true corporeal friend4 ,the stress and strain connected with the trial had a bad effect on ,blake's highly-sensitive nerves1 and is painfully apparent in the writing of the time4 ,the time at ,felpham1 and the period that succeeded on his return to ,london1 have much light shed on them by the ,note-book4 ,the ,,ms4 book to which reference has been made was a sort of safety valve1 which ,blake kept ever at his elbow1 and in which he wrote long dissertations on ,art and ,religion--the ,public ,address1 the ,vision of the ,last ,judgment1 and many of the poems published under the title 7which heads the ,note-book itself7 of ,ideas of ,good and ,evil4 ,along with1 and interspersed with these connected and finished utterances1 are splenetic epigrams1 rude rather than humorous caricature couplets1 little scraps of unconsidered verse written to illustrate some incident of the day1 and drawings here1 there1 and everywhere4 ,the ,,ms4 ,note-book is a very intimate part of ,blake4 ,on its first page ,messrs4 ,ellis and ,yeats quote the inscription written by ,dante ,gabriel ,rossetti1 who possessed it till his death3 ,i purchased this original ,,ms4 of ,palmer1 an attendant at the ,antique ,gallery of the ,british ,museum1 on the #cjth ,april1 #ahdi4 ,palmer knew ,blake personally1 and it was from the artist's wife that he had the present ,,ms41 which he sold me for #ajs4 ,among the sketches are one or two profiles of ,blake himself4 ,unfortunately it has now passed by purchase into the possession of a collector at ,boston1 ,u4,s4,a4 ,i say unfortunately1 because our own ,national ,museum should have secured such a treasure1 but its present owner courteously lent it for a prolonged period to ,messrs4 ,ellis and ,yeats1 who have embodied the main part of it in their exhaustive and most interesting work4 ,the ,note-book was deeply studied by ,gilchrist1 and was one of ,rossetti's dearest treasures1 leaving its impress on his mind and work4 ,the work ,blake did during the ,felpham period included the designs and engraving of animals to ,hayley's ,ballads1 some of the engravings for ,the ,life of ,cowper1 and1 above all1 the writing of two long prophetic books1 the ,milton and the ,jerusalem1 which1 however1 he did not finish till he had returned to ,london4 ,,chapter ,,iii ,,the ,,procession ,,of ,,the ,,pilgrims ,blake's course was now definitely chosen4 ,he had turned his back on patronage and voluntarily married poverty1 like ,st4 ,francis1 in order that he might be free to work out his own poetic and artistic ideas without reference to popularity1 patronage1 or pecuniary advantage4 ,his wants and ,catherine's were simple indeed1 and to pay for them1 from week to week1 was all he desired4 ,south ,molton ,street1 in which they now took up their abode1 was closely shut in by streets and houses4 ,there was no garden1 no summer-house or vine with pattering green leaves against the window as at ,lambeth1--no trees even to recall the natural beauties of ,felpham4 ,but ,blake seems to have been almost glad to be delivered from the agitating beauty of the natural or vegetative world1 as he called it1 which was to him error and not truth--the visible shadow that darkened and hid invisible and eternal ideas4 ,now indeed1 with nothing to distract him1 he could open his eyes inward into the ,world of ,thought1 into ,eternity1 which is imagination4 ,gilchrist's ,life enables us to realize how he could live in this imaginative world1 and yet1 at the same time1 fulfil with great practical ability such a work1 for instance1 as collecting material for ,hayley for the ,life of ,romney1 which the latter was now beginning4 ,the letters he wrote to ,hayley at the time1 which are all given in the ,life1 are the letters of a kindly business-like man1 intent on giving only such information as will be useful4 ,the good sense1 the sanity1 the mediocrity 7,i had almost said7 of these letters are a pledge of ,blake's ability to act and express himself as other men when he wished so to do4 ,illustration3 ,,from ,,blair',s ,,grave3 ,,the ,,re-,,union ,,of ,,the ,,soul ,,and ,,the ,,body ,engraving by ,l4 ,schiavonetti after ,blake's design4 ,published #ahjh ,hayley was his good corporeal friend1 to whom he was grateful for corporeal acts of kindness1 and as such he treated him4 ,in one of the letters alone there bursts forth a great full-throated shout of joy1 as it were1 because he has suddenly achieved a great advance in his art4 ,as the passage gives valuable insight into his mind at the time1 ,i shall take liberty to quote it3 ,o glory6 ,o delight6 ,i have entirely reduced that spectrous ,fiend to his station1 whose annoyance has been the ruin of my labours for the last passed twenty years of my life4 ,he is the enemy of conjugal love1 and is the ,jupiter of the ,greeks1 an iron-hearted tyrant1 the ruiner of ancient ,greece4 ,i speak with perfect confidence and certainty of the fact which has passed upon me4 ,nebuchadnezzar had seven times passed over him1 ,i have had twenty2 thank ,god1 ,i was not altogether a beast as he was2 but ,i was a slave bound in a mill among beasts and devils2 these beasts and these devils are now1 together with myself1 become children of light and liberty1 and my feet and my wife's feet are free from fetters4444 ,suddenly on the day after visiting the ,truchsessian ,gallery of ,pictures1 ,i was again enlightened with the light ,i enjoyed in my youth1 and which has for exactly twenty years been closed from me as by a door and by window shutters4 ,consequently ,i can1 with confidence1 promise you ocular demonstration of my altered state on the plates ,i am engraving after ,romney1 whose spiritual aid has not a little conduced to my restoration to the light of ,art4 ,o1 the distress ,i have undergone1 and my poor wife with me2 incessantly labouring and incessantly spoiling what ,i had done well4 ,every one of my friends was astonished at my faults1 and could not assign a reason2 they knew my industry and abstinence from every pleasure for the sake of study1 and yet--and yet--and yet there wanted proofs of industry in my works4 ,i thank ,god with entire confidence that it shall be so no longer3 he is become my servant who domineered over me1 he is even as a brother who was my enemy4 ,dear ,sir1 excuse my enthusiasm1 or rather madness1 for ,i am really drunk with intellectual vision whenever ,i take a pencil or graver into my hand1 even as ,i used to be in my youth1 and as ,i have not been for twenty dark but very profitable years4 ,i thank ,god that ,i courageously pursued my course through darkness4 ,all of which tense and highly-figurative language means that ,blake had suddenly received enlightenment on various technical methods from the silent witness of ,raphael's and ,michael ,angelo's and other masters' achievement4 ,he could never learn by verbal advice1 precept or criticism1 but when shown great work1 the artist in him dwelt on every line1 absorbing and assimilating its principles4 ,the spectrous fiend to whom he refers is1 according to ,messrs4 ,ellis and ,yeats1 his own selfhood4 ,he held that every man contained in himself a devil and an angel1 the devil being the natural man1 the angel the ,god in man4 ,of this idea of his more hereafter4 ,blake's work1 when done in the heat of his spirit1 is always noble1 characteristic1 and largely1 often wholly1 right 7,i am speaking of the execution1 not the ideas expressed71 but when incessant labour was expended without the incessant reference to nature which an elaborate technique demands1 it is not wonderful that incessant spoiling should have been the result4 ,now1 indeed1 he seems to have seen how it was with himself1 and to have gained a new mastery of material through studying the manner of other men's work4 ,in #ahjd ,blake brought out his ,jerusalem2 the ,emanation of the ,giant ,albion1 a poem which he told ,mr4 ,butts was descriptive of the spiritual acts of his three years' slumber on the banks of ,ocean4 ,milton was also produced in the same year4 ,in #ahje ,robert ,hartley ,cromek1 whilom engraver1 but now publisher and printseller1 discovered ,blake in his self-chosen retirement1 and proposed giving him employment4 ,the story of his treacherous dealings is an evil one4 ,cromek1 who had learnt engraving in the studio of ,bartolozzi1 found it laborious and slow work1 so exchanged its drudgery for the calling of a publisher1 but1 having good taste but no capital1 he was hard pressed indeed to make both ends meet4 ,one day a piece of luck came in his way4 ,he paid a visit to ,blake's working and living room in ,south ,molton ,street4 ,many beautiful things were to come into being in that room1 but none more so than the drawings for ,blair's ,grave which ,blake had designed1 intending to print and publish them in the usual way4 ,cromek found them1 and seized upon them1 gloating4 ,he persuaded ,blake to relinquish the idea of publishing them himself1 and to surrender the undertaking to ,cromek as one more fitted to push them and bring them before the notice of the public4 ,blake was very poor at the time4 ,in an insulting letter written by ,cromek to ,blake some two years later1 he refers with contemptible want of feeling and taste to this fact4 ,your best work1 the illustrations to the ',grave1' he says1 was produced when you and ,mrs4 ,blake were reduced so low as to be obliged to live on half a guinea a week6 ,blake sold the twelve drawings to him for ,l#a #ajs4 each1 with the assured verbal agreement that he was himself to engrave them for the projected edition--a promise which of course entailed considerable further payment for the work of engraving later on4 ,cromek in possession of the copyright conveniently forgot his promise4 ,impregnated as he was with the fluent and graceful style of ,bartolozzi's school1 ,blake's manner of engraving seemed to him grim1 austere and archaic4 ,he thought that the noble drawings translated by the hand of the popular and graceful engraver1 ,lewis ,schiavonetti1 would insure the success of the designs with the public as ,blake could never have done were he to have engraved them himself4 ,it may be that there was truth in it4 ,some critics hold that the illustrations to ,blair's ,grave have a suavity1 a felicity superimposed by the engraver on the stern and original work of ,blake which was just what was needed to render his work attractive to the public4 ,to ,blake's true lovers1 however1 his own graver is the rightful interpreter of his own drawings1 and1 whether ,cromek were right or not in this critical matter of taste1 he was dishonest and mean to break the engagement on the basis of which alone he had obtained the drawings4 ,while ,blake was looking forward with anxious delight to the engraving of his designs1 ,cromek had other schemes afoot4 ,he called often at ,south ,molton ,street1 hoping to pounce on some other work of genius which he could turn into money for himself4 ,he was arrested one day before a pencil sketch of a new and hitherto untreated subject--the ,procession of ,chaucer's ,canterbury ,pilgrims4 ,he tried to get ,blake to make a finished drawing of it1 with a view of course to getting it out of the artist's hands1 and then having it engraved by someone else4 ,negotiations on this basis failing1 he gave ,blake a commission 7verbal again7 to execute the design in a finished picture and an engraving from it4 ,on the strength of this1 ,blake's friends circulated a subscription paper for the engraving1 and he himself set to work on the picture4 ,cromek1 however1 had not done4 ,he was in love with the subject4 ,sure of ,blake's conception being thoughtful and strong1 but probably wishful that it might be invested with a more earthly grace and interest than he would put upon it1 he went to ,stothard and suggested the subject to him1 suppressing all mention of ,blake4 ,probably he assisted the suggestion by hints as to its treatment derived from what he had actually appreciated in ,blake's conception4 ,he commissioned him to paint the picture for sixty guineas1 an engraving from which was to be done by ,bromley1 though ,schiavonetti was eventually substituted for him4 ,illustration3 ,,pilgrimage ,,to ,,canterbury ,engraving after ,stothard's ,canterbury ,pilgrimage4 ,published ,october1 #ahag ,illustration3 ,,chaucer',s ,,canterbury ,,pilgrims ,engraved by ,blake in #ahaj after his own fresco of the ,canterbury ,pilgrimage ,when ,blake learned that ,cromek denied having given him a commission1 and came to know that ,stothard1 his old friend1 was to paint a picture on his stolen idea1 to supersede his own1 his rage and indignation knew no bounds1 and he became bitterly estranged from ,stothard1 believing in his haste that all men are liars1 and that this man had been a party to the whole mean transaction4 ,gilchrist is almost sure that ,stothard knew nothing of ,cromek's previous deal with ,blake on the subject of the ,canterbury ,pilgrimage4 ,during #ahjf ,blake was moved to make some designs to ,shakespeare which were neither commissioned nor engraved4 ,judging from the one reproduced in the ,life1--,hamlet and the ,ghost of his ,father1--they must have been wild and powerful indeed4 ,he had always a profound reverence for1 and joy in1 ,shakespeare1 whose works were among his favourite books4 ,a strange and characteristic collection were those books which fed his fiery imagination4 ,could we have glanced along the row1 we should have seen ,shakespeare cheek by jowl with ,lavater and ,jacob ,boehmen1 while ,macpherson's ,ossian1 ,chatterton's ,rowley1 and the ,visions of ,emmanuel ,swedenborg helped to fill in the ranks4 ,milton held perhaps the most honoured place of all1 while ,ovid1 ,st4 ,theresa's works1 and ,de la ,motte ,fouque's ,sintram were among the heterogeneous collection4 ,chaucer was also cheerfully conspicuous1 and1 towards the close of ,blake's life1 ,dante's ,divine ,comedy came to join the silent company in the bookshelves4 ,in #ahjf ,blake became acquainted with a good and kindly man1 ,dr4 ,malkin1 ,head ,master of ,bury ,grammar ,school4 ,he gave him a commission for the frontispiece of ,malkin's ,memorials of his ,child1 and in the preface wrote an account of the childhood and youth of the designer4 ,ozias ,humphrey1 the miniature painter1 and a staunch friend of ,blake1 bought many of his engraved books1 and it was he who obtained a commission for him from the ,countess of ,egremont to paint a picture elaborated from the ,blair drawing of the ,last ,judgment4 ,the paper called by the same name in the ,,ms4 book is descriptive of this picture1 and in its intimite and demonstration of ,blake's bed-rock foundations of thought and artistic principles1 gives profound insight into his mind4 ,these things occupied him during #ahjg4 ,during that year ,stothard's cabinet picture was publicly exhibited1 and drew thousands of gazers4 ,blake doggedly continued to work at his own ,canterbury ,pilgrimage1 which he wrought in a water-colour medium which he arbitrarily termed fresco4 ,it was finished about the end of #ahjh4 ,in the autumn of that year the twelve beautiful engravings after his designs for ,blair's ,grave were produced by ,cromek1 with a flowery introduction by ,fuseli4 ,the list of subscribers for the book at two-and-a-half guineas a copy was so large--thanks to ,cromek's skilful manipulation--that the amount realized by its sale came to ,l#a1hjj4 ,of this ,blake received twenty guineas and ,schiavonetti about ,l#ejj4 ,i cannot omit to mention that leave to dedicate to ,queen ,charlotte having previously been obtained1 ,blake made a vignette drawing with some grave and beautiful verses to accompany it1 and sent it to ,cromek as an additional plate1 asking the modest price of four guineas for it4 ,the design and verses were returned with a long letter from ,cromek1 closely packed with insults and slanders1 and exhibiting a meanness too contemptible for expression4 ,at the end of the letter he thus refers to the subject of the ,pilgrimage1 of which one would suppose he would be too ashamed to speak3 ,why did you so furiously rage at the success of the little picture of the ,pilgrimage8 ,three thousand people have now seen it and have approved of it4 ,believe me1 yours is 'the voice of one crying in the wilderness4' ,you say the subject is low and contemptibly treated4 ,for his excellent mode of treating the subject the poet has been admired for the last four hundred years2 the poor painter has not yet the advantage of antiquity on his side1 therefore with some people an apology may be necessary for him4 ,the conclusion of one of ,squire ,simpkins' letters to his mother in the ',bath ,guide' will afford one4 ,he speaks greatly to the purpose3 ,i very well know ,both my subject and verse is exceedingly low1 ,but if any great critic finds fault with my letter1 ,he has nothing to do but to send you a better4 ,with much respect for your talents1 ,i remain1 ,sir1 ,your real friend and well-wisher1 ,r4 ,h4 ,,cromek4 ,perhaps it was that last jeering taunt which determined ,blake to show his ,canterbury ,pilgrimage to the public1 and make it the occasion of a little exhibition of his own4 ,it was opened in ,may1 #ahji4 ,poor unworldly ,blake1 enraged and baffled1 was the last man to organize an undertaking of this sort4 ,cromek could afford to laugh at the modest show on the first floor of ,james ,blake's shop at the corner of ,broad ,street1 all unadvertised and unpatronized as it was4 ,the exhibition comprised1 besides the ,pilgrimage1 sixteen ,poetical and ,historical ,inventions1 ten frescoes1 and seven drawings--a collection1 as ,gilchrist remarks1 singularly remote from ordinary sympathies or even ordinary apprehension4 ,few of the general public penetrated here1 but ,blake's friends1 his few buyers1 and many contemporary artists probably went through the rooms with no little curiosity4 ,seymour ,kirkup--the discoverer of ,giotto's portrait of ,dante in the ,bargello1--and ,henry ,crabb ,robinson were among the number of those who went and purchased catalogues4 ,with the catalogue were issued subscription papers for the engraving of the ,canterbury ,pilgrimage1 which1 in spite of ,cromek and ,stothard1 ,blake intended to execute4 ,blake drew up a ,descriptive ,catalogue to interpret his pictures1 and in it gave free rein1 unfortunately1 to his personal antipathy to ,stothard1 but he also expressed at some length1 and with characteristic fire and intemperance1 his views on art4 ,dante ,gabriel ,rossetti1 who was intensely sympathetic with his artistic forerunner1 says that the ,descriptive ,catalogue1 and the ,address to the ,public1 abound in critical passages1 on painting and poetry1 which must be ranked without reserve among the very best things ever said on either subject4 ,it may be remarked1 however1 with all respect and honour1 that neither ,blake nor ,rossetti were critics in any exact sense of the word4 ,the unprejudiced and scientific character of mind which analyses1 classifies1 and lays bare with sharp dissecting knife the structure1 bones1 muscles1 heart1 of an artistic creation1 belonged to neither of them4 ,the analytic and synthetic qualities are seldom united in one mind4 7,goethe recognized this when he wrote1 ,i1 being an artist1 prefer that the principles through which ,i work should be hidden from me47 ,both ,blake and ,rossetti leaped with unerring instinct and the artistic intuition at all noble and right work1 and loved it with passion1 rather than appreciated it with cold reason4 ,blake's affinities in art1 for instance1 especially as he grew older1 were much more catholic than it would be supposed4 ,although the ,descriptive ,catalogue would induce us to believe that works of art which he did not worship were loathed by him1 this was only the case when he was doing battle for certain cherished principles1 and then he would hit blindly to right and left in the heat of his partisanship4 ,mr4 ,samuel ,palmer spoke of evenings spent with him in his old age looking over reproductions of the pictures of various masters1 which ,blake enjoyed greatly1 dwelling on whatever was beautiful and true in each4 ,the ,catalogue and ,address were written by him with a pen steeped in wormwood4 ,his attacks were mainly directed against the ,venetian and ,flemish demons1 with their infernal machine ,chiaro ,oscuro1 and the hellish brownness with which he says they and their school and modern followers load their paintings4 ,it is true that the ,english school of the day feared colour1 and gave a brown tone to nearly all its pictures1 but probably ,blake had never seen good examples of the ,venetians1 whose chief glory is that they conceived colour heroically4 ,he enunciated his own principle in these words3 ,the great and golden rule of art1 as well as of life1 is this3 that the more distinct1 sharp and wiry the bounding line1 the more perfect the work of art2 and the less keen and sharp1 the greater is the evidence of weak imitation1 plagiarism and bungling4 ,his mood was exasperated1 truculent1 passionately prejudiced1 though there is much here of artistic insight and originality4 ,it must be admitted that a great deal is painful reading1 but through all the unmeasured language one feels the labouring1 overstrained1 noble1 human heart1 tormented beyond endurance4 ,he had been galled to this state of ,titanic fury by a policy of calumny1 plagiarism1 and neglect1 used against him by the little souls1 of what was in many respects a little age1 with no mercy and little intermission for many years4 ,since the production of ,blair's ,grave1 he had been held up to public ridicule as an artist1 in a paper called the ,examiner1 edited by ,leigh ,hunt1 and the occasion of this exhibition called forth another article in its columns full of crass misunderstanding of his aims and the superior sneers of a self-satisfied and material-minded writer4 ,in it he was termed an unfortunate lunatic whose personal unoffensiveness secures him from confinement4 ,but the most unkindest cut of all had been ,cromek's1 in making his own friend of thirty years' standing the supplanter of his work1 the thief of his idea4 ,all these things had inflamed his tremulous and excitable nerves to a point beyond self-control4 ,material disagreements of the kind ,i have related had a sad effect on him1 and drove him to an expression of bitterness very difficult to reconcile with the benign1 gentle and courteous nature to which all his friends and acquaintances have affectionately testified4 ,there is no doubt that during the period of middle life he developed a hard and violent strain which did not mix with1 diminish1 or distemper the fine and beautiful qualities of his heart and spirit1 but shot through them like a barbed wire among a tangle of honeysuckle4 ,in great part1 it was the irritation of capricious and highly-strung nerves1 the tension of an overheated and excitable brain1 and not a quality of the mind or character at all4 ,the expression of this condition of ,blake's must1 therefore1 be taken as an undisciplined and wilfully exaggerated statement of his intellectual convictions1 with a deep note of truth at the bottom4 ,it seems strange that in the matter of the ,pilgrimage he did not go straight to ,stothard and invite him to clear himself of the suspicions with which he regarded him4 ,but like all guileless people1 and perhaps especially those of the artistic temperament1 when once they have been deceived they find it easy to believe that all the world is in league against them4 ,before people who were not intimate1 who were1 in fact1 antipathetic to him1 ,blake would abuse ,stothard roundly and criticise him wantonly4 ,but to the immediate circle of his personal friends or sympathisers--those who1 knowing how he had suffered1 and how black the case looked for ,stothard1 would have understood anything he might have said1--he maintained complete silence on the subject of the ,pilgrimage1 and the name of the popular artist was mentioned without comment and listened to in grave silence by him4 ,once1 many years after1 he met ,stothard at a dinner1 and went up to him impulsively with outstretched hand4 ,it was refused with coldness4 ,another time1 hearing that ,stothard was ill1 ,blake's heart softened and warmed to the old friend1 and he rushed off impetuously to call and make up the quarrel in which he ever believed ,stothard to have been the aggressor4 ,but ,stothard would not receive him1 desired no reconciliation4 ,in the year #ahjh ,blake exhibited1 for the fifth and last time1 at the ,royal ,academy1 two pictures in fresco1 ,christ in the ,sepulchre guarded by ,angels1 and ,jacob's ,dream4 ,the engraving of ,blake's ,canterbury ,pilgrimage was issued in ,october1 #ahaj4 ,it was altogether unadvertised and unheralded1 and the public held itself coldly aloof1 neither admiring nor buying4 ,the original picture was taken by the ever-faithful ,mr4 ,butts4 ,stothard's picture was not finished engraving till a year or two later1 for adverse fortunes overtook it4 ,lewis ,schiavonetti died in the middle of the work1 and another hand had to finish it4 ,notwithstanding all of which misadventures1 it was one of the most popular engravings ever issued4 ,we shall compare the two compositions in a succeeding chapter4 ,illustration3 ,,satan ,,pouring ,,the ,,plague ,,of ,,boils ,,on ,,job ,water-colour drawing4 ,reproduced by kind permission of ,sir ,charles ,dilke ,,chapter ,,iv ,,declining ,,years ,seventeen years of quiet productiveness and unceasing work1 marked by the increasing neglect of the world1 were passed by ,blake at #ag1 ,south ,molton ,street4 ,when finally abandoned by the public to the deep solitude which he created for himself in the midst of the roar of the city1 the years are a record of much peaceful labour1 of beautiful and strange work1 produced as the result of his spiritual meditations and visions4 ,that he should do great things for small wages1 writes ,mr4 ,swinburne1 was a condition of his life1 and the poverty which had knocked at his door for almost half a century1 now raised the latch and came in1 to live with the ,blakes as accustomed house-mate to the end4 ,mrs4 ,blake had often to remind him of the bare larder and purse by setting an empty plate before him1 when he turned to his task-work of engraving to earn the needful money whereby they might live4 ,in the last years of his life ,blake said significantly to ,crabb ,robinson1 ,i should be sorry if ,i had any earthly fame1 for whatever natural glory a man has1 is so much taken from his spiritual glory4 ,i wish to do nothing for profit4 ,i wish to live for art4 ,i want nothing whatever4 ,i am quite happy4 ,and so indeed he was4 ,but he wrote in the ,note-book these lines also1 indicative of the loneliness and misunderstanding of his whole life3 ,the ,angel who presided at my birth1 ,said1 ,little creature formed for joy and mirth1 ,go1 ,love1 without the help of anything on earth4 ,the struggle between himself and the world being over1 and his intractable genius relegated by the influential and great persons of his age to a limbo of neglect and contempt1 then did he reach out his hands as to a friend1 and pulled ,poverty across the threshold2 and stretching his limbs and shaking back his gray old head in relief and content1 he settled in to the unhindered and undistracted contemplation of those things which really are--the eternal inner world of the imagination4 ,they pity me1 ,blake said of ,sir ,thomas ,lawrence and other popular artists of the day1 but 'tis they are the just objects of pity4 ,i possess my visions and peace4 ,they have bartered their birthright for a mess of pottage4 ,gradually the ranks of ,blake's old friends were thinned till but two remained1 ,fuseli and ,flaxman1 both of whom1 however1 died before him4 ,johnson the bookseller died in #ahji1 in #ahaj ,ozias ,humphrey2 ,mr4 ,butts1 always a staunch friend1 had no room in his house for more pictures1 and fell off as a buyer2 ,hayley and ,blake had long ceased to have a thought in common4 ,flaxman still continued to find engraving to be done by ,blake1 being determined that he should at least have money enough to live4 ,designing1 which he would so far rather have done1 was out of ,flaxman's power to give1 for the public had now sedulously turned its back on ,blake4 ,much of this part of his life seems to have been lived in drudgery1 but always cheerfully and happily4 ,he was too poor to afford the outlay necessary for printing and producing his books in the old wonderful way1 and often made unsuccessful applications to regular publishers4 ,well1 it is published elsewhere1 he would say quietly1 and beautifully bound4 ,our artist had never been sympathetic to the decadent age of crumbling institutions and fallow literary and intellectual life that the last part of the eighteenth century presented2 and now in the first years of a new century1 a generation of new-born song1 of enthusiastic lovers of liberty1 of strong original and romantic minds1 was to supplant the old artificial1 social and literary ideals4 ,blake felt the pristine thrills of the great new birth in the poetry of ,wordsworth1 introduced to him by ,mr4 ,crabb ,robinson1 and also in personal acquaintance with ,coleridge1 a genius somewhat akin to himself4 ,mr4 ,george ,cumberland introduced ,blake in #ahah to ,john ,linnell1 afterwards held high in honour and renown as one of ,england's greatest landscape painters4 ,at that time he painted portraits for a living1 and engraved them afterwards4 ,in this work he got ,blake to help him1 and it was through him that the latter became acquainted with a younger generation of artists1 among whom he soon made many congenial friends4 ,of ,john ,linnell it must be recorded1 that from this time forth till ,blake's death1 he occupied a quite unique relation to him1 constituting himself the old man's chief stay and solace1 and according him the attentions and the admiring love given by a son to a beloved father4 ,a new circle of friends and enthusiastic admirers1 very young men for the most part1 rose up around ,blake1 whose hearts1 expanding in unison with the awakening life of the age1 recognized in him a brother1 a teacher1 and inspired prophet4 ,to them he showed his benign and childlike side1 to them he talked1 not in the old dogmatic sledge-hammer fashion1 but in a spirit of rhapsodic revelation1 of peaceful and joyous wisdom4 ,as the years went by1 a new fellowship with mankind1 a large toleration and deep tenderness1 bore golden fruit in his intercourse with this favoured band of young friends and disciples4 ,as ,walter ,pater wrote of ,michael ,angelo1 so might it be said of ,blake1 ,this man1 because the ,gods loved him1 lingered on to be of immense patriarchal age1 till the sweetness it had taken so long to secrete in him was found at last4 ,out of the strong came forth sweetness1 ex forti dulcedo4 ,among the new friends were ,john ,varley1 the father of ,english water-colours1 as he has been affectionately termed1 ,richter and ,holmes1 both leaders of the new school4 ,these men were the forerunners of ,turner1 ,copley-,fielding1 ,de ,wint1 ,cotman1 ,prout1 ,david ,cox and ,william ,hunt1 and though in these days they are little remembered1 and the glory of them has been eclipsed by their great successors1 their somewhat timid and delicate work in ,south ,kensington ,museum will repay a visit and establish their pioneer claims to our regard4 ,it was for ,john ,varley that ,blake drew the celebrated visionary heads1 the only work of his with which he is associated by many people4 ,varley was by way of being an astrologer1 and took the deepest interest in the occult and the spiritualistic4 ,blake's talk of visions1 of the actual appearances vouchsafed him from the other world1 had a significance to ,varley's matter-of-fact mind much more vulgar and material than he intended4 ,our artist had cultivated imagination till it became vision1 and what he thought1 that he saw1 for1 as ,mr4 ,smetham wrote1 thought crystallized itself sharply into vision with him4 ,so that when his friend asked him to draw the portraits of men long dead and gone1 such as ,edward ,,iii1 ,william ,wallace1 ,richard ,i1 ,wat ,tyler1 or unknown personages1 such as the man who built the ,pyramids1 or the man who taught ,mr4 ,b4 painting in his dreams1 and 7most remarkable of all67 the ,ghost of a ,flea1 ,blake had but to command his visionary faculty and summon before his gaze the desired sitters4 ,the one which has been the most talked about is the ,ghost of a ,flea1 and ,varley gives the following description of the manner in which it sat for its portrait3 ,this spirit visited his 7,blake's7 imagination in such a figure as he never anticipated in an insect4 ,as ,i was anxious to make the most correct investigation in my power of the truth of these visions1 on hearing of this spiritual apparition of a flea1 ,i asked him if he could draw for me the resemblance of what he saw4 ,he instantly said1 ',i see him now before me4' ,i therefore gave him paper and a pencil with which he drew the portrait4444 ,i felt convinced by his mode of proceeding that he had a real image before him2 for he left off and began on another part of the paper to make a separate drawing of the mouth of the flea1 which1 the spirit having opened1 he was prevented from proceeding with the first sketch till he had closed it4 ,various explanations of these portraits of spectres 7as ,varley has it7 have been put forward4 ,messrs4 ,ellis and ,yeats write of them1 ,all are pictorial expressions of personality1 pictorial opinions1 drawn1 as ,blake believed1 from influences set going by the character of the men1 and permanently affecting the atmosphere1 finer than air or ether1 into which his imagination looked for their lineaments4 ,a large and curious collection of these heads1 executed by ,blake at nocturnal sittings at ,varley's house1 is still in existence1 but not in the ,british ,museum1 unfortunately4 ,they mostly bear the date1 ,august1 #ahbj4 ,in #ahbj ,blake illustrated ,thornton's ,virgil's ,pastorals4 ,these1 along with his other art-work1 will be considered in a later portion of this book4 ,they are the only woodcuts ,blake ever made1 and are unique1 strong and suggestive as anything he ever did4 ,in the same year he made a drawing of ,laocoon1 to illustrate an article in ,rees' ,cyclopaedia 7to such hack-work as this he was frequently reduced to replenish the household purse74 ,he went to the ,academy ,schools1 and took his place humbly among the young men to draw from the cast of ,laocoon there4 ,what6 you heer1 ,meesther ,blake1 said his old friend ,fuseli2 we ought to come and learn of you1 not you of us4 ,in #ahba ,blake moved to ,no4 #c1 ,fountain ,court1 in the ,temple1 his last dwelling-place on earth4 ,it was at that time an old-fashioned respectable court1 very quiet1 though removed but a few paces from the bustling ,strand4 ,the two rooms on the first floor which the ,blakes inhabited have been more graphically described than any other of ,blake's homes4 ,the front room had its walls covered with his pictures and served as a reception room for his friends1 while the back room was living room1 kitchen1 sleeping apartment and studio all in one4 ,one of his friends wrote1 ,there was a strange expansion and sensation of freedom in those two rooms1 very seldom felt elsewhere2 while another1 speaking of them to ,blake's biographer ,gilchrist1 exclaimed1 ,ah6 that divine window6 ,it was there that ,blake's working table was set1 with a print of ,albrecht ,duerer's ,melancholia beside it2 and between a gap in the houses could be seen the river1 with its endless suggestions1 memories and spiritual correspondences4 ,it is to the credit of the ,royal ,academy that in the year after ,blake's last move1 #ahbb1 a grant of ,l#be was given to this least popular but greatest of her children4 ,allan ,cunningham and the fastidious ,crabb ,robinson give the impression that ,blake lived in squalor at the end1 but the insinuation is refuted by all those who knew him well4 ,says one1 ,i never look upon him as an unfortunate man of genius4 ,he knew every great man of his day1 and had enough2 while one of the most attached of his friends and disciples 7a young artist of the band ,i have mentioned1 who attained success as a painter of poetic landscape1 ,mr4 ,samuel ,palmer7 wrote to ,gilchrist1 ,no1 certainly1--whatever was in ,blake's house1 there was no squalor4 ,himself1 his wife and his rooms1 were clean and orderly2 everything was in its place4 ,his delightful working corner had its implements ready1 tempting to the hand4 ,the millionaire's upholsterer can furnish no enrichments like those of ,blake's enchanted rooms4 ,it would seem that ,blake1 having won those just rights as an artist and a man for which he had striven with ,hayley and ,cromek in the old days1 and having now established his claim to live as he pleased in honourable poverty for the sake of the imaginative life1 gained a tardy recognition and respect among the intellectual spirits of the time during his last years4 ,one of the friendly acquaintances of this period was ,thomas ,griffiths ,wainwright1 a strange character of great artistic capacity and sensibilities1 and yet destined to be a secret poisoner and murderer4 ,i wonder if ,blake was thinking of him when he said in one of his conversations with ,crabb ,robinson1 ,i have never known a very bad man who had not something very good in him4 ,palmer ,samuel has given a never-to-be-forgotten picture of ,blake at the ,academy looking at a picture of ,wainwright's4 ,while so many moments better worthy to remain are fled1 wrote ,palmer1 the caprice of memory presents me with the image of ,blake looking up at ,wainwright's picture2 ,blake in his plain black suit and rather broad-brimmed but not quakerish hat1 standing so quietly among all the dressed-up1 rustling1 swelling people1 and myself thinking1 ',how little you know who is among you6' ,these few graphic and reverential words touch the heart by their simple directness and love1 for to ,samuel ,palmer1 ,blake was the ,master4 ,the names of ,frederick ,tatham the elder1 and his son the sculptor must be appended to the tale of ,blake's friends2 ,edward ,calvert1 who used to go long walks with ,blake1 made memorable by