file which includes the original illustrations4 ,see #ebcjj-;h4htm or #ebcjj-;h4zip3 7https3_/_/www4gutenberg4org_/cache_/epu b_/#ebcjj_/pg#ebcjj-;images4html7 or 7https3_/_/www4gutenberg4org_/files_/#eb cjj_/ebcjj-;h4zip7 ,images of the original pages are available through ,internet ,archive4 ,see https3_/_/archive4org_/details_/gri#ccab ejjgeicefe ,illustration3 ,london4 ,published as the ,act directs ,march #h4 #ahbc by ,willm ,blake ,n#c ,fountain ,court ,strand ,the ,sons of ,god4 ,design from the ,book of ,job4 ,,william ,,blake ,painter and ,poet by ,,richard ,,garnett1 ,,ll4,d4 ,keeper of the ,printed ,books in the ,british ,museum ,illustration ,london ,seeley and ,co4 ,limited1 ,essex ,street1 ,strand ,new ,york1 ,macmillan and ,co4 #ahie ,,list ,,of ,,illustrations ,,plates ,,page ,the ,sons of ,god4 ,from the ,book of ,job ,frontispiece ,the ,lamb1 and ,infant ,joy4 ,songs of ,innocence to face #bj ,the ,fly1 and the ,tiger4 ,songs of ,experience 0 0 #bd ,the ,book of ,thel1 title-page4 ,in facsimile by ,w4 ,griggs 0 0 #cc 0 0 page vi4 0 0 0 0 #cf ,america1 page 0 0 #db 0 page 0 0 #dh ,,illustrations ,,in ,,the ,,text ,morning1 or ,glad ,day4 ,from an engraving by ,w4 ,blake #aa ,illustration from 8,david ,simple40 ,engraved by ,w4 ,blake after ,t4 ,stothard1 ,r4,a4 #ag ,from a coloured copy of the 8,songs of ,innocence and ,experience40 ,british ,museum #bb ,frontispiece of ,mary ,wollstonecraft's 8,stories0 #bd ,page of ,young's 8,night ,thoughts40 ,illustrated by ,w4 ,blake #bf ,i want6 ,i want6--,help6 ,help6--,aged ,ignorance6--,death's ,door #bh ,design from the 8,book of ,urizen40 ,by ,w4 ,blake #cd ,the ,ancient of ,days setting a ,compass to the ,earth4 ,from a water-colour drawing by ,w4 ,blake4 ,british ,museum #ci ,sweeping the ,parlour in the ,interpreter's ,house #dj ,design from 8,milton40 ,by ,w4 ,blake #dg ,portrait of ,william ,blake4 ,from the engraving by ,l4 ,schiavonetti1 after ,t4 ,phillips1 ,r4,a4 #ej ,the ,reunion of ,soul and ,body4 ,from ,blair's 8,grave10 illustrated by ,w4 ,blake #ec ,the ,babylonian ,woman on the ,seven-headed ,beast4 ,from a water-colour drawing by ,w4 ,blake4 ,british ,museum #ee ,portrait of ,wilson ,lowry4 ,by ,john ,linnell4 ,engraved by ,blake and ,linnell #fa ,the ,resurrection of the ,dead4 ,from a water-colour drawing by ,w4 ,blake4 ,british ,museum #fc ,woodcut from ,thornton's ,pastoral #fd ,the ,destruction of ,job's ,sons and ,daughters4 ,from the 8,book of ,job40 ,by ,w4 ,blake #fg ,with dreams upon my bed thou scarest me4 ,from the 8,book of ,job40 ,by ,w4 ,blake #fi ,behemoth and ,leviathan4 ,from the 8,book of ,job40 ,by ,w4 ,blake #ga ,,william ,,blake ,,chapter ,i ,preliminary observations--,blake's ,birth--,education--,marriage--,early ,poems--,drawings and ,engravings4 ,the position of ,william ,blake among artists is exceptional4 ,of no other painter of like distinction1 save ,dante ,rossetti1 can it be said that his fame as a poet has fully rivalled his fame as a painter2 much less that1 in the opinion of some1 his fame as a seer ought to have exceeded both4 ,many painters1 from ,reynolds downwards1 have written admirably upon art2 in some instances1 notably ,haydon's1 the worth of their precepts greatly exceeds that of their performance4 ,but1 ,rossetti always excepted1 perhaps no other painter of great distinction1 save ,michael ,angelo alone1 has achieved high renown in poetry1 and the compass of ,michael ,angelo's poetical work is infinitesimal in comparison with his work as an artist4 ,again1 the literary achievements of an ,angelo or a ,reynolds admit of clear separation from their performances as artists4 ,the critic who approaches them from the artistic side may1 if he pleases1 omit the literary side entirely from consideration4 ,this is impossible with ,blake1 for not only do the artistic and the poetical monuments of his genius nearly balance each other in merit and in their claim upon the attention of posterity1 but they are the offspring of the same creative impulse1 and are indissolubly fused together by the process adopted for their execution4 ,a study of ,blake1 therefore1 must include more literary discussion than would be allowable in a monograph on any other artist4 ,the poet and painter in ,blake1 moreover1 are but manifestations of the more comprehensive character of seer1 which suggests inquiries alien to both these arts2 while the personal character of the man is so fascinating1 and his intellectual character so perplexing1 that the investigation of either of them might afford1 and often has afforded1 material for a prolonged discussion4 ,in the following pages it will be our object1 whenever compelled to quit the safe ground of biographical narrative1 to subordinate all else to the consideration of ,blake as an artist2 but the ,blake of the brush is too emphatically the ,blake of the pen to be long dissociated from him1 and neither can be detached from the background of abnormal visionary faculty4 99 99 99 99 99 ,from a certain point of view1 artists may be regarded as divisible into three classes3 those who regard the material world as an unquestionable solid reality1 whose accurate representation is the one mission of ,art2 those to whom it is a mere hieroglyphic of an essential existence transcending it2 and those who1 uniting the two conceptions1 are at the same time idealists and realists4 ,the greatest artists generally belong to the latter class1 and with reason1 for a literal adherence to matter of fact almost implies defect of imagination2 while an extravagant idealism may be1 to say the least1 a convenient excuse for defects of technical skill4 ,it is difficult to know whether to class the works of the very greatest artists as realistic or idealistic4 ,take ,albert ,drer's ,melancholia4 ,it is a hieroglyph1 a symbol1 an expression of something too intense to be put into words2 a delineation of what the painter beheld with the inner eye alone4 ,yet every detail is as correct and true to fact as the most uninspired ,dutchman could have made it4 ,take ,titian's ,bacchus and ,ariadne1 and observe how separate details which the artist may have actually noticed1 are combined into a whole which has never been beheld1 save by the spiritual vision1 since the last thyrsus was brandished by the last ,mnad4 ,yet1 though the creators of such scenes are the greatest1 some realists1 such as ,velasquez1 have in virtue of surpassing technical execution asserted a nearly equal rank4 ,the case is different when we come to the enthusiasts and visionaries1 whose art is wholly symbolic1 who have given us little that can be enjoyed as art for art's sake1 without reference to the ideas of which it is made the vehicle4 ,in many very interesting artists1 such as ,wiertz and ,calvert and ,vedder1 and in many isolated works of great masters1 such as ,giorgione's ,venetian ,pastoral1 the feeling is so much in excess of the execution--admirable as this may be--that the result is rather a poem than a picture4 ,but only one artist who has deliberately made himself the prophet of this tendency1 who has avowedly and defiantly discarded all purpose from his works save that of spiritual suggestiveness1 seems to have ever been admitted as a candidate for very high artistic honours1 and he is our countryman1 ,william ,blake4 ,this circumstance alone should render ,blake an interesting object of study1 even for those who can see no merit in his works3 indeed1 the less the merit the more remarkable the phenomenon4 ,he is1 moreover1 a most peculiar and enigmatical character1 both intellectually and morally4 ,as an art critic he is of all the most dogmatic1 trenchant1 and revolutionary4 ,as a poet1 were nineteen-twentieths of his compositions to be discarded as rubbish1 lyrics would remain not only exquisite in themselves1 but possessing the incommunicable and ,sapphic quality that a single stanza1 even a single phrase1 would often suffice to make the writer immortal4 ,the question of his sanity is as well adapted to furnish the world with an interminable subject of discussion as the execution of ,charles ,i4 or the assassination of ,csar4 ,finally1 it is very significant that while no man ever wilfully put more obstacles into the way of his success than ,blake1 whether as artist1 thinker1 or poet1 and he did in fact succeed in condemning himself to poverty and obscurity1 the verdict of his contemporaries is now so far reversed that the drawings which a kind friend overpaid1 as he thought1 at fifty guineas1 are worth a thousand pounds4 ,what manner of man was he to whose shade the world has made this practical apology8 ,william ,blake was born on ,november #bhth1#a #ageg1 at #bh1 ,broad ,street1 ,golden ,square4 ,by a singular coincidence this was the very year which a still more celebrated mystic1 ,swedenborg1 had announced as that of the ,last ,judgment in a spiritual sense1 which was by no means to preclude the world from going on in externals pretty much as usual4 ,blake's father1 ,james ,blake1 was a hosier in moderately prosperous circumstances1 whose father is stated by ,blake's most elaborate commentators1 ,messrs4 ,ellis and ,yeats1 to have been originally named ,o',neil1 and to have assumed his wife's name as a means of escape from pecuniary difficulties4 ,this wife1 however1 was not the mother of ,james4 ,this genealogy is not supported by any strong authority1 and is at variance with another1 also indifferently supported1 according to which the artist's family were connected with the admiral's4 ,we must leave the question where we find it1 merely remarking that ,blake's parents were certainly ,protestants1 and that we can detect no specifically ,irish trait in his character or his works4 ,he had three brothers--one1 ,james1 mild and unassuming like his father2 another1 ,robert1 who died young1 apparently with more affinity to ,william2 the third1 ,john1 a scapegrace4 ,there was also a sister who never married1 and is described as a thorough gentlewoman1 reserved and proud4 ,none of the family except ,william and ,robert seem to have shown any artistic talent4 ,with ,william it must have been precocious1 for1 ere he had attained the age of ten1 his father1 who as a small tradesman might rather have been expected to have thwarted the boy's inclinations1 placed him at 8,mr4 ,pars' drawing school in the ,strand40 ,here he learned to draw from plaster casts--the life was denied him--and with the aid of his father and a friendly auctioneer collected prints1 then to be picked up cheap1 showing from the very first1 as he afterwards related1 a complete independence of the pseudo-classic taste of the day4 ,at four he had had his first vision1 when 8,god put his forehead to the window1 which set him screaming40 ,at eight or ten he saw a tree filled with angels1 and angelic figures walking among haymakers4 8,the child is father to the man40 ,at the age of fourteen ,blake was apprenticed to the engraver ,basire4 ,ryland had been thought of1 but ,blake1 according to a story which he must have narrated1 but may not improbably have imagined1 demurred1 declaring that the fashionable engraver looked as if he would one day be hanged1 as he