high conversation2 ,f4 ,o4 ,finch1 a member of the old ,water ,colour ,society2 and the distinguished painter ,richmond1 who was a mere boy when he fell under the spell of the inspired old man4 ,blake showed this group of young men the most fatherly kindness1 encouraged them to appeal to him for advice and counsel1 and gathered them around him and talked to them simply1 directly and earnestly1 of his high and spiritual views on life and art4 ,he poured his noble enthusiasm and other-worldliness into receptive hearts1 and his words bore fruit in their works in after life4 ,for this group learned from ,blake that ,art must express the spirit1 and must interpret natural phenomena esoterically4 ,richmond tells the following characteristic story of how once1 finding his invention flag during a whole fortnight1 he went to ,blake1 as was his wont1 for some advice and comfort4 ,he found him sitting at tea with his wife4 ,he related his distress3 how he felt deserted by the power of invention4 ,to his astonishment1 ,blake turned to his wife suddenly and said1 ',it is just so with us1 is it not1 for weeks together when the visions forsake us8 ,what do we do then1 ,kate8' ',we kneel down and pray1 ,mr4 ,blake4' ,to these earnest young men ,blake was as the prophet ,ezekiel1 and the home in ,fountain ,court got to be called by them significantly enough1 ,the ,house of the ,interpreter4 ,illustration3 ,,blake',s ,,living-,,room ,,and ,,death-,,room ,,in ,,fountain ,,court ,reproduced from the sketch by ,mr4 ,frederic ,j4 ,shields1 kindly lent by the artist ,mr4 ,frederick ,shields 7who1 like ,blake and many other great artists1 will doubtless be honoured as he deserves to be when nothing further can touch him1 and this world may not lay at his living feet its due meed of recognition and gratitude17 made a sketch of the sombre little living room in ,fountain ,court4 ,his friend ,dante ,gabriel ,rossetti was so profoundly touched on seeing it that he eased his heart in a sonnet3 ,this is the place4 ,even here the dauntless soul1 ,the unflinching hand1 wrought on2 till in that nook1 ,as on that very bed1 his life partook ,new birth and passed4 ,yon river's dusky shoal1 ,whereto the close-built coiling lanes unroll1 ,faced his work window1 whence his eyes would stare1 ,thought wandering1 unto nought that met them there1 ,but to the unfettered irreversible goal4 ,this cupboard1 ,holy of ,holies1 held the cloud ,of his soul writ and limned2 this other one1 ,his true wife's charge1 full oft to their abode ,yielded for daily bread1 the martyr's stone1 ,ere yet their food might be that ,bread alone1 ,the words now home-speech of the mouth of ,god4 ,the house in ,fountain ,court has been pulled down lately4 ,the footprints of the great and gentle soul in his passage through this world to the unfettered irreversible goal have almost all disappeared in the dust and scurry of the last century4 ,we can still think of him1 and of those long rapt mornings he spent in our glorious ,abbey4 ,full as it is--pent up and overflowing--with the associations of centuries1 it will henceforth hold this one more--,blake worked there1 ,blake dreamed there1 ,blake caught inspiration from the enchanted forests of its aisles4 ,we may think of him1 too1 as standing in the ,diploma ,gallery of ,burlington ,house1 gazing with all his flaming spirit in his eyes at ,marco d',oggione's beautiful copy of ,da ,vinci's ,last ,supper4 ,of the apostles he said1 ,every one of them save ,judas looks as if he had conquered the natural man4 ,mr4 ,linnell1 always during this period ,blake's truest1 closest friend1 introduced him to a rich and cultivated gentleman1 a collector of pictures of the ,german school1 a ,mr4 ,aders1 at whose table ,blake met ,crabb ,robinson and ,coleridge4 ,crabb ,robinson thus describes our artist's appearance3 ,he has a most interesting appearance4 ,he is now old--sixty-eight--pale1 with a ,socratic countenance1 and an expression of great sweetness1 though with something of languor about it1 except when animated1 and then he has about him an air of inspiration4 ,lamb was an habitue at the house also4 ,gotzenburger1 the ,german painter1 met ,blake at ,mr4 ,aders1 and he declared on his return to ,germany that he saw but three men of genius in ,england--,coleridge1 ,flaxman and ,blake1 and the greatest of these was ,blake4 ,much happy time was spent by the old man among the ,linnell family at the painter's house1 ,collins ,farm1 at ,north ,end1 ,hampstead4 ,here he often went of a ,saturday1 and was always welcomed with keen delight by the children and glad affection by their parents4 ,mrs4 ,linnell sang his favourite ,scotch songs to him1 ,john ,linnell talked to him of art and listened appreciatively to his wild poetic conversation4 ,the latter made happy the last few years of his life by a commission to engrave a set of plates after water-colour drawings1 already executed1 illustrating the ,book of ,job4 ,the congeniality of this task1 which was to result in the crowning achievement of his life1 fired ,blake to put his whole soul into the monumental inventions4 ,linnell also commissioned him to make a series of drawings from the ,divine ,comedy4 ,it is interesting to note that at sixty-seven ,blake set to work and learned ,italian1 in order to read his author in the original4 ,his health had long been failing1 and before the drawings were finished ,death came to him like a friend who loved him1 and took him from this cold and unsympathetic world 7where1 however1 he had been strangely happy7 to that other one1 with which he had always had so close and mystical a communion4 ,the review of his life1 from a worldly point of view1 is of one whose means were painfully straitened1 whose genius was baffled and powers crippled1 by poverty and want of encouragement2 to whom the world's acknowledgement was lacking1 and the fame of the painter and poet denied4 ,his own assessment of life1 however1 was very different4 ,gilchrist relates that a rich and influential lady 7,mrs4 ,aders87 brought her little golden-haired daughter to see him4 ,when this child was old she recalled the strangeness of the words said to her1 a radiant spoilt child of fortune1 by the poor shabby old man3 ,may ,god make this world as beautiful to you1 my child1 as it has been to me6 he said1 stroking her golden curls4 ,i cannot forbear to quote from ,gilchrist the passage which describes his death4 ,the final leave-taking came which he had so often seen in vision2 so often and with such child-like simple faith sung and designed4 ,with the same intense high feeling he had depicted the ',death of the ,righteous ,man1' he enacted it1 serenely1 joyously2 for life and design and song were with him all pitched in one key1 different expressions of one reality4 ,no dissonances there6 ,it happened on a ,sunday1 the #abth of ,august1 #ahbg1 nearly three months before completion of his seventieth year4 ,on the day of his death 444 he composed and uttered songs to his ,maker so sweetly to the ear of his ,catherine1 that1 when she stood to hear him1 he1 looking upon her most affectionately1 said1 ',my beloved6 they are not mine6 ,no6 they are not mine4' ,the last things ,blake did were to execute and colour the design of the ,ancient of ,days from the ,europe for the young ,mr4 ,tatham4 ,when that was done1 his glance fell on his loving ,kate4444 ,as his eyes rested on the once-graceful form1 thought of all she had been to him in these years filled the poet-artist's mind4 ,stay1 he cried1 keep as you are6 you have been ever an angel to me2 ,i will draw you4 ,and he made what ,mr4 ,tatham describes as a phrenzied sketch of some power1 highly interesting1 but not like4 ,in that plain back room where he had worked so contentedly he closed his eyes on this world1 about six of a summer evening1 to open them on the glorious visions of the next4 ,those beloved nervous hands which ,mrs4 ,blake said she had never once seen idle1 were laid to rest at last in the cold sleep of death4 ,the year of ,blake's death1 #ahbg1 was that of ,beethoven's4 ,of both of them it may be said that they were but strangers and sojourners here1 and the language they spoke was the language of a far country4 ,catherine1 the devoted wife1 only survived her husband four years1 during the whole of which time she felt his spiritual presence close to her4 ,blake1 though so poor1 left no single debt1 and his ,,mss41 pictures1 and printed books realized sufficient to keep ,mrs4 ,blake in comfort for those few years4 ,john ,linnell and ,tatham piously cared for and tended their lost leader's widow4 ,she died as ,blake died1 joyfully1 and her body was laid to rest beside his in ,bunhill ,fields4 ,there is no sign to-day to show where those graves lie1 but it is as well4 ,the vegetative earth has absorbed the two dear bodies that the spirits of ,william ,blake and his wife may shine the clearer2 their bright radiance glimmers through the century like a guiding star1 to lead men's thoughts out into the endless vistas of the infinite life which transcends our present limited consciousness4 ,,chapter ,v ,,his ,,religious ,,views ,it seems to me that it would be quite vain and useless to go on to a review of ,blake's art1 and1 incidentally1 his poetry1 without a preliminary examination--as concise as may be--of the fundamental religious and intellectual conceptions which made him the man he was1 and gave him so strange and subjective a point of view4 ,blake is no ordinary painter1 whose art-work is the only key to his inner life or to his perceptions of beauty in the natural world4 ,he is an artist and a poet of the highest spiritual order1 but he is also a mystic4 ,messrs4 ,ellis and ,yeats tell us that his rank as a mystic entitles him to far more admiration and patient study than any claims he may have as a mere painter and poet6 ,be that as it may 7and some of us cannot but hold the artist as the most glorious manifestation of the divine on this earth671 it is certainly necessary to apprehend ,blake the mystic before we can enter into the spirit of ,blake the artist4 ,his was a strange religious creed4 ,it is evident that in early life he obtained somehow or other many of the works of the great mystics and studied them with passionate attention4 ,among them ,swedenborg 7whom1 however1 he frequently criticised harshly7 and ,jacob ,boehmen1 the wonderful shoemaker of the sixteenth century1 seem to have exerted the most lasting influence on his mind4 ,swedenborg's doctrine of correspondences--the theory that natural phenomena actually represent1 or rather shadow1 unseen spiritual conditions and existence--attracted ,blake at first reading1 and became so much a part of his mental fibre that one feels certain he would have eventually fought his intellectual way out into this channel of thought had ,swedenborg never written4 ,nature seemed to ,blake but the confused and vague copy of something definite and perfect in ,imagination or ,spirit4 ,all things exist in the human imagination1 and in every bosom a universe expands1 he wrote1 and in the human imagination and its reverend preservation and cultivation lay man's only source of divine illumination1 he believed4 ,if the doors of perception were cleansed1 everything would appear to man as it is1 infinite4 ,for man has closed himself up till he sees all things through narrow chinks in his cavern1 are illuminating words of his4 ,blake's whole effort in life seemed to be the cleansing and spiritualizing of the portals of the senses that he might see and hear and receive as much of the infinite spirit as his humanity could hold4 ,the mission which he put clearly before him always1 he expressed in these words in his prophetic poem of ,jerusalem3 ,i rest not from my great task ,to open the ,eternal ,worlds1 to open the ,immortal ,eyes ,of ,man inwards2 into the ,worlds of ,thought1 into ,eternity ,ever expanding in the bosom of ,god1 the ,human ,imagination4 ,no man ever sought more gallantly to batter down the walls of materialism which were closing round the souls of men1 to let in the sweet breath of ,spirit1 and to unveil the ,vision of the ,universal ,life4 ,the immemorial struggle between the body and the soul of man was never lost sight of by him1 though he sometimes seems to deny it1 and his letters to ,butts from ,felpham show something of his acute consciousness of the difficulty of subduing his spectre or selfhood4 ,nature and religion1 he announces passionately1 are the fetters of ,life4 ,the orthodox narrow unspiritual religion of his time and all times was repugnant to ,blake1 and aroused all his fiery combative qualities4 ,it seemed to him to be as actually a fetter to the spirit as the carnal nature of man4 ,religion was to him a matter of intuition1 and not a question of creed or dogma at all4 ,he gives a picture of ordinary religious conceptions in the poem called the ,everlasting ,gospel3 ,the vision of ,christ that thou dost see ,is my vision's greatest enemy4 ,thine is the friend of all mankind2 ,mine speaks in parables to the blind4 ,thine loves the same world that mine hates1 ,thy heaven-doors are my hell-gates4 ,socrates taught what ,miletus ,loathed as a nation's bitterest curse2 ,and ,caiaphas was1 in his own mind1 ,a benefactor to mankind4 ,both read the ,bible day and night2 ,but thou read'st black where ,i read white4 ,the last line is very significant of ,blake4 ,the world which made so decent and respectable a thing out of ,christianity1 which called success and opportunism the favour of ,god1 and hailed the ,prince of this world by the name of ,christ1 excited ,blake's utmost antagonism4 ,he announced definite counter doctrines on his part1 and advocated in his vehemence1 almost as partial a view of things1 as in their own way1 did the materialists of his time4 ,la verite est dans une nuance1 ,renan has declared1 but the swing of the pendulum of opinion must alternate from one extreme to the other before the precise nuance can be determined4 ,blake's noble but often impractical views have yet a practical utility1 for only through a knowledge of the extreme1 can the mean be discriminated4 ,of his own personal religion it might be said that certain fantastic and strange tenets he chose to believe because they pleased him1 as we may choose to believe in this or that section of the ,catholic ,church2 but the most quintessential1 intimate1 and spiritual of his views were not beliefs at all1 but simply and purely knowledge4 ,he knew1 by an intuition beyond reason1 things outside the ken of ordinary men4 ,the deep melodies of the super-sensible universe reverberated through his soul1 and he could never therefore think much of the hum and clamour of this material world4 ,from this intuitive and rapt knowledge of the mystic there is no appeal1 for it transcends human experience1 and when ,blake had it1 he was prophet 7teller of hidden things7 indeed4 ,but when he chose to believe and assert complex and sometimes contradictory doctrines1 the affair is different1 and we may give or withhold our intellectual sympathy as we will4 ,in any case the spiritual and unorthodox creed which was the lamp of truth to this beautiful soul is worthy of deep reverence1 but ,i cannot altogether agree with ,messrs4 ,ellis and ,yeats that a consistent basis of mysticism underlies ,blake's writings4 ,even a system of mystic philosophy requires to be stated comprehensibly and in a recognizable literary form1 and the prophetic books 7in which the greater part of ,blake's views are expressed7 have no form nor sequence1 and are as chaotic and dim as dreams4 ,messrs4 ,ellis and ,yeats1 it is true1 have constructed an elaborate1 imaginative and very coherent thought-structure out of ,blake's prophetic writings1 but owing to the looseness1 confusion and unintelligible character of the greater part of the symbolic books themselves1 the deftly woven web of mysticism which they present to us as ,blake's does not carry conviction with it4 ,it is suggestive1 deeply sympathetic with ,blake--sometimes radiantly illuminating--but seems an independent treatise rather than an exposition4 ,deeply as all students of ,blake must feel themselves indebted to ,messrs4 ,ellis and ,yeats for their learned work1 and the real help it has afforded to a clearer view of his unique personality1 ,i cannot but think that every man will--nay must--interpret ,blake for himself4 ,he was too erratic1 too emotional1 too much the artist1 the apostle of discernment and the enemy of reason and science1 to have constructed the closely-reasoned1 carefully-articulated system of thought which they describe so graphically4 ,blake was an intuitive mystic1 not a systematic or learned one4 ,however1 if ,messrs4 ,ellis and ,yeats have appreciated ,blake's mysticism1 in all its strange convolutions and cloudy gyrations1 they have done so not by following his expressed thoughts but by stating from a sympathetic insight denied to others1 what he himself left unexpressed4 ,this does not materially concern the student of ,blake's art and poetry1 but it does deeply concern them that they should ascertain the main opinions which we know he held and the nature of the spiritual insight that obviously moulded his intellect1 and hence his art4 ,he had a startlingly naive and original mental perspective1 and he focussed profound and virgin thought on ,life1 ,spirit and ,art4 ,virgin thought it was indeed1 for tradition had little hold on him1 and the social1 political and intellectual movements of his time passed by him1 washing round the rock on which he sat isolated1 but leaving him almost untouched by their influence and atmosphere4 ,he was never swept into the current of contemporary life1 but was as removed from the ,london of his time as if his rooms had been an ,alpine tower of silence1 instead of being in the very heart and turmoil of the city4 ,he belonged to no particular age4 ,we could never think of him1 for instance1 like ,rossetti or ,william ,morris1 as an exile from the middle ages who had fallen upon an uncongenial nineteenth century4 ,he lived apart in a world of spirit1 and concerned himself with the great elementary problems of all ages1 bringing none of the bias or characteristic mental hamper of his generation to bear upon these considerations4 ,his art necessarily ranges in the same primeval world1 not yet thoroughly removed from chaos4 ,mr4 ,swinburne1 in his eloquent critical essay on ,blake1 finds him largely pantheistic in his views4 ,there is something in ,blake of the rapt indifference to externals1 found in the ,buddhist4 ,here is a characteristic assertion of his3 ,god is in the lowest effects as well as in the highest causes4 ,he is become a worm that he may nourish the weak4 ,for let it be remembered that creation is ,god descending according to the weakness of man3 our ,lord is the ,word of ,god1 and everything on earth is the ,word of ,god1 and in its essence is ,god4 ,here certainly speaks the pantheist4 ,from the study of ,blake's writings the following points--and they are important to our future understanding of his art-work--stand out clearly defined4 ,he believed in a great permeating unconditioned spirit--,god--of whose nature men also partake1 but subjected to the conditions and moral nature which result from sexual and generative humanity4 ,and beside the unnameable supreme ,god there is another ,god1 the creator ,urizen1 who is a sort of divine demon4 ,he it is who has divided humanity into sexes1 and inclosed the universal soul in separate bodies1 and set up a code of morals which bears no relation to the supreme ,god1 ,who being altogether removed from1 and above1 the generative nature of man1 does not ,himself conform to laws of restriction and forbidding4 ,urizen1 who imprisons and torments conditioned humanity1 is somehow subduable by this same humanity of his own invention1 and ,christ1 the perfect man filled as full as may be with the ,divine ,spirit 7for a cup may not contain more than its capaciousness71 rises in the hearts of humanity1 and effects its freedom1 by aspiring past the ,creator1 to the ,altogether ,divine1 and uniting with it4 ,jehovah addressing ,christ1 as the highest type and flower of humanity1 says to him1 in the poem called the ,everlasting ,gospel3 ,if thou humblest thyself thou humblest me4 ,thou art a man3 ,god is no more3 ,thine own humanity learn to adore1 ,for that is my spirit of life4 ,this makes us think of ,blake's follower1 ,walt ,whitman1 who in the same sort of turgid and chaotic poetry in which ,blake wrote the prophetic books1 but with no mystic clouds to shroud the meaning1 has consistently developed this thought3 ,one's self ,i sing1 a simple separate person1 and none has begun to think how divine he himself is1 etc4 ,in ,blake's conversations with ,crabb ,robinson1 this mystic view of ,christ is very apparent4 ,on my asking1 writes ,mr4 ,robinson1 in what light he viewed the great questions of the duty of ,jesus1 he said1 ,he is the only ,god4 ,but then1 he added1 and so am ,i1 and so are you4 ,keeping this point in view1--,blake's belief in the identity of the ,spirit of ,god behind all phenomena1 the homogeneous character of the great creative ,energy or ,imagination expressing ,itself through various forms and organisms1--another extract from ,crabb ,robinson's diary will help us still nearer home to ,blake's point of view4 ,he writes3 ,in the same tone1 he said repeatedly1 ',the ,spirit told me4' ,i took occasion to say1 ',you express yourself as ,socrates used to do4 ,what resemblance do you suppose there is between your spirit and his8' ',the same as between our countenances4' ,he paused and added1 ',i was ,socrates1' and then1 as if correcting himself1 'a sort of brother4 ,i must have had conversations with him4 ,so ,i had with ,jesus ,christ4 ,i have an obscure recollection of having been with both of them4' ,i suggested on philosophic grounds the impossibility of supposing an immortal being created an a parte post without an a parte ante4 ,his eye brightened at this1 and he fully concurred with me4 ',to be sure1 it is impossible4 ,we are all co-existent with ,god1 members of the ,divine ,body4 ,we are all partakers of the ,divine ,nature4' ,the latter words seem as ordinary and orthodox as on first reading his assertion that he was ,socrates seems wild and mad4 ,but all ,blake really meant 7and ,i think ,crabb ,robinson only half took his meaning7 was1 that the vegetative universe being a mere shadow1 so are the accidents of personality1 the age one is born into1 the organic form which incloses the spirit4 ,so his personality and that of ,socrates1 their imprisonment in the vegetative life were differences of no account1 being transitory4 ,but he and ,socrates were one 7or at least related7 at the point where their spirits 7the eternal verity7 touched1 and melted each into the other4 ,he understood the ,bible in its spiritual sense4 ,as to the natural sense1 ,voltaire was commissioned by ,god to expose that4 ,i have had much intercourse with ,voltaire1 and he said to me1 ',i blasphemed the ,son of ,man1 and it shall be forgiven me1 but they 7the enemies of ,voltaire7 blasphemed the ,holy ,ghost in me1 and it shall not be forgiven them4' ,this affords an instance of the manner in which ,blake intuitively probed beneath the appearance1 and divined the spirit beneath1 discarding the fact or body with which it clothed itself4 ,another characteristic opinion of ,blake's1 and one that moulded much of his work1 is the following3 ,without contraries is no progression4 ,attraction and ,repulsion1 ,reason and ,energy1 ,love and ,hate1 are necessary to human existence4 ,from these contraries spring what the religious call ,good and ,evil4 ,good is the passive that obeys ,reason4 ,evil is the active1 springing from ,energy4 ,good is ,heaven1 ,evil is ,hell4 ,all ,bibles or sacred codes have been the causes of the following errors3 #a4 ,that man has two existing principles1 viz41 a ,body and a ,soul4 #b4 ,that energy1 called evil1 is alone from the body1 and that ,heaven1 called ,good1 is alone from the soul4 #c4 ,that ,god will torment man in ,eternity for following his energies4 ,but the following contraries are true3 #a4 ,man has no ,body distinct from ,soul1 for that called ,body is a portion of ,soul discerned by the five senses1 the chief inlets of soul in this age4 #b4 ,energy is the only life1 and is from the body1 and reason is the bound or outward circumference of energy4 #c4 ,energy is eternal delight4 ,these postulates form links in a chain of thought1 another progression of which is developed in ,jerusalem4 ,blake writes3 ,there is a limit of opaqueness and a limit of contraction in every individual man1 and the limit of opaqueness is called ,satan1 and the limit of contraction is called ,adam4 ,but there is no limit of expansion1 there is no limit of translucence in the bosom of man for ever from eternity to eternity4 ,certainly there was no limit in his own bosom1 and in vision he expanded away from his own ego and merged in the universal life1 the all-pervading ,spirit4 ,opaqueness and contraction were the only forms of evil he recognized1 and these are negative rather than active qualities4 ,indeed1 ,blake often seems to deny the existence of sin at all4 ,again referring to the invaluable record that ,crabb ,robinson has left of ,blake--,i quote always from ,messrs4 ,ellis and ,yeats' complete reprint of the part of the diary referring to him--,he allowed1 indeed1 that there are errors1 mistakes1 etc41 and if these be evil1 then there is evil4 ,but these are only negations4 ,he denied that the natural world is anything4 ,it is all nothing1 and ,satan's empire is the empire of nothing4 ,in another place he writes3 ,negations are not contraries4 ,contraries exist4 ,but negations exist not2 nor shall they ever be organized for ever and ever4 ,contraries1 'the marriage of ,heaven and ,hell1' seemed necessary and right to him1 and the urge and recoil natural correlatives4 ,the great strife with ,blake was always that between reason and imagination1 experience and spiritual discernment4 ,the greater part of humanity seemed to him to see with the natural eye natural phenomena only4 ,this was accordingly opaque to them1 and did not let through the light of the ,universal ,spirit or ,imagination1 seen with which alone it was beautiful1 as being then the symbol of something immeasureably greater than itself4 ,locke and ,newton1 the men of single vision as he called them1 were the types of this part of humanity4 ,he would fain have had men look through the eye at the infinite imagination which is the cause of phenomena4 ,illustration3 ,,death',s ,,door3 ,,from ,,blair',s ,,grave ,engraved by ,l4 ,schiavonetti after ,blake's drawing4 ,published #ahjh ,as he states in a glorious passage in his prose essay of the ,last ,judgement3 ,mental things are alone real3 what is called corporeal nobody knows of2 its dwelling-place is a fallacy1 and its existence an imposture4 ,where is the existence out of mind1 or thought8 where is it but in the mind of a fool8 ,some people flatter themselves that there will be no ,last ,judgement1 and that bad art will be adopted1 and mixed with good art--that error or experiment will make a part of truth--and they boast that it is its foundation4 ,these people flatter themselves2 ,i will not flatter them4 ,error is created1 truth is eternal4 ,error or creation will be burnt up1 and then1 and not till then1 truth or eternity will appear4 ,it is burned up the moment men cease to behold it4 7,this is a mystical utterance1 a spiritual discernment which will repay thoughtful consideration4 ,it gives the ,last ,judgement--hitherto conceived of by the orthodox as a terribly material and mundane affair--an imaginative and esoteric significance very grateful and welcome to the spiritually sensitive47 ,i assert for myself1 that ,i do not behold the outward creation1 and that to me it is hindrance and not action4 ',what6' it will be questioned1 'when the sun rises1 do you not see a round disc of fire1 somewhat like a guinea8' ,oh6 no6 no6 ,i see an innumerable company of the heavenly host1 crying3 ',holy1 holy1 holy is the ,lord ,god ,almighty4' ,i question not my corporeal eye1 any more than ,i would question a window concerning a sight4 ,i look through it1 and not with it4 ,one of ,blake's most beautiful conceptions of ,god is as the universal ,poetic ,genius1 and he was very fond of asserting that ,art is ,religion1 which indeed it is when1 like his own1 it represents the forms of this world as the transparent media through which pulses the light of the universal ,poetic ,genius4 ,another belief of ,blake's must be quoted before ,i leave this part of our subject3 ,men are admitted into heaven1 not because they have curbed and governed their passions1 or have no passions1 but because they have cultivated their understandings4 ,the treasures of heaven are not negations of passion1 but realities of intellect1 from which all the passions emanate1 uncurbed in their eternal glory4 ,the fool shall not enter into heaven1 let him be ever so holy2 holiness is not the price of entrance into heaven4 ,those who are cast out are all those who1 having no passions of their own1 because no intellect1 have spent their lives in curbing and governing other people's by the various arts of poverty1 and cruelty of all kinds4 ,the modern ,church crucifies ,christ with the head downwards4 ,and again1 ,many persons1 such as ,paine and ,voltaire1 with some of the ancient ,greeks1 say3 ,we will not converse concerning good and evil1 we will live in ,paradise and ,liberty6 ,you may do so in spirit1 but not in the mortal body1 as you pretend1 till after the ,last ,judgment4 ,for in ,paradise they have no corporeal and mortal body3 that originated with the ,fall and was called ,death1 and cannot be removed but by a ,last ,judgment4 ,while we are in the world of mortality1 we must suffer--the whole ,creation groans to be delivered4444 ,forgiveness of sin is only at the judgment-seat of ,jesus the ,saviour1 where the accuser is cast out1 not because he sins1 but because he torments the just1 and makes them do what he condemns as sin1 and what he knows is opposite to their own identity4 ,and now ,i must gather together all the frayed ends of this diffuse but necessary chapter1 and put the vital points1 around which the seeming incongruities and strangenesses of ,blake's assertions arrange themselves1 into a symmetrical if not an organic whole4 ,the oneness of the ,eternal ,imagination1 ,universal ,poetic ,genius1 or ,god the ,spirit1 was the golden background to ,blake's vision of life4 ,and on this unity he saw contrasted the endless diversity of the spirit's expression in phenomena4 ,all error 7not sin1 which he did not believe to exist7 came from the fall of the spirit 7through ,urizen the creator7 into division and the sexual and generative life of man4 ,this tended to a closing up of man into separate selfhoods1 and each selfhood1 in its effort to preserve its corporeal existence and separate character1 was guilty of error1 and gradually the inlets through which communication with the ,universal ,spirit was maintained became closed up1 and were senses only available1 in most men1 for the uses of the natural world4 ,this condition leads to spiritual negation1 but is merely temporary1 for when the body is destroyed at death1 which is the ,last ,judgement1 ,urizen's power is broken1 and the soul1 however attenuated 7as long as not altogether atrophied71 returns to its pristine union with the ,universal ,spirit1 and1 though completely merged in it1 yet in some wonderful way it preserves its own identity1 or essential quality1 while the body1 which is error1 is burnt up4 ,but even in the prison of the bodily life ,humanity may be delivered from the cramping and negative effect of the selfhood1 through ,jesus ,christ1 who exists as the ,human ,divine in every heart1 and who at the voice of the ,universal ,spirit rises from the grave of selfhood1 and draws the ,christian up into the life of that spirit where is no error nor negation4 ,it naturally follows that to ,blake the one important point was to keep the senses1 the chief inlet of soul1 perpetually cleansed and open1 that he might descry the ,great ,reality of which ,nature and all her phenomena are but a symbol or shadow4 ,in fact1 ,blake's hope for man lay in the contrary of ,herbert ,spencer's philosophy4 ,the continuous evolution into new divisions and organisms1 separate selfhoods and particles1 was to him the falling of ,urizen1 head downwards1 and bound with the snake of materiality1 deeper and deeper into the abyss4 ,by union1 not division1 by aspiring into the universal life1 by conquering the selfhood and cleaving to the divine element 7,jesus ,christ7 which exists in every human heart1 ,blake conceived that man might1 if he would1 find salvation1 true vision1 and everlasting life4 ,his own vision was always double or symbolic1 and he prayed to be delivered from single vision and ,newton's sleep4 ,for the preoccupation with ,nature as an end in itself and an object worthy of study was to him the great error1 a sign of the horror of great darkness that clouded the human intelligence4 ,in moments of a special inrush of spiritual apprehension his vision was threefold1 and sometimes fourfold1 which suggests that vista behind vista unrolled itself1 revealing untellable truth and beauty to his keen etherealized sight4 ,these things1 not being matters of common experience1 must be received and understood intuitively1 and not ,blake himself can always make them comprehensible to us4 ,his language and visions recall the language and visions of the ,prophet ,ezekiel1 whose writings were read and re-read by him till they created a frenzy of excitement in his sensitive brain4 ,his opinion of women1 far from being in accordance with our modern emancipated views1 was somewhat oriental1 though among his poems we may find many instances of sweet and spiritual femininity4 ,when ,urizen created ,man and walled him up in his separate organism with five senses1 like five small chinks in a cavern to let in the outside light1 he gave him a dual nature1 male and female1 so that he was at first a hermaphrodite4 ,the female portion of man trying to get the ascendency of the male portion caused inward strife1 so a further subdivision occurred1 and ,man cast out his female portion1 which became woman1 and was a mere emanation of man4 ,there is no such thing in eternity as a female will1 writes ,blake oracularly1 his happy experience being based doubtless on the beautiful subjection of ,catherine ,blake to his own overmastering personality4 ,yet he is bound to exclaim in ,jerusalem1 ,what may man be8 ,who can tell8 ,but what may woman be1 to have power over man from cradle to corruptible grave4 ,we may fairly say that the inferior shadowy nature which he imputes to woman was one of those opinions which he chose to adopt1 though his real and unconscious belief regarding her was possibly very different4 ,be that as it may1 he often makes her serve as a symbol for material existence1 obviously an infelicitous parallel4 ,having very briefly indicated the nature of ,blake's religious and mystical opinions1 it remains for us to say a word about his mythology4 ,in a letter written to ,mr4 ,butts while ,blake was at ,felpham1 these lines occur among some verses1 and will ,i think help us3 ,for a double vision is always with me4 ,with my inward eye1 'tis an old man gray2 ,with my outward1 a thistle across the way4 ,the personification and nomenclature of these double visions of his seem to suggest the genesis of this mythology4 ,he has peopled a twilight mental world with a dim shadowy population of personified states and conditions4 ,they bear strange mouth-filling names1 such as ,orc1 ,fuzon1 ,rintrah1 ,palamabron1 ,enitharmon1 ,oothoon and ,ololon4 ,what each symbolizes must be determined by the reader for himself4 ,no explanation of their separate functions will be attempted in this book4 ,messrs4 ,ellis and ,yeats have carried explanation and analytic criticism as far as it can be carried1 and the reader who is interested in the literary matter of the prophetic books should consult their learned work as well as ,mr4 ,swinburne's highly-suggestive critical essay4 ,,chapter ,,vi ,,his ,,mystical ,,nature ,to the world of his own time ,blake appeared a mad visionary1 whose sweet impulsive early poems attracted a few of the rarer souls of the age1 but whose pictures and designs were practically unknown4 ,his genius1 atmosphere1 and modes of thought were antipathetic to his age1 and his aims and achievement proved so difficult to understand from the point of view of that day1 that he was summarily and uncomprehendingly set down as mad4 ,this was an offhand and unintelligent method of accounting for so rare a spirit4 ,the spectacle of a man who might1 had he chosen1 have enjoyed riches1 honour1 admiration and glory1 but who instead1 like his great ,master1 cared not at all for lordship in this world1 but much for the preservation of the kingdom of the spirit that is not of this world1 did a great deal to earn for ,blake the name of madman4 ,the world has always regarded the voluntarily poor with suspicion and misapprehension4 ,then1 again1 ,blake was one of those who lived very near the veil which shrouds the great unexplored spiritual forces4 ,death1 as we know1 seemed to him but the passing from one room to another4 ,to raise the veil1 to look forth on the cause of phenomena1 on the visions of eternal imagination1 to strain to the uttermost that he might hear the reverberations of the unmeasured mighty stream of ,divine power1 to bathe within that stream1 and let it bear him onward as it would--these were to him the real purposes of life1 and being so1 formed other reasons why the world1 all engrossed as it is with wealth and position1 and here and now1 looked at him askance4 ,to-day1 however1 there is an undercurrent of popular opinion--a small stream1 but strong--that recognizes him for what he is1 and his name is sacred as that of the great ,high ,priest of ,spiritual ,art1 to those who compose it4 ,it is noticeable that none of those who were personally acquainted with him1 save perhaps ,crabb ,robinson1 