actually was4 ,basire's practice lay chiefly in engraving antiquities1 and the last five years of ,blake's apprenticeship were chiefly spent in drawing tombs and architectural details in ,westminster ,abbey a most advantageous discipline1 which imbued his mind with the ,gothic spirit1 an influence already in the air1 evincing itself in ,gtz von ,berlichingens1 ,rowley ,poems1 ,percy ,relics1 and ,castles of ,otranto2 and1 by directing him to ,english history and ,shakespeare1 powerfully stimulated and felicitously guided the poetical genius of which he was shortly to give proof4 ,he drew1 ,malkin tells us1 the monuments of kings and queens in every point of view he could catch1 frequently standing on them4 ,the heads he considered as portraits1 and all the ornaments appeared as miracles of art to his ,gothicised imagination4 ,nor could a better environment for a mystic be desired than the venerable and generally solitary temple1 8the height1 the space1 the gloom1 the glory10 with its music1 its memories1 and its constant sense of the presence of the dead4 ,the bent of his mind at the time is shown by his first engraving1 ,joseph of ,arimathea among the ,rocks of ,albion1 copied1 as he states1 from a scarce ,italian print4 ,if this was indeed the case1 it may be queried whether the title at least was not his--,joseph1 according to the legend1 having been the first missionary to ,britain4 ,the original1 if original there was1 certainly was not the work of ,michael ,angelo1 to whom ,blake chose to attribute it4 ,scarcely was he out of his articles than he produced 7#aggi7 two engravings from the history of ,england1 ,the ,penance of ,jane ,shore and ,king ,edward and ,queen ,eleanor4 ,these were after two water-colour drawings1 selected from a much greater number with which he had amused the leisure hours of his apprenticeship4 ,mr4 ,gilchrist says that these and other works of the period have little of the peculiar ,blakean quality1 except the striking design ,morning1 or ,glad ,day1 dated #aghj1 a facsimile of which is given here4 ,this1 indeed1 is ,blake all over1 and would have made an excellent frontispiece for the poems with which he was about to herald the dawn of a new era in ,english poetry1 though in all probability designed as an illustration of the lines in ,romeo and ,juliet2 ,night's candles are burnt out1 and jocund day ,stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops4 ,a naked ,apollo-like figure1 wearing the dawn for a halo1 in whom one fancifully traces a resemblance to ,goethe1 alights throbbing with joy and victory on the peak of a mountain1 while the waning moon1 as would seem1 sets behind him1 and a winged beetle scuds away4 ,the poems to which reference has been made had meanwhile been slowly accumulating2 if the language of the advertisement which heralded their publication is to be taken literally1 they were now complete4 ,before appearing as a poet1 however1 ,blake had to undergo his probation as a lover4 ,he became enamoured of a pretty girl variously called ,polly or ,clara ,woods4 ,she rejected him4 ,he fell into a melancholy1 and was sent to ,richmond for change of air4 ,there he lodged with a nursery gardener named ,boucher4 ,the daughter of the house1 ,catherine1 had been frequently asked whom she would like to marry1 and had always replied that she had not seen the man4 ,coming on the night of ,blake's arrival into the room where he was sitting with the rest of the family1 she grew faint from the presentiment that she beheld her destined husband4 ,on subsequently hearing of his disappointment with ,clara ,woods1 she told him that she pitied1 and he told her that he loved4 ,they were married on ,august #ah1 #aghb1 ,blake having1 it is said1 proved their mutual constancy by refraining from seeing her for a year1 while he was toiling to save enough to render their marriage not utterly imprudent4 ,his first care afterwards was to teach her to read and write1 to which he afterwards added enough of the pictorial art to enable her to colour his drawings4 ,a more devoted wife never lived1 though her devotion wore in the eyes of strangers an aspect of formality1 and was always tinged with awe4 ,poetical ,sketches1 #aghc1 were the first-fruits of ,blake's genius1 composed1 as asserted in the advertisement prefixed by his friends1 between #agfh and #aggg4b ,they are the only examples of his literary work devoid of artistic illustration2 we ought not1 consequently1 to spend much time upon them1 yet they are the most memorable of his works1 for they are nothing short of miraculous1 and alone among his productions mark an era4 ,for a hundred and thirty years ,english poetry had been mainly artificial1 the product of conscious effort ranging down from the superb art of ,paradise ,lost to the prettinesses of ,pope's imitators1 but seldom or never wearing the aspect of a spontaneous growth4 ,this young obscure engraver was the first to show that it was still possible to sing as the bird sings2 he and no other was the morning star which announced the new day of ,english poetry4 ,had even the verses been of inferior quality1 such inspiration would have sufficed for fame1 but ,blake is as exquisite as original1 and warbles such nightingale notes as ,england had not heard since ,andrew ,marvell forsook song for satire4 ,the songs of ,dryden1 indeed1 have great merit1 but how they savour of the study compared with the artless melody of a strain like this6 ,illustration3 ,morning1 or ,glad ,day4 ,from an engraving by ,w4 ,blake4 ,how sweet ,i roamed from field to field1 ,and tasted all the summer's pride1 ,till ,i the ,prince of ,love beheld1 ,who in the sunny beams did glide6 ,he showed me lilies for my hair1 ,and blushing roses for my brow2 ,he led me through his gardens fair1 ,where all his golden pleasures grow4 ,with sweet ,may dews my wings were wet1 ,and ,phbus 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 ,this is such a song as ,marlowe might have written1 but for a delicate eighteenth-century suggestion in the style1 whose aroma is not quite that of the ,elizabethan era4 ,it is none the less one of the pieces which none but ,blake could have produced4 ,the characteristics of his style1 indeed1 are much less apparent in this early volume than in his subsequent productions4 ,they are most conspicuous in the ,mad ,song1 but a more pleasing if less intense example is the following3 ,,song4 ,love and harmony combine1 ,and around our souls entwine1 ,while thy branches mix with mine ,and our roots together join4 ,joys upon our branches sit1 ,chirping loud and singing sweet2 ,like gentle streams beneath our feet ,innocence and virtue meet4 ,thou the golden fruit dost bear1 ,i am clad in flowers fair2 ,thy sweet boughs perfume the air1 ,and the turtle buildeth there4 ,there she sits and feeds her young1 ,sweet ,i hear her mournful song2 ,and thy lovely leaves among1 ,there is ,love3 ,i hear his tongue4 ,there his charm'd nest he doth lay1 ,there he sleeps the night away1 ,there he sports along the day1 ,and doth among our branches play4 ,not the least remarkable of the ,poetical ,sketches are 8,samson0 and other short pieces in blank verse4 ,they are marvellously ,tennysonian2 if imitation there was1 it obviously was not on ,blake's part4 ,who would have hesitated to ascribe these lines1 addressed to the ,evening ,star1 to the ,laureate8 ,let thy west wind sleep on ,the lake2 speak silence with thy glimmering eyes1 ,and wash the dusk with silver4 ,even more marvellous than the sentiment is the metre1 which cannot be judged by a short passage4 ,well might it be said1 8,thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent1 and revealed them unto babes10 when the secret of melodious blank verse1 withheld since the ,civil ,war from all the highly cultured and in many respects highly gifted bards of ,england1 is disclosed on the sudden to this half-educated young man4 ,it is exemplified on a larger scale by the accompanying fragments of an intended tragedy on ,edward the ,third1 which proves two things3 first1 that ,blake was destitute of all dramatic faculty2 secondly1 that1 notwithstanding1 few have so thoroughly assimilated ,shakespeare4 ,shakespeare stands almost alone among great poets in having had hardly any direct imitators4 ,every one1 of course1 has profited by the study of his art2 but those most deeply indebted to him in this respect have felt the least disposed to reproduce his style4 ,the reason is evident4 ,other writers are partial1 ,shakespeare is universal2 the model is too vast for study4 ,a deliberate imitation of ,shakespeare would assuredly be a failure3 imitation is only practicable when it is not deliberate but unconscious1 the effluence of a mind so saturated with ,shakespeare that it can for the time only express itself in ,shakespearian numbers1 and think under ,shakespearian forms4 ,blake must have been in such a situation when he attempted ,edward the ,third1 the direct fruit of his roamings among the regal tombs in the ,abbey with ,shakespeare's historical plays in his hand4 ,the drama is childish1 but the feeling approaches ,shakespeare as nearly as ,keats's early poems approach ,spenser4 ,the imitation1 being spontaneous and unsought1 is never senile1 but every line reveals a youth whose soul is with ,shakespeare1 though his body may be in ,golden ,square4 ,yet the reproduction of ,shakespeare's manner is never so exact as to conceal the fact that the poet is writing in the eighteenth and not in the sixteenth century4 ,the following passage may serve as an example both of the closeness of ,blake's affinity with ,shakespeare and of the nuances of difference that serve to vindicate his originality4 ,last night beneath ,the moon ,i walked abroad when all had pitched ,their tents1 and all were still4 ,i heard a blooming youth singing a song ,he had composed1 and at each pause he wiped ,his dropping eyes4 ,the ditty was 8,if he ,returned victorious he should wed a maiden ,fairer than snow and rich as midsummer40 ,another wept1 and wished health to his father4 ,i chid them both1 but gave them noble hopes4 ,these are the minds that glory in the battle1 ,and leap and dance to hear the trumpet sound4 ,this is beautiful description1 sentiment and metre1 but these beauties sum up the attractions of ,blake's dramatic fragment4 ,the dramatic element is wanting1 there is no action4 ,this deficiency runs through his whole work1 pictorial as well as literary1 and explains why one capable of such sublime conceptions was nevertheless incapable of taking rank with the ,miltons and ,michael ,angelos4 ,his productions are full of tremendous scenes1 the strivings and agonies of colossal unearthly powers realised by his own mind with a vividness which proves the intensity of his conceptions4 ,yet he seldom impresses the beholder with any sentiment of awe or terror4 ,the cause is not solely the fantastic character of these conceptions1 for the effect is the same when he deals with mankind1 and represents it in the most thrilling crises of which humanity is capable4 ,his representation of the plague1 for instance1 engraved in ,gilchrist's biography1 excites strong interest