ever gave credence to the prevailing notion that he was mad3 strongly do they condemn such a verdict4 ,he was eccentric1 abnormally developed on the spiritual side1 and undisciplined in thought and speech4 ,the mystic in him finally all but destroyed the poet1 though it never arrested the magnificent development of his artistic genius4 ,again1 much that is strange and difficult of apprehension in ,blake may be traced to the fact that his mind lacked the firm basis1 the just and right power of thinking1 that comes from a sound education4 ,as a matter of fact1 capriciously self-educated as he was1 his ignorance of ordinary rudimentary knowledge was as extraordinary as his acquaintance with much that is caviar to the ordinary intellect4 ,celui qui a l'imagination sans erudition a des ailes et n'a pas de pieds4 ,and so it was with ,blake4 ,but it does not detract one iota from the illuminating quality of the thoughts which flash as it were from a heaven in his brain in times of creative inspiration4 ,blake on the wing has a strange beauty1 a swift1 direct and strenuous flight that thrills and awes the imaginative spectator4 ,it is only when this wild wonderful creature is caught and entangled in theories and systems and human reasoning1 that we may not give him our intellectual adherence4 ,other causes which appear to give colour to the theory that he was mad are the following3 ,blake had no curious regard or nice care for words1 but used them at random in speech1 just as they came to hand1 and as he cherished numerous violent prejudices it naturally followed that he often expressed them in very emphatic and often unreasonable language4 ,passionate partisan as he was of the world of imagination as against the world of fact1 he assumed an attitude of defiance to natural science and its oldest established facts which seemed to those who had not the key to ,blake's mind simply insane or at the best puerile4 ,so accustomed was he to misunderstanding1 that when strangers tried to draw him out he seems purposely to have indulged in exaggeration and symbolic language to baffle and mystify them4 ,in ordinary intercourse1 as in his art and poetry1 he seems to have had no care to put his mind and his listeners or spectators en rapport with his own4 ,that magical sympathy which some men know so well how to establish like a living current between their own and other minds before speaking the truth that is in them1 was not one of ,blake's gifts4 ,the sympathetic standpoint for observance or understanding he expected from those who would be at the pains to find out his meaning4 ,let them that have ears1 hear--if they can1 and if they be not too tightly shut into their selfhoods1 and their senses not clogged beyond cleansing with the dust and litter of materialism1 he would seem to say4 ,examining into the vexed question of ,blake's visions1 whether they were the apparitions of an unsound mind1 the automatic picture-making of a vivid imagination1 or the visual apprehension of supernatural appearances1 we shall see that madness is not the key to them1 though we shall have to admit a certain want of balance and proportion in his intellectual life4 ,sometimes one is tempted to think that he had eyes that saw the visible loveliness and manifest images in which ,plato supposes that ,ideas exist in the spiritual universe4 ,which being so1 it is not wonderful that he was called mad1 for the ,greek philosopher himself said that this is the most excellent of all forms of enthusiasm 7or possession71 and that the lover who has a share of this madness is called a lover of the beautiful4 ,our artist was a seer such as ,plato meant1 but his is a figurative rather than an actual description of the mental operations which suspend such visions before the prophet's eye4 ,all the writers on ,blake--,allan ,cunningham1 ,alexander ,gilchrist1 ,james ,smetham1 ,mr4 ,swinburne1 ,mr4 ,w4 ,m4 ,rossetti1 ,messrs4 ,ellis and ,yeats1 ,sir ,richard ,garnett--have discussed the subject1 but ,i find the most illuminating passage in an article by ,james ,smetham included in the second volume of ,gilchrist's ,life1 which ,i shall take leave to quote1 for its matter could never be better stated3 ,thought with ,blake leaned largely to the side of imagery rather than to the side of organized philosophy1 and we shall have to be on our guard1 while reading the record of his views and opinions1 against the dogmatism which was more frequently based on exalted fancies than on the rock of abiding reason and truth4 ,the conceptive faculty working with a perception of facts singularly narrow and imperfect1 projected every idea boldly into the sphere of the actual4 ,what he thought1 he saw1 to all intents and purposes1 and it was this sudden and sharp crystallization of inward notions into outward and visible signs which produced the impression on many beholders that reason was unseated4444 ,we cannot but on the whole lean to the opinion that somewhere in the wonderful compound of flesh and spirit1 somewhere in those recesses where the one runs into the other1 he was 'slightly touched1' and by so doing we shall save ourselves the necessity of attempting to defend certain phases of his work 7such as much of the literary part of the prophetic books7 while maintaining an unqualified admiration for the mass and manner of his thoughts4 ,this seems a just opinion4 ,the colloquialism slightly touched 7just that and nothing but that7 is the very phrase to express this elusive1 almost indefinable condition of mind4 ,in all mankind living in conditions of time and space1 a certain adjustment of themselves to these conditions1 and to each other1 is a necessary function of existence4 ,the failure to comply with such an adjustment was ,blake's strength and weakness--the defect of his quality4 ,as ,i have said before1 he firmly believed in his own inspiration1 and with reason4 ,for a mood of trance-like absorption would come upon him1 his soul would be rapt in an ecstasy1 he was disturbed by no impressions of earthly persons or surroundings1 but was for the time being alone with his quickening vision4 ,at such moments his mind's eye was but the retina on which ,god ,himself projected the image4 ,and he would permit no criticism1 no questioning of work which seemed to him not his own1 but produced through divine agency4 ,all creative genius must work in much the same way4 ,the vision is granted1 who shall say just how and whence1 and its translation into any form of art must be accomplished by a power as it were outside1 above1 the artist4 ,vogl said of ,schubert1 that he composed in a state of clairvoyance4 7,that is the reason why the ,unfinished ,symphony was1 and always will be1 unfinished4 ,schubert transcribed the tormenting melody1 the awful picture of ,fate suddenly reaching a long arm from out the smiling heaven to arrest the blithe jigging mortal so gaily tripping along a flowery path4 ,the overwhelming terror and pity of it all shake the soul4 ,but the vision was withdrawn1 the clairvoyant condition left ,schubert1 and so he wrote no more47 ,blake's conceptions were projected in form instantaneously and with extraordinary vividness1 and the vision seen with his mind's eye seldom varied or faded till he had transferred its likeness to paper4 ,in this he was indeed unlike those artists who1 having but a vague mental conception1 build up their designs from without1 laboriously selecting and copying1 not that which will merely help to perfect the realization of the inward conception1 but those things which they conjecture will arrange themselves most successfully in the making of an eye-pleasing picture4 ,such artists are but little concerned with the innate and obligatory form with which an idea must necessarily clothe itself4 ,blake writes in the ,descriptive ,catalogue1 ,a spirit and a vision are not1 as the modern philosophy supposes1 a cloudy vapour or a nothing3 they are organized and minutely articulated beyond all that the mortal and perishing nature can produce4 ,he who does not imagine in stronger and better lineaments1 and in stronger and better light than his perishing and mortal eye can see1 does not imagine at all4 ,at the same time in justice we must admit that ,blake sometimes failed to make his vivid and living conceptions as clear to the world as he might have done1 for the reason that he neglected to refer to ,nature for the technique which after all is the language of ,art4 ,his art in this respect is somewhat like that of the ,italian ,trecenti1 who uttered burning messages in a tongue which sometimes stammered4 ,his impetuous soul never wholly achieved the mastery of material which only a prolonged and patient drudgery can give1 but the images which hurtled from his imagination were so forceful and superabundant that mere fiery creation1 the unburdening of the overloaded heart and brain1 was the crying obligation which forced him ever onward1 seeking relief often in the mere act of projection4 ,it is always a wonder that he makes so few mistakes1 his technique being manifestly deficient4 ,when his drawing is right it is heroically1 magnificently so1 and even when incorrect1 it is always of amazing power and almost convincing strength4 ,execution1 says ,blake1 in his notes on ,reynolds' ,discourses1 is the chariot of ,genius1 and when he mounts into the chariot and takes the reins into his strong nervous hands1 then1 indeed1 nothing can withstand the flashing glory of his course4 ,at such times the affinity between our artist and ,michael ,angelo is very apparent4 ,both had the grand simple manner in their treatment of the human form1 both worked as it would seem in a state of clairvoyance and according to the direction of a divine daemon1 both felt the body to be at best but the prison of the straining fluttering soul2 but ,blake's conceptions glow with a whiter flame of spiritual intensity than do those of the ,florentine1 greater as the latter was at all other points4 ,i think it is the presence of this mystic fire which forms one of the great difficulties in the way of a facile understanding of his art-work4 ,we feel ourselves in the presence of an incommunicable overburdening spiritual intensity4 ,it has seldom happened that a mystic should be also an artist translating those things which transcend human experience into the terms of an art which by its very nature is only concerned with the sensible creation4 ,it is this incongruity between the thought and the language in which it is conveyed--,blake's thoughts often lying beyond the proper range of a graphic embodiment--which creates one of the great difficulties in the way of our right apprehension of him4 ,a few of his works1 as we shall presently see1 are perfect and flawless as ,art can make them1 such as the ,songs of ,innocence and the majestic series of designs to ,job4 ,in both of these1 the thoughts1 and their incarnation in form1 are harmoniously complementary each to the other4 ,but often the thought will not1 cannot be inclosed3 it outstrips the reach of his art4 ,hence many designs are tumultuous with leaping ideas1 dimly apprehended suggestions1 not one of which is caught and contained in its essence1 but seems rather1 as it were1 to flutter1 tantalizingly enough1 just beyond the grasp4 ,blake hitched his waggon to the stars1 to use ,emerson's expressive phrase1 and to the spiritually elect in art--those to whom ideas are the really precious things--he speaks winged words and with authority4 ,the pity is that his art speaks thus clearly to the initiated only4 ,the sense of freedom of the spirit1 of the absence of all contractile elements in ,blake's work must however be obvious to all4 ,it is his special charm1 to be expansive1 sublime1 large4 ,the great ethereal spaces of the sky have breathed their inspiration upon him1 and he has reflected the colour and the mystery and the depth of the sea4 ,to those who are spiritually homesick he comes as an emissary from beyond the ,great ,darkness1 from where ,life is found at its ,source4 ,,chapter ,,vii ,,his ,,art ,,work ,and now we must turn our attention to ,blake's art-work--the fruit of his life of beautiful purpose and warped power1 as ,ruskin calls it--and the expression of those strange thoughts1 beliefs and visions1 which were his real world4 ,my purpose is1 to turn over1 as it were1 the leaves of his books in the ,print ,room of the ,british ,museum 7the only copies available to the general public1 though several finer are contained in private collections71 and thus help to recall to the crowded mind of to-day's art the living burning spirit of ,blake which is inclosed in those covers4 ,after which we will pass on to a general description and review of his drawings1 engravings and water-colours in the ,british ,museum1 and then consider his pictures in the ,national ,gallery4 ,a chapter will also be devoted to the ,exhibition of ,works of ,blake which were on view for six weeks 7,january and ,february1 #aijd7 at ,messrs4 ,carfax's ,rooms in ,ryder ,street1 for this exhibition contained many of his finest works1 and several which will not again be seen by the public for many a long day4 ,illustration3 ,,printed ,,and ,,coloured ,,plate ,,from ,,songs ,,of ,,innocence1 #aghi ,in ,blake's time there was little hope of success for an artist who did not put himself under distinguished patronage and paint at the direction of some dilettante nobleman4 ,according to the autobiography of ,b4 ,r4 ,haydon the artist 7a strange character if ever there were one671 who was in his heyday when ,blake was a very old man1 nobody could expect to get on without a large dependence on patrons1 who would often dictate subjects and treatment1 and advance large sums to the painter1 to meet his necessarily large expenses 7for great canvases cost great sums72 and on the strength of this1 bind his creative imagination to the yoke of their own petty slavery4 ,blake1 however1 being conscious of his own high mission in art1 and deeply sensible of the divine obligation he was under to paint what he must1 had to forego the idea of working out his designs in large1 for he was too poor to pay for the necessary materials4 ,hence most of his work is executed in very small space--in the leaves of the books we are about to examine1 and in water-colours and frescoes of very limited dimensions4 ,as we proceed it will be noted over and over again that designs some six or seven inches square1 and often less1 are grand enough to be expanded into large compositions and gallery pictures--indeed they would gain considerably by so doing--for so much vitality and splendid strength seems cramped in a confined area4 ,but that size in pictures is no test of conceptive artistic genius needs no demonstration1 though it may be conceded to be a gauge of executive ability4 ,and it is in conception that ,blake is pre-eminent4 ,going quietly on in his chosen path1 he has his little laugh at the crowd of artists scrambling like chickens around the patrons1 who mete out the maize to this favourite ,cochin or that admired bantam4 ,we find this doggerel in his ,note-book3 ,o dear ,mother ,outline1 of wisdom most sage1 ,what's the first part of painting8 she said1 ,patronage4 ,and what is the second1 to please and engage1 ,she frowned like a fury and said1 ,patronage4 ,of patronage during his life ,blake had but little1 save from ,mr4 ,butts1 who1 however1 had nothing of the conventional patron about him4 ,he merely bought with reverent appreciation whatever ,blake pleased to paint1 never suggesting alterations or improvements1 never blaming or criticising1 but merely receiving in faith and love4 ,for which ,blake1 as we know1 never ceased to honour him4 ,but let no man think that poverty did not hamper ,blake1 though he chose it rather than the slavery that would have been the price he would have had to pay for even a moderate income4 ,he himself writes in the ,descriptive ,catalogue3 ,some people and not a few artists have asserted that the painter of this picture would not have done so well if he had been properly encouraged4 ,let those who think so reflect on the state of nations under poverty1 and their incapability of art4 ,though art is above either1 the argument is better for affluence than poverty and though he would not have been a greater artist1 yet he would have produced greater works of art in proportion to his means4 ,well1 then3 it was ,blake's poverty and independence that caused him to work mainly on a small scale1 and it was the fact that he was poet as well as artist--his poetry springing from the same creative impulse as his plastic art--that led him to merge the two gifts into a perfect union in the creation of his beautiful and unique books4 ,the process by which they were executed is thus described by ,gilchrist3 ,the verse was written and the designs and marginal embellishments outlined on the copper with an impervious liquid1 probably the ordinary stopping-out varnish of engravers4 ,then all the white parts or lights1 the remainder of the plate that is1 were eaten away with aquafortis or other acid1 so that the outline of letter and design was left prominent1 as in stereotype4 ,from these plates he printed off in any tint1 yellow1 brown1 blue1 required to be the prevailing or ground colour in his fac-similes2 red he used for the letterpress4 ,the page was then coloured up by hand in imitation of the original drawing1 with more or less variety of detail in the local hues4 ,to read this account when one has seen the product is like pondering the receipt for a miracle4 ,gilchrist goes on to say1 ,he taught ,mrs4 ,blake to take off the impressions with care and delicacy4 ,after1 they were done up in boards by her neat hands1 so that the poet and his wife did everything in making the book--writing1 designing1 printing1 engraving--everything except manufacturing the paper3 the very ink1 or colour rather1 they did make4 ,never before1 surely1 was a man so literally the author of his own book4 ,for the convenience of classifying in some sort of rough way1 this chapter will deal with the ,songs of ,innocence1 the ,book of ,thel1 the ,gates of ,paradise1 the ,songs of ,experience1 also touching lightly on a very different book1 ,mary ,wollstonecraft's ,tales for ,children1 illustrated by ,blake4 ,the small octavo volume entitled the ,songs of ,innocence--with which the ,songs of ,experience1 produced some years later1 are also bound--will be a revelation of beauty to all who have not seen it before1 for there was nothing like it before1 and there has been nothing like it since4 ,the leaves of the ,print ,room copy1 in all probability not a very early one1 have become slightly yellowed with age1 but the colours remain rare and delicate and iridescent as they were when they were first laid on1 a happy accident1 for this has not been the fate of all ,blake's coloured prints4 ,every page has the smell of ,april1 says ,mr4 ,swinburne happily4 ,linger where you will1 a gay and tender harmony pervades every leaf1 the smile of an inspired child looks up at you and flashes something intuitive and precious into your soul4 ,the colours are the colours of morning4 ,the limpidness of the verses1 the felicity of the designs1 recall special morning moods in the morning of life4 ,hope1 innocence1 joy1 and an all-pervading sense of ,divine nearness1 are the characteristic notes sounded4 ,both the draught and the song weave themselves into a spell1 each one distinct1 each having its own charm1 its own perfume4 ,the words without the embracing design1 beautiful as they are1 seem to lose some of that delicate and aromatic fragrance diffused from them4 ,and the design without the words is an effect without a cause1 and thus loses its expressiveness4 ,it is the union of the two that makes the celestial singing1 and1 like antiphonal music1 one part catches up1 transforms and augments the melody of the other1 which1 ringing silver clear1 yet half-hid and half-announced its entire significance4 ,our illustrations1 in which perforce the colour is left out1 are the palest1 most spectral of shadows beside the glory of the original plates4 ,they can but be reminders or suggestions1 and must be accepted as such4 ,plate #b1 represents a ,shepherd1 pipe in hand1 following a cherubic vision1 his sheep in turn following him4 ,the shepherd1 be it remarked1 has on a vestment peculiar to ,blake4 ,it is indicated only by a line round the ankles1 wrists and neck1 and a few rather realistic buttons1 but it does not hide the muscles and the modeling of the body at all4 ,it is a kind of glorified combination garment1 but it is a matter of taste whether the shepherd would not look as well unclothed entirely4 ,the garment1 too much recalls the historic drawers which the outraged decency of the ,vatican obliged ,pontormo to paint on the figures of ,michael ,angelo's ,last ,judgement in the ,sistine4 ,whatever reason ,blake may have had for investing his shepherd in this apparel1 we are sure at least that it was not because he worried himself about propriety6 such a concern was far indeed from him4 ,illustration3 ,,printed ,,and ,,coloured ,,plate ,,from ,,songs ,,of ,,innocence1 #aghi ,after all1 this matter of the combination garment is the merest quibble4 ,the design has all the enchantment of the spring in its pale delicious tints1 and the browsing sheep with the glint of gold on their fleeces bring something of ,argonautic romance into this vision of ,april4 ,the flamboyant title-page of the ,songs of ,innocence1 is a fine piece of decorative design and colour4 ,the keynote of the whole scheme is set in the perfectly simple song1 and the page in which it is embodied1 called ,the ,introduction4 ,the poem is written in brown1 on a ground bright with tremulous colours which wane and wax in prismatic variation4 ,rose shoots1 bent in and out1 make a trellis up each side of the verses1 and the result of the whole6 well6 you may call it a slight thing if you like1 but it is as joyous as childhood1 and strangely delightful6 ,no songs ever written for children were as these songs2 in especial1 perhaps1 ,the ,lamb1 of which the simplicity and tenderness are of so delicate a quality that the poem cannot be handled critically at all4 ,it can only be felt4 ,the slightly richer and deeper tones of colour1 and the premonitory note of mysticism in the ,little ,black ,boy1 afford a subtle charm3 ,and we are put on earth a little space ,that we may learn to bear the beams of love1 ,and these black bodies and this sun-burnt face ,is but a cloud1 and like a shady grove4 ,who could have written this but ,blake8 ,it is of lyrics such as this that ,pater writes3 ,and the very perfection of such poetry often appears to depend1 in part1 on a certain suppression or vagueness of mere subject1 so that the meaning reaches us through ways not distinctly traceable by the understanding1 as in some of the most imaginative compositions of ,william ,blake4 ,the ,divine ,image is another equally lovely poem1 with its sinuous growth of ribbon-like leaves1 climbing among the verses4 ,the unmistakeable figure of ,christ at the root1 raises a prostrate figure4 ,the verses1 writ in golden brown1 lie on a ground of palest blue1 thrilling to ,tyrian purple4 ,holy ,thursday1 after the rainbow tints of many of the pages and the luxuriance of their designs1 is a ,quaker-like and unpretending affair altogether4 ,it would seem to be the untouched impression as it was first stereotyped off the plate2 and is interesting for that reason4 ,there is hardly anything in the book more delicious than ,plate #be1 ,infant ,joy4 ,a typical 7rather than botanically correct7 flower with a flame-shaped bud1 and a wind-tossed bloom1 springs across a page dyed like a butterfly's wing4 ,in the cloven blossom a mother and her small baby sit enthroned while an angel with wings like a ,white ,admiral stands entranced before the happy child4 ,i have no name2 ,i am but two days old4 ,what shall ,i call thee8 ,i happy am1 ,joy is my name4 ,sweet joy befall thee4 ,pretty joy6 ,sweet joy but two days old4 ,sweet joy ,i call thee3 ,thou dost smile1 ,i sing the while2 ,sweet joy befall thee4 ,these are the spontaneous1 gushing notes of the bird in springtime1 careless1 unstudied but felicitously right1 not to be corrected or even touched1 for each word must lie where it fell1 just so and no other way4 ,illustration3 ,,printed ,,and ,,coloured ,,plate ,,from ,,songs ,,of ,,innocence1 #aghi ,plate #bj1 ,night1 with its graceful lady tree growing up beside the verses1 is a beautiful shadowy design on a background in which blue and green merge and deepen in a veil of evening mist and the poem is another of those minute pieces of perfection1 which1 like delicate sea-shells1 were cast up out of the stormy ocean of ,blake's mind4 ,in their own way1 and with due regard to their special range and quality1 the ,songs of ,innocence are the most perfect things ,blake ever did1 for he attempted no effect in song or design that his art was not adequate to express1 and his imagination lies over all like the haze of spring sunshine4 ,at that time the lyric poet in ,blake was dominant1 compelling him to sing1 while the mystic was hardly yet consciously awake in him4 ,but in the next book1 ,the ,book of ,thel1 the mystic has stirred and breathes through the poem4 ,the story is veiled in a shining mystery1 but is still quite intelligible and pellucid in style1 till just at the end1 when the sphinx riddle of this life1 the paradox of the senses1 the wonder and terror of death1 close round the consciousness of ,thel1 and dark sayings are uttered darkly4 ,thel is the youngest of the daughters of the ,seraphim1 but is herself a mortal4 ,all her joy in her own beauty and that of the natural world is destroyed by the thought that she must die1 the flowers must fade1 the cloud will melt away1 everything must change and decay4 ,the ,lily of the ,valley answers her gentle lamentation1 telling her that in this very change1 the feeding of the lives of others with our own life1 lies the secret of an endless and blessed immortality4 ,she herself will hereafter flourish in eternal vales4 ,thel assents to this-- ,thy breath doth nourish the innocent lamb3 he smells thy milky garments1 ,he crops thy flowers1 while thou sittest smiling in his face1 ,wiping his mild and meekin mouth from all contagious taints4 ,that is all very well1 she seems to say1 you help to revive and nourish many creatures1 but what do ,i do8 ,i shall fade away like a little shining cloud4 ,the lily then calls down a cloud1 which appears in the bright likeness of a radiant youth in mid-air4 ,the cloud tells her that when he passes away in an hour's time1 ,it is to manifold life1 to love1 and peace and raptures holy4 ,he will wed the ,dew1 and linked together in a golden band they will bear food to all our tender flowers4 ,but ,thel complains that she does nothing for any living thing1 ,without a use this shining woman lived1 ,or did she only live to be at death the food of worms4 ,then the cloud reclined upon his airy throne tells her that even that would prove her of great use and blessing1 for ,everything that lives ,lives not alone nor for itself1 and in token of the truth of what he says he calls the helpless worm1 which appears to ,thel as an infant wrapped in the ,lily's leaf4 ,this lowest form of created life is cradled in a mother's love to ,thel's surprise4 ,the ,clod of ,clay appears to comfort its weeping babe and tells the wondering beauty of the ,vales of ,har1 that being herself the meanest of all things1 yet nevertheless she is the bride of ,him who loves the lowly1 and is the mother of all his children4 ,whereat ,thel weeps to find life and love everywhere1 even where she expected nothing but coldness and horror4 ,then matron ,clay1 invites ,thel to enter her house1 saying that it is given her to enter and to return4 ,so ,thel entered into the secret regions of the grave1 and passed on till to her grave-plot she came and there she sat down1 and heard a voice of sorrow speak from out it4 ,it is a wild blood-stilling cry that rises to her terrified ears1 shrieking of the senses1 their limits1 their precious and their poisoning gifts--these only avenues through which life may be enjoyed1 and by which eternity must be coloured4 ,nothing answers6 there is no answer8 ,it is the old ,faust riddle that has occupied the minds of thinkers since the beginning of time4 ,it fretted ,blake into a state of painful excitement4 ,the ,virgin started from her seat1 and with a shriek fled back unhindered till she came into the ,vales of ,har4 ,the designs1 of which there are but five1 have still the serene and delicate air which belongs to ,blake's youthful work4 ,the colour is pure and thin1 the outlines printed in faint ,italian pink1 and the effect of all is of things seen through a haze1 which the sunshine is beginning to penetrate4 ,a delightful impression of rain-washed1 wind-swept morning is given by the frontispiece1 in which ,thel--a motive of perfect poetic grace--contemplates the wooing of the fairy ,dew1 whose home is in the calyx of the flowers1 by the ,cloud4 ,above their heads is a patch of blue sky1 across which the title is written1 while birds and angels wing their happy flight in the ethereal expanse4 ,exquisite also is the pale vision of the lily of the valley bowing before ,thel4 ,and the cloud1 and the clod of the earth bending over ,baby ,worm1 are alive with ,blake's peculiar quality of imagination4 ,the tail-piece represents a serpent of pale green hue coiling and rearing across the page4 ,one naked infant drives him with reins1 while two more ride joyously upon his back4 ,about the same time ,blake wrote a poem called ,tiriel1 which will be found in the ,aldine edition of his poetical works4 ,it was never engraved in a book by him1 and has little poetic beauty1 being for the most part full of clamorous rage1 dire slaughterings and cruel revenge1 but he made some water-colour drawings illustrating the text4 ,the ,print ,room does not possess a copy of the ,marriage of ,heaven and ,hell1 which appeared in #agij1 but the ,reading ,room has one which can be viewed in the large room set apart for rare books4 ,none of ,blake's prose writings1 in sustained thought and power1 are equal to it4 ,it is an armoury containing flashing rapiers1 whose thrusts reach home as suddenly as they are withdrawn again4 ,the glitter of steel in sunlight is suggested by many of its aphorisms4 ,i cannot forbear quoting one or two1 in reading which one would seem to hear the very voice of ,blake3 ,he whose face gives no light shall never become a star4 ,the roaring of lions1 the howling of wolves1 the raging of the stormy sea1 and the destructive sword1 are portions of eternity too great for the eye of man4 ,prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by ,incapacity4 ,he who desires but acts not1 breeds pestilence4 ,how do you know but ev'ry bird that cuts the airy way1 ,is an immense world of delight1 clos'd by your senses five4 ,damn braces2 bless relaxes4 ,sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires4 ,all deities reside in the human breast4 ,joys impregnate1 sorrows bring forth4 ,everything possible to be believed is an image of truth4 ,to create a little flower is the labour of ages4 ,improvement makes straight roads1 but the crooked roads without improvement are roads of genius4 ,illustration3 ,,printed ,,and ,,coloured ,,plate ,,from ,,the ,,british ,,museum ,,copy ,,of ,,the ,,marriage ,,of ,,heaven ,,and ,,hell1 ,,produced #agij ,the aphorisms are followed by five ,memorable ,fancies1 wild dreams full of paradoxes1 and allegories both spiritual and grotesque4 ,the designs to this book are very fine1 but ,i cannot help thinking that this particular copy was not coloured by ,blake's hand4 ,in comparison with the one formerly belonging to ,lord ,crewe1 which in all respects is magnificent1 the ,library copy is coloured too crudely1 to be in the least characteristic of ,blake4 ,particularly unlike him are the heavy gray shadows disfiguring the nude figures4 ,there is no impasto work here as in the ,crewe copy1 but the colour is put on with no uncertain or unpractised hand1 though in a manner unlike ,blake4 ,far more delightful are the renderings of several of these plates as seen in the small ,book of ,designs4 ,they are worked up with the utmost care and finish1 and the distinctive qualities of ,blake's colour1 the unmistakable impress of his hand1 are there exhibited in their highest manifestations4 ,the sense of mystery1 innate to their conception1 is preserved1 nay1 accentuated6 whereas the ,library copy1 through its unpleasant1 and ,i cannot but think un-,blakean passages of colour1 has lost in some places this romantic and inimitable quality4 ,the title-page alive with leaping flames1 a nude woman bathing1 salamander-like1 in fire1 the heaving body of a patterned water-snake writhing in foamy water1 and a male figure seated on a mound prophetic of the design presently to be consummated in ,death's ,door1 are among the most notable of the pictures in the ,marriage of ,heaven and ,hell4 ,many of the pages are faintly tinted1 while delicate suggestive ornaments cling about the writing4 ,in #agia ,blake designed and engraved for ,johnson six plates to ,tales for ,children1 by ,mary ,wollstonecraft4 ,the book is in the ,print ,room1 somewhat yellow and musty4 ,in no sense is it attractive1 and it would find small favour with the modern child4 ,the fact is that ,blake worked in dire constraint when illustrating homely scenes of actual life4 ,he had no pleasure in the invention of accessories4 ,in his art all is left out that may be1 and the bare1 the sparse1 the elemental1 and the austerely beautiful alone receive his attention1 but always adjusted to meet the requirements of his own rigid sense of harmony in composition4 ,then again single vision1 the vision of ,bacon and ,newton1 concerned only with actual appearances1 did not seem to him worth the transcribing4 ,he could only work with freedom when the fact could be treated as merely the symbol of an idea4 ,so that in these plates the homely domestic scenes he tries to represent have a cold and ghastly appearance4 ,they are like nothing we have ever seen1 because ,blake was so curiously unobservant of details not interesting to him that he simply did not know about them when he came to draw them4 ,his work is only of a high order when his imagination is excited4 ,his spiritual insight not being called into play renders many of these engravings weak1 dull and archaic-looking4 ,there are among them suggestions of the terrible1 and of significances beyond this world however4 ,they form grim and foreign accompaniments enough to the milk-and-water stories1 and are about as suitable as the ,orcagna frescoes in the ,pisan ,campo ,santo would be to adorn the walls of a child's nursery4 ,we willingly shut up the book and turn to one produced two years later called the ,gates of ,paradise4 ,the title-page says it was designed1 engraved and published by ,blake1 but adds ,johnson's name too4 ,but we know that the book is all ,blake1 and it is probable that ,johnson gave his name to the venture through a kindly1 perhaps pitying1 desire to help ,blake with the public4 ,the ,gates of ,paradise it is called1 though no glory of colour1 no beautiful angels1 no city of gold1 such as the title might lead us to expect1 are displayed in its pages4 ,indeed1 to some the first glance may bring disappointment4 ,these elemental and direct designs1 sixteen in number1 are very rough1 even rudimentary1 as engravings4 ,but they are true art-work1 for they concentrate and express conceptions and ideas of a rare order1 and with a piercing directness that drives them home to our most intimate1 most central consciousness4 ,either you will feel their power and charm1 and come under the subtle spell at once1 or else you will glance through them unmoved1 and perhaps contemptuously1 and wonder what people can profess to see in this rude and ,gothic draughtsmanship4 ,if this latter is the case1 then ,blake has nothing to say to such an one1 for it is no use to expect a literal and exact interpretation tacked on to all his designs4 ,blake must and will be discerned intuitively by his true lovers1 and few words will suffice to indicate the track of his thoughts to such2 to others1 all the explanation in the world would never reveal him1 for1 to use his own phrase1 the doors of their perception are not sufficiently cleansed to admit his conceptions4 ,the frontispiece gives us a reminiscence of ,thel4 ,a chrysalis1 like a swaddled baby1 lies on a leaf1 while on the spray above a caterpillar--the emblem of motherhood--watches over it4 ,underneath is inscribed1 significantly enough1 the words1 ,what is man8 ,blake's thoughts were never long away from this subject4 ,to find an answer to the question was his deepest preoccupation and concern1 and the following designs are all variations on this one dominant theme4 ,plate ,no4 #a represents a woman gathering babies like flowers from among the clustering ivy at the foot of a tree4 ,in glad haste she plucks up one more to put with the others already lying1 like ,st4 ,elizabeth's roses1 in the folds of her apron4 ,the child is found symbolically at the root of what ,mr4 ,swinburne thinks is the tree of physical life1 embedded in the earth from which all things issue1 and to which all things return4 ,the next four plates are embodiments of the four elements1 which in ,blake's thoughts always teemed with spiritual correspondences--according to the ,swedenborgian phrase4 ,water seems to be an emblem of folly and instability1 and is embodied in the form of a man seated on the very roots of the tree of physical life1 his feet set upon no firm earth1 but upon the sand at the verge of the water4 ,the foolish1 helpless face1 and hands spread out on knees1 and the driving rain that descends with pitiless energy on all1 go far to convey the idea of the perpetual flux and flow1 the unshapeableness of the element ,water4 ,a gnome-like man in a crevice represents ,earth4 ,he is inclosed1 bound down1 weighted with clay4 ,sitting on a high white cloud amid the starry spaces of the sky1 ,air sits in form like a naked man1 pressing his hands to his forehead in