and curiosity1 but nothing of the shuddering dismay with which we should view such a scene in actual life1 and which is so powerfully conveyed in such works as ,gricault's ,wreck of the ,medusa and ,poole's ,solomon ,eagle4 ,the reason seems to be that ,blake was not only a visionary but also a mystic1 and that mysticism is hardly compatible with tragic passion4 ,the visionary1 as in the instances of ,dante and ,bunyan1 may realise every detail of his ideal conceptions with the force of actual perception1 but it is the very essence of the mystic's creed that things are not what they seem1 and the man who knows himself to be depicting a hieroglyphic will never grasp his subject with the force of him who feels that he is dealing with a concrete reality4 ,the ,hindoos are a nation of mystics who regard existence as an illusion1 and their art labours under the same defects as ,blake's2 their drama especially1 with all the charm of lovely arabesque1 makes nothing of the strongest situations1 save when these are of the pathetic order4 ,for although the mystic cannot be exciting1 he can be tender3 and while ,blake's efforts at the delineation of frantic passion or overwhelming catastrophes usually 7there are exceptions7 leave us unmoved1 nothing can be more pathetic than some of his delineations1 such1 for example1 as the famous illustration to ,blair1 of an old man approaching the grave4 ,it seems almost strange that verses1 as contrary to the spirit of the age that gave them birth as prophetic of the ideals of the age to come1 should have found friends willing to defray their cost4 ,if1 however1 it is true that ,flaxman was among these friends1 ,blake had met with one congenial spirit4 ,a clergyman named ,matthews1 incumbent of ,percy ,chapel1 ,charlotte ,street1 is mentioned as another patron1 and as the writer of the well-meaning but too apologetic preface4 ,through him ,blake seems to have become acquainted with ,flaxman4 ,to the few then able to appreciate the poems1 they might well have seemed indicative of a great poetical career1 for they are exactly the sweet1 wild1 untaught1 prelusive music wherewith youth1 as yet unschooled by criticism and unawakened to its really profound problems1 is wont to essay its art4 ,why was it that ,blake1 though rivalling these early attempts in his ,songs of ,innocence and ,songs of ,experience1 never progressed further2 and in by far the greater part of his subsequent poetry went off altogether upon a wrong track1 so far at least as concerned poetry8 ,partly1 we think1 because his mind was almost entirely deficient in the plastic element4 ,he could reproduce a scene ready depicted for him1 as in his illustrations to ,job2 he could embody a solitary thought with exquisite beauty1 whether in poetry or in painting2 but he could not combine his ideas into a whole4 ,his faculty was purely lyrical1 and when this evanescent endowment forsook him1 devoid as he was of all plastic literary power1 he had no ,oenone or ,ulysses to replace his ,claribels and ,eleanores4 ,his verse became a mere accompaniment of his pictorial art1 and harmonising with its vagueness and obscurity1 necessarily lacked the symmetry with which a colourist can dispense1 but which is essential to a poet4 ,even more remarkable than the music of ,blake's early verses1 unparalleled in their age1 is the fact1 vouched for by ,j4 ,t4 ,smith1 the biographer of ,nollekens and ,keeper of ,prints at the ,british ,museum1 that he had composed tunes for them1 which he could only repeat by ear from his ignorance of musical notation4 ,some of these1 ,smith says1 were exquisitely beautiful4 ,at the appearance of the ,poetical ,sketches 7#aghc71 ,blake had for a year been a married man1 and was actively striving to make a living as an engraver4 ,most of his work of this nature at this time was executed after ,stothard4 ,it cannot be disputed that this graceful artist largely influenced ,blake's style in its more idyllic aspects2 whether1 as he was afterwards inclined to assert1 ,stothard's invention owed something to him is not easy to determine4 ,in #aghd he lost his father1 a mild1 pious man1 who had well performed his duty to his son4 ,blake's elder brother ,james took his business1 and the artist1 who had probably inherited some little property1 returned from ,green ,street to ,broad ,street1 and1 establishing himself next door to his brother1 launched into speculation as a print-seller in partnership with a former fellow apprentice named ,parker1 taking his brother ,robert as a gratuitous pupil4 ,in #aghe he sent four drawings to the ,academy4 ,three1 illustrative of the story of ,joseph1 were shown in the ,international ,exhibition of #ahfb1 and are described by ,gilchrist as 8full of soft tranquil beauty1 specimens of ,blake's earlier style2 a very different one from that of his later and better-known works40 ,this is probably as much as to say that he then wrought much under the influence of ,stothard1 after whom he engraved the subject from ,david ,simple given here2 for the earlier design illustrative of the passage in ,romeo and ,juliet is characteristically ,blakean4 ,mr4 ,gilchrist adds1 8the design is correct and blameless1 not to say tame 7for ,blake71 the colour full1 harmonious and sober40 ,mr4 ,rossetti says that the figure of ,joseph1 in the third drawing1 8is especially pure and impulsive40 ,illustration3 ,illustration from 8,david ,simple40 ,engraved by ,w4 ,blake after ,t4 ,stothard1 ,r4,a4 ,in #aghg ,blake's experiment in print-selling came to an end1 through disagreements1 it is said1 with his partner2 but as neither appears to have afterwards pursued the calling1 it is probable that it had never been profitable4 ,parker obtained some distinction as an engraver1 chiefly after ,stothard1 and died in #ahje4 ,in ,february1 #aghg1 ,blake had sustained a severe loss in the death of his brother and pupil ,robert4 ,blake himself nursed the patient for some weeks1 and when at last the end came1 it is not surprising that he should have beheld his brother's spirit 8arise and clap its hands for joy40 ,not long after1 as he asserted1 the spirit appeared to him in a dream1 and revealed to him that process of printing from copper plates which1 as we shall see1 had the most decisive influence upon his work as an artist4 ,writing to ,hayley in #ahjj1 he says1 8,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 advice1 and even now write from his dictate40 8,the ruins of ,time10 he finely subjoins1 8build mansions in ,eternity40 ,from this time ,blake's sole assistant was his wife1 whom he carefully instructed1 and who tinted many of the coloured drawings which henceforth form the more characteristic portion of his work4 ,after giving up his business as a print-seller1 he removed from ,broad ,street to #bh1 ,poland ,street4 ,messrs4 ,ellis and ,yeats conjecture that this may have been to escape the blighting influence of his commercial brother next door1 but it is more probable that his venture had impoverished him1 and that he was obliged to give up housekeeping4 ,,chapter ,,ii ,blake's ,technical ,methods--8,songs of ,innocence0 and 8,songs of ,experience0--,life in ,poland ,street and in ,lambeth--,mystical ,poetry and ,art4 ,it was during his residence in ,poland ,street that ,blake first appeared in that mingled character of poet and painter which marks him off so conspicuously from other painters and other poets4 ,painting has often been made the handmaid of poetry2 it was ,blake's idea1 without infringing upon this relationship1 to make poetry no less the handmaid of painting by employing his verse1 engraved and beautified with colour1 to enhance the artistic value of his designs1 as well as to provide them with the needful basis of subject4 ,the same principle may probably be recognised in those ,oriental scrolls where the graceful labour of the scribe is as distinctly a work of art as the illustration of the miniaturist2 but of these ,blake can have known nothing4 ,necessity was with him the mother of invention4 ,since the appearance of ,poetical ,sketches he had written much that he desired to publish--but how to pay for printing8 ,so severely had he suffered by his unfortunate commercial adventure that when at length1 as he firmly believed1 the new process by which his song and his design could be facsimiled together was revealed by his brother's spirit in a dream1 a half-crown was the only coin his wife and he possessed between them in the world4 ,one shilling and tenpence of this was laid out in providing the necessary materials4 ,the technical method to which ,blake now resorted is thus described by ,mr4 ,gilchrist3 8,it was quite an original one4 ,it consisted of a species of engraving in relief1 both words and designs4 ,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 facsimiles2 red he used for the letterpress4 ,the page was then coloured up by hand in imitation of the original drawing with more or less variety of detail in the local hues4 ,he ground and mixed his water-colours himself on a piece of statuary marble1 after a method of his own1 with common carpenter's glue diluted4 ,the colours he used were few and simple3 indigo1 cobalt1 gamboge1 vermilion1 ,frankfort-black freely1 ultramarine rarely1 chrome not at all4 ,these he applied with a camel's-hair brush1 not with a sable1 which he disliked4 ,he taught ,mrs4 ,blake to take off the impressions with care and delicacy1 which such plates signally needed2 and also to help in tinting them from his drawings with right artistic feeling2 in all of which tasks she1 to her honour1 much delighted4 ,the size of the plates was small1 for the sake of economising copper1 something under five inches by three4 ,the number of engraved pages in the ,songs of ,innocence alone was twenty-seven4 ,they were done up in boards by ,mrs4 ,blake's hand1 forming a small octavo2 so that the poet and his wife did everything in making the book1 writing1 designing1 printing1 engraving1--everything except manufacturing the paper2 the very ink1 or colour rather1 they did make4 ,never before1 surely1 was a man so literally the author of his own book40 ,illustration3 ,the ,lamb4 ,infant ,joy4 ,from ,blake's 8,songs of ,innocence40 ,the total effect of this process is tersely expressed by ,mr4 ,rossetti1 8,the art is made to permeate the poetry40 ,it resulted in the publication of ,songs of ,innocence in #aghi1 two years after its discovery or revelation4 ,other productions1 of that weird and symbolic character in which ,blake came more and more to delight1 followed in quick succession4 ,these will claim copious notice1 but for the present we may pass on to ,songs of ,experience1 produced in #agid1 so much of a companion volume to ,songs of ,innocence that the two are usually found within the same cover4 ,neither attracted much attention at the time4 ,charles ,lamb says3 8,i have heard of his poems1 but have never seen them40 ,he is1 however1 acquainted with 8,tiger1 tiger10 which he pronounces 8glorious40 ,the price of the two sets when issued together was from thirty shillings to two guineas--an illustration of the material service which ,art can render to ,poetry