fear and giddiness at the vast immensity unrolled before his eyes4 ,blind in fire with shield and spear1 a man strides in ,plate #e4 ,is this fire an emblem of the fierce elemental fires of ,desire and ,hatred--both of which are blind8 ,plate #f is entitled ,at length for hatching ripe he breaks the shell1 and a delicious cherub having broken the egg proceeds to climb out of it into the sunlit air4 ,symbol of the material life which forms a concrete circumference around the soul of eternal man1 the eggshell is broken1 when at length for hatching ripe1 the veil of death is rent by the liberated spirit4 ,illustration3 ,i ,,want6 ,i ,,want6 ,engraving from the ,gates of ,paradise1 #agic ,in ,plate #g and its successors ,blake takes us back again to incidents characteristic of the life of man on earth4--,alas6 exhibits a boy wantonly catching and killing bright little loves1 which flutter across his path like butterflies4 ,plate #h is a youth throwing barbed darts at an old man who sits on ruins sword in hand4 ,my son1 my son1 thou treatest me ,but as ,i have instructed thee1 writes ,blake1 suggesting the numerous cases of friction and cruel offence which must result from the education of the human soul in selfishness and vainglory4 ,there is nothing in the series to equal the colossal daring of ,i want1 ,i want4 ,just a little cross-hatching1 a little rough spluttering work with the burin1 and we have this bit of marvellous irony4 ,a group of tiny pigmies on a spit of land have reared an enormous ladder against the moon1 and are about to start on their journey through star-bespread darkness to the pale crescent so far above them4 ,mr4 ,swinburne says that this was originally an ironical sketch satirizing the methods of ,art study pursued by amateurs and connoisseurs--scaling with ladders of logic the heaven of invention1 and presuming to measure1 reach and gauge the intangible ideal4 ,but in this series ,blake has expanded the meaning of the design into the passionate yearning and aching desire of man after things spiritual4 ,plate #aj is a study of the sea4 ,a water-colour in washes of ,indian ink of very similar composition is in existence1 and was on exhibition at ,ryder ,street in #aijd4 ,the water-colour evidently suggested by this plate is the finer work1 but it is a marvellous evidence of ,blake's power1 that the tiny plate of the ,gates of ,paradise 7#a-e_/h in4 by #b in4 only in size7 should be capable of representing so infinite a waste of stormy waters4 ,one frantic arm reaches up to ,heaven from out the foamy crest of the waves1 a minute later to be submerged1--,in ,time's ocean falling1 drowned4 ,that is its significance6 ,no cries of ,help6 will be heard2 ,man must be overwhelmed by ,time4 ,in the eleventh plate an old man in spectacles ruthlessly clips the wings of a bright boy who wrestles and struggles under the cruel hands4 ,thus does ,age1 full of worldly experience and material philosophy1 clip the wings of the aspiring soul of ,youth4 ,walled in by the divisions and materialisms into which ,man has fallen through the creation of the generative nature1 we see human souls despairing1 and full of lassitude1 enclosed in depths of icy dungeons1 in the twelfth plate4 ,this plate was afterwards taken as the basis of the design ,blake made of ,count ,ugolino and his sons in the tower at ,pisa in his ,dante series4 ,in ,plate #ac comes the promise of life4 ,a man stretched on his bed with his family watching beside him1 suddenly has a vision of ,the ,immortal ,man that cannot die4 ,after that all is different1 and in ,plate #ad the traveller hasteth in the evening of life to his journey's end1 serenely cheerful1 even anxious to shake off mortality1 that he may realize his glorious vision the sooner4 ,but the way to ,immortality is through the ,gate of the ,grave4 ,so in ,plate #ae we have the picture of ,death's ,door1 to which our traveller has arrived at last4 ,this early design embodying ,blake's favourite conception was destined to be enlarged and sublimed into one of the most magnificent inventions of ,christian ,art4 ,this is the first hint of the perfect final work1 and on that account1 as well as for its own intrinsic significance here1 of the greatest interest4 ,death's ,door being opened1 the ,worm is seen at work in ,plate #af4 ,who shall say how ,blake has contrived to make the pale1 hooded woman under the tree-roots so symbolic an image of the ,worm8 ,there is that about her at which the recoiling flesh shudders and sickens4 ,illustration3 ,,the ,,deluge ,from ,w4 ,b4 ,scott's ,etching of ,blake's undated ,indian ,ink ,drawing1 by kind permission of ,messrs4 ,chatto and ,windus ,yet here1 below the dim1 twisted roots of the ,tree of ,physical ,being1 whence the embryo ,man was plucked like a mandrake1 is the house of the worm4 ,i have said to the worm1 thou art my mother and my sister1 quotes ,blake enigmatically1 beneath this leprous dream of mortality4 ,but the enigma has a solution1 for the worm at least destroys that body of generative and divided nature to which it is itself so nearly akin1 and which has cramped and imprisoned eternal ,man while on earth4 ,so that we may be grateful to the worm in the end1 for ,weaving to dreams the sexual strife1 ,and weeping over the web of life4 ,i have quoted an illuminating phrase here and there from the lines which ,blake wrote and called the ,keys of the ,gates of ,paradise4 ,these1 however1 are but fugitive hints and thoughts suggested by the plates1 and not in any real sense keys at all4 ,blake leaves each man to unlock the innermost mystery of those designs for himself4 ,they are steeped all through in his own peculiar hues of thought1 subjective to the very verge of the subjectivity allowable to art1 but each of them exhibits that pictorial sense without which1 however poetical and rare the meaning expressed1 they could have no raison d'etre--no artistic right to exist4 ,they induce the mood which assists us to their sympathetic comprehension4 ,after the ,gates of ,paradise1 ,blake began the production of the ,london ,prophetic ,books1 but we will consider these in the next chapter1 and will conclude this early phase of ,blake's work in book making by the consideration of the ,songs of ,experience1 which appeared in #agid--;five years later than the ,songs of ,innocence4 ,again we take up the little book which was the first we handled in the ,print ,room1 for the ,songs of ,experience are bound with the ,songs of ,innocence4 ,the ,museum copy bears the double title on the first page as well as the two separate ones1 which occur appropriately before each book4 ,into this first plate1 with its kindling title flashing across the page--,songs of ,innocence and ,experience showing two contrary states of the human soul--,blake has wrought some of that intense and passionate feeling which makes the work so valuable as much psychologically as artistically4 ,two energetic and expressive figures1 a male and a female1 symbolize ,innocence and ,experience1 while flames of ,desire and ,aspiration burn fiercely around them1 leaping up to lick the letters of the title1 which lie on a ground of flickering and fainting colour4 ,in the ,songs of ,innocence1 the marriage of the poems and designs was complete1 and matter and form 7poetic and artistic7 attained an almost complete identity4 ,here1 however1 the case is somewhat different1 the task to be accomplished not being so easily achievable1 for the mood is less lyrical and more mystic4 ,experience is a hard teacher concerned only with this material life and its limited conditions1 and sets itself against the ,innocence which retains1 in ,plato's phrase1 recollections of things seen by eternal man before generation here4 ,experience has nothing to do with vision1 but only with facts1 and it deals with the results of concrete experiment2 never with the flashing spark of heaven-sent inspiration4 ,thus the ,songs of ,experience are of far less simple mood and single utterance than their bright forerunners4 ,something of the remorselessness of experience has passed into these lyrics--for lyrics they still are1 though ,blake has lost the spontaneity and felicitous gush of melody which came from him so naturally1 so rightly1 six years previously4 ,illustration3 ,,printed ,,and ,,coloured ,,plate ,,from ,,songs ,,of ,,experience1 #agid ,of one--not spontaneous certainly1 but created little bit by little bit with unerring judgement and rich fancy1 struck out like the embossed design on a shield1 each blow1 each delicately graduated tap and touch1 bringing out in clearer relief the magnificence of the heraldic images--of this poem1 ,the ,tyger1 it is impossible to speak too enthusiastically4 ,it is a grand piece of chased metal work1 and ,blake has done nothing better4 ,the fierce swift rhythm1 imitative of the padding footfalls1 ,tyger1 tyger1 burning bright ,in the forests of the night1 called out ,lamb's critical admiration1 and no one was ever better qualified than ,lamb to appreciate our painter and poet4 ,it is matter for regret that he came across so little of ,blake's work in either kind1 though we shall find him presently with something to say anent the engraving of the ,canterbury ,pilgrimage4 ,one wishes 7profanely no doubt7 that our artist had seen fit to make the tiger that illustrates the ,british ,museum copy1 yellow and black1 rather than blue and bistre and red1 which colours seem to have no natural relation to the animal4 ,is it possible that this page was coloured by ,mrs4 ,blake's hand in these weird parti-hues8 ,the ,songs of ,experience are pitted like a dark contrast against the sun-kissed radiance of the ,songs of ,innocence4 ,one state of mind opposes itself aggressively against the contrary state of mind4 ,one set of impressions is recorded in opposition to the impressions of sometimes the same things1 sometimes their correlatives taken from a widely divergent stand-point4 ,thus the ,lamb in the ,songs of ,innocence finds its contrast in the ,tiger of the ,songs of ,experience4 ,infant ,joy is set against ,infant ,sorrow1 the ordered beauty and sweetness of one ,holy ,thursday is the reverse of the despairing cry of pain uttered in the other ,holy ,thursday4 ,the ,divine ,image emits its celestial radiance against the cynical brilliance of the ,human ,abstract1 and that other distorted ,divine ,image4 ,it is interesting to know that ,blake issued the ,songs of ,innocence and ,experience at the modest price of from thirty shillings to two guineas at first4 ,later in life he received four guineas for each copy1 and during his last years ,sir ,thomas ,lawrence insisted on paying twelve guineas and ,sir ,francis ,chantrey twenty for copies4 ,at ,messrs4 ,sotheby's sale of the ,crewe ,collection of ,blake's works on ,march #cast of last year 7#aijc7 the price reached for a very perfect copy containing the four title-pages1 was ,l#cjj4 ,the sum would have been wealth to ,blake1 but it is the world's way1 consecrated now by immemorial tradition1 to lay its laurels of reward and appreciation only at the dead feet of its great men4 ,illustration3 ,,printed ,,and ,,coloured ,,plate ,,from ,,songs ,,of ,,innocence1 #aghi ,,chapter ,,viii ,,the ,,prophetic ,,books ,the ,prophets ,isaiah and ,ezekiel dined with me1 and ,i asked them how they dared so roundly to assert1 that ,god spoke to them1 and whether they did not think at the time1 that they would be misunderstood1 and so be the cause of imposition8 ,isaiah answer'd4 ,i saw no ,god nor heard any1 in a finite organical perception2 but my senses discover'd the infinite in everything1 and as ,i was then persuaded and remain confirm'd2 that the voice of honest indignation is the voice of ,god1 ,i cared not for consequences but wrote4 ,these words are quoted from one of ,blake's ,memorable ,fancies in the ,marriage of ,heaven and ,hell1 and in some such vein as that which ,blake makes ,isaiah describe1 did he himself commence the writing of the ,prophetic ,books4 ,the sense of his great1 though somewhat indefinite mission1 came upon ,blake gradually4 ,much of his time1 even when engaged in designing1 engraving and painting1 was spent in thinking immense and original thoughts4 ,they tyrannized over him1 these thoughts1 and instead of his guiding their sun-ward and most daring flight1 they drew him along on their reckless course1 sometimes bringing him to complete overthrow1 as did the horses of ,apollo when driven by ,phaethon4 ,in the same ,memorable ,fancy from which ,i have already quoted1 ,blake continues1 ,does a firm persuasion that a thing is so1 make it so8 ,he 7,isaiah7 replied1 ,all poets believe that it does1 and in ages of imagination this firm persuasion moved mountains3 but many are not capable of a firm persuasion of anything4 ,blake1 however1 was4 ,he had a fine contempt for argument and proof4 ,nothing mattered to him but the inner witness1 the lively intuition of internal evidence4 ,convinced as he was of the cruelty of the fate that had chained eternal man into the bondage of the life of the senses and the division of the sexes2 safe-guarding each self-hood from merging in the universal1 by laws of restraint and prohibition1 ,blake took upon himself to proclaim a gospel of deliverance1 to awaken man to the perception of the ,infinite which lay without the clogged-up chinks of his senses4 ,he passionately advocated--,blake1 the peaceful citizen1 the faithful husband--the freedom of the senses1 that all natural impulses should be enjoyed to the utmost limit and with the frankest delight4 ,the body is but the accident of this life1 and its free natural impulses may be trusted1 for everything that tends to freedom belongs to eternal life1 he thought4 ,christ was the supreme ,saviour1 but to his eyes the ,christ of orthodox religion was the ,god of this world1 and therefore ,christ needed to be held up again before men and exhibited as ,he really is1 before ,he could be worshipped in truth4 ,and ,jehovah was no other than ,urizen1 the cruel creator4 ,in storm and excitement1 in wrapt ecstasy and complete carelessness of consequence1 ,blake plunged into the sea of subjective mysticism1 holding up from time to time out of the swaying waters lipped with raging foam1 some treasure of thought1 some broken image of speculative opinion for the world to gaze at4 ,the pity is1 that ,blake who1 in the ,songs of ,innocence and ,experience and in his early poems1 had so just1 though instinctive and irrational1 a sense of the relation of poetic form to matter1 as to weave his lyrics into a unity of effect1 like that of a single strain of music1 should1 in the ,prophetic ,books have suddenly lost1 as it would seem1 all perception of the claims of his subject-matter to any body of poetic form at all4 ,the absence of almost all orderly sequence of thought1 and this total disregard of the paramount artistic obligations of form1 are the distinguishing characteristics of the mystic writings4 ,it must1 however1 be recorded in extenuation1 that they were composed for the intrinsic benefit which ,blake himself derived from their creation4 ,hints1 symbols1 rags of ideas set fluttering on the wind of his ever-inventive imagination1 suggested so complete a sequence of thought and action to him1 that he failed1 in his passionate excitement and hot pursuit of them1 to reflect that he had forgotten to state for our enlightenment that sequence which seemed to him so obvious4 ,he was not concerned to make his ideas or visions intelligible to the world 7the world must learn to decipher them for itself71 for were they not fearfully intelligible to himself1 absorbing all his life and consciousness8 ,like a man intent and fixed before a vast and ever-moving pageant1 he throws out a quick word of explanation1 an occasional exclamation of enthusiasm1 to the blindfolded world at his side4 ,so present is the reality to his senses1 that he feels only impatient with the dull creature which requires so much explanation and description4 ,i have told you1 and you did not listen1 he seems to say4 ,but listen as we may1 to the point of an anguished intensity1 the marvellous ,vision1 ,representation1 mystic ,something1 which is being enacted before ,blake1 can1 with the help of his jerky and disjointed speech1 be but vaguely and painfully guessed at by us4 ,whatever virtue may reside in these dream-like books for the mystic and the occultist1 their poetry is not a winged and triumphant spirit any more1 but a poor1 wan1 and halting creature1 creeping painfully upon the earth on all fours4 ,swinburne writes on the subject with poetic eloquence3 ,to pluck out the heart of ,blake's mystery is a task which every man must be left to attempt for himself1 for this prophet is certainly not 'easier to be played on than a pipe4'444 ,the land lying before us bright with fiery blossom and fruit1 musical with blowing branches and falling waters1 is not to be seen or travelled in1 save by help of such light as lies upon dissolving dreams1 and dividing clouds4 ,by moonrise1 to the sound of wind at sunset1 one may tread upon the limit of this land1 and gather as with muffled apprehension1 some soft remote sense of the singing of its birds1 and flowering of its fields4 ,let these gentle and appropriate words smooth the literary path of the ,prophetic ,books for all who intend to read them4 ,it will be a difficult one for those who would study them seriously1 even with the light shed by ,mr4 ,swinburne's and ,messrs4 ,ellis and ,yeats' pioneer lanterns1 for the road is rough and rock-bound1 and shrouded1 for the most part1 in mist4 ,if we are forced to admit that in the prophecies ,blake's power in the art of poetry was declining1 we shall have1 on the other hand1 the satisfaction of seeing his art as draughtsman and colourist waxing in grandeur1 freedom and nobility4 ,more than ever in ,blake's strangely sensitive pictorial temperament we find--to quote ,pater's subtle phrase--that all things whatever1 all poetry1 all ideas1 however abstract or obscure1 float up as visible scene or image4 ,to many of his lovers1 the ,prophetic ,books are among his most precious gifts to us1 not for their intrinsic poetic value 7which will be estimated in divers manners by divers persons71 but as being the vehicle of his finest art4 ,the first one we take up is the ,vision of the ,daughters of ,albion4 7,the daughters of ,albion1 by the way1 have little enough to do with the poem1 their office being merely like that of a ,greek chorus1 to hear the woes of the heroine ,oothoon and echo back her cries47 ,i am here referring to the one in the ,print ,room1 though the ,library possesses an almost equally beautiful copy4 ,the book consists of eleven quarto pages1 and appeared in #agic1 just five years later than ,thel1 to whose mysterious and delicate beauty it has a shadowy relationship4 ,the thread of poetic suggestion running through it like a streak of sunlight is not so easy of following as the broad golden ray of ,thel4 ,we are met at the very entrance by dim1 unreal forms1 with strange names--,oothoon1 the shadowy female around whom the story centres1 ,theotormon1 her jealous lover1 and ,bromion1 a looming phantasmal personage1 not definite enough to be terrible1 though he is the evil genius of the piece4 ,so now we are at last introduced to some of the personages of ,blake's curious mythology4 ,the argument--a page of the most delicate and energetic design1 representing a radiant young woman plucking ,leutha's flower1 which1 in the form of a man1 leaps from the blossom to her lips--contains in its two initial verses the clue to all the ensuing legend4 ,oothoon is1 according to ,mr4 ,swinburne1 the spirit of the great western world1 born for freedom and rebellion1 but half a slave and half a harlot4 ,leutha is the spirit of sensual impulse and indulgence4 ,theotormon1 to whom ,oothoon wings her way across the seas1 is the strong1 enslaved1 convention-bound spirit of ,europe4 ,on her way1 ,oothoon is ravished by ,bromion1 who appears to be merely brute strength personified1 and the jealous and revengeful ,theotormon binds them back to back in a cave by the sea1 and sits down in utter wretchedness near by4 ,all the rest of the piece is occupied by the mournful wailing of ,oothoon1 who desires to justify herself1 and the sad answers of ,theotormon1 which make a disquieting music like the wind among pine-trees4 ,those who desire to know exactly what every vague phrase and unconnected thought may be ingeniously supposed to symbolize1 must be referred to ,messrs4 ,ellis and ,yeats1 who have possibly alighted on the real meaning and intention of these wild fancies4 ,no system1 not even that of the ,zoas1 ingenious as it is1 seems quite to convince one that it is the ground plan of ,blake's work4 ,for my own part ,i shall not attempt systematic explanations of the ,prophetic ,books1 for which task1 indeed1 ,i am entirely unfitted1 but shall merely reserve to myself the right of making suggestions as to possible meanings when they occur to me4 ,the beauty of the designs is the real glory of this and the following books4 ,the ,argument and a very notable bit of decorative design and colour1 representing the ,eagle of ,theotormon in the act of descending and tearing the beautiful1 abandoned1 white body of ,oothoon1 lying on a billowy cloud1 should be specially noticed4 ,there is one extraordinarily fine plate worked in flat1 even tints1 representing ,oothoon and ,bromion bound back to back on the sea-shore1 while ,theotormon1 with head buried in arms1 sits on a rock above in the very abandon of stony grief4 ,we have seen nothing of ,blake's yet1 so bold1 decisive1 nervous4 ,the massive modelling of the ,bromion torso is happily contrasted with the shrinking white slenderness of ,oothoon4 ,beyond this passion-torn group1 a calm sea1 under a mild afternoon sun1 shines deeply blue4 ,we shall come across this plate again in the large book of designs in the ,print ,room4 ,there1 it is heavy and opaque in colouring1 and totally different in mood1 being gloomy and sinister in the highest degree4 ,the blood-red sun hangs like a lamp in stormy purple clouds4 ,the sea is deeply green4 ,all is ominous4 ,much more like this latter plate1 in colour1 than the one issued in the complete work in the ,print ,room1 is another1 printed off the same plate1 of course1 but laid on with an impasto4 ,it was sold at ,messrs4 ,hodgson's on ,january #adth1 #aijd1 for ,l#bi4 ,neither it nor that in the ,book of ,designs is so beautiful as the one from which our illustration is taken4 ,the plate in the ,library copy is another variation1 being soft1 mysterious and pale in colour4 ,the clarity and brilliance of the colour1 however1 must be seen to be appreciated1 and this of course1 our plate lacks4 ,the writing and printed outlines of this book are in dead beech brown4 ,illustration3 ,,bromion ,,and ,,oothoon ,,bound ,,back ,,to ,,back ,,in ,,the ,,cave ,,of ,,theotormon ,from ,visions of the ,daughters of ,albion1 #agic4 ,a printed and coloured plate from the ,print ,room copy ,the next book appearing in this year1 #agic1 is entitled ,america1 a prophecy4 ,it consists of eighteen plates4 ,for richness of invention and design none of the books we have yet seen are equal to ,america4 ,the ,print ,room copy is printed in a dull blue1 with a very happy effect1 while the duplicate in the ,library is in deep sombre green4 ,gilchrist says that no one who has not seen a coloured copy can judge of the beauty and splendour that adorn its pages4 ,it is a difficult matter to see a coloured copy1 as the only one definitely known to exist for many years was ,lord ,crewe's copy1 which was sold last year at ,sotheby's for ,l#bie4 ,however1 another coloured copy has appeared from the hitherto unknown collection of a lady in ,scotland1 and this ,i had the rare good luck to see before it was sold at ,messrs4 ,hodgson's in ,january1 #aijd1 for ,l#bjg4 ,indeed it is beautiful1 but with a quite other sort of beauty to that of the austere blue-printed copy in the ,museum4 ,the two are so different in mood and key as to seem like quite separate and distinct creations4 ,gilchrist says of the coloured copy which he saw--,lord ,crewe's--that so fair and open were its pages1 as to simulate an increase of light on the retina4 ,that which ,i examined had the brightness and delicacy of ,blake's colour in the earlier books1 combined with the richness and grandeur of the later ones1 but happily without the opacity and heaviness that sometimes accompany these later qualities4 ,duerer's etching of ,melancholia is the only thing in art to which the design on the first page of ,america may be likened1 but1 in ,beethoven's words3 ,es ist mehr ,ausdruck der ,empfindung als ,malerei4 ,a great winged giant or ,titan1 with his despondent head bowed on his knees1 and his face utterly shrouded by falling hair1 sits chained on the ramparts of the ,city of ,night4 ,seated on a stone below is a beautiful undraped woman with a little naked child in her arms1 and another leaning against her thigh4 ,heavy clouds roll up behind the genii and the ramparts4 ,the mood of the picture is unutterable4 ,the winged figure is red ,orc1 who will presently release himself and shatter the religions of ,urizen1 bringing fire and pestilence and famine in his train4 ,he is ,orc1 the deliverer1 but1 like his great prototype1 he comes not to bring peace1 but a sword4 ,in the wild clamorous poem ,orc is described as the serpent form'd who stands at the gate of ,enitharmon to devour her children4 ,now ,enitharmon is a vast mythic being without any defined personality2 she symbolizes sometimes ,space and sometimes ,nature1 while another facet of her various character1 as we shall presently discover1 is ,pity4 ,she is the mother of ,orc1 of whom1 however1 she is terrified1 and the woman with the children in the frontispiece represents1 ,i think1 the same ,enitharmon4 ,illustration3 ,,frontispiece ,,to ,,america3 ,a ,,prophecy1 #agic ,printed in blue1 from the ,print ,room copy ,i cannot attempt to decipher the poem here4 ,before its roaring frenzy of excitement one is rendered dumb4 ,there is no story properly so called4 ,one merely gathers1 that ,orc releases himself in order to marry the shadowy daughter of ,urthona1--,ah6 shadowy indeed6 ,after this1 terrible things occur2 in especial1 that which may be supposed to symbolize the ,war of ,independence between ,england and ,america4 ,whatever the prophecy contained in the poem1 this much is clear1 that ,blake saw in the new world the home and harbinger of ,freedom1 the foe of spirit-crushing conventions1 of shackling traditions and customs4 ,strangely do the names of ,washington1 ,paine1 and the ,king of ,england read in connection with red ,orc1 ,enitharmon1 and the mighty shadows of the ,blakean mythology4 ,with all his enthusiasm and patient sympathetic study even ,mr4 ,swinburne has to admit of ,america that it has more of thunder and less of lightning than former prophecies--more of sonorous cloud1 and less of explicit fire4 ,but a far other verdict must be passed on the designs1 of which our illustrations afford a very good idea1 at least of the ,british ,museum copy4 ,from the first mysterious print to the last1 every page is instinct with vigour and invention1 and the disposition of the writing and the design on each page is in accordance with the most exacting and sensitive feeling for composition and decorative effect4 ,blake had the gift of decoration as ,mozart had that of melody4 ,he simply could not help being decorative1 though preoccupation with decoration as an end in itself was a thing utterly foreign to his earnest and high artistic aims4 ,in ,america ,blake's outlines are put in with a thick strong line1 a singularly happy method of expressing the bold designs4 ,plate #f1 is specially interesting as being evidently his first feeling out after the top part of the design called ,death's ,door1 which afterwards appeared in its perfected embodiment in ,blair's ,grave4 ,the lower part of the same design which we saw first in the ,gates of ,paradise1 is again repeated with differences in ,plate #ab of the ,america4 ,the idea was a favourite one with ,blake1 and in its various representations is always vigorously and poetically treated4 ,plate #g1 coming after so much that is alarming1 exciting1 or of sustained grandeur1 comforts the eye and heart with its delicate pastoral tenderness4 ,a tree1 with willowy bending sprays such as only ,blake could draw1 arches over a green sward1 whereon a ram with woolly fleece and heraldically curly horns1 lies sleeping4 ,beside him1 on the grass1 a naked child lies1 relaxed in slumber1 while another1 cushioned on the ram's soft back1 sleeps too1 in joyous ease4 ,in the coloured copy this page appeared particularly rich and satisfying4 ,it has a brilliant iridescent background after the style of the first few pages of the ,songs of ,innocence1 but less vernal1 more autumnal1 in its richness of colour4 ,in what strange dreams did ,blake see the pale woman of ,plate #ac lying on the bed of ocean4 ,quick moving fishes flash around her body in the dim blue twilight1 and a sea snake is coiled about her legs4 ,on the top of the same page the body floating on waves is being torn by a vulture4 ,many of the plates are quivering with flames which shoot up in spiral tongues to play about the letters of the writing4 ,incidentally1 the writing used in ,america is more fluent--running into dainty pennons and fluttering streamers of decoration--than any used before4 ,at the sale of ,messrs4 ,hodgson's before mentioned1 a single loose coloured plate of the frontispiece to ,america 7,orc chained by the wrists7 sold for ,l#bj #ajs4 ,we close ,america regretfully1 for a wild enchantment emanates from its pages1 and entering into the spectator's mind makes him realize that indeed everything possible to be believed is an image of truth4 ,illustration3 ,,page ,,from ,,america3 ,a ,,prophecy1 #agic ,printed in blue1 from the ,print ,room copy ,in #agid appeared ,europe1 a prophecy4 ,it has fifteen large plates1 but before dwelling on them a word must be said about the prophecy itself4 ,the prelude is the lament of a nameless shadowy female1 who rises from out the breast of ,orc4 ,she is also daughter to ,enitharmon4 ,her complaint is often musical enough if we could but know what it was all about3 ,i wrap my turban of thick clouds around my lab'ring head1 ,and fold the sheety waters as a mantle round my limbs1 ,yet the red sun and moon1 ,and all the overflowing stars1 rain down prolific pains4 ,blake would seem to have got fairly drunk with the excitement of wild words and musical phrases4 ,there is little or no sequence of ideas1 and the prophecy which follows the prelude comes storming forth1 full of sonorous sound1 but without form and void4 ,all that can be made out from the din of frenetic words is that ,enitharmon calls upon her son ,orc1 the horrent demon1 to arise and bring with him his brothers and sisters4 ,but in the middle of her speech she falls into a primaeval doze of some eighteen hundred years4 ,patient and painstaking as the reader may be1 an incident of this kind taxes his temper somewhat too severely1 more especially as it seems a gratuitously irritating freak on ,blake's part1 without any apparent sense or reason to justify it4 ,persevering1 we find that while she is asleep all kinds of dire affliction come upon the race of man1 and the wild pelter of words and ideas hither and thither continues to increase in fury4 ,it is like the dancing of the ,dervishes--faster and faster1 furious and more furious1 higher and higher1 so quick at last that the eye cannot follow the movements1--and then comes the breaking out of the wild demoniac cries1 and the convulsive excitement1 which is finally satisfied with nothing but the letting of blood4 ,after all this incoherent clash of words1 full of flames of ,orc1 howlings and hissings1 shrieks and groans1 and voices of despair1 ,enitharmon calmly awakes1 nor knew that she had slept1 and eighteen hundred years had fled1 and proceeds with the roll call of her sons and daughters as if nothing had happened4 ,rintrah1 ,palamabron1 ,elynittria ,albion's ,angel1 ,ethinthus1 ,manatha-,varcyon1 ,leutha1 ,antamon1 ,sotha1 ,thiralatha and ,urizen are the names of some of the spectral shadows which pass before the spectator4 ,it is a dream of ,walpurgis ,nacht1 obscure and vague2 its warrings being no more than the dissolving shadows of fighting men partially discerned on a dark wall4 ,but if ,blake can no longer take us with him into the infinite on the wings of his poetry1 he can with his pencil create on a sheet of paper a world of imagination1 which in relation to this actual world is evanescent and to some impalpable4 ,but ,blake's magic has caught and held it1 as ,peleus caught and held the silver-footed ,thetis1 though she changed from one form to another hoping to frighten him into letting her go1 till tired of his persistence she revealed herself to him in her own wondrous form4 ,even so1 ,blake caught and held that which his imagination discriminated1 undismayed by conditions which cause some men's heads to reel1 until he succeeded in committing it to outline and colour4 ,the first plate represents ,the ,ancient of ,days setting a compass upon the face of the earth4 7,see ,proverbs1 viii4 #bg47 ,the ,museum copy has a passage from ,paradise ,lost written1 or rather scrawled1 in black ink underneath the picture4 ,one wonders whose could have been the irreverent pen to deface in this way a page of the ,master's work4 ,the design itself is one of the finest that ever came from ,blake's hand4 ,the thing is tremendous6 ,involuntarily the mind seeks for its like only on the roof of the ,sistine4 ,blake's art owns no master1 links itself to no predecessor1 save ,michael ,angelo4 ,illustration3 ,,the ,,ancient ,,of ,,days ,,setting ,a ,,compass ,,upon ,,the ,,face ,,of ,,the ,,earth4 7,see ,,proverbs1 ,,viii4 #bg7 ,frontispiece to ,europe3 a ,prophecy1 printed #agid ,print coloured by hand ,this was the last design to be repeated by his hand4 ,on his deathbed he executed it for his young friend ,mr4 ,tatham4 ,the latter refers to the incident in a letter published in #ahjc1 in the ,rossetti ,papers3 ,the ,ancient of ,days with the compasses was the subject that ,blake finished for me on his deathbed4 ,he threw it down and said1 ',there1 ,i hope ,mr4 ,tatham will like it1' and then said1 ',kate1 ,i will draw your portrait2 you have been a good wife to me4' ,and he made a frenzied sketch of her1 which1 when done1 he sang himself joyously and most happily--literally with songs--into the arms of the grim enemy1 and yielded up his sweet spirit4 ,the conception is of sublimity and boldness1 and in the execution of this particular plate the colour is laid on with great care1 being shaded and stippled to a high degree of finish4 ,the attitude of the ,architect of the ,universe is heroic1 and is characteristic of ,blake in his best manner4 ,leaning far out from the centre of the sun itself1 a grand male figure1 with hair and beard streaming in the wind of cosmic motion1 measures the space below him with a compass1 indicating the orbit on which the world is to travel4 ,the ,museum possesses another edition1 as a separate drawing1 in one of the portfolios1 which we shall examine later4 ,mr4 ,sydney ,morse possesses yet another1 which was on view at ,messrs4 ,carfax's ,gallery2 and a fourth1 probably the finest of all these different renderings1 was sold with the title-page and three plates of ,europe1 at ,messrs4 ,hodgson's sale for ,l#hj4 ,the frontispiece to ,europe has a magnificent evil-looking snake on the centre of the page1 blue hills and distance seen through its mottled coils4 ,the ,pilgrim1 some verses by ,ann ,radcliffe1 are scrawled on the blank reverse of the leaf4 ,the first and last time it may be supposed that ,ann ,radcliffe found herself in such august company6 ,all of the plates in this book are defaced by the same handwriting4 ,blake's writing and the engraved outlines are of a bluish green colour4 ,red ,orc is seen in the second plate climbing up the sky and about to take his station on a bank of cloud outlined boldly against the blue4 ,below him1 in a limbo of darkness1 three naked passions in the form of demons are struggling together and falling down into the nether heavens4 ,on the page entitled a ,prophecy a lovely angel takes her despairing flight through the sky4 ,her wings merge from white and mauve to a deep blue like that of a pigeon's neck1 her beautiful feet gleam white against the rosy cloud behind1 and her hair falls over her face in abandon of grief or fear or despair--we know not which4 ,all the different and delicate shades in an hydrangea are to be found in this plate1 and would seem to have suggested its subtle colour harmonies4 ,for pure melody of line the next plate surpasses it1 however4 ,enitharmon1 fierce1 beautiful1 nude1 descends in a cloud to awaken ,orc1 who lies face downward on the earth1 the outline of his figure suggesting a young love-god rather than the fierce personality of the terrible ,orc4 ,even the flames about his head might be those of love4 ,the colour is very delicate and transparent4 ,then follow two full-page interiors1 which1 in spite of the fine drawing and colour1 oppress1 with the uncomfortable sensation of confinement1 airlessness6 ,the fact is1 that we are so accustomed to ,blake's open air windy wilds1 and broad spaces of sky and cloud1 that we do not feel at home with him when he takes us within doors4 ,illustration3 ,,plate ,,from ,,europe1 ,a ,,prophecy1 #agid ,printed and coloured by hand ,another plate from the ,europe1 the lines of which we reproduce1 represents two lithe nude women springing upwards with incomparable grace and the true ,blake vigour1 among arching wheat stems4 ,they blow horns through which descends a fall of blight upon the corn4 ,the decorative rightness1 the exquisite appreciation of the melodies of form1 the vitality of action1 cannot be too much admired4 ,and the colour6 ,the tender flesh-painting contrasted with the young green of the corn6--,yet ,mr4 ,swinburne1 usually so intensely alive to the beautiful1 and especially ,blake's beautiful1 describes the plate in these