when it is considered that1 published simply as poems1 they would in that age have found no purchasers at eighteenpence4 ,this price was nevertheless absurdly below their real value1 and was enhanced even during the artist's lifetime4 ,it came to be five guineas1 and late in his life friends1 from the munificent ,sir ,thomas ,lawrence downwards1 would commission sets tinted by himself at from ten to twenty guineas as a veiled charity4 ,of the poems and illustrations in ,songs of ,innocence and ,songs of ,experience ,gilchrist justly declares that their warp and woof are formed in one texture1 and that to treat of them separately is like pulling up a daisy by the roots out of the green sward in which it springs4 ,one essential characteristic inspires them both1 and may be defined as childish fearlessness1 the innocent courage of the infant who puts his hand upon the serpent and the cockatrice4 ,any one but ,blake would have feared to publish designs and verses apparently so verging upon the trivial1 and which indeed would have been trivial--and worse1 affected--if the emanation of almost any other brain1 or the execution of almost any other hand4 ,being his1 their sincerity is beyond question1 and they are a valuable psychological document as establishing the possibility of a man of genius and passion reaching thirty with the simplicity of a child4 ,hardly anything else in literature or art1 unless some thought in ,shakespeare1 so powerfully conveys the impression of a pure elemental force1 something absolutely spontaneous1 innocent of all contact with and all influence from the refinements of culture4 ,they certainly are not as a rule powerful1 and contrast forcibly with the lurid and gigantic conceptions which if we did not remember that the same ,dante depicted ,the ,tower of ,famine and ,matilda gathering ,flowers1 we could scarcely believe to have proceeded from the same mind4 ,their impressiveness proceeds from a different source2 their primitive innocence and simplicity1 and the rebuke which they seem to administer to artifice and refinement4 ,even great artists and inspired poets1 suddenly confronted with such pure unassuming nature1 may be supposed to feel as the disciples must have felt when the ,master set the little child among them4 ,no more characteristic examples could have been given than 8,the ,lamb0 and 8,infant ,joy0 from ,songs of ,innocence1 and 8,the ,fly0 and 8,the ,tiger0 from ,songs of ,experience selected for reproduction here from an uncoloured copy in the library of the ,british ,museum4 ,there is frequently a great difference in the colouring of the copies4 ,that in the ,museum ,print ,room is in full rich colour1 while others are very lightly and delicately tinted4 ,illustration3 ,from a coloured copy of the 8,songs of ,innocence and ,experience40 ,british ,museum4 ,it is of course much easier to convey an idea of the merits of ,blake's verse than of his painting1 for the former loses nothing by transcription1 and the latter everything4 ,the merit of the latter1 too1 is a variable quantity1 depending much upon the execution of the coloured plates4 ,the uncoloured are but phantoms of ,blake's ideas4 ,the general characteristics of his art in these books may be described as caressing tenderness and gentle grace1 evinced in elegant human figures1 frequently drooping like willows or recumbent like river deities1 and in sinuous stems and delicate sprays1 often as profuse as delicate4 ,the foliated ornament in 8,on ,another's ,sorrow10 for instance1 seems like a living thing1 and would almost speak without the aid of the accompanying verse4 ,the figures usually are too small to impress by themselves1 and rather seem subsidiary parts of the general design than the dominant factors4 ,they mingle with the inanimate nature portrayed1 as one note of a multitudinous concert blends with another4 ,yet 8,the ,little ,girl ,found0 tells its story by itself powerfully enough2 and the innocent ,bacchanalianism of the chorus in the 8,laughing ,song0 is conveyed with truly ,lyan spirit and energy4 ,the prevalent cheerfulness of the ,songs of ,innocence is of course modified in ,songs of ,experience4 ,the keynote of the former is admirably struck in the introductory poem3-- ,piping down the valleys wild1 ,piping songs of pleasant glee1 ,on a cloud ,i saw a child1 ,and he laughing said to me4 8,pipe a song about a ,lamb60 ,so ,i piped with merry cheer4 8,piper1 pipe that song again40 ,so ,i piped2 he wept to hear4 8,drop thy pipe1 thy happy pipe2 ,sing thy songs of happy cheer60 ,so ,i sang the same again4 ,while he wept with joy to hear4 8,piper1 sit thee down and write ,in a book1 that all may read40 ,so he vanished from my sight2 ,and ,i plucked a hollow reed4 ,and ,i made a rural pen1 ,and ,i stained the water clear1 ,and ,i wrote my happy songs ,every child may joy to hear4 ,illustration3 ,frontispiece of ,mary ,wollstonecraft's 8,stories40 ,this incarnate enigma among men could manifestly be as transparent as crystal when he knew exactly what he wished to say--a remark which may not be useless to the student of his mystical and prophetical writings4 ,the character of ,songs of ,experience1 published in #agid1 when he had attained the age so often fatal to men of genius1 is conveyed more symbolically1 yet intelligibly1 in 8,the ,angel03-- ,i dreamt a dream6 ,what can it mean8 ,and that ,i was a maiden ,queen ,guarded by an ,angel mild3 ,witless woe was ne'er beguiled6 ,and ,i wept both night and day1 ,and he wiped my tears away2 ,and ,i wept both day and night1 ,and hid from him my heart's