terms3 ,mildews are seen incarnate as foul1 flushed women with strenuous limbs contorted1 blighting ears of corn with the violent breath of their inflated mouths4 ,there is some delicate tracery of cobwebs1 among leaves and greenery1 on another page1 exhibiting ,blake in a marvellously naturalistic mood for once1 and a final plate of a man rescuing a woman and child from fierce1 rolling flames4 ,no one ever painted fire as ,blake did1 and over and over again in his treatment of this favourite motive we shall have to own that he is1 as ,mr4 ,william ,michael ,rossetti says1 in this respect at least1 supreme painter4 ,as ,i do not know where to place the tiny book or pamphlet entitled1 ,there is no ,natural ,religion1--it having no date affixed to it1--,i shall refer to it here4 ,it consists of eleven illustrated leaves1 each containing in the engraved text a didactic statement or thesis by ,blake on this favourite subject4 ,below the words1 which give much illumination to his peculiar opinions1 are small1 rough drawings made with a brush full of heavy black1 relieved in parts by outlines in sepia4 ,,chapter ,,ix ,,the ,,prophetic ,,books ,,continued ,in studying the next book which ,blake produced in #agid--the ,book of ,urizen--it is necessary to disabuse our minds of the idea that ,blake's thoughts were not clear to himself4 ,however confused and troubled they appear to us1 they were certainly clear as sunlight to him1 but he failed in the labour of reducing them to terms of intellectual definiteness1 much less to terms of poetic art4 ,the excitement which these visions brought upon his tremulous and sensitive brain seems to have induced a kind of possession1 similar to that of the maenads at the festival of ,dionysus of old1 so that no very consecutive utterance may be expected from him4 ,yet there is a kind of sequence in ,urizen1 and the marvellous illustrations to the book cannot be properly appreciated without holding the thread of the so-called poem4 ,setting aside the ancient ,biblical tradition1 our prophet undertakes no less a task than the writing of a new ,genesis1 which in its naked horror and despair causes the very gods themselves to hide their faces out of pity to the sons of men4 ,urizen the creator1 the god of restraints and prohibitions1 becomes self-inclosed and divides himself from ,eternity and the ,eternals4 ,illustration3 ,,title-,,page ,,of ,,urizen4 ,,published #agid ,in fire and strife and anguish he creates the world1 like a black globe1 viewed by the ,sons of ,eternity1 standing on the shore of the ,infinite ,ocean1 like a human heart struggling and beating1 the vast world of ,urizen appears4 ,but after this effort he is laid in stony sleep unorganized rent from eternity4 ,los1 who is ,time1 was then wrenched out of ,urizen1 and suffers fierce pain in the act of separation and division4 ,then1 while ,time works with hammers at his forge1 fires belching around1 he sees1 nay6 appears to assist at1 the further changes of ,urizen4 ,for the formless god is gradually taking form1 and inclosing himself in a human body4 ,he assumes bones1 heart1 brain1 eyes1 ears1 nostrils1 stomach1 throat1 tongue1 arms1 legs1 and feet4 ,and now his eternal life like a dream was obliterated4 ,an age of intense agony and stress was allotted to the evolution and development of each created portion of the body4 ,meanwhile ,los forged chains new and new1 numbering with links1 hours1 days and years4 ,when ,los had finished his unwilling task1 and saw ,urizen all bound with the chains of time1 the senses1 and the enclosing boundaries of his own selfhood1 ,pity began4 ,this is another painful division and shrinkage1-- ,in tears and cries imbodied ,a female form trembling and pale1 ,waves before his deathy face4 ,her name is ,pity or ,enitharmon4 ,she is also ,space1 and her union with ,los or ,time naturally follows4 ,the ,eternals are so terrified at what ,urizen has done1 that they enclose the new creation in a tent to hide it from their sight1 and call the tent ,science4 ,from the union of ,space and ,time springs a child1 ,orc1 hereafter the deliverer1 whom the father and mother chain with the chain of jealousy below the deathful shadow of ,urizen4 ,urizen then explores his new kingdom1 and1 looking on his teeming world1 he sickened1 for he saw that no flesh nor spirit could keep his iron laws 7of prohibition and restraint7 one moment4 ,so he made a great ,web or ,net1 and flung it over all1 and this was called the ,net of ,religion4 ,and of his now finished ,creation it is written1 ,six days they shrunk up from existence ,and on the seventh day they rested4 ,and they blessed the seventh day in sick hope1 ,and forgot their eternal life4 ,the evolution or changes of ,urizen form the subjects of a great number of the plates4 ,blake has wrought here through the pictorial medium as ,dante wrought the ,inferno in his own art4 ,the same high imagination1 the same passionate and unshrinking realization of it1 the same terrible force are integral parts of the minds of both artists1 and inspire both works1 different in kind as they are and separated by centuries of thought and feeling4 ,no wonder that ,linnell desired ,blake in his old age to make drawings from the ,inferno1 thinking him the very man and only to illustrate ,dante4 ,the prelude to the book is set in a tender and lovely key1 very difficult1 however1 to harmonize with what follows4 ,it is not obvious why it occurs here or what connection it has with the dark story of ,urizen4 ,the same little picture will be found in the smaller ,book of ,designs1 but there it is quite differently rendered as to colour1 and ,i think more beautifully4 ,our reproduction is from the latter plate4 ,the cloud-like form of a beautiful woman1 drifts across the sky1 drawing by the hand a little baby1 with the ideal face of sweet infancy4 ,there is a delicious curve in the woman's body1 a swirl of the garments1 and a quick1 fish-like1 darting movement about the action of the child which contribute to the impression of flight through a buoyant atmosphere4 ,turning over the pages of ,urizen one terror after another takes the breath and quickens the pulse4 ,urizen--or is it ,orc8--his terrible face averted1 strides through a world of fire dividing the flames with his arms4 ,illustration3 ,,los ,,howling ,colour-printed plate from ,urizen4 #agid ,a human figure1 snake-encircled1 falls headlong into raging flames1 recalling a somewhat similar idea in ,america4 ,los is next seen1 howling in fire1 because of his painful separation from ,urizen4 ,poor solitary thinker6 what shuddering emotions must have rent ,blake as his relentless hand drew and coloured the visionary appearances of these monsters of imagination6 ,to the hot and lurid impression of ,plate #f succeeds one1 in which a pallid skeleton1 bowed head between knees1 sits grisly on the ground4 ,urizen assumes bones4 ,in much the same attitude1 but now turned to the spectator1 the next plate shows us an arresting figure4 ,an old man1 nude1 with white hair1 and patriarchal beard sweeping the ground1 shows an upturned despairing blind face4 ,suggestions of indescribable suffering are incarnate in this design4 ,i shall take the liberty of calling the type the ,blake old man4 ,we come across it again and again1 and it instances his tendency to concentrate all varieties into a type1 to make his artistic language as bare and simple and elemental as possible4 ,the story can be traced through all the plates4 ,urizen visiting his new world forms a series of six wonderful plates1 of which one is very ,gothic1 representing as it does an amphibious-looking old man very like a gargoyle sinking slowly through a world of water4 ,it is a true grotesque4 ,the most poetic of all the pictures is1 ,i think1 the one which represents the ,birth of ,enitharmon or ,pity4 ,rising from a cloudy abyss with that bubble-like buoyancy which ,blake knew so well how to breathe into his figures1 a nude woman with body bowed in anguish floats upward4 ,the face1 with its strange dim1 tortured eyes1 speaks of the suffering which only the complex and self-conscious soul born of the mingled forces that produced the ,french ,revolution and the ,new ,age is capable of experiencing4 ,the body is of wonderful beauty and purity4 ,on the brink of the abyss from which she rises like the smoke of a hidden fire1 ,los kneels with head bowed in arms4 ,his deep musings have brought forth this strange sorrow-laden beauty4 ,another picture1 ,humanity chained by the wrists and ankles in slavery1 its blind eyes raining tears1 but with the light of ,eternity like an aureole behind its head1 is seen waiting1 waiting1 with an endless and most painful patience1 for some final deliverance4 ,like ,michael ,angelo's ,il ,penseroso1 it fascinates and is intolerable4 ,no more piteous or significant symbol of humanity has ever been conceived1 in the full compass of its sorrow1 its slavery1 and its hope4 ,blake utters a ,promethean cry in ,urizen4 ,he calls out on the creator for having imprisoned and tormented us4 ,a wild ineffectual cry enough1 and one not consistent with brighter and saner views1 which he held as passionately1 but then1--it is ,blake6 ,and ,blake was never able to build a house large enough for his ideas4 ,the ,print ,room does not contain a copy of the ,book of ,ahania which is a continuation of the theme of ,urizen1 but short and unillustrated4 ,the small ,book of ,designs should be looked at in conjunction with ,thel1 ,urizen1 the ,daughters of ,albion and the ,marriage of ,heaven and ,hell1 for the plates are repetitions from these books often far more rich in colour and delicate in execution than those in the complete works4 ,the large ,book of ,designs contains1 among many plates familiar in design to us1 though varied always in colouring1 four1 which we have not seen before1 and can see nowhere else4 ,the first is a colour-print of morning or ,glad ,day4 ,it is a radiant design1 but like many of these colour-prints of ,blake1 somewhat the worse for time1 having the paint rubbed off and blackened in parts4 ,blake's colour-printing process was as follows1 according to the only extant account3 ,illustration3 ,,colour-,,printed ,,design ,,from ,,urizen4 #agid ,reproduced from the ,small ,book of ,designs ,he drew the outline heavily in chalk on a mill-board and put on the colour diluted with oil or glue in thick patches1 and printed the wet impression off on to paper4 ,he then worked upon this rough ground1 when dry1 in water colour4 ,but only in a few instances did he show complete mastery of the ingenious method4 ,the second plate ,i would call attention to is a nightmare horror entitled the ,accusers of ,theft1 ,adultery and ,murder4 ,there are a trio of furies1 only male instead of female2 the watermark of the paper is #agid4 ,a similar design1 not so finely coloured1 was sold at ,messrs4 ,hodgson's for ,l#ae #ajs4 ,the third is a lovely little gem representing ,john the ,baptist preaching to a beautifully grouped crowd4 ,its fellow sold at the same sale for ,l#bf #ajs4 ,the fourth represents a semi-nude figure1 with head downcast1 sitting beneath the bent and blasted stump of a tree1 while to the left a woman nude and of remarkable beauty tosses a child high in arm4 ,it is thought that this plate may have been intended for a cancel in ,america2 for another one1 more beautiful in colouring than this1 which was also sold at ,messrs4 ,hodgson's1 and for ,l#db1 was found to bear some text from ,america1 faintly discernible under the colouring on the upper half of the plate1 which could be read only from the back4 ,in #agie ,blake produced the ,song of ,los4 ,the ,print ,room copy is heavy and opaque in colour1 though very splendid and rich1 and the ,library copy is similar in most respects4 ,it was evidently colour-printed after the method described above1 for the peculiar mottled backgrounds are an effect that could not very well have been realized by any other method1 nor even then are they understandable1 unless indeed ,blake had a wooden stamp which he impressed on the blobs of colour first laid on the paper itself4 ,the ,song of ,los is the ,song of ,time1 and includes the ,songs of ,africa1 and ,asia4 ,so now ,blake has written a song of prophecy for each of the four great parts of the earth4 ,africa deals in a wild incoherent way with the rise of the various religions4 ,urizen delivers his laws of brass and iron and gold to all the ,nations4 ,these were the nets and gins and traps to clutch the joys of ,eternity1 and ,har and ,heva--representatives of natural humanity--find all the vast of ,nature shrunk before their shrunken eyes1 for the senses are the limits put upon perception4 ,thus the terrible race of ,los and ,enitharmon gave ,laws and ,religions to the ,sons of ,har1 binding them more ,and more to ,earth3 closing and restraining3 ,till a philosophy of the ,five ,senses was complete4 ,urizen wept and gave it into the hands of ,newton and ,locke6 ,in ,asia ,urizen hears the despairing cry of his creation1 and himself shudders and weeps1 but unavailingly4 ,orc is heard raging on ,mount ,atlas1 where he is chained down with the chain of jealousy4 ,orc is the ,flame of ,genius1 the true deliverer of the ,race4 ,he was chained by his father and mother in fear of ,urizen's jealousy1 but we know that he will break free at last1 and bring his living fire into the hearts of the chosen of the peoples4 ,the book contains but five pages1 of which the most beautiful is a design of a boy and girl with arms wound around each other1 running over a hill-top1 with a passionate sunset sky behind them4 ,the ,book of ,los1 which must not be confounded with the ,song1 appeared in the same year4 ,the ,print ,room has no copy1 so we must descend to the ,library1 which happily possesses one4 ,it consists of four chapters on the old themes1 written in a sort of metrical prose4 ,the frontispiece1 representing a woman in the characteristic attitude so often adopted by ,blake--the figure being seated on the ground1 with head supported on knees in a mysterious lone place among rocks--is an arresting and powerful design4 ,the writing in this book is particularly fine and clear4 ,it is the last of ,blake's ,london ,books of ,prophecy4 ,illustration3 ,,the ,,accusers3 ,,or1 ,,satan',s ,,trinity ,colour-print from the ,large ,book of ,designs in the ,print ,room ,what shall ,i say of ,jerusalem1 the ,emanation of the ,giant ,albion--this longest and perhaps most mystical of all ,blake's dithyrambic books8 ,it was written1 as well as the ,milton1 during the ,felpham period1 though probably added to1 and finally finished after his return to ,london4 ,those who have heard the extraordinary tone-poem called ,also sprach ,zarathustra1 by ,richard ,strauss1 may not think it far-fetched to suggest a parallel between revolutionary1 chaotic1 yet somehow great music1 such as it is1 and the so-called poem of ,jerusalem4 ,to the authors of both1 the classical1 the established forms of expression belonging to their respective arts1 seem outworn1 inadequate1 cramped4 ,they feared to trust the new wine of their fermenting ideas to the old bottles of recognized form1 and each has invented for himself a way of escape--somewhat dangerous1 nay1 almost suicidal--from the pressure of precedent1 law1 and order4 ,strange harmonies1 horrid discords1 sweetness as of honey1 to be succeeded by a sharp acridity like that of unripe lemons1 great marshalled orchestral forms1 and wild abortive sounds1 tormenting alike to ear and heart1 are to be discerned in ,zarathustra1 not without irrational excitement1 anger1 dismay1 and occasional delight on the part of the hearer4 ,and in ,jerusalem is it not much the same8 ,with an ,olympian audacity ,blake writes1 ,when this ,verse was first dictated to me1 ,i considered a monotonous cadence like that used by ,milton and ,shakespeare1 and all writers of ,english blank verse1 derived from the modern bondage of rhyming1 to be a necessary and indispensable part of verse4 ,but ,i soon found that in the mouth of a true orator1 such monotony was not only awkward1 but as much a bondage as rhyme itself4 ,i therefore have produced a variety in every line1 both of cadences and number of syllables4 ,every word and every letter is studied and put into its place2 the terrific numbers are reserved for the terrific parts1 the mild and gentle for the mild and gentle parts1 and the prosaic for the inferior parts2 all are necessary to each other2 ,poetry fettered1 fetters the human race4 ,self-assertion such as this is the apology for arts like those of ,strauss and ,walt ,whitman1 and our very admiration for ,blake's youthful lyrical gift compels us to lament that his muse was brought at last1 after those early days of soaring flight1 to wading through such quagmires of so-called poetry as this and the ensuing book4 ,mysticism had engulfed the poet in its dim cloud1 though poetic phrases and passages like crystal dew glitter amid the gloom4 ,the ,jerusalem may be regarded as an attempted poetic statement of ,blake's mystic philosophy regarding the development of humanity and its various states4 ,i give you the end of a golden string ,only wind it into a ball1 ,it will lead you in at ,heaven's gate ,built in ,jerusalem's wall1 writes ,blake in the course of the book4 ,messrs4 ,ellis and ,yeats have wound it into a very tangible ball1 taking the symbolizism of the four ,zoas as the clue to the whole mystery4 ,blake mentions the ,zoas here frequently3 ,four universes round the mundane egg remain chaotic 7nothing could be more true67 ,one to the ,north ,urthona2 one to the ,south ,urizen2 one to the ,east ,luvah2 one to the west ,tharmas4 ,they are the four ,zoas that stood around the throne divine4 ,but if the symbolism of the ,zoas is in reality woven into the very tissue of the story1 and forms its vital and coherent argument1 it must be discovered on some mathematical principle very foreign1 and1 indeed1 repugnant to the lover of true poetry4 ,it is in no sense obvious or sequential4 ,the value of the book lies1 not in its poetical merit1 nor even primarily in its mystic significance1 but in the insight which it affords into the byways of ,blake's mind4 ,the knowledge of his opinions gained here 7they have been shortly commented on in a former chapter7 enable us to form correct estimates of the scope of his plastic art1 and his outlook on the world4 ,messrs4 ,maclaggan and ,russell have edited a plain-typed and unillustrated edition of ,jerusalem1 and promise an expository essay on it to follow in due course1 so that to earnest readers its study will be greatly facilitated4 ,the book is concerned with one ,albion1 the father as it would seem of all created men1 and ,los 7,time7 who is his friend4 ,jerusalem and ,vala are his emanations--,jerusalem being his wife4 ,the city of ,golgonooza--that is1 ,i believe1 ,spiritual ,art--is also described1 and bears its part in the story4 ,on page #ac1 line #cj1 we read1 ,around ,golgonooza lies the land of death eternal2 a land of pain and misery and despair and ever-brooding misery--the repetition of the word misery1 does not sound as if every word had been studied and put in its place6 ,but the idea that the beautiful city of spiritual ,art should be built in the midst of pain and despair reminds one of a similar idea of ,goethe's1 ,art enshrines the great sadness of the world1 but is itself not sad4 ,and the following lines develop the suggestion1 page #af1 line #fa3 ,all things acted on ,earth are seen in the ,bright ,sculptures of ,los's ,halls1 and every age renews its powers from these works4 ,with every pathetic story possible to happen from ,hate or ,wayward ,love and every sorrow and distress is carved here4 ,the introduction of localities1 streets and districts1 has an almost ludicrous effect1 as for instance in the following lines3 ,what are those golden builders doing near mournful ever-weeping ,paddington8 ,is it1 one wonders1 a prophetic announcement of the erection of the ,great ,western ,terminus8 ,had ,blake possessed the saving grace of humour1 he would never have committed such laughter-provoking solecisms as this and other passages of the same kind4 ,humour is a means of restoring and keeping the balances true4 ,it assists the sense of proportion1 and like a fresh wind blows the cobwebs away2 but1 alas6 ,blake had no faintest trace of it4 ,in a kind of ,dionysiac rage he has flung his noble ideas1 original conceptions1 pell-mell into the cauldron along with mere windy1 mouth-filling rodomontade4 ,there is a great deal of confused noise1 but by snatches we distinguish the half-drowned but heavenly music4 ,the fact is that his material 7,god-dictated1 as he thought7 so excited him that he was unable to deal with it1 unable to direct the heat of his genius into fusing the heterogeneous mass into the perfect artistic unity4 ,the vision unnerved him1 and he all but lost his balance4 ,well might he too have cried3 ,a veil 'twixt us and ,thee1 dread ,lord1 ,a veil 'twixt us and ,thee1 ,lest we should hear too clear1 too clear ,and unto madness see4 ,the illustrations to the book have all the concentration1 power and grasp which the literary matter lacks4 ,the pages seem to throb beneath the teeming forms of life with which his hand has adorned them4 ,each in the disposition of the beautiful writing is a picture4 ,wild passionate little figures1 drawn with exquisite feeling1 leap1 climb1 and fly about some of the borders while on others the writing is interrupted and entwined with creeping tendrils1 or adorned with flames1 stars1 serpents1 and processions of insects--a riot of decoration4 ,jerusalem is a folio of #ajj pages1 one side of each leaf only being printed4 ,from the first page to the twenty-fifth of the ,museum copy the writing is in black1 while the designs are left white outlined in black1 on a dense sable ground4 ,pages #bf to #ej are in deep green1 the printed designs being sometimes finished by hand1 the deepest tones being laid on with a brush full of heavy colour4 ,pages #ea to #ajj are again black and white--the black being always of great intensity4 ,in the first plate a man is seen entering through a door into darkness1 with a lamp in his hand4 ,this is our old friend ,los entering into the dark places of ,albion's mind--,albion having turned his back on the ,divine ,vision4 ,curiously poetical suggestions are to be found in the title-page1 whereon a cherubim with covering wings weeps over a beautiful prostrate female4 ,this lovely body forms the central vein of a rose leaf1 and is incorporated in its vegetable life4 ,but above the woman's head are the wings that have become atrophied1 and the moon and stars1 like the eyes of a peacock's feathers1 are seen on them1 suggesting reminiscences and possibilities of spiritual development in ,vegetative humanity beyond verbal expression4 ,glanced at as a whole without discriminating the parts1 this fanciful and ,gothic conception bears a strange resemblance to a butterfly4 ,did not the ,greeks find in the butterfly a symbol of the immortality of the soul and its renewal in youth1 and ,blake1 who was so profoundly sensitive to analogies of this kind1 was not likely to have created this obvious resemblance accidentally4 ,everything is with him significant4 ,is it a dryad who lies outstretched on page #bc with the rising sap of her vegetable life stirring within her fibrous extremities1 and awakening her to some dim half-painful consciousness4 ,and below her1 what hints of strange buried gnomic life1 of ,titans convulsively heaving like volcanoes in the dark earth1 of creatures begotten of rocks and tree-roots1 living like the suckers of plants in the fissures and crannies of deep strata6 ,again1 on page #cc appears the beautiful weird fantasy that ,i have named a dryad4 ,the sun and the moon shine on her simultaneously1 and her rudimentary limbs appear now to be branches and again to be embryonic wings4 ,a sort of vampire bat is poised above her4 ,at the top of the same page a man with the world under his foot like a stool would seem to have been saved fainting in the arms of an effulgent divine ,being from some threatening danger4 ,i pondered long over this design before finding the clue1 which ,i now believe is to be found in these words1 on the previous page1 in ,jerusalem3 ,the reasoning spectre stands between man and his immortal imagination4 ,on ,plate #ec is represented a woman sitting enthroned on a sunflower1 her double wings form a sort of baldachino above her head4 ,she has a triple tiara from which flames arise in a pyramidal shape1 and the sun1 the moon1 and the stars are contained in her vast wings4 ,the vegetative human has blossomed in the sunflower of spiritual life4 ,no longer the starry heavens are fled from the mighty limbs of ,albion1 but instead of separation there is a large union4 ,in every bosom a universe expands1 and everything exists in the human imagination1 are words which help to explain this curious design4 ,illustration3 ,,printed ,,plate 7,,uncoloured71 ,,from ,,jerusalem1 ,,the ,,emanation ,,of ,,the ,,giant ,,albion4 #ahjd ,a coloured print of the same plate1 very sumptuous and rich1 was exhibited in the ,carfax ,galleries in ,january1 #ahid4 ,a beautiful drawing on page #df gives the meeting of ,vala with ,jerusalem and her children1 but as an artist's forms often contain more in them than the obvious expression of a fact1 so here one may permit oneself to see another meaning underlying this1 as the ancient text underlies the palimpsest4 ,vala may also have an analogy with ,death1 who like a veiled woman meets a mother with her children4 ,as she lifts her veil1 and looks upon one among the group1 the child takes flight and attempts to draw his sister after him4 ,blake1 who seldom made his faces characteristic1 but was satisfied with making them merely typical1 has given this woman's face a piteous expression of fear and entreaty4 ,a notable plate is that representing the ,crucifixion1 the motive of which1 when disengaged from the confused material of the book1 is discovered to be the bed-rock or foundation1 the radical thought1 at the base of ,jerusalem and the next work ,milton4 ,jesus the ,saviour is ,eternal ,imagination slain by men1 who nail it to the stems of generation1 that is1 kill it through the opacity of the senses and the limitations of sexual life4 ,just in the same way ,orc1 the deliverer1 who is a type or other aspect of ,jesus1 is ,genius1 and by man is nailed on to the rocks of ,mount ,atlas4 ,looking through the pages of ,jerusalem1 vague memories of ,norse sagas1 of dim carved stalls in old ,gothic cathedrals1 of the cold cellar-like air that sighs through their aisles and chapels1 come to one and cause a delightful and yet fearful shudder4 ,but the designs savour only in a fleeting irrational way of these things1 having a wholly unique character of their own4 ,the ,prophetic ,books reproduced by ,messrs4 ,ellis and ,yeats are not taken from the ,british ,museum copies it may be as well to remark here1 and the variation in the disposition of the light and shade is great in the various copies1 though the outlines are always the same1 being printed off the same plate1 of course4 ,the finest known copy of ,jerusalem was sold at ,messrs4 ,sotheby's among other ,blake treasures belonging to ,lord ,crewe for the sum of ,l#hc4 ,milton1 the last of the published ,books of ,prophecy1 produced in #ahjd1 is a small quarto of forty-five printed pages1 coloured by hand in the old radiant manner4 ,the preface1 beautiful but sibylline1 is an appeal to all men to worship and exalt ,imagination1 which in ancient times in the ,christ-form1 says ,blake1 walked upon ,england's mountains green4 ,would to ,god that all the ,lord's people were prophets--that is seers--he quotes with profound earnestness at the end4 ,the poem itself opens more intelligibly than most of the later books with a mythic story concerning one ,palamabron and the horses of the plough2 of ,satan1 who persuaded him to be allowed to drive the horses for one day1 and of the dire confusion1 strife1 and tragedy resulting from ,palamabron's consent4 ,the story bears a distant analogy to the ,phaethon myth1 for ,palamabron represents1 according to ,messrs4 ,ellis and ,yeats1 the imaginative impulse1 while ,satan is the dark angel who erects the barriers of reason limited by moral laws and senses around humanity4 ,it was impossible for one to do the work of the other4 ,the definite incidents with which ,milton so hopefully opens are soon lost sight of1 and the loosely-fitted framework1 ill-adjusted and weak1 contains a tangled woof of mysticism1 from which the end of the thread is so difficult of extraction1 that ,i for one must plead that the trouble of winding a golden ball seems hardly worth while1 though it is no doubt possible and profitable to the student of mysticism4 ,milton's part in the book is perhaps the hardest to decipher4 ,but we find him undertaking a journey from heaven1 through earth and hell4 ,milton seems specially dear to ,blake because he made ,satan the supreme study of his greatest poem4 ,blake1 as we know1 had very original thoughts concerning ,satan1 and regarded him as the world's angel of light1 a most respectable person indeed1 for he is the enforcer of the moral law as evolved by divided generative humanity4 ,milton like ,blake recognized this highly respectable aspect of ,satan1 whereas the world1 says our poet in ,the ,everlasting ,gospel1 frequently mistakes ,satan for ,christ3 ,the vision of ,christ that thou dost see1 ,is my vision's greatest enemy1 and it creates an abortive kind of hell-bat to take the role of ,satan1--a very confused state of affairs1 which leads to no little deception and opacity in men's minds4 ,the old themes of free-love for the sake of the spirit1 and the denunciation of ,nature's cruel holiness1 occupy much of the book1 in which the mythic personages1 ,leutha1 ,rintrah1 ,ololon1 and ,enitharmon move up and down in dream-like procession4 ,the ease with which these shadowy beings enter each other's personalities1 divide1 and separate again into manifold emanations and spectres1 suggest the multitudinous globes into which a drop of quicksilver may be divided1 uniting again on contact into several large ones1 and finally forming the unit from which they were first divided4 ,fascinating as is the experiment with mercury1 it becomes confusing and even tiresome when the appearing and vanishing parties are persons with names and presumably characters4 ,one passage full of the old poetical loveliness of which ,blake had been past master must be quoted4 ,it shows that the beauty of nature at ,felpham1 with its distracting fascination1 entered the soul of the poet1 despite all theories and philosophizings4 ,thou hearest the nightingale begin the ,song of ,spring3 ,the lark sitting upon his earthy bed3 just as the morn ,appears2 listens silent3 then springing from the waving cornfield1 loud ,he leads the choir of ,day6 trill1 trill1 trill1 trill1 ,mounting upon the wings of light into the great expanse3 ,re-echoing against the lovely blue and shining shell4 ,his little throat labours with inspiration1 every feather1 ,on throat and breast and wings vibrates with the effluence divine1 ,all ,nature listens silent to him1 and the awful sun ,stands still upon the mountains looking on this little bird1 ,with eyes of soft humility1 and wonder1 love and awe4 ,then loud from their green covert all the birds begin their song4 ,the thrush1 the linnet and the goldfinch1 robin and the wren1 ,awake the ,sun from his sweet reverie upon the mountains4 ,the nightingale again assays his song and through the day ,and through the night warbles luxuriant3 every bird of song ,attending his loud harmony with admiration and love4 ,to this passage succeeds another of like beauty1 a ,flora's ,feast of colour and scent4 ,thou perceivest the flowers put forth their precious odours3 ,and none can tell how from so small a centre comes such sweet1 ,forgetting that within that centre ,eternity expands ,its ever-during doors1 that ,og and ,anak fiercely guard4 ,first ere the morning breaks1 joy opens in the flowery bosoms1 ,joy even to tears1 which the ,sun rising dries3 first the wild thyme ,and meadowsweet downy and soft1 waving among the reeds1 ,light springing in the air1 lead the sweet dance3 they wake ,the honeysuckle sleeping on the oak3 the flaunting beauty ,revels along the wind3 the white-thorn1 lovely may ,opens her many lovely eyes3 listening1 the rose still sleeps1 ,none dare to wake her3 soon she bursts her crimson-curtained bed ,and comes forth in the majesty of beauty2 every flower1 ,the pink1 the jessamine1 the wall-flower1 the carnation1 ,the jonquil1 the mild lily opes her heavens3 every tree ,and herb and flower soon fill the ear with an innumerable dance1 ,yet all in order sweet and lovely4 ,men are sick with love4 ,oh6 how gladly the ear and heart rest on passages such as these1 after toiling through the arid wilds of non-poetical occultism6 ,as usual the illustrations are turned to with keen delight4 ,the iridescent pages recall the charms of the ,songs of ,innocence and ,experience4 ,take it all in all the colour in this last prophetic book combines a clarity and brilliance of tone inferior to no other of ,blake's4 ,all is careful1 clear and precise1 and there are no passages of heavy colouring or impasto work4 ,forms1 elemental1 electric1 indicative of unknown forces and conditions of consciousness start from the pages4 ,as in ,jerusalem1 every page of writing is adorned1 but the colour adds the necessary charm to the forceful designs4 ,plate #ae represents a muscular male--,michael ,angelesque in its modelling--leaping upon a rock and seizing by the shoulders a languid old man4 ,the young man is ,milton1 starting on his journey to annihilate the selfhood of deceit and false forgiveness4 ,the old man is ,albion seated on the ,rock of ,ages1 his legs immersed in the sea of ,time and ,space1 his nerveless arms supported on the tables of the ,law4 ,above them both1 on a semi-circular plane of light1 the ,eternals are seen1 passing in procession in a kind of ecstatic choric dance4 ,three play on instruments of music1 while two others toss balls of light in joyous abandon4 ,the rhythmic character of these dancers1 their robes fetched out like clouds upon the wind1 and the colour translucent and vivid as that of a border of ,april flowers1 makes one think of the fair works with which ,luca della ,robbia has set the dark old streets of ,florence1 of which1 as some one has poetically said1 they would seem to be the wall-flowers4 ,the two other specially noteworthy plates are full-page designs1 entitled respectively ,william and ,robert4 ,it is evident that they are the spiritual likenesses of ,blake and that younger brother with whom he always maintained such close communion4 ,a burning star emitting fountains of light falls beside each brother1 while their bodies thrown backwards1 and their faces skywards1 seem to indicate the abandon of themselves to spiritual influences4 ,the senses are not the limits put upon their perceptions4 ,the ,infinite spirit1 the ,poetic ,genius1 thrills through their entire beings as the sunshine through a dewdrop4 ,let not the profane smile when they learn that the star is in reality ,milton6 ,for it is written1 so ,milton's shadow fell ,precipitant loud thundering into the sea of ,time and ,space4 ,then first ,i saw him in the zenith as a falling star1 ,descending perpendicular1 swift as the swallow or swift1 ,and on my left foot falling on the tarsus1 enter'd there4 ,so there can be no doubt as to what the star symbolizes in the design4 ,the articulation1 the tense nervous drawing of these two figures is remarkable1 even for ,blake1 and the light throbbing with rainbow hues1 and the intense darkness1 against which it is contrasted1 are boldly handled1 while the weird colouring of the dead ,robert1 whose skin has the tone and lustre of gun metal1 conduce to make these two designs of great imaginative appeal4 ,space has only allowed me to call attention to the most remarkable of the plates in this and the other ,prophetic ,books1 but enough has been said to indicate the extraordinary range of their expression4 ,illustration3 ,,colour-,,printed ,,plate ,,from ,,milton3 ,a ,,poem ,,in ,,two ,,books4 #ahjd ,to see ,blake's work of this kind is to enjoy a new experience4 ,many of the pictorial representations we have reviewed seem to be disregardful of ,nature1 if one dare say it1 above ,nature altogether6 ,yet so clearly are they discriminated1 so minutely are the parts made out1 that we are compelled to realize that they are copied from visions definitely seen by ,blake's inner eye1 and energetically seized upon by him4 ,and it is this quality in them which so powerfully acts on the spectator1 assuring him that indeed ,more things exist in heaven and earth than our philosophy dreams of4 ,but besides these tremendous imaginative creations1 there occur touching and beautiful transcripts from ,nature1 low-lying hills1 under a great sky1 waving field grasses and delicate spiders' webs accurately observed and represented1 as far as they go1 proving that ,dame ,nature was not so utterly repudiated by ,blake but that at times he saw and loved her for her own sake1 in spite of all his theories4 ,still1 the great word for him--the only word fit to bear the burden of his tremendous thoughts--was always1 as with ,michael ,angelo1 the human form1 which1 in its varieties of type and action1 seemed to him alone suited to express his deep meanings and spiritual ideas4 ,as for the prophecies themselves1 they can never be largely read1 nor in any sense popular1 though1 to use ,mr4 ,w4 ,m4 ,rossetti's words1 a reader susceptible to poetic influence cannot make light of them2 nor can one who has perused ,mr4 ,swinburne's essay 7or1 we may add1 ,messrs4 ,ellis and ,yeats' work7 affect to consider that they lack meaning--positive and important1 though not definite and developed meaning4 ,so now we take leave of these mystic books of revelation1 which1 whatever our personal estimate of them may be1 stand alone in literature for intrinsic and unique qualities4 ,,chapter ,x ,,work ,,in ,,illustration ,blake's work in illustration is considered by many persons to be finer than the embodiment of his original conceptions in art4 ,there is perhaps something to be said for this point of view4 ,in the designs to the ,prophetic ,books his over-heated brain attempted the production in visible images of conceptions not matured--hints1 scraps1 vague but immense suggestions4 ,his unfettered imagination set sail on a shoreless ocean of speculative thinking1 and kept to no recognized course1 made for no definite port4 ,roaming hither and thither on the wide dim sea of his ever-shifting thoughts1 we sometimes long to see his imagination at work in a more limited1 a more definite area4 ,and so when other minds circumscribed this area1 giving him a central pole around which to group his ideas1 we find no loss of individuality1 no pale reflection of another's conceptions1 but a passionate concentration of original thinking on the subject prescribed1 resulting in the development of an unsuspected point of view1 a new aspect4 ,i am not speaking of illustrations such as those he executed as mere task-work to gain a living1 like the engravings to ,mary ,wollstonecraft's ,stories1 or those for ,hayley's ,ballads4 ,for these subjects had not enough matter1 depth or scope to attract his thoughts or engage his sympathies4 ,as illustrator to ,dante1 ,milton1 ,shakespeare1 ,virgil and the ,book of ,job1 ,blake worked with all his best and most characteristic powers under his command1 and the more effective1 vital and original for being concentrated4 ,in the same year in which he produced the last of the ,london ,books of ,prophecy1 #agie1 we find him illustrating a so-called translation of ,buerger's ,lenore4 ,in spite of the weakness and wilful inaccuracy of the ,english version1 ,blake seized with power on the spirit of the ,teutonic legend1 and gave the edition1 a copy of which is in the ,print ,room 7a quarto71 three fine designs1 of which the first is the most forceful4 ,we cannot linger over the designs which ,hayley commissioned ,blake to execute for his ,ballads on ,animals4 ,from the engraver's point of view they are specially fine1 as the execution is very delicate1 and reaches a state of high finish seldom attempted by ,blake4 ,perhaps he wished to atone for paucity of inspiration by elaborate labour4 ,certain it is that he worked in bonds and trammels4 ,the subjects were not interesting to him4 ,hayley might well say1 in his lumberingly playful way1 that our good ,blake was in labour with a young lion1 when he was engaged on the plate representing that animal4 ,the labour was immense1 for the conception had no vitality4 ,blake scourged his imagination into a degree of liveliness sufficient to make the ,horse and the ,eagle arresting and uncommon work1 but the shackles were on his hands1 because on his spirit1 and he knew it4 ,young's ,night ,thoughts1 which we take up next1 bears the date #agig4 ,blake made no less than five hundred and thirty-seven water-colour drawings for this poem1 but only forty-three designs were eventually selected for publication1 and these were reproduced as uncoloured engravings4 ,till a short while ago1 ,mr4 ,bain of the ,haymarket possessed the whole series of water-colour drawings1 but they have now passed by purchase into the hands of an ,american collector4 ,through the kindness of ,mr4 ,frederic ,shields1 who many years ago made tracings and copies from the unpublished designs1 ,i am enabled to give reproductions of some of the most striking1 though of course not in colour4 7,it will be remembered that ,mr4 ,shields wrote the very powerful chapter on ,young's ,night ,thoughts which is included in the second volume of ,gilchrist's ,life47 ,the designs published with the poem are larger than those we are accustomed to see in ,blake's books1 and the disposition of them on the pages1 of which the middle is occupied by the printed type enclosed in rectangular spaces1 is not effective4 ,we miss our artist's beautiful fluent writing1 and the type produces a bald staring impression on the beholder4 ,when1 too1 the head and shoulders of a figure appear above the placard and the feet and legs below1 as in one or two plates1 we are irresistibly reminded of sandwich men4 ,the want of colour also is a crying need in these large1 pale1 somewhat flat plates4 ,the engravings are executed with great lightness1 though with a certain monotony of line4 ,they are slightly shaded1 and have a distinguishing quality of purity and breadth4 ,what luminous conceptions and stimulating fancies they contain6 though it must also be admitted that there are a few plates which seem unworthy of ,blake1 being diffuse1 tame1 uninspired4 ,plate #af represents the ,aspiration of the ,soul for ,immortality in a beautiful symbolic female figure holding a lyre and fluttering upward1 but confined to the earth by chains around the ankles4 ,plates #be and #bf are1 perhaps1 the most tremendous in the book4 ,in one ,time creeps towards the spectator1 while in the other he half-leaps1 half-flies in his headlong course away4 ,illustration3 ,,time ,,speeding ,,away ,engraved plate from ,young's ,night ,thoughts1 published in #agig ,as one turns the pages one is fain to exclaim of the artist that he breathed the fine thin air of the mountain tops1 that indeed he lived in the high places of thought4 ,i have an impression that ,blake drew much of his inspiration from watching the ever-changing cloud forms of the sky4 ,we know that his designs gained actually very little from the beautiful natural scenery of ,felpham1 that indeed ,nature seemed to close round him like a wall4 ,natural objects always did and do weaken1 deaden1 and obliterate imagination in me1 he wrote in his ,,ms4 notes to ,wordsworth4 ,strange words to come from a painter-poet4 ,a top room in ,london with a good view of the sky were all the conditions which he found necessary for the expression of his genius4 ,in the vastness of the heavens1 clear and deeply blue1 or peopled with glistening clouds1 or set with large peaceful stars1 which spread themselves before his upward gaze1 ,blake found that impetus to creation which most genius finds in nature or humanity4 ,he had set himself the task of probing the world of appearances1 and revealing the world of spiritual causes4 ,to say that he succeeded in representing this pictorially would be to assert that an impossibility had been achieved1 but he got nearer to the goal than any other artist before or since1 not even excepting ,d4 ,g4 ,rossetti and ,g4 ,f4 ,watts1 whose affinity with ,blake's genius is as close as their manifestation of it is different4 ,the better to realize his aim ,blake stripped his drawing of everything that was not essential to the idea he wished to represent4 ,there is never a single redundant accessory4 ,he never stayed his upward or outward flight to represent a lovely landscape1 woman's dainty dress1 flashing jewels1 bloomy fruit4 ,typical or merely suggested natural scenes under a great sky are the usual settings of the human forms who were to him1 as to his master ,michael ,angelo1 the only language coherent enough to express the innerness and the infinity of spirit4 ,he seldom chose to inclose his figures in interiors1 and such drawings as he has left of places from which the sky cannot be seen are so rare as to startle when we come across them4 ,it may be that from ,blake ,walt ,whitman learned to say1 ,i swear ,i will never mention love or death inside a house4 ,the sea fascinated his imagination1 and he has left characteristic records of it4 ,but for the most part that which he saw with his corporeal eye appeared to him as merely the type of what was unseen4 ,he climbed along the jutting peninsula of sense to its farthest point1 where1 giddy with the immensity of the unsuspected forces revealed to him1 he clung1 neither angel nor mortal1 but partaking to a certain degree of the conditions of both4 ,when in this mystic condition of consciousness he focussed his mind on the ,night ,thoughts1 the pencilled ideas resulting are liberal1 spacious1 empyrean4 ,but ,blake's most forcible and poetical thinking on the subject of ,death is crystallized in the delicately gleaming drawings for ,blair's ,grave4 ,true1 the drawings are not reproduced in ,cromek's edition of the poem as they left ,blake's hand4 ,the story of ,cromek's mean transaction has already been retold in these pages4 ,schiavonetti's plates1 beautiful and fluent in execution as they are1 have lost that peculiar rugged character1 that almost galvanic energy which stamp the original drawings with ,blake's hallmark4 ,it must be borne in mind that engraving may alter original drawings much in the same way as does the transposition of a musical phrase from the original into a foreign key4 ,the melody is the same1 but the mood of it is different4 ,it becomes dull instead of bright1 or plaintive instead of triumphant4 ,schiavonetti's transposing of ,blake has made the designs more sweet and less strong1 or perhaps less vehement4 ,it is ,blake in a new aspect1 one so obviously beautiful that all the world admits its loveliness4 ,it is ,blake arranged for the many1 not ,blake for the intimate few6 ,illustration3 ,,death ,,of ,,the ,,strong1 ,,wicked ,,man1 ,,from ,,blair',s ,,grave ,engraving by ,l4 ,schiavonetti after design by ,blake4 ,published #ahjh ,the stanzas he wrote in dedication to ,queen ,charlotte form such a fitting introduction to the plates that we quote them3 ,the door of death is made of gold ,that mortal eyes cannot behold1 ,but when the mortal eyes are closed ,and cold and pale the limbs reposed1 ,the soul awakes and wond'ring sees ,in her mild hands the golden keys4 ,the grave is heaven's golden gate1 ,and rich and poor around it wait4 ,o ,shepherdess of ,england's fold1 ,behold this gate of pearl and gold4 ,to dedicate to ,england's ,queen ,the visions that my soul has seen1 ,and1 by her kind permission bring1 ,what ,i have borne on solemn wing1 ,from the vast regions of the grave2 ,before her throne my wings ,i wave1 ,bowing before my sov'reign's feet4 ,the grave produced these blossoms sweet1 ,in mild repose from earthly strife2 ,the blossoms of eternal life4 ,and now ,blake comes to close quarters with the subject that had haunted him all his life1 the dark web on which he had woven so many bright1 half-defined fancies4 ,again we discern a point d'appui between him and ,michael ,angelo4 ,the thoughts of neither of them were long away from death4 ,michael ,angelo wrestled with the dark angel and brought away from the encounter the profound and intimate thoughts that he has enshrined in the ,medici ,tombs of ,san ,lorenzo4 ,never has the human soul--save perhaps ,beethoven's--apprehended more closely the mystery1 the terror1 the mingled shrinking and awe of the grave1 yet at the same time its hope1 than he did in the ,sacristy of the ,medici ,chapel4 ,and in all plastic art1 the only things to which these fateful sculptures may be likened in their qualities of rapt and sincere thinking1 united to imagination and insight1 are the designs1 which ,blake made to illustrate ,blair's ,grave4 ,the great ,florentine1 it is true1 wrought colossally in enduring marble before all the world1 while the obscure ,blake1 two centuries later1 traced out his thoughts on paper1 his designs being known to comparatively few persons2 but the conceptions of the two brains are allied1 and the works of the two hands are own brothers4 ,blair's conventional and smooth verses in ,blake's case have nothing to do with the matter4 ,they merely form the pegs on which he cast the great garment of his thoughts4 ,death--the ,grave6--his intense and fervent spirit so brooded on the subject that the result is no mere illustration of ,blair's text1 but invention4 ,the poem in his handling has enlarged itself out of all knowledge1 and turned to us an unfamiliar face1 new and enriching conceptions4 ,blair merely indicated the track on which his pioneer spirit journeyed heedfully and musingly1 through the dim country of ,death4 ,piercing all conventions1 all accepted theology1 he would fain seize the very heart of the elusive mystery4 ,what is ,death8 he asks2 let me peer into the grave unshrinkingly and see for myself4 ,and from the grave he brings this triumphant answer1 ,death is ,life1 this ,life only is ,death2 you have but to die to conquer ,death2 or in ,walt ,whitman's prosaic but arresting phrase1 ,to die is different from what anyone supposes1 and luckier4 ,we reproduce the most significant of the plates4 ,in ,the ,soul exploring the ,recesses of the ,grave1 we see a shuddering yet resolved man determinately bringing himself to the close contemplation of death4 ,he remains above the vault on the hillside trying to pierce the moonlit earth with his limited human vision2 but his imagination1 his soul1 penetrates where he cannot enter--yet6 ,in the likeness of a fair woman with a lamp1 like the ,greek ,psyche1 she tiptoes delicately into the arched hollow beneath the hill1 and gazes alarmed but steadfast on a dead body wrapped in flickering flames4 ,it is to be noted that the man whose soul regards death so closely is already on the mountain tops1 he has lifted up his eyes unto the hills1 and his figure set against the sky has an indefinable air of separateness from ordinary humanity4 ,the plate entitled ,the ,soul hovering over the ,body reluctantly parting with ,life satisfies with a strange and unearthly delight4 ,no ,diana ever hung more yearningly above her ,endymion than this beautiful and tender soul lingers1 in loving reluctance to part1 above the stiff human tenement she has just quitted4 ,presently she will take her darting flight through the window and over the mountains and up into the illimitable glory of the distant sunrise4 ,there is the hush and the blessedness of a great silence on this dim silver dawn1 suggesting the spiritual correspondence between it and the dawning life of the newly-released soul4 ,was it a recollection of that younger brother1 ,robert1 so dearly loved1 that taught ,blake the pathetic dignity of the composed limbs1 the sculptured calm of the dead face8 ,the ,death of the ,strong ,wicked ,man is a savage contrast to the peace1 the musical pause1 of the last-mentioned design4 ,in ,milton1 ,blake writes3 ,judge then of thyself2 thy ,eternal ,lineaments explore1 ,what is eternal and what changeable1 and what annihilable4 ,and he answers the question in the forms given to these passing souls1 some being closely analogous to their mortal appearances1 others changing even to sex1 while others again have passed from age into a state of perpetual youth4 ,this latter is the case in the plate called ,death's ,door4 ,age on crutches is hurried by a tempest into the open door of the ,grave1 while above sits a young man--'the renovated man in light and glory'--his beautiful young head thrown up to the sky1 his mouth full of inspired song1 his whole virile body expressing ideal beauty1 rapture1 glad new life4 ,no one but ,michael ,angelo could have drawn with strong felicitous hand the glorious youth atop of the grave as ,blake has done4 ,the whole allegory is so intellectually definite1 so succinctly expressed that thought and its body form are here identical4 ,but the strangest flower of his thoughts on the grave1 blossoms in the picture called ,the ,re-,union of the ,soul and the ,body4 ,descending like a bolt from the blue1 cleaving the smoke ascending from the fires of consuming materialism1 the soul embraces with passionate joy the strong male body1 which struggles from the grave to enfold her4 ,cleansing and fusing fires flame around them4 ,the beauty of the drawing--the melodious curves of the downward plunging soul1 the delicious foreshortening of the leg1 the swirl of the white drapery--has stricken into poetic lines the forcefulness of flight1 the passion of re-union4 ,this emotional conception moves the heart strangely4 ,it is the promise of ,st4 ,paul here visibly consummated1 that a spiritual body shall at last clothe the shivering unhoused soul4 ,illustration3 ,,the ,,soul ,,reluctantly ,,parting ,,from ,,the ,,body1 ,,from ,,blair',s ,,grave ,engraving by ,l4 ,schiavonetti after design made by ,blake4 ,published #ahjh ,states change1 ,blake wrote1 but ,individual ,identities never change nor cease4 ,and now take last of all1 but not least1 the plate called the ,day of ,judgment4 ,nothing daunted by the long array of ,last ,judgments that have been executed from ,orcagna to ,michael ,angelo1 ,blake must needs give his rendering of the subject2 and an original one it is1 though he can hardly avoid--even he6--the traditional disposition of the main parts of the picture4 ,but what freshness1 what new life and new motives he has introduced into this subject1 hoary with extreme age4 ,the spirits ascending into ,paradise are as lovely as heart and eye of man could wish4 ,orcagna's conception of the beatified souls in ,santa ,maria1 whose profiles ,ruskin likened to lilies laid together in a garden border1 is not more delightful in its artless way than is ,blake's4 ,the children of wrath1 snake-encircled1 howling1 and falling head foremost into the abyss1 recall the terrors1 the uncouth and wild imagination of ,urizen and one of the plates in ,america4 ,but here ,schiavonetti's graceful and civilizing hand has passed over each figure1 and he has contrived in some indefinable way to smooth away the too austere and savage strength of this latest born of the ,dies illa of art4 ,i have not mentioned the first plate1 which represents ,christ with the ,keys of the ,grave in his hand1 because my function is chiefly that of praise4 ,but ,i ought perhaps to point out1 what is however painfully obvious1 that ,blake always failed in any attempt to represent ,jesus4 ,whether he was hampered to a degree beyond his strength of liberation by the traditional likeness1 the type ascribed to the ,saviour1 and so could not work in freedom1 it is impossible to say authoritatively4 ,but this traditional face of ,christ1 ploughed as it is into the heart and memory of humanity1 probably arose and disturbed his own soul's independent vision whenever he tried to fix his imagination on the ideal lineaments4 ,if this were the case1 then indeed it is proved beyond question that ,blake's work is almost valueless when it is not dependent on his own naked perceptions1 his inward recognition of facts1 disregardful of all outward corroboration4 ,blake's next work in illustration was done for ,dr4 ,thornton1 who projected an ,english edition of ,virgil's ,pastorals for the use of schools1 with ,ambrose ,philips' imitation of ,virgil's first eclogue4 ,they were the first and the only woodcuts ,blake ever did1 and though they bear traces of an unpractised hand1 he put to proof art alien to the artists1 and showed his essential mastery of this means of expression in a manner which more than reconciles one to his slight defects of method4 ,gilchrist is of opinion that the original designs were a little marred--lost somewhat in expression and drawing in transference to the wood2 but ,mr4 ,laurence ,binyon1 who has lately studied them closely1 and has reproduced them with admirable truth1 holds a different opinion4 ,he writes1 ,blake's conceptions in these illustrations did not take their final form in the drawings2 they were only fully realized on the block itself4 ,hence they have the character of visions called up as if by moonlight out of the darkened surface of the wood1 and seem to have no existence apart from it4 ,they instance the power ,blake had in a remarkable degree of concentrating in a few types the essence of his subject4 ,in these blocks it is pastoral life--flocks feeding in lonely stretches of country1 the still peace of hills1 the might of tempest--that he concentrates and expresses by the roughly executed but exquisitely felt little scenes which are the consummation of his insight into the large natural life of the earth4 ,illustration3 ,,blake',s ,,woodcuts1 ,,from ,,his ,,own ,,designs1 ,,to ,,phillip',s ,,virgil',s ,,pastorals4 #ahba ,blake did in these woodcuts1 what he could never have achieved1 had he sought to do so1 in any other of the branches of art practised by him1--namely1 he gave truthful because extremely simple impressions of ,nature as she appears in her rarer moods4 ,master as he was of linear design1 he was too neglectful of tonic values to interpret with any delicacy the effects of landscape in water-colour or engraving4 ,but here1 the very nature and limitations of woodcutting1 its necessary economy of means1 enabled him for once to express effectively and adequately his great simple generalized impressions4 ,these pregnant suggestions of his induce a mood sympathetic with the deeper and subtler chords of pantheism4 ,in one of the most beautiful1 but at the same time one of the simplest of the blocks1 all the witchery and solemn charm of a remote pastoral neighbourhood is represented in a few typical rural images4 ,a solitary traveller journeys along a road winding deep between hills1 in the last beams of the setting sun4 ,blake has endowed this darkened landscape with ,i know not what suggestions of watchful intentness4 ,the wayfarer in some mysterious manner is in its power6 ,hands unseen ,are hanging the night around him fast4 ,and again3 ,the place is silent and aware1 ,it has had its scenes1 its joy and crimes1 ,but that is its own affair4 ,these words of ,browning's are singularly apt to express the delicate and profound hints in this little woodcut4 ,the wonderful thing is that ,blake could convey so much on a slip of paper about three inches by one and a half in size4 ,in all the plates we find this strange accent laid on ,nature1 her awareness1 her sombre fateful moods1 her listening1 and the long patience of her endless waiting4 ,the oft-repeated motive of the shepherding of flocks is treated in no glib or merely idyllic manner1 but has the sort of holy peace that befits that most ancient and most gentle of all the occupations of men4 ,an appreciative critic has said anent these woodcuts1 that they prove conclusively that amid all drawbacks there exists a power in the work of the man of genius which no one but himself can utter fully4 ,the truth of this remark must be felt by all ,blake's admirers with double force and poignancy when they think regretfully of ,blair's ,grave1 wherein the designs1 being engraved by another hand than the father of them1 have lost some indefinable note of character belonging to ,blake's personality4 ,and now we come to the greatest series of engravings on a religious subject that have appeared since ,albrecht ,duerer4 ,the inventions to ,job are the crown of glorious achievement on the strenuous and austere life of the artist-poet1 and of all his work there is nothing so perfect in the dramatic development of the subject1 the broad1 forceful yet delicate execution1 and the poetic sensibility which animates the entire series4 ,it appears that ,blake's lifelong friend1 ,mr4 ,butts1 bought from him a series of twenty-one water-colour drawings or ,inventions from the ,book of ,job4 7,this set of drawings1 be it remarked1 together with twenty-two brilliant proof impressions on ,india paper of the engravings afterwards made from them1 were sold to ,mr4 ,quaritch on ,march #cast1 #aijc1 at the sale of the ,crewe collection of ,blake's works1 for the sum of ,l#e1fjj47 ,i have seen one water-colour 7presumably not one of the original set done for ,thomas ,butts1 though probably a repliqua7 of ,satan pouring a vial containing the plague of boils on the prostrate body of ,job4 ,it is interesting to compare it with the final form the design assumed in the engraving 7,plate #f in the ,book of ,job7 done for ,john ,linnell4 ,owing to the courtesy of ,sir ,charles ,dilke1 to whom the picture now belongs1 we have been enabled to reproduce it4 ,it will at once be seen that1 in the engraving the management of the light is more satisfactory1 because it is comprehensible1 than in the water-colour2 while the cloud-forms are less conventional and rounder4 ,the bat-like wings with which ,satan is furnished in the painting have been sacrificed in the engraving4 ,job's wife has been put into tone1 whereas in the water-colour1 the visible side of her1 which ought to have been in dense shadow1 was in full light4 ,the whole design has been pulled together1 gaining an impressiveness and unity altogether wanting in the earlier work4 ,blake's passion for determinate outline 7irrespective of its appearance in ,nature71 and contempt for truth of tone in colour1 gives the water-colour a mapped-out definitive appearance in its background of scenery1--despite the magnificent qualities of imagination and draughtsmanship displayed in the treatment of the figures1--which somehow recalls the work of such masters as ,paolo ,uccello4 ,mr4 ,linnell1 deeply impressed with the lofty and imaginative character of the water-colours done for ,mr4 ,butts1 commissioned a complete set of engravings to be executed from them by ,blake's hand1 for which he paid ,l#aej in instalments of ,l#b to ,l#c weekly--the largest sum ,blake had ever received for any one series4 ,on glancing through them it will at once be noticed that his style of engraving had undergone a change during the last period of his life4 ,the ,canterbury ,pilgrimage1 which he had executed fifteen years previously1 exhibited the old hard and dry manner of engraving which he had adopted from ,basire in its most accentuated form4 7,for the convenience of classification ,i have included that picture among the loose drawings1 engravings1 and water-colours for consideration in a later chapter1 but it would be well for the student to look at it now1 the better to appreciate the freedom1 grace and power of the engravings in the ,job series47 ,on one of the many pleasant days ,blake spent with ,linnell at ,north ,end1 ,hampstead1 the latter showed him some choice engravings of ,marc ,antonio and his pupil ,bononsoni1 and from this latter's work ,blake suddenly apprehended the possibilities1 the scope1 that lay for him in the engraver's art4 ,in the school of ,basire much of the work was accomplished by a laborious and indiscriminate process of cross-hatching4 ,it is true that ,blake by the sheer force of his genius had made this style answer in a manner to his needs of expression1 but it was work performed in an unnecessarily confined technique4 ,when he came to study the ,italian school of engraving he found to his delight that every stroke was made to tell4 ,nothing blotchy or muddled1 no careless cross-hatching1 no lozenges or dots were admitted1 and ,blake quickly appreciated the wider range of effects obtainable by this ,italian manner1 and engrafted its main principles on to his own characteristic style4 ,of that characteristic style1 as we know1 the beauty of outline1 the care for its preservation whenever possible1 was the main principle4 ,and here in the school of ,marc ,antonio and ,bononsoni he found that principle adopted as the basis of beauty in engraving1 every other consideration being made subservient to it4 ,the conflict and want of unity of effect1 resultant on making compromises with other principles of art1--such as subtlety of modelling1 delicate distinctions in values1 imitation of textures1 intricacy of detail1--had not disturbed the dignity of the ,italian school1 which consciously sacrificed variety and a wide range of effects in order to keep the work of the burin as broad and simple as possible1 the outline always being insisted on as the chief subject of alterations1 while the shading and modelling were comprehensively indicated by long curved lines1 close together1 only crossing and intersecting in the darkest parts4 ,the beauty and freedom of the ,job engravings are a revelation of the final grace and power achieved by ,blake through his appreciation of the legitimate functions of an art pre-eminently concerned with line4 ,illustration3 ,,plate ,,ii ,,from ,,the ,,book ,,of ,,job ,engraving1 published ,march1 #ahbe ,the ,book of ,job is one of the world's great epics4 ,it voices man's need of belief in ,god2 it is the cry of one pierced to death with the arrows of misfortune1 yet asserting with passionate faith1 ,though ,he slay me1 yet will ,i trust in ,him4 ,earthquake1 famine1 bereavements1 pestilence cannot eradicate from man the deep-rooted assurance that ,god not only exists1 but is just and loving1 and the ,book of ,job is the supreme poetical expression of this fundamental belief4 ,as such1 it welded itself into ,blake's imagination1 and the designs he made to illustrate it are worthy in all respects to be set alongside the ancient tragic text4 ,plate #a represents ,job1 his wife1 and their sons and daughter kneeling around them1 praising ,god at the rising of the sun4 ,their flocks and herds surround them1 and a noble tree--on which their musical instruments are hung--overshadows them2 in the background1 at the base of rocky hills1 a ,gothic cathedral is daringly set1 to typify the soul of worship made visible4 ,thus did ,job continually4 ,the border that surrounds the finely-wrought plate is very slight but decorative and thoughtful4 ,an altar with a flaming sacrifice upon it is indicated1 with these words inscribed upon its front3 ,the letter killeth1 ,the ,spirit giveth ,life1 ,it is spiritually discerned4 ,while1 above1 the words1 ,our ,father which art in ,heaven1 ,hallowed be ,thy name1 set the keynote to the whole work4 ,plate #b contains no less than twenty-three figures1 and two scenes are being enacted simultaneously4 ,job and his wife still sit beneath the tree with their children1 but above them we see the heavens open and ,god giving power to ,satan1 who strides like ,urizen through flame1 to test the uprightness of ,his servant ,job4 ,this was the day when the sons of ,god came to present themselves before the ,lord1 and ,satan came also among them to present himself before ,god4 ,the border is exquisite1 light as gossamer1 and containing in its fine web-like lines beautiful suggestions4 ,angels with heads bent beneath ,gothic tracery receive the flame and smoke that are the thought-sacrifices of two shepherds1 who mind the sleeping flocks in their fold4 ,the next two plates are 7#c7 the ,destruction of the ,children of ,job1 and 7#d7 the reception of the news by ,job and his wife4 ,plate #e is one of the finest of the series4 ,job and his wife1 sitting on the ruins of their home1 give of their straitened means to the blind and halt1 while the angels of their love and resignation1 as ,gilchrist sympathetically terms them1 hallow and beautify the scene4 ,but above1 the ,almighty sits enthroned1 with an expression almost remorseful1 and the angels shrink away in horror1 for ,he has given ,satan leave to try ,job to the uttermost1 only reserving his life4 ,behold he is in thy hand1 but save his life4 ,satan1 with face averted from the sublime spectacle of ,job in his affliction1 has concentrated the fires of ,god into a phial which he is about to pour on his head4 ,illustration3 ,,plate ,v ,,from ,,the ,,book ,,of ,,job1 #ahbe ,engraving ,the border is symbolically woven with writhing snakes and thorn-set brambles1 among which quick darting flames find their way upwards4 ,and then follow ,plates #f1 #g1 #h1 the workings of the ,evil ,one1 the coming of the three friends to ,job1 and ,job raising himself in agony and uttering the frantic words1 ,lo1 let the night be solitary and let no joyful voice come therein1 let the day perish wherein ,i was born4 ,this suggests thoughts beyond the reaches of the soul4 ,then follows the ,vision of ,eliphaz--very terrible and grand--and ,plate #aj1 ,the ,just ,upright ,man is laughed to scorn1 in which ,job's attitude1 the dignity of his grief and faith1 are magnificent4 ,though ,he slay me1 yet will ,i trust in ,him1 is expressed in every line of the noble1 piteous figure4 ,plate #aa--,with ,dreams upon my bed thou scarest me and affrightest me with ,visions--has something mediaeval in the grotesqueness and ingeniousness of the horrors depicted4 ,orcagna's devils1 ,duerer's ,death and ,satan are not more terrible than ,job's tormentors4 ,the words engraved in the border contain all the condensed pain of the race of man1 as well as the faith which alone makes it possible to be endured4 ,and then to all this storm and stress succeeds ,plate #ab1 with its suggestions of returning peace and the everlasting calm of the stars4 ,lo1 all these things worketh ,god oftentimes with ,man to bring back his ,soul from the pit to be enlightened with the light of the living6 says the inspired young man to ,job1 who with the seal of a great suffering set on his face--but a suffering of which the bitterness is past--sits listening intently as one who suddenly receives light in his soul4 ,the sonorous penetrating words fall on the senses like the music of rain-drops on a thirsty land1 and the design grows out of them like a true organic form of which the shape is innate4 ,oh6 the peace of that night sky1 and the gentle radiance of the stars set in its depth6 ,the border is here specially beautiful4 ,look upon the heavens1 and behold the clouds which are higher than thou--words that found a responsive echo in the heart of ,blake--is the verse inscribed on the robe of a sleeping old man4 ,the border is quick with winged thoughts1 floating upwards from his head1 in the shape of small men and women1 linked in a sinuous succession1 which finally reaches a sky1 also set with stars1 whose clouds have verses written upon them that contribute to a full understanding of ,job4 ,plate #ac1 ,then the ,lord answered ,job out of the whirlwind1 continues the gracious and softening influences of the last design4 ,job and his wife1 with tremulous eager hope1 look up into the mild face of ,god1 who1 clothed and enwreathed by a whirlwind of which ,blake only could have suggested the marvellous vortex1 stretches ,his arms in blessing above them4 ,the three friends are prostrated and overwhelmed beneath the force of the blast that encloses ,god4 ,and now we come to ,plate #ad1 than which nothing can be imagined more beautiful4 ,when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of ,god shouted for joy1 are the words beneath and around the border2 the six days of creation are indicated in six delicate medallions1 which may in their turn have suggested the noble series of paintings1 of ample scope and poetic imagining1 which ,sir ,edward ,burne-,jones executed4 ,illustration3 ,,plate ,,xiv ,,from ,,the ,,book ,,of ,,job1 #ahbe ,engraving ,but the main design--,god1 the centre of the universe1 from whom issues ,day and ,night1 the listening rapt group of ,job1 his wife1 and the comforters1 and1 above all1 the glorious rejoicing ranks of angels--is beautiful almost beyond expression4 ,it is noticeable that on either side appears the arm alone of an angel outside the picture1 thus cleverly suggesting the idea of an infinity of this heavenly host4 ,mrs4 ,jamieson1 in her ,christian ,art1 says1 ,the most original and1 in truth1 the only new and original version of the scripture idea of angels which ,i have met with is that of ,william ,blake1 a poet-painter1 somewhat mad as we are told1 if indeed his madness were not rather 'the telescope of truth1' a sort of poetical clairvoyance1 bringing the unearthly nearer to him than others4 ,his adoring angels float rather than fly1 and with their half-liquid draperies seem about to dissolve into light and love2 and his rejoicing angels--behold them6--sending up their voices with the morning stars1 that 'singing in their glory move6' ,the picture has the thrill1 the immensity of music in it1 and ,i never look at it without recalling the motive of the last movement of the ,choral ,symphony4 ,music ,it resolves all the human suffering1 all the incoherent and striving emotions1 all the diverse and multiform forces of the ,book of ,job1 into a final harmony and triumph of beauty4 ,in much the same way the last motive of ,beethoven's ,ninth ,symphony rings forth after the tentative1 subtle and passionate music of the preceding movements like a shout of joy1 the cry of a faith which says--not1 ,i have heard1 ,i have learnt1 ,i believe1 but1 ,i know6 absolutely and for ever6 ,plate #ae shows ,god pointing out the works that ,his hand has fashioned4 ,behemoth and ,leviathan1 in a circular design very ,gothic in character1 appear below4 ,and to this succeeds ,plate #af1 ,satan ,falling4 ,plate #ag1 in which ,god appears blessing ,job and his wife1 while the false comforters hide their diminished heads with an almost comic fright1 is distinguished by another of those fine effects of light for which ,blake had so great an aptitude4 ,the sun1 which forms the nimbus of ,god's head1 emits strange prismatic rays1 very beautiful and weird4 ,also the ,lord accepted ,job shows us ,job with his wife and friends offering a fire on an altar before a great sun1 which1 like ,god's halo in the previous picture1 flashes the same strange light4 ,the design is calm and solemn1 and has an exquisite decorative feeling4 ,immediately below the altar1 on some steps which form part of the border1 ,blake has touchingly and humbly laid his own palette and brushes1 as if to indicate that1 like ,job1 his work had been offered and accepted by the ,lord4 ,in ,plate #ai ,job and his wife are seated beneath a fig-tree in a field of standing corn1 gratefully receiving offerings from a father and mother and their two beautiful daughters4 ,everyone also gave him a piece of money4 ,the border contains1 as usual1 amid its palm leaves and angelic figures1 verses relating to and assisting the chief motive of the picture4 ,for pure melodious beauty perhaps there is no plate like #bj4 ,there were not found women fair as the daughters of ,job in all the land1 and their father gave them inheritance among their brethren4 ,job is seated in a dim rich chamber1 on whose walls are wrought paintings illustrating the trials he has experienced4 ,around him are grouped three beautiful daughters1 who listen rapt while he relates to them ,god's dealings with him4 ,this is a rare example of ,blake's choosing an interior with no opening out into the beyond4 ,it is quaint and beautiful1 but we are so accustomed to seeing ,blake's figures set in the open air with the sky above them1 that this closed-in chamber1 exquisitely wrought and fantastic as it is1 seems a thing foreign to his usual methods1 his elective affinity for the great expansive types of ,god's universe4 ,i think the reason he chose an interior in this instance was that we might be shut in and enclosed within the mind of ,job as it revealed itself to his daughters4 ,instinctively we know that ,blake's true lover ,rossetti must have cared for this plate with quite special fervour1 so close is the analogy between its hidden mysterious richness and the wonderful painted interiors in which he set his women1 and from which he developed such a high degree of romantic suggestion and atmosphere4 ,a lute and harp amid trailing vines1 grape-laden1 form a border to ,blake's design1 as delicate as the illuminated tracery in a mediaeval ,hour-,book4 ,in the final plate--,so the ,lord blessed the latter end of ,job more than the beginning--the hole of the great tree that has figured in so many of the designs is surrounded by a crowd of persons1 with ,job1 his wife and beautiful daughters in the midst4 ,all play on instruments of music1 while sheep and lambs and 7it must be admitted7 a most ,gothic-looking sheep-dog repose in the immediate foreground4 ,the ancient and fantastic instruments1 the rapt upraised faces1 the beautiful girls1 recall the old ,florentine singing galleries--cantorias as they are called--the one by ,donatello and the other by ,luca della ,robbia1 now in the ,museo del ,duomo at ,florence4 ,in neither has the joy of praise1 the delight in making music1 found more complete expression4 ,blake's ,book of ,job is a holy thing4 ,the full compass of his orchestral nature exerted itself for this final effort4 ,all his long sacrifices1 deprivations1 passionate sorrows and sacred joys1 his burning aspirations and his steadfast faith1 found their true meaning1 their perfect consecration in the blossoming of this supreme flower on his tree of life4 ,it was ,blake's offering to ,god1 like the ,sacred ,host1 reserved and offered up in his own hands on the altar of his storm-weary heart4 ,,chapter ,,xi ,,work ,,in ,,the ,,exhibition ,,of #aijd ,in the ,january of #aijd ,messrs4 ,carfax's tiny galleries at #ag1 ,ryder ,street1 ,st4 ,james's1 became a shrine to which all pious lovers of ,william ,blake hastened to make their pilgrimage4 ,none of the usual crowd that visit picture shows were to be descried here4 ,blake's appreciators are not those who are most learned in schools of painting1 in tricks of style and niceties of technique4 ,they are mainly composed of those who1 having a strong pictorial sense1 are yet only effectively moved by ideas in art4 ,and what a harvest of ideas was garnered here6--ideas which sprung like ,athene fully developed and armed from the head of ,blake--of which head a cast taken by ,deville the phrenologist was conspicuously placed in the centre of the lower room of the exhibition4 ,the closely-set mouth and jaw1 arched and inflated nostrils1 massy brow1 and intense and rapt expression1 tell one something of the nature of this rare and spiritual intellect4 ,out of forty-one exhibits1 twenty-five were subjects from the ,bible1 three were single plates repeated from ,blake's ,prophetic ,books1 one was an ,indian ink drawing illustrating a scene in his poem ,tiriel1 three were purely imaginative compositions1 the keys to which were to be sought in themselves1 and seven were illustrations to the poets 7three of ,milton's ,paradise ,lost1 one of a scene in ,shakespeare's ,midsummer ,night's ,dream1 and three sketches to illustrate ,gray1 ,young1 and ,blair74 ,mainly1 then1 the exhibition might be said to have dealt with ,biblical subjects1 though good specimens of all kinds of ,blake's work rendered it representative of his genius in its various phases4 ,from the old ,byzantine mosaicists through art's early springtime to her full summer in the ,renaissance1 and even since then1 no class of subjects has so deeply occupied the mind of painters as sacred history4 ,there are no incidents left untreated in the ,new ,testament1 and the ,old has had a large meed of attention1 yet we find a painter of such unique and peculiar genius as ,william ,blake expending his strength and invention on this well-worn field of motives4 ,but with results so new1 so different from anything ever achieved before1 that our interest and delight were stimulated in proportion to our susceptibility to ,blake's influence4 ,i am not saying that this new treatment of ,biblical subjects1 of the ,gospel story1 is finer than the work of the old masters of the golden age of ,italy4 ,nor do ,i rank it lower4 ,the ages are all equal1 ,blake says himself1 but genius is always above its age4 ,the great point is that it is entirely different1 and that it exhibits a total disregard for traditional treatment4 ,blake only found it possible to see these subjects from his own point of view--one never before attained by any artist4 ,and as objects seen from different outlooks vary in colour1 profile1 and proportion1 so as to be sometimes quite unrecognizable1 so do these religious pictures of ,blake's appear startlingly alien to any we have ever seen before4 ,or as he puts it himself1 ,if perceptive organs vary1 objects of perception seem to vary too4 ,looking round the characteristic and representative collection1 the ingenuous student realized that the predominant effect of this art on his mind was one of strangeness4 ,it seemed to him unconnected with the past1 unrelated to the present1 an art set apart1 unique1 somewhat disquieting1 which took him into ,blake's visionary world1 opposed in every sense to the natural world of daily experience4 ,this visionary world of ,blake's1 was minutely discriminated by him1 however1 and was no formless region of emasculating dreams4 ,the amazing vigour of his conceptions1 and the flat contradiction which they impose on the orthodox and traditional images which most people's minds unconsciously harbour1 added a sense of shock to that of strangeness4 ,inquiring yet further into the causes of this impression one discovered the truth of ,w4 ,b4 ,scott's assertion1 that ,blake's genius was unaided by its usual correlative1 talent--that facility which enthrones the idea in its appropriately wrought shrine1 dowers it with its organically perfect form4 ,greatly as ,blake disliked it to be said1 the truth was apparent among these collected works of his1 that his execution was seldom equal to his invention4 ,as proof of the strangeness1 the independence of his work1 we may quote the water-colour drawing of the ,three ,maries with the ,angel at the ,sepulchre 7date #ahjc71 in which the holy women shrink terrified from the angel1 with all the shuddering horror that humanity feels at the manifestations of the spiritual world4 ,a small colour-print from ,urizen--called here ,the ,flames of ,furious ,desire--with which we are already very familiar1 must have augmented the impression of unique imagination and strangeness to those who had no previous acquaintance with ,blake's work4 ,the furious raging1 the vital majesty of the water-colour called ,fire1 the delicate and curious imagination in ,satan watching the ,endearments of ,adam and ,eve1 with many others must have contributed to this effect2 but the final strangeness and most curious beauty were to be found in ,the ,nativity1 ,the ,river of ,life1 and ,the ,bard4 ,in these1 ,blake's highest and most mystic qualities are manifest1 and his divergence from all preconceived ideas startlingly apparent4 ,the ,nativity is a small tempera picture painted on copper without the usual foundation of gesso that ,blake first laid on the plate4 ,small patches of tempera have been dislodged1 showing little gleaming bits of copper1 but happily this has occurred mainly at the top part of the picture in the gloom of the roof of the stable4 ,all the long succession of ,nativities from ,giotto to ,correggio 7the soft and effeminate and consequently most cruel demon1 as ,blake termed him7 seem not to have touched his imagination4 ,most artists carry an infused remembrance of great pictures in their mind1 and can seldom divest themselves of the subtle influence emanating therefrom4 ,but ,blake's picture is not in any sense a composition which even unconsciously has been built up with the aid of memory4 ,imagination has here become vision1 the uncovering of the veritable image2 and ,blake has faithfully copied what his entranced consciousness beheld4 ,mary1 white as the lilies of her annunciation1 has fallen back fainting into the arms of ,joseph1 while above her prostrate body1 a mist of the colour of fire would seem to have gradually taken form and become incarnate in the exquisite beauty of the infant ,jesus4 ,light as thistledown and shining like a star1 so that the whole chamber--with the terrified ,joseph1 the white mother1 the oxen feeding--are all illuminated by its intense radiance--this apotheosis of divinity in childhood takes flight to the outstretched arms of ,st4 ,elizabeth1 who sits on the floor with a quaint little ,st4 ,john praying in her lap4 ,the open window through which is discerned the star in the ,east1 takes the imagination out into the night of limitless mystery4 ,illustration3 ,,the ,,nativity ,tempera painting on copper4 ,this reproduction is taken from ,w4 ,b4 ,scott's etching from the original picture4 ,it is undated ,the technique is superior to most of ,blake's work in tempera1 and is adequate1 the rendering of light in the picture containing qualities nothing short of marvellous4 ,it was impossible to look at this ,nativity without being moved4 ,the event appeared to ,blake entirely supernatural in effect as in cause4 ,he seems to have attached no historical value to it1 nor indeed to any of his ,biblical subjects4 ,they were to him merely symbols of eternal ideas1 projected by the ,holy ,ghost into the world for its enlightenment1 and of these ideas ,christ was the chiefest2 but every idea he thought capable of manifesting itself equally in diverse symbols4 ,his mind had some of the contemplative and impersonal characteristics of the oriental1 and by its original processes he was enabled to appreciate the true inwardness of ,christianity as the western mind cannot do4 ,christianity was born in the ,east like the ,star of its ,epiphany1 and has come to maturity in the ,west1 but its most mystical secrets will be hid from us until it has returned again and bathed in the immemorial symbolism and true occultism of the ,east4 ,being so unfortunate as not to obtain leave from the ,nativity's present owner to reproduce it in these pages1 ,i have been obliged to take our illustration from the etching which ,william ,bell ,scott made after the original1 and for which permission was courteously granted me by ,messrs4 ,chatto and ,windus4 ,it is but the shadow of a shadow1 for ,bell ,scott's etching is only that1 but it will serve to give some idea of the solemn beauty of the tempera painting4 ,now let me recall another purely imaginative composition4 ,the ,river of ,life1 a water-colour picture1 reminded me in its transparence and delicate brilliance of ,blake's earlier printed books4 ,it is a rhapsody of ,heaven4 ,the ,river of ,life which flows through the ,city of ,god1 and in which all new-born souls are dipped1 is a mighty stream flowing between green banks1 on which are situated the gleaming houses of the city4 ,groups of happy souls wander beside the clear pale waters1 and with his back towards us the ,saviour with two children 7new-born souls7 in either hand swims towards the river's source1 which is the ,throne of ,god1 typified by the sun4 ,in its rays may be descried adoring angels1 reminding us of ,blake's ardent words1 which ,i have already quoted1 ,what6 it will be questioned1 when the sun rises1 do you not see a round disc of fire1 somewhat like a guinea8 ,oh1 no1 no6 ,i see an innumerable company of the heavenly host crying1 ',holy1 holy1 holy is the ,lord ,god ,almighty6' ,two angels--angels of the presence--remain suspended in flight above the stream on either side1 playing on pipes1 while a beautiful strong woman1 clad in lemon-yellow robe1 swoops down like a bird just above the surface of the stream with lithe strenuous body bent to meet the wind4 ,she is a delicious creation1 satisfying the aesthetic sense with completeness4 ,the disposition of the figures in this picture1 the decorative arrangement of the overhanging fruit-laden branches of the ,tree of ,life1 the clear treble notes of colour1 made one think of the rare and iridescent art of ,japan4 ,blake's mood when he painted ,the ,river of ,life must have attained to a high and heavenly unity and joy4 ,the ,bard is a picture of quite another order1 and pitched in a very different key4 ,here is a twilight world of intellectual notions and poetic motives wafted hither and thither on the blast of the ,bard's frenzy4 ,the ,bard himself1 a commanding figure1 stands on a shelf of rock surveying the vortex1 while he smites music from his harp4 ,below1 a king and queen and their horses are overwhelmed in a ,stygian stream4 ,all is dark1 with a strange gleam and shimmer here and there1 like jewels and burnished silver seen through a purple veil4 ,this was one of the pictures that appeared in ,blake's own exhibition in his brother's shop1 and his description in the celebrated catalogue is well worth quotation3 ,on a rock whose haughty brow ,frown'd o'er old ,conway's foaming flood1 ,robed in sable garb of evil ,with haggard eyes the ,poet stood3 ,loose his beard and hoary hair ,streamed like a meteor of the troubled air4 ,weave the warp and weave the woof1 ,the winding-sheet of ,edward's race4 ,thus the poet ,gray2 and ,blake commented1 ,weaving the winding-sheet of ,edward's race by means of sounds of spiritual music1 and its accompanying expressions of spiritual speech1 is a bold and daring and most masterly conception that the public have embraced and approved with avidity4 ,poetry consists in these conceptions1 and shall painting be confined to the sordid drudgery of facsimile representations of merely mortal and perishing substances1 and not be as poetry and music are1 elevated to its own proper sphere of invention and visionary conception8 ,no1 it shall not be so6 ,painting as well as poetry and music exists and exults in immortal thoughts4 ,the connoisseurs and artists who have made objections to ,mr4 ,blake's mode of representing spirits with real bodies would do well to consider that the ,venus1 the ,minerva1 the ,jupiter1 the ,apollo1 which they admire in ,greek statues are all of them representations of spiritual existences--of gods immortal--to the ordinary perishing organ of sight2 and yet they are embodied and organized in solid marble4 ,mr4 ,blake requires the same latitude and all is well4 ,king ,edward and ,queen ,eleanor are prostrated with their horses at the foot of the rock on which the ,bard stands--prostrated by the terrors of his harp1 on the margin of the river ,conway1 whose waves bear up a corpse of a slaughtered bard at the foot of the rock4 ,the armies of ,edward are seen winding among the mountains4 ,he wound with toilsome march his long array6 ,mortimer and ,gloucester lie spellbound behind the ,king4 ,the execution of this picture is also in water-colours or fresco1 he added finally4 ,it was probably painted in water-colours with white of egg or glue on a medium of gesso4 ,the gloomy glory of its colour was a thing to ponder on4 ,like the dim silvery splendour of a pearl seen in the twilight of deep-sea waters1 so does it glint and gleam4 ,in no picture has ,blake brought home to us more directly the visible population of the world of his mind--its power and grandeur and mystery--than in the complex imagery of this great work4 ,the picture was probably painted in #aghe1 and was exhibited at the ,royal ,academy4 ,it afterwards appeared again at ,blake's own exhibition in #ahji4 ,it is a sad thing that he so seldom dated the pictures which he executed for his staunch friend and supporter ,mr4 ,butts4 ,the pictures in the ,exhibition1 with a very few exceptions1 were originally done for him1 but few of them could have an authentic date affixed to them4 ,all ,blake's original methods of working were here represented by splendid examples4 ,first there are the tempera pictures1 or frescoes1 as he termed them4 ,he would never paint in oil-colour1 because he thought and wrote that oil1 being a body itself1 will drink1 or absorb very little colour1 and changing yellow1 and at length brown1 destroys every colour it is mixed with1 especially every delicate colour4 ,it turns every permanent white to a yellow or brown putty1 and has compelled the use of that destroyer of colour1 white lead1 which when its protecting oil is evaporated will become lead again1 and he hotly affirmed the opinion that oil became a fetter to genius and a dungeon to art4 ,this being so1 he evolved a method of painting in water-colours1 stiffened with white of egg or dilute glue1 on a ground prepared with whiting or plaster and laid on copper or board4 ,when the fresco was finished he varnished it with a preparation of glue4 ,in his old age ,linnell lent him a copy of ,cennino ,cennini's ,trattato della pittura1 and he was delighted to find that the method he had always employed in his tempera pictures was very like that of the old sixteenth-century painter4 ,occasionally his pictures acquired the mellow harmony1 the indescribable deep1 yet faded tenderness of the old masters' tempera pictures1 as for instance that entitled ,bathsheba at the ,bath seen by ,david4 ,there is nothing supernatural or weird here1 save the flowers which grow around the pool1 and they are like the strange mysterious blooms that appear to one in dreams4 ,bathsheba1 nude and beautiful1 with her two childish attendants1 one on either side1 somehow recalls the work of ,masaccio and ,filippino ,lippi in the ,chapel of the ,carmine at ,florence1 perhaps because it is so nobly naturalistic in treatment4 ,another beautiful tempera is ,the ,flight into ,egypt4 ,it was painted in #agij--the year of the ,marriage of ,heaven and ,hell4 ,holman ,hunt developed in his magnificent picture of the same subject a poetic motive first used by ,blake4 ,the great may take from the great without shame4 ,the angelic spirits of the martyred ,innocents flutter around the ,mother and ,child1 while the ass on which they ride is followed by angels with great gloomy wings1 like night made visible and beneficent4 ,the ,virgin's little delicate face looks wistfully from the dim picture like one of ,gentile da ,fabbriano's small jewel-clear miniatures1 and a crescent moon shines vaguely silver through the darkness4 ,this is a picture of high and tender imaginative quality1 more in the spirit of old masters like ,fra ,angelico1 it must be admitted1 than characteristically ,blakean in expression4 ,there are three other methods used by ,blake1 of which one--the printed or engraved outline1 filled in with hand-wrought water-colour--is so familiar to us from the examples studied at the ,british ,museum1 that we need not linger to describe it again4 ,at the ,british ,museum we have also seen many of ,blake's colour-printed designs1 but not any nearly as fine as the two pictures entitled ,hecate and ,lamech and his two ,wives of the exhibition4 ,the process1 according to the younger ,tatham's account1 was as follows3 ,blake when he wanted to make his prints in oil1 took a common thick millboard and drew1 in some strong ink or colour1 his designs upon it strong and thick4 ,he then painted upon that in such oil colours and on such a state of fusion that they would blur well4 ,he painted roughly and quickly1 so that no colour would have time to dry4 ,he then took a print of that on paper1 and this impression he coloured up in water-colours1 repainting his outline on the millboard when he wanted to take another impression2 and each having a sort of accidental look1 he could branch out so as to make each one different4 ,the accidental look they had was very enticing4 ,the depth and grandeur of tone obtained in ,hecate are unique1 and1 united to the sombre majesty of the composition1 form a most satisfying work to eye and intellect4 ,looking closely at the technique1 the colour is seen to be collected in little pin-head dots all over the ground1 in a manner that clearly points to its having been impressed while yet wet1 with some carefully roughened surface1 but just what means were used to obtain this effect must always remain a mystery4 ,illustration3 ,,the ,,flight ,,into ,,egypt ,tempera painting4 ,reproduced by kind permission of ,mr4 ,w4 ,graham ,robertson ,the finest example of the process is1 however1 ,lamech and his two ,wives1 in which the tragic nature of the subject is deepened by the colour-printing1 here most successfully handled4 ,pure water-colour1 sometimes delicately outlined with the pen1 was ,blake's fourth mode of working1 and the exhibition had a goodly array of this class of work4 ,we have mentioned ,the ,river of ,life1 perhaps the most beautiful example extant1 but several others1 noticeably ,oberon1 ,titania1 and ,puck with fairies dancing and ,the ,wise and ,foolish ,virgins1 were very lovely4 ,the first represents ,blake in a rare mood1 his mysticism in abeyance1 and his temper one of aesthetic abandon4 ,we are so little accustomed to think of him as an artist of varied and wide appeal1 that this rhythmic dance1 which acted on the spectator like music1 surprised4 ,it has in it the delirious joy of elemental things4 ,the fairies' delicate muslins are fetched out like mist in the greenwood2 butterflies' wings and petals of flower adorn their dainty heads4 ,puck has wings on the back of his hands 7a new and delightful idea this671 and the rapid graceful movements of the dance do not seem to be arrested by their embodiment in a painting4 ,though this phase of ,blake is distinctly novel1 even strange to us1 it is entirely delightful4 ,there is no stress1 no repelling yet attractive mystery as in the ,hecate here4 ,it is just pure joie de vivre4 ,the ,wise and ,foolish ,virgins is much more characteristic of him4 ,the wise virgins in the foreground are ranged in a row1 their lamps by their sides4 ,their bodies and faces are smitten with a cold unearthly white light1 presumably1 but not obviously1 thrown by the lamps4 ,the modelling of their forms is most careful4 ,behind them1 issuing from a small hut1 the foolish virgins1 in wild confusion1 implore oil for their lamps4 ,the landscape in which the scene is laid is anything but ,eastern4 ,dark1 intensely green downs undulate and swell to meet the sky4 ,a lurid light defines the horizon1 and in the swathed masses of gray cloud above1 an angel blowing a trump 7suggesting a ,last ,judgement7 wings his fateful way4 ,it may easily be urged 7and the prosaic mind which only rejoices in the precise and neat imitation of what it can see is sure to exclaim7 that here is a defiance of all artistic rules1 a pitiable inability to copy the most ordinary natural phenomena1 proclaiming ,blake a wilful poseur or an unobservant madman4 ,here1 they exclaim1 is little atmosphere1 no distance1 no attempt at truth of tone1 and no comprehensible rendering of the light4 ,blake rendered it as he did because he chose2 because his masterly sense of style 7that is1 the treatment best suited to the representation of the idea1 his subjective vision7 required it to be so painted and thus only1 because he considered himself free to take from ,nature just what he needed for his purpose1 and never felt himself obliged to make an entire and wholly truthful representation of her4 ,to emphasize the light on the figures of the foreground1 he overcharged the colour in the sky and the downs behind1 and by this treatment obtained an effect productive of strange and solemn emotion in the beholder4 ,nature was to him shadow or reminiscence only1 and here he has defiantly subordinated the truth of the landscape to the spiritual truth of his subject4 ,illustration3 ,,oberon1 ,,titania ,,and ,,puck ,,with ,,fairies ,,dancing ,water-colour4 ,undated4 ,reproduced by kind permission of ,mr4 ,a4 ,a4 de ,pass ,the most significant types were revealed in his soul1 and owned a relationship to the visible creation only in so far as this relationship was necessary to render his art-work intelligible to the world4 ,his decorative sense approved of the white virgins set so statue-pale against the dark green of the downs4 ,the suddenness of the contrast1 the livid and supernatural effect1 were part of his deliberate intention4 ,so does the white fire of an intense spiritual alertness contrast with the opaque darkness of natural physical life4 ,for this scene1 taken from the parable of ,jesus1 is only another of those types which ,blake regarded in so wide and catholic a sense1 and which by his treatment he has lifted above all merely historical association into a realm of pure spiritual symbolism4 ,the pleasure derived from the examination of his collected pictures is rather that of a profound intellectual excitement than a purely aesthetic satisfaction4 ,the climax of this excitement is reached before the two pictures called1 respectively1 ,elohim creating ,adam and ,satan triumphing over ,eve4 ,how different is ,blake's conception of the former subject to ,michael ,angelo's1 and yet1 widely different as they are1 somehow we know them to be related4 ,elohim1 in the vortex of the winds1 lifts a face pale with awe and power1 as he calls into being from the clay below him a figure scarcely human yet1 and stamped with the stamp of terrestrial creeping mortality4 ,a snake binds one leg1 and there is no other suggestion of life about this half-developed repelling organism4 ,but presently ,elohim will breathe into the clay1 and then this thing 7which somehow recalls ,mrs4 ,shelley's ,frankenstein to my shuddering fancy67 will arise and live4 ,michael ,angelo chose the right moment1 the body made beautiful but languid1 and ,god's finger applied like a magnet to the limp hand through which the fiery currents of life are just beginning to flow in thrilling gushes into the perfect body4 ,but ,blake1 with a more curious care for the earlier part of the process of creation1 a more meditative and less dramatic sense1 invites us to dwell on1 not the final perfect beauty of created man1 but his partial evolution from the dark earth to which he will one day return4 ,the accidental character of the body of man1 the universal nature of the ,spirit of ,god1 without whose inspiration there is no beauty nor comeliness--these are thoughts on which he mused while painting this great and terrible picture4 ,the death-weary figure of ,eve in the companion picture was a haunting thing4 ,overcome by the serpent's wiles1 ,eve lies prostrate in the tightening coils1 and the cruel flat head is pressed upon the white breast1 whose power to resist is quite gone4 ,the struggle is over1 the delicate body is relaxed1 the little head has fallen back piteously1 and the eyes are closed1 for no blue heavens smile comfort down on her who lies so low in the dust4 ,satan in clouds of terror triumphs above her1 and her overthrow is complete4 ,a little sketch in pencil1 ink and wash1 called ,satan1 ,sin and ,death1 has a human figure 7strangely enough that of ,satan71 finely posed1 and drawn with infinite power4 ,the vigorous torso1 slender hips1 fine and muscular legs1 are classic in their heroic proportions1 but it must be admitted that the inspiration of the sketch as a whole is below ,blake's level4 ,i must notice a very fine and highly-finished water-colour1 called ,the ,judgment of ,paris4 ,the subject was a congenial one to ,blake1 who entertained the most original notions about classic legend and literature4 ,he wrote in the ,descriptive ,catalogue3 ,the ,artist 7,blake7 having been taken in vision into the ancient republics1 monarchies1 and patriachates of ,asia1 has seen those wonderful originals called in the sacred scriptures the ,cherubim1 which were sculptured and painted on walls of temples1 towers1 cities1 palaces1 and erected in the highly-cultivated ,states of ,egypt1 ,moab1 ,eden1 ,arum among the rivers of ,paradise--being the originals from which the ,greeks and ,hetruvians copied ,hercules ,farnese1 ,venus of ,medicis1 ,apollo ,belvedere1 and all the grand works of ancient art4444 ,no man can believe that either ,homer's ,mythology or ,ovid's was the production of ,greece or ,latium2 neither will anyone believe that the ,greek statues1 as they are called1 were the invention of ,greek artists2 perhaps the ,torso is the only original work remaining1 all the rest being evidently copies1 though fine ones1 from the greater works of the ,asiatic patriarchs4 ,the ,greek muses are daughters of ,mnemosyne or ,memory1 and not of ,inspiration or ,imagination1 therefore not authors of such sublime conceptions4 ,in this ingenious way did ,blake seek to justify his admiration for the old pagan art1 the old pagan mythology4 ,they were recollections of symbols and ideas given by ,god to the ancient patriarchs of the ,old ,testament1 and from them had filtered through to the civilization of ,greece and ,rome4 ,to ,blake it all amounted to this1 ,god hath not left ,himself without witnesses1 and he vehemently protested against any race1 age1 or religion arrogating to itself the authorship of ideas which should only be ascribed to ,god4 ,so that the ,judgment of ,paris is treated like the biblical subjects1 as a spiritual parable4 ,when the apple of desire is given to mere sensual beauty instead of to moral or intellectual beauty1 ,love1 the winged spirit1 flies away1 and ,discord1 the malformed demon1 arrives4 ,the three goddesses' forms1 delicate as reeds1 pure as ,blake's austere imagination1 and modelled with tender care for their lovely limbs1 hands and faces1 awaken in us a great wonder at the technique he could command when he chose4 ,one of the tenderest and most beautiful of ,blake's slightly tinted drawings1 ,the ,vision of ,queen ,katherine--we are enabled to reproduce through the kindness of its present owner1 ,sir ,charles ,dilke4 ,the composition is of exceeding harmony1 the delicate outlines being suave1 fluent1 gracious1 to a singular degree4 ,sweetness and tenderness are its predominant characteristics1 and it is without a rival among ,blake's works in this respect1 saving perhaps for the picture1 ,and when they had sung an hymn they ascended unto the ,mount of ,olives4 ,katherine1 sick unto death1 has been soothed to sleep by music3 ,cause the musicians play me that sad note ,i named my knell1 whilst ,i sit meditating ,on that celestial harmony ,i go to1 she had asked4 ,griffith and ,patience sit beside her1 unconscious of the vision that is blessing her sleep4 ,katherine1 beautiful and crowned1 makes in her sleep signs of rejoicing1 and holdeth up her hands to heaven4 ,angels of diminutive but exquisite forms float in circles above her1 and two are holding a crown of laurels over her head4 ,many pictures--the ,indian ink drawing called ,the ,deluge1 an infinite waste of stormy sea2 ,the ,entombment1 a picture of solemn intensity and originality2 and others deserve description and comment1 but space does not allow4 ,the exhibition was an occasion of much illumination to ,blake's admirers1 and the thoughts on his art which it gave rise to may be happily summarized in a passage from ,heine's ,salon3 ,art attains its highest value when the symbol1 apart from its inner meaning1 delights our senses externally1 like the flowers of a selam1 which without regard to their secret signification are blooming and lovely1 bound in a bouquet4 ,illustration3 ,,the ,,vision ,,of ,,queen ,,katherine1 ,,from ,,shakspere',s ,,henry ,,viii4 ,slightly tinted pencil drawing1 executed in #ahjg for ,mr4 ,butts4 ,reproduced by kind permission of ,sir ,charles ,dilke ,but is such concord always possible8 ,is the artist so completely free in choosing and binding his mysterious flowers8 ,or does he only choose and bind together what he must8 ,i affirm this question of mystical un-freedom or want of will4 ,the artist is like that somnambula princess who plucked by night in the garden of ,bagdad1 inspired by the deep wisdom of love1 the strangest flowers1 and bound them into a selam1 of whose meaning she remembered nothing when she awoke4 ,there she sat in the morning in her harem1 and looked at the bouquet de nuit1 musing on it as over a forgotten dream1 and finally sent it to the beloved ,caliph4 ,the fat eunuch who brought it greatly enjoyed the beautiful flowers without suspecting their meaning4 ,but ,haroun al ,raschid1 the commander of the faithful1 the follower of the ,prophet1 the possessor of the ring of ,solomon1 he recognized the deep meaning of the beautiful bouquet2 his heart bounded with delight2 he kissed every blossom1 and laughed till tears ran down his long beard4 ,we may not be followers of the ,prophet1 nor rejoice in long beards or magic rings1 yet ,i dare assert that in entering into the meaning1 the deep ,innigkeit of the selam which ,blake presented to us1 we have entered on a new phase of spiritual and artistic life not less intensely delightful than the joy experienced by the ,prophet4 ,,chapter ,,xii ,,engravings ,,and ,,drawings ,,in ,,the ,,print ,,room ,i am afraid that the first view of ,blake's engraving of ,the ,canterbury ,pilgrimage will prejudice the spectator unfavourably towards our artist1 even if the work by him already seen has made its fascination felt4 ,especially will this prejudice be heightened if the engraving from ,stothard's picture of the same subject be set against ,blake's and compared with it1 for ,blake's astonishes and repels on first sight1 while ,stothard's pleases at once4 ,in ,stothard's composition the variety of the company1 and especially of the horses they ride1 is charming4 ,very different are the grim ranks of ,blake's procession1 the ten horses therein exhibiting only three positions among them1 and those positions being all traditionally faithful to the hobby-horse type4 ,stothard's motley throng are gracefully habited1 and appear dainty and spruce in spite of the dust of the highway as they amble along4 ,his lighting of the picture1 the firm and effective modelling of the horses and their riders1 the wide range of tones amounting almost to colour itself1 give a satisfying richness which we fail to find in ,blake's picture4 ,the whole composition is harmonious1 and for those who desire nothing further of art than that it shall cater for the eye without much or intimate reference to the mind1 then ,stothard's graceful performance is indeed pre-eminent4 ,turning to ,blake's picture1 we find he has catered for the mind1 but1 having done that1 he has denied us the one thing of which ,stothard is so prodigal--beauty4 ,in his restless search beneath the surface with which beauty obviously is concerned1 for the things of the spirit and the intelligence underlying the appearance1 ,blake has here lost sight of art's first principle1 beauty in the whole1 as the result of the parts4 ,the composition in its entirety is not beautiful4 ,it has no harmony4 ,it is an accretion of separate parts1 made out without reference to the picture's final unity4 ,these parts1 although some are beautiful in themselves1 are not intimately related to each other1 and contribute so little towards a general predominant scheme that the effect of discord is produced1 and the multitudinous meanings and intentions with which each figure is fraught over-weight the composition and confuse the beholder2 the simple reason of all this being1 that the first obligation of the painter1 his sense of harmony and balance1 has been ruthlessly violated4 ,perhaps ,blake's sense of style--about which ,i imagine he never reasoned1 it being innate and intuitive--deserted him on this one occasion1 because anger was making havoc in his heart and blinding his eyes4 ,the conditions under which he worked1 it will be remembered1 must have been destructive to all concentration and artistic isolation of mood4 ,still1 as ,i have said1 though sadly wanting as a whole1 there is beauty of an intricate and curious sort in the details4 ,look on the wide expanse of swelling downs over-arched by the tragic splendour of an evening sky4 ,here the thought1 as ever with ,blake1 is lifted up above the accidents1 into the eternal and the infinite4 ,but ,stothard's gentle hills and bowery trees shut out such vistas1 and he concerns himself scarcely at all about the sky1 which is merely the background on which to throw up the graceful heads of his graceful unintelligent folk4 ,the characteristic group of children with their mother and grandfather1 which ,blake has set beside the gateway of the ,tabard ,inn1 has great beauty as a single motive4 ,no labour has been spared to make all faithful to the ,chaucerian conception3 the curious semi-,gothic gateway1 the crowding pigeons1 the barbaric splendours of the wife of ,bath1 the mediaeval figure of the knight1 whose face reminds one somewhat of the supposed portrait of ,cimabue in the ,chapel of the ,spaniards in ,santa ,maria ,novella2 all have been wrought with painful care4 ,the work is an illustration of ,blake's principle enunciated in his notes on ,reynolds' ,discourses and elsewhere that ,real effect is making out of parts1 and it is nothing else but that4 ,perhaps the strangest trait the engraving exhibits in comparison with ,stothard's is that it looks so antique4 ,it might have been executed a hundred years earlier than the other picture1 so wilfully grotesque and archaic is it4 ,yes1 wilfully is the word1 for ,blake wished to make his procession as stiff and quaint and rich as the stately ,chaucerian language that first painted the scene1 forgetting perhaps that the two arts of poetry and painting achieve the same end through widely different conditions1 and according to processes contiguous1 but non-interchangeable4 ,the want of ease1 of careless and familiar naturalism in the engraving1 may recall to those who look for it the splendid and ceremonious language of the old story-teller4 ,the description written by ,blake of his own design 7it will be found in ,gilchrist7 shows how he loved and understood ,chaucer1 and1 we may add1 how very loosely the poem was grasped1 and with what want of truth to the original it was represented by his rival4 ,lamb said of the engraving itself that it was a work of wonderful power and spirit1 hard and dry1 yet with grace1 and the ,descriptive ,catalogue--a copy of which was given him by ,crabb ,robinson--pleased him greatly2 the part devoted to an analysis of the characters in the ,canterbury ,pilgrimage he found to be the finest criticism of ,chaucer's poem he had ever read4 ,savagely powerful as it is1 the engraving is merely an interesting and not a vital utterance of ,blake4 ,the tempera picture from which it was engraved was bought by ,mr4 ,butts1 but has been lost sight of now for many years4 ,stothard's oil painting of the same subject is in the ,national ,gallery4 ,turning to the other original single engravings of ,blake in the ,print ,room1 we find several of interest4 ,there is that early one1 designed and engraved in #aghj1 which has been called ,glad ,day1 and is the expression of a mood oftener felt in ,blake's early manhood than in the ensuing years of chafing complexity and multitudinous emotions4 ,i have wondered whether it be not the pictorial embodiment of the vision which he saw of the ,spiritual ,sun on ,primrose ,hill1 described by him to ,crabb ,robinson4 ,among the original engravings here may be seen the broadsheet of ,little ,tom the ,sailor1 executed by ,blake for ,hayley while at ,felpham in #ahjj1 for a charitable purpose4 ,hayley's verses and ,blake's designs were bitten in with stopping-out varnish on the pewter plate of the original from which the prints are taken4 ,in the designs setting out the misfortunes of a poor widow and the heroism of her little son he has given us one theme of natural scenery--a winding path1 a little wood surmounted by bare folded downs--testifying to the invasion which the obvious beauty of ,felpham had made on his artistic consciousness2 while the other illustration represents the tragic moment when little ,tom on the wreck is about to be drowned2 over the trough of deep sea the spiritual form of his father appears ready to receive and embrace his soul4 ,mrs4 ,blake's hand unfortunately has coloured the ,print ,room copy4 ,and now let us turn to the pen-and-ink etchings to ,dante1 designed and executed for ,mr4 ,linnell between the years #ahbd and #ahbg1 the year of ,blake's death4 ,there are seven of them1 wrought by the pen1 which had become so deliberate1 careful and delicate in execution during these last years of his life4 ,let us linger over two of them for a moment4 ,among the many pictures of ,paolo and ,francesca that exist1 was there ever seen anything like this of ,blake's imagining8 ,you may prefer others--,ary ,scheffer's1 ,dante ,rossetti's1 or ,mr4 ,g4 ,f4 ,watts'--you may object that this one has not grappled with the passionate love-motive of the story1 that it has omitted the note of yearning1 of beloved pain1 with which ,dante's conception is fraught4 ,the austerity of a mind which theorized much on the subject of love--the love of man and woman--but knew actually very little of its vehemence1 its trouble1 and its languorous sweetness1 forbade ,blake to focus in the figures of ,paolo and ,francesca the ideal tragedy of those whom love bereav'd of life4 ,the scene as a whole--that second circle of the ,inferno1 in which ,the stormy blast of hell ,with restless fury drives the spirits on1 ,whirl'd round and dashed amain ,with sore annoy-- was what arrested his imagination4 ,here1 in his rendering of the subject1 the blast has torn upward in a visible ribbon-like vortex from the surface of the waters1 bearing within it1 as images in a crystal1 the innumerable figures of the world's great lovers4 ,from a spit of land1 ,paolo and ,francesca1 fluttering light before the wind1 appear in a single tongue of flame1 and ,dante lies stretched upon the ground--through compassion fainting4 ,virgil is seen irradiated by the effulgent light which trembles around the disc wherein the immortal kiss--that which ,rostand calls l'instant d'infini--is poetically represented4 ,illustration3 ,,the ,,circle ,,of ,,the ,,lustful ,fine ,indian ink pen drawing1 in the ,print ,room1 #ahbe-f4 ,francesca da ,rimini1 ,canto ,v4 of the ,inferno ,as usual1 the force1 the unusualness of the conception1 rather than its ideal beauty are the points we notice first4 ,but closer study attests to its beauty too4 ,mere literary interest would give the picture no real claim to artistic regard4 ,but ,blake felt the drawing of each bounding line as a thing of beauty in itself1 having an aesthetic element of its own1 apart from its representative or symbolic use4 ,in that coil of entangled fates1 what manifold themes of pure sensuous beauty are to be found6 ,for instance--just at the leap and bend of the circle--appears a woman with arms extended in the fluent wind1 like a bird in flight1 and a man's embrace encircles her neck--a man whose face she kisses rapturously4 ,leaping1 floating1 falling1 the multitudinous figures are borne onward by the resistless force of that terrible blast2 and1 however foreign or antipathetic this embodiment of ,dante's vision may seem to us1 we are bound to admit that its imaginative scope is of a temper characteristic not only of ,blake1 but of the ,florentine himself4 ,an aspect of ,dante's conception is developed and emphasized here in a manner which has not been attempted in any other picture of the subject4 ,the other pen-and-ink drawing from the ,inferno represents ,dante and ,virgil in the ,circle of the ,traitors1 with the head of ,bocca degli ,abati breaking through the lake of ice at the foot of ,dante4 ,blake has given strangely passionless faces to his ,dante and ,virgil1 but the pure simple lines of their figures are severely congruous with the scene1 and the iceberg1 formed of shadowy frozen figures to the right1 is powerfully suggested by a few lines of sufficient economy4 ,the picture is another of those unique embodiments from which1 once seen and dwelt on1 the modern imagination can never release itself4 ,gustave ,dore's sensational rendering of the same scene seems to me to acknowledge an inspiration at this source4 ,the other five designs to ,dante merit a description and attention which space does not allow us to give them here4 ,they are of great power1 but whether the unflinching realization of the terrible imaginings of ,dante is permissible in pictorial art--where the visual representation attacks the emotions and intellect with a poignancy that words1 however forcible1 can never attain--is a question the discussion of which may provide food for argument to critics of the school of ,lessing4 ,for my own part1 ,i incline to the opinion that they overstep the bounds of terror authorized in art1 and approach the confines of the horrible in the treatment of the main motive of each design--,admirably horrid1 ,mr4 ,w4 ,m4 ,rossetti pronounces them4 ,the unwavering truth to ,dante's detailed descriptions is beyond question1 however4 ,the inmost sanctuary of an artist's mind is far more accessible through his pencil sketches than through his final consummated pictures and designs4 ,there is something so intimate1 so personal in these manifestations of himself1 that in regarding them ,i have something of the feeling of one who listens unseen to a man thinking aloud4 ,nothing convinces one of the labour1 the thought1 the balancing1 the rejections1 the careful choice1 that go to make up a picture like the study of the sketches made for it4 ,the peculiarity of ,blake's pencil sketches is their vehemence1 and the absence in them of all hesitation4 ,he seems from the first moment of conception to know exactly what he means to do1 and rough1 almost hieroglyphic1 as the first shadow of his idea may appear at first sight1 we have only to compare it with the design or picture which eventually resulted from it1 to see that all the rapid short-hand lines of the sketch1 block out accurately the disposition of the main parts of the design1 the final attitude of the figures therein1 without as a rule any real variation from the first idea having taken place in the working out4 ,this testifies more than anything else to the distinctness of the vision seen by ,blake1 and his eager passionate discernment of it4 ,among such sketches of clearly apprehended vision is that for ,the ,soul exploring the recesses of the ,grave1 the final design of which we are already very familiar with4 ,it is executed with a broad-ended chalk pencil1 in quick unhesitating lines4 ,there is not a single touch that cannot be traced1 that is not an essential development1 in the finished picture1 so that we know ,blake saw it all from the first1 complete then in his mind's eye as on the day when he finished the detailed drawing for the engraver4 ,another sketch of the same order is one which1 although it does not belong to any public collection1 is so important as to excuse a reference to it here4 ,through the great kindness of ,mr4 ,frederick ,shields1 to whom it belongs1 ,i am enabled to reproduce it4 ,the two motives of the picture in ,blair's ,grave1 called ,death's ,door1 had been favourite ones with ,blake1 and used by him separately in ,the ,gates of ,paradise1 ,the ,marriage of ,heaven and ,hell1 and ,america1 before he combined them so felicitously in the noble design which ranks among his best works4 ,the sketch by ,blake belonging to ,mr4 ,shields would seem to represent the moment when he first realized the power and significance and beauty to be obtained by their incorporation in one design4 ,of this conception it must be admitted that it grew in ,blake's mind after the first flashing vision of it1 and was not from the beginning discernible in all the splendour to which it was eventually developed4 ,here is another beautiful and careful sketch of a female figure diving through the air4 ,the force of her perpendicular flight1 the attitude of one leg 7the left1 not the right1 however7 recall the ,reunion of the ,soul and the ,body1 but this figure is undraped1 and the arms are extended downwards1 and indeed the differences are so numerous that it cannot be regarded as a sketch for that picture4 ,in all probability it is a preliminary study for one of the numerous figures in the ,last ,judgment which he executed for the ,countess of ,egremont in #ahjg4 ,looking at the terse expressive little drawing1 we are reminded of ,blake's golden rule of art--that the more distinct1 sharp1 and wiry the boundary line1 the more perfect the work of art4 ,ah6 but how he played with his line6 ,wiry at least it never was1 say what ,blake would6 ,he never painted it1 but felt his way along with sympathetic accuracy4 ,and with what infinite inflexions of tenderness and strength did his pencil impress itself on the paper1 indicating by that rare quality of touch more than form and modelling--almost1 one had said--the very nature of the flesh of the figures he drew4 ,speaking of ,blake's drawings1 the manner in which he drew the muscular form of the male leg is very noticeable and strangely characteristic of him4 ,another line he felt very tenderly was the curved sweep of a woman's back from shoulder to indented waist1 and downwards to delicate ankles and heels4 ,illustration3 ,,undated ,,pencil ,,sketch ,,for ,,death',s ,,door ,reproduced by kind permission of ,mr4 ,frederic ,j4 ,shields ,let us linger a minute over another of what ,i may call ,blake's shorthand sketches in the ,print ,room collection4 ,it is undoubtedly the first idea for the picture entitled ,the ,spiritual form of ,nelson guiding ,leviathan1 in whose wreathings are enfolded the nations of the earth4 ,the finished picture appeared in ,blake's own exhibition in #ahji2 it is now in the possession of ,t4 ,w4 ,jackson1 ,esq41 of ,worcester ,college1 ,oxford4 ,in the sketch1 ,nelson is drawn symbolically as a young sea-god1 nude and commanding4 ,he stands firmly on a coil of ,leviathan's body1 which rearing and circling surrounds him like a frame4 ,we can just distinguish the human forms caught in the serpent's toils1 and its great mouth is in the act of devouring a man4 ,the mouth is bridled1 and the reins held by ,nelson's hand4 ,the symbolism is easy enough to understand and requires no explanation4 ,a carefully shaded and conscientious drawing of a naked man with arms upraised testifies to the fact that ,blake did work from the model sometimes4 ,but how cold such work appears--valuable and necessary as it is--compared with the passionate half-defined sketches1 the mood of which transfers to us something of the high pleasure that ,blake himself felt in making these burning transcripts from his imagination or visions4 ,i had much ado to make out the subject of the pen-and-wash sketch of a woman and man with a group of people on their knees in a cornfield4 ,in the distance a thunder-cloud emits a lightning flash4 ,mr4 ,shields tells me that he and ,dante ,gabriel ,rossetti spent an evening trying to decipher a larger and more definite sketch of the same idea1 and finally decided that it was an illustration of the following verses 7#a ,sam4 xii4 #af-ai73 ,now therefore stand and see this great thing which the ,lord will do before your eyes4 ,is it not wheat harvest to-day8 ,i will call unto the ,lord and he shall send thunder and rain2 that ye may perceive and see that your wickedness is great1 which ye have done in the sight of the ,lord1 in asking you a king4 ,so ,samuel called unto the ,lord1 and the ,lord sent thunder and rain that day2 and all the people greatly feared the ,lord and ,samuel4 ,among the many other sketches which space does not permit me to comment on1 are two very beautiful studies in red chalk1 showing ,blake to be a master of line indeed4 ,of his engravings after designs by ,stothard1 ,romney1 ,flaxman1 ,hogarth1 examples of which the ,print ,room possesses1 it is not necessary to speak1 for this book is not concerned with engraving or any other technical branch of art4 ,its purpose is merely to examine into1 and if possible lay bare1 the nature of the artistic impulse that makes the work of ,blake--as we may all know it in our public collections--so rare and so precious a thing4 ,but though we shall not concern ourselves with these engravings1 as they contribute nothing to our purpose1 it is interesting to look at the numerous copies which our artist made from prints of ,michael ,angelo's frescoes on the roof of the ,sistine1 from drawings after the antique1 and from ,cumberland's ,designs for ,engravings4 ,these latter are pen drawings of ,greek figures--similar to those represented on old black and yellow vases--and display the ,greek ideal of form1 so beautiful yet so passionless and un-individual1 when compared with the figures of the great ,florentine1 in which the soul with all its struggles is apparent4 ,copying such diverse work faithfully--for1 wrote ,blake1 servile copying is the great merit of copying--must have made him think1 compare1 choose4 ,goethe says that his study of the ancient classic literature convinced him that a vast abundance of objects must lie before us ere we can think upon them1--that we must accomplish something1 nay1 fail in something1 before we can learn our own capacities and those of others4 ,and this was much more the case with ,blake and his art than might be supposed4 ,it was not ignorance of other ideals1 of other methods of thought and work1 that caused him to take the artistic path he did2 it was definite choice1 the ratification of his innate1 strongly individualistic tendencies1 resulting from comparing them with the characteristic principles of art exhibited in other ages1 other masters4 ,blake in fact copied a good deal2 he himself writes in his notes on ,reynolds1 the difference between a bad artist and a good one is3 the bad artist seems to copy a great deal1 the good one really does copy a great deal4 ,illustration3 ,,head ,,of ,,an ,,old ,,man ,pencil1 pen1 and wash drawing4 ,undated ,turning to his water-colour sketches in the ,print ,room1 ,i consider the finest to be a very portrait-like head of an old man4 ,it was evidently put in in pencil and pale washes of colour1 and afterwards strengthened1 rather daringly1 with pen-and-ink outlines4 ,the face with its deep eyes and noble contours is that of a seer1 awestruck before his vision4 ,it is in such work as this--swift1 strong and delicate--that we see ,blake at his best4 ,in finished work--such little as he has left us--some heat1 some fire seems to have escaped1 but in sketches such as this the inspiration is contained in all its strongly-spiced vitality2 that which is left undone1 assisting that which is done1 in producing an impression of energy and imaginative development4 ,a pale-tinted1 very careful and elaborate drawing of the ,whore of ,babylon1 as ,blake imagined her1 next claims our attention4 ,it was etched and reproduced by ,william ,bell ,scott4 ,never did ,blake represent so voluptuous1 so sensual a face1 as this of the ,whore of ,babylon1 which in spite of its beauty is of the same type as that of the ,wife of ,bath in his ,canterbury ,pilgrimage4 ,in its expression it has no fellow1 save perhaps the face of ,leda in ,michael ,angelo's small statuette in the ,bargello4 ,the woman is seated on a seven-headed semi-human monster1 and she holds in her hand a cup out of which smoke issues and condenses in the forms of floating men and women of incomparable grace4 ,these swim around her head in a long ribbon-like streamer1 and as the little figures reach the ground they are devoured by the seven heads4 ,they symbolize the pleasures1 ambitions1 lusts of this world4 ,another beautiful water-colour1 in faint and tender colour1 is perhaps the very vignette for ,blair's ,grave1 which ,blake sent to ,cromek with his verses of dedication to the ,queen1 and which was returned on his hands with such a cruel and insulting letter4 ,part of this design has been etched and reproduced by ,william ,bell ,scott4 ,a mother and her young family1 from whose ankles the chains of mortality have just been severed1 ascend upward with looks of solemn exaltation on their rapt faces4 ,they form a noble group4 ,above1 on the left1 is an angel with a sword and key who has presumably just set them free2 he is ,death1 ,i suppose--a young and beautiful ,death2 while to the right is another ,apollo-like being1 who holds a pair of scales and represents ,st4 ,michael4 ,in the most ancient ,italian pictures the ,archangel is often pictured as weighing the souls of the newly dead4 ,a large and very important water-colour drawing is called the ,lazar ,house1 from ,milton4 ,it is one of ,blake's terrible works1 and has a tendency to haunt the memory unpleasantly4 ,it is very powerful4 ,illustration3 ,,the ,,whore ,,of ,,babylon ,water colour drawing1 #ahji ,a great blind1 bearded figure1 with outstretched arms--,death in another aspect--is suspended in air over a scene of painfulness and intense horror1 such as few artists would dare to represent4 ,the victims of plague are writhing in death-agonies on the floor1 while a figure to the right1 with sinister face and nervous hand clutching a bolt 7or is it a knife871 fills the spectator with insane shudderings and alarm4 ,he eyes the sufferers with gloating satisfaction1 and the fact that he is coloured green as verdigris from head to foot does not detract from his horrible fascinations4 ,i can never get over the feeling that pictures such as these caused ,blake profound pain1 that indeed he sought relief from their dominion over his mental life by turning the vision that haunted him into a definite artistic image1 thus by the act of projection getting rid of the disquieting1 the torturing inward tyrant4 ,for with him1 as ,i have striven to show1 all thought came with the definiteness of vision2 so that he could not read ,milton's or ,dante's descriptions without seeing the thing described1 immediately start into visible being before him4 ,a finished and elaborate water-colour of a female recumbent figure on a tomb1 with a foreground starred with brilliant flowers1 is called ,letho ,similis1 but in no respect is it like ,blake's work1 and there seems no reason whatever to consider it as having been done by his hand1 except that it has passed as his for a long time4 ,so acute a critic as ,mr4 ,w4 ,m4 ,rossetti casts doubt on the authorship of the work in his descriptive catalogue4 ,on the whole ,i think the review of ,blake's pencil sketches and drawings impress one as powerfully as any of the work of his which we have previously seen1 and mainly for the reason that it is in these that we can most clearly trace his thoughts in process of evolution4 ,and now all that remains for us to do is to visit the ,national ,gallery1 and there in the little octagonal room behind the ,turner ,gallery seek out those few precious works which are the representatives of his genius to the public at large4 ,whether that public often penetrates here1 or1 being here1 lingers even momently before the few strange little pictures by ,blake which it contains1 may be questioned4 ,that they are not popular1 and that the little room is never crowded1 needs no demonstration4 ,blake's greatness is not of the kind that can ever compete successfully with the claims of such masters as his contemporaries--,stothard1 ,romney1 ,gainsborough and ,reynolds--whose brilliant and alluring work adorns the galleries through which one must pass to reach the little octagonal room where his few pictures1 modestly retired behind the door1 await such as will patiently seek them out4 ,first let us look at the water-colour numbered #dc1 entitled ,david delivered out of ,deep ,waters4 ,it has qualities of handling akin to the ,river of ,life1 belonging to ,captain ,butts1 and the conception is specially ,blakean4 ,david1 with his arms bound round with cords1 floats symbolically on dark waters4 ,above1 seven cherubim1 with wings interlacing like the shields of a phalanx1 swoop down in rhythmic ranks1 with ,christ in their centre4 ,the remarkable thing about these cherubim is that two have the faces of children1 two those of old white-bearded men1 two those of mature manhood1 while the centre one alone1 immediately below ,christ1 has the face of a beautiful youth4 ,the figure and attitude of the ,saviour have a noble grace1 but the face is weak and ineffectual1 as is usual with ,blake when treating the divine lineaments4 ,the effect of the picture--with those strong1 ordered wings in ranks1 recalling the banners borne in some rich church procession--is one of curious symmetry1 of almost heraldic composition4 ,a delicate and remote strangeness of imagination makes itself felt in every line1 every tint2 and the range of tone is noticeably peculiar1 the deepest and highest parts of the scale being used with great effect1 while no recourse has been had to the intermediate gamut1 so that there is no full body of colour present at all4 ,the nearest approach to it is the quivering pale golden light that is diffused around the figure of ,christ4 ,illustration3 ,,david1 ,,delivered ,,out ,,of ,,many ,,waters ,water-colour4 ,in ,national ,gallery1 undated ,no4 #aafd1 ,the ,procession from ,calvary1 is a tempera picture reminiscent in quality of colour of the quattrocento ,italian masters4 ,stiff1 composed and straight is the body of ,jesus laid on the bier4 ,three pairs of bearers support the holy burden on their shoulders4 ,the ,virgin alone1 and two other women side by side1 follow the cortege1 while in the distance ,calvary1 with its three crosses1 may be seen2 and ,jerusalem is represented by a group of buildings defiantly ,gothic in character4 ,the bearers and the women moving across the foreground so majestically1 so quietly1 might be the somewhat stiff rendering of an idea1 inspired by the procession in a basrelief on some old ,greek or ,roman sarcophagus1 such as ,mantegna or ,andrea del ,castagno worked out on canvas4 ,then there is a highly-finished water-colour of an allegory--numbered #dd--to be studied4 ,it is soon evident to the spectator that the elaborate composition owns as central motive the ,atonement1 with all the symbolic correspondences which in the scriptures predicted it4 ,at the highest point of the picture is a medallion wherein the ,almighty is represented4 ,dull flames flicker and smoke around1 while on them is inscribed in very small writing the significant words ,god out of ,christ is a consuming fire4 ,this1 as we know1 was a much-insisted-on doctrine of ,blake's1 for he seems to have denied at times the responsible fatherhood of ,god2 and never did he share the respectable conception of ,him1 prevalent at that day even more than in this1 which ,tennyson so aptly defined as an immeasurable clergyman4 ,below the medallion are little scenes displaying the ,death of ,abel1 the ,flood1 the ,sacrifice of ,isaac1 the ,transfiguration1 and1 finally1 the symbolic ,vision of the ,holy ,grail4 ,all these separate but related motives are woven together1 with subsidiary scenes to right and left1 into one intricate and most beautiful scheme4 ,the low tones of the composition1 the dim1 delicate tinting1 bring the varied and multitudinous parts into a harmony of effect that is very delightful1 while the spiritual and intellectual material with which it is characteristically builded up1 send our thoughts voyaging out like birds over the sea of religious mysticism4 ,i have left the most important picture to be dealt with last4 ,the tempera picture1 numbered #aaaj1 was painted as the companion to ,nelson and ,leviathan--a sketch for which is in the ,british ,museum1 it will be remembered--and was shown for the first time at ,blake's own exhibition in #ahji4 ,in his ,descriptive ,catalogue the title ran as follows3 ,the spiritual form of ,pitt guiding ,behemoth2 he is that ,angel1 who1 pleased to perform the ,almighty's orders1 rides on the whirlwind directing the storms of war2 he is ordering the ,reaper to reap the vine of the earth1 and the ,ploughman to plough up the cities and towers4 ,at first sight the figure of a beautiful young man is the one thing that stands out clearly from the dim splendour and bewildering detail of the picture4 ,this noble form1 instinct with power and authority1 represents the spiritual body of ,pitt4 ,a gleaming halo surrounds his head1 and the background is massed with seething indistinct figures4 ,here and there strange glancing lights and phosphorescent stars emit a milky radiance1 but it is some few minutes before the eye can distinguish the head and back of ,leviathan4 ,on either side of the great halo appears a man's form2 one holds the crescent moon by way of sickle1 the other presses heavily upon a harrow4 ,they are the ,reaper1 ,death1 and the ,ploughman ,equality4 ,all is steeped in gloomy twilight touched here and there with subdued yet brilliant light1 as of moonlight on water4 ,strange little figures seem to gather form out of the brownish mist before one's very eyes1 and there is something of a miraculous charm on this cosmos--the fruit of the travail of ,blake's intellect4 ,illustration3 ,,the ,,spiritual ,,form ,,of ,,pitt ,,guiding ,,behemoth ,tempera4 #ahji or earlier4 ,in the ,national ,gallery ,of serenity1 of clarity1 there is none2 but ,blake's virtue1 his quality with its necessary attendant defects1 dominates this work and makes it precious in the sense of a unique record of a unique conception4 ,therefore it is fittingly placed as a representative of ,blake's genius in our ,national ,palace of ,art4 ,what the place assigned to ,blake by future generations will be is not for me to predict4 ,that he has been gravely misapprehended and foolishly neglected until the last few years is common knowledge1 but even to-day the ranks of his true lovers are scattered and few1 though there are some people who affirm that an exaggerated distinction1 an inflated value1 attaches to his name at present1 as a result of the swing of time's pendulum4 ,such people1 however1 are not among those who under any circumstances would be likely to admire ,blake or appreciate his unique point of view4 ,this little book has had for its object1 not the imparting of any new facts about him1 nor the technical discussion of his works1 but the reverent and sympathetic meditation on our own ,national ,blake treasures1 with a view to understanding the great spirit who projected them4 ,i have attempted to point out their essential beauties and value1 not from the vantage-ground of the connoisseur1 but from the point of view of the sympathetic observer4 ,i have sought to explain1 to justify1 the affinity felt for them by those to whom the doctrine of ,art for art's sake is not an all-satisfying thesis1 who would fain find in plastic art a language expressive of spiritual intuitions and revelation4 ,blake's mission undoubtedly was to discover in his representations of visible phenomena the spiritual cause1 or correspondence1 of which it appeared to him to be merely a type4 ,how far his ideas are consistent with the conditions and scope of an art which must necessarily concern itself with surfaces and appearances1 it is hard to say4 ,his view of art's function was largely1 but not wholly true1 yet in its special application was profoundly noble and salutary4 ,exaggerated1 perhaps1 in his recoil from the materialism and preoccupation with physical and natural beauties as ends in themselves which characterized the art of his day1 he set to work to liberate one hitherto unsuspected aspect of art's functions1 at the expense of belittling the recognized and practised articles of belief recited in her honour by the masters of his time4 ,the innerness of art2 that is what he was concerned about4 ,impetuously1 passionately he stormed along the rugged track he had set himself to explore1 ignoring much of beauty and truth to either side of him1 because his eyes were so steadfastly fixed on his goal4 ,to-day we acclaim him as the heroic and devoted priest of a new and yet old altar to ,art1 the flame of which has been kept burning since his time by ,dante ,gabriel ,rossetti and the ,pre-,raphaelites1 and ,mr4 ,g4 ,f4 ,watts4 ,,index ,academy1 ,royal1 ,blake attends the schools of1 #f1 #ej4 ,academy1 ,royal1 ,exhibits at1 #h1 #ad1 #dc4 ,academy1 ,royal1 ,a grant from1 #ej4 ,accusers1 ,the ,three1 #aba4 ,ahania1 ,the ,book of1 #bc1 #abj4 ,america1 #bc2 described1 #ajg2 a cancel-sheet for1 #aba4 ,ancient of ,days1 ,the1 #ef1 #aab4 ,apprenticeship to ,basire1 #e1 #bj4 ,atonement1 ,the1 #aia4 ,ballads on ,animals1 illustrations to ,hayley's1 #ca1 #acg4 ,bard1 ,the1 #afd4 ,basire1 ,blake apprenticed to1 #e2 his influence1 #aej4 ,bathsheba at the ,bath1 #afg4 ,blake1 ,robert1 #d1 #ae1 #acc2 his death1 #ae4 ,blake1 ,william1 birth1 #c2 family history1 #d2 birthplace1 #c2 his brothers and sister1 #d2 marriage1 #i2 suggested as tutor to the royal family1 #bb2 his last sketch1 #ef2 death1 #ef2 lived at ,green ,street1 #aa2 ,broad ,street1 #ad2 ,poland ,street1 #ae2 ,lambeth1 #ba2 ,felpham1 #bd2 ,south ,molton ,street1 #bi2 ,temple1 #ej2 his hatred of oppression1 #af2 visions of his brother1 #ag2 his kind-heartedness1 #bb2 trial for sedition1 #bi2 influence over younger men1 #dg1 #eb2 his circle of friends1 #dh1 #eb1 #ed2 his surroundings in later years1 #ej2 his appearance1 #ea1 #ed2 ,german eulogy1 #ed2 learns ,italian1 #ed2 his poverty1 #hb2 his exhibition1 #dj2 criticisms on painting and poetry1 #dj2 his artistic affinities1 #da2 his aim in art1 #g2 his literary affinities1 #cg2 views on contemporary artists1 #bj1 #df2 justifies his mode of representation1 #afe2 his inability to depict ,christ1 #ade1 #aij2 his intuitive system of belief1 #fa2 his detachment from his age1 #fa2 his view of humanity1 #fe1 #ff4 ,bouchier1 ,catherine1 married to ,blake1 #i2 her character1 #aj2 her death1 #ef2 her assistance in printing1 #hc4 ,calvert1 ,edward1 friendship with ,blake1 #eb4 ,canterbury ,pilgrims1 ,the 7,blake's71 designed1 #cg2 completed1 #ch2 exhibited1 #dj4 ,see ,stothard1 ,thomas4 ,canterbury ,pilgrims1 ,the 7,engraving71 issued1 #dd2 discussed1 #agf4 ,coleridge1 ,s4 ,t41 meeting with ,blake1 #dg4 ,cowper1 engravings for ,hayley's ,life of1 #ca4 ,cromek1 ,r4 ,h41 his relations with ,blake1 #ce-cg1 #ci4 ,dante1 illustrations to the ,divina ,commedia of1 #ed2 discussed1 #ahj4 ,david delivered out of ,deep ,waters1 #aij4 ,death of ,earl ,godwin1 #h4 ,death's ,door1 development of the design of1 #ia1 #if4 ,descriptive ,catalogue of ,blake's exhibition1 #dj1 #gg1 #hb1 #afe1 #agb1 #agh1 #aib4 ,designs1 ,the ,large ,book of1 #abj4 ,designs1 ,the ,small ,book of1 #abj4 ,education1 ,blake's early1 #d4 ,ellis and ,yeats1 ,commentary on ,blake1 #a1 #c1 #af1 #bb1 #cj1 #di1 #eg1 #fj1 #ga4 ,elohim ,creating ,adam1 ,the1 #aga4 ,europe1 #bc2 described1 #aaj4 ,exhibitions of ,blake's works1 7#ahji71 #dj2 7#aijd71 #aei4 ,felpham1 residence at1 #bd1 #agi2 early enjoyment of1 #be2 subsequent unhappiness at1 #bg4 ,flaxman1 ,j41 introduction to1 #h2 aid from1 #ab1 #bc2 correspondence with1 #be4 ,flight into ,egypt1 ,the1 #afg4 ,french ,revolution1 ,the1 #ag4 ,fresco1 ,blake's use of the term1 #ch4 ,fuseli1 ,blake's friendship with1 #h1 #ag1 #ej2 his appreciation of ,blake1 #aa1 #ch1 #ej4 ,gates of ,paradise1 ,the1 #bc2 described1 #ic4 ,ghost of ,abel1 ,the1 #ag4 ,ghost of a ,flea1 #di4 ,gilchrist's ,life of ,blake1 #a1 #i1 #cb1 #ej1 #ea1 #ee4 ,glad ,day1 #agi4 ,gothic influences1 #e1 #aea4 ,grave1 ,the1 ,blake's illustrations to ,blair's3 sold to ,cromek1 #ce2 published1 #ci2 discussed1 #adj2 described1 #adc2 ,blake's introductory verses1 #ada4 ,hayley1 ,blake's introduction to1 #bc2 life at ,felpham1 #bd-ca2 illustrations to his ,ballads1 #ca2 to his life of ,cowper1 #ca2 letters to1 #cb4 ,hecate1 #afh4 ,humphrey1 ,ozias1 ,blake's relations with1 #ch4 ,hunt1 ,leigh1 inept criticisms by1 #db4 ,ideas of ,good and ,evil1 #cj4 ,irish ancestry suggested for ,blake1 #c4 ,jerusalem1 #ca1 #cd2 discussed1 #abc2 described1 #abg4 ,job1 ,the ,book of1 drawings for1 #ed2 discussed1 #adh2 described1 #aea2 sold1 #adh4 ,joseph of ,arimathea1 #f4 ,judgment of ,paris1 ,the1 #agb4 ,lamb1 ,charles1 appreciative criticisms by1 #ii1 #agi4 ,lamech and his ,two ,wives1 #afh1 #afi4 ,laocoon1 #ej4 ,last ,judgment1 ,the1 #ch4 ,lazar ,house1 ,the1 #ahh4 ,le ,brun1 ,blake's early aversion to her work1 #f4 ,lenore1 illustrations to ,buerger's1 #acg4 ,linnell1 ,john1 ,blake's friendship with1 #dg1 #ed1 #aej2 and the ,book of ,job1 #adi4 ,little ,tom the ,sailor1 #agi4 ,los1 ,the ,book of1 #bc2 described1 #abb4 ,los1 ,the ,song of1 #bc2 described1 #aba4 ,madness1 his alleged1 #gc4 ,malkin's ,memorials of his child1 illustrated by ,blake1 #ch4 ,marriage of ,heaven and ,hell1 ,the1 #ag2 discussed1 #ij2 quoted1 #aja4 ,mathew1 the ,rev4 ,henry1 an early friend1 #aa-ad4 ,michael ,angelo1 his influence on ,blake1 #d1 #f1 #gh1 #ada1 #aga1 #ahg4 ,milton1 #ca2 discussed1 #acj2 described1 #acc4 ,,ms4 ,notebook1 ,blake's1 references to1 #f1 #aa1 #bf1 #cj1 #ch1 #de1 #df1 #ha1 #hb4 ,mystical views1 ,blake's1 are misunderstood1 #gb-gi2 explained by ,smetham1 #ge4 ,mythological characters1 ,blake's1 #ga1 #aje1 #aab1 #aag4 ,national ,gallery1 works by ,blake in the1 #ahi4 ,nativity1 ,the1 #afa1 #afb4 ,nebuchadnezzar1 #bb4 ,nelson1 ,the ,spiritual ,form of1 etc41 #ahe4 ,night ,thoughts1 designs for ,young's1 #bc2 described1 #acg4 ,oberon1 ,titania1 and ,puck1 #afi4 ,paine1 ,tom1 ,blake's acquaintance with1 #ag4 ,pars' drawing-classes1 ,blake attends1 #d4 ,pitt guiding ,behemoth1 ,the ,spiritual ,form of1 #aib4 ,poetic ,genius1 his theory of the1 #fg1 #fh4 ,poetical ,sketches1 #ab4 ,prices now brought by ,blake's work1 #ajj1 #ajg1 #aaj1 #aac1 #aba1 #acj1 #adh4 ,prices received by ,blake1 #ba1 #ce1 #ch1 #ajj1 #adi4 ,processes employed by ,blake1 #ch1 #hb1 #ia1 #aej1 #aff1 #afh1 #agi1 #ahf1 #ahg4 ,procession from ,calvary1 #aia4 ,raphael1 early love for1 #f4 ,religious views1 #eg-ga1 #ajb4 ,religious views1 ,swedenborg1 #eg1 #eh2 pantheism1 #fb2 ,blake's beliefs1 #fb2 the necessity of contraries1 #fe2 art in religion1 #fg4 ,reynolds1 ,sir ,joshua1 his advice to ,blake1 #ai4 ,reynolds1 ,sir ,joshua1 ,blake's ,,ms4 notes on ,reynolds' ,discourses1 #f1 #ai1 #gi4 ,river of ,life1 ,the1 #afc1 #afi4 ,robinson1 ,henry ,crabb1 his relations with ,blake1 #b1 #dj1 #de1 #dg1 #ea1 #ed1 #fc1 #gc4 ,rossetti1 ,d4 ,g41 appreciations of ,blake1 #ab1 #dj1 #ahe4 ,rossetti1 ,d4 ,g41 owns ,blake's ,,ms4 ,notebook1 #cj4 ,rubens1 early comments on1 #f4 ,rylands1 proposal to apprentice ,blake to1 #d4 ,satan ,watching ,adam and ,eve1 #afa4 ,satan1 ,sin1 and ,death1 #agb4 ,satan ,triumphing over ,eve1 #aga4 ,satan's ,three ,accusers1 #aba4 ,schiavonetti1 ,lewis1 engraves the drawings for the ,grave1 #cf1 #adj1 #ade4 ,shakespeare1 designs to illustrate1 #cg4 ,shields1 ,mr4 ,frederick ,j41 #eb1 #ach1 #ahc1 #ahe4 ,single ,vision of ,bacon and ,newton1 #ib4 ,songs of ,experience1 #ig2 described1 #ih4 ,songs of ,innocence1 #af2 described1 #hc4 ,stothard1 ,thomas ,blake's introduction to1 #h2 quarrel with1 #cg1 #dj1 #db1 #dc4 ,stothard1 his ,canterbury ,pilgrims1 #cg2 exhibited1 #ch2 described1 #agf4 ,swedenborg1 his influence1 #ch1 #eg4 ,swinburne1 ,mr4 ,a4 ,c41 criticisms by1 #aa1 #de1 #fb1 #ie1 #ajd1 #aje1 #aae4 ,tales for ,children1 #ia4 ,tathams1 ,blake's friendship with the1 #eb1 #ef1 #aac4 ,technique1 his deficiency in1 #gh4 ,thel1 ,the ,book of1 #ag2 described1 #hg4 ,there is no ,natural ,religion1 #aae4 ,three ,maries with the ,angel at the ,sepulchre1 #afa4 ,tiriel1 #hi4 ,urizen1 ,the ,book of1 #bc2 described1 #aaf4 ,vegetative ,life1 what ,blake meant by the1 #b1 #fd1 #abg4 ,virgil's ,pastorals1 woodcuts for1 #di2 described1 #adf4 ,vision of ,queen ,katherine1 #agc4 ,visionary ,heads1 drawn by ,blake1 #dh4 ,visions of the ,daughters of ,albion1 #bc2 described1 #ajd4 ,visions of ,blake2 in childhood1 #b2 in later years1 #ag4 ,water-colour sketches1 #ahg1 #ahh4 ,westminster ,abbey1 drawings in1 #e4 ,whore of ,babylon1 ,the1 #ahg4 ,wise and ,foolish ,virgins1 ,the1 #afi4 ,wollstonecraft1 ,mary1 acquaintance with1 #ag2 designs for her ,tales1 #ia4 ,women1 his views on the position of1 #gj4 ,,chiswick ,,press3 ,,printed ,,by ,,charles ,,whittingham ,,and ,,co4 ,,tooks 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