delight4 ,so he took his wings and fled2 ,then the man blushed very red4 ,i dried my tears and armed my fears ,with ten thousand shields and spears4 ,soon my ,angel came again2 ,i was armed1 he came in vain2 ,for the time of youth was fled1 ,and gray hairs were on my head4 ,illustration3 ,the ,fly4 ,the ,tyger4 ,from ,blake's 8,songs of ,experience40 ,generally speaking1 the ,songs of ,experience may be said to answer to their title4 ,they exhibit an awakening of thought and an occupation with metaphysical problems alien to the ,songs of ,innocence4 ,such a stanza as this shows that ,blake's mind had been busy3-- ,nought loves another as itself ,nor venerates another so2 ,nor is it possible to thought ,a greater than itself to know4 ,these ideas1 however1 are always conveyed1 as in the remainder of the poem quoted1 through the medium of a concrete fact represented by the poet4 ,perhaps the finest example of this fusion of imagination and thought is this stanza of the most striking and best known of all the poems1 8,the ,tiger03-- ,when the stars threw down their spears ,and watered heaven with their tears1 ,did he smile his work to see8 ,did ,he who made the lamb make thee8 ,an evident1 though probably unconscious1 reminiscence of 8,when the morning stars sang together1 and all the sons of ,god shouted for joy10 and like it for that extreme closeness to the inmost essence of things which the author of the ,book of ,job enjoyed in virtue of the primitive simplicity of his age and environment1 and ,blake through a childlike temperament little short of preternatural in an age like ours4 ,it may be added1 that although the pieces in ,songs of ,innocence and ,songs of ,experience are of very unequal degrees of poetical merit1 none want the infallible mark of inspired poetry--spontaneous1 inimitable melody4 ,illustration3 ,page of ,young's 8,night ,thoughts40 ,illustrated by ,w4 ,blake4 ,both the simplicity and the melody1 however1 are absent from the remarkable works with which ,blake had been occupying himself during the interval between the publication of the two series of his songs1 which1 with their successors1 have given him a peculiar and unique reputation in their own weird way1 but could not by themselves have given him the reputation of a poet4 ,blake's plain prose1 as we shall see1 is much more effective4 ,in a strictly artistic point of view1 nevertheless1 these compositions reveal higher capacities than would have been inferred from the idyllic beauty of the pictorial accompaniments of ,songs of ,innocence and ,experience4 ,before discussing these it will be convenient to relate the chief circumstances of ,blake's life during the period of their production1 and up to the remarkable episode of his migration to ,felpham4 ,they were not memorable or striking1 but one of them had considerable influence upon his development4 ,in #agia he was employed by ,johnson1 the ,liberal publisher of ,st4 ,paul's ,churchyard1 and as such a minor light of his time1 to illustrate ,mary ,wollstonecraft's ,tales for ,children with six plates1 both designed and engraved by him1 one of which accompanies this essay4 ,they are much in the manner of ,stothard4 ,this commission brought ,blake as a guest to ,johnson's house1 where he became acquainted with a republican coterie--,mary ,wollstonecraft1 ,godwin1 ,paine1 ,holcroft1 ,fuseli--with whose political opinions he harmonised well1 though totally dissimilar in temperament from all of them1 except ,fuseli1 who gave him several tokens of interest and friendship4 ,these acquaintanceships1 and the excitement of the times1 led ,blake to indite1 and1 which is more extraordinary1 ,johnson to publish1 the first of an intended series of seven poetical books on the ,french ,revolution4 ,this1 ,gilchrist tells us1 was a thin quarto1 without illustrations1 published without ,blake's name1 and priced at a shilling4 ,gilchrist probably derived this information from a catalogue1 for he carefully avoids claiming to have seen the book1 which seems to have also escaped the researches of all ,blake's other biographers4 ,it must be feared that it is entirely lost4 ,gilchrist must1 however1 have known something more of it if his assertion that the other six books were actually written but not printed1 8events taking a different turn from the anticipated one10 is based upon anything besides conjecture4 ,illustration3 #i ,i want6 ,i want6 #aj ,help6 ,help6 ,illustration3 #aa ,aged ,ignorance4 #ae ,death's ,door4 ,in #agic ,blake removed from ,poland ,street to ,hercules ,buildings1 ,lambeth1 then a row of suburban cottages with little gardens4 ,here he engraved his friend ,flaxman's designs for the ,odyssey1 to replace plates engraved by ,piroli and lost in the voyage from ,italy1 whence ,flaxman had returned after seven years' absence4 ,in #agie he designed three illustrations for ,stanley's translation of ,burger's 8,lenore10 and in #agif executed a much more important work1 #ecg drawings for an edition of ,young's ,night ,thoughts projected by a publisher named ,edwards4 ,forty-three were engraved and published in #agig1 but the undertaking was carried no further for want of encouragement1 and the designs1 after remaining long in the publisher's family1 eventually came into the hands of ,mr4 ,bain of the ,haymarket1 who is still the possessor4 ,the most important are described by ,mr4 ,frederic ,shields in the appendix to the second volume of ,gilchrist's biography4 ,mr4 ,shields' descriptions are so fascinating#c that from them alone one would be inclined to rate the drawings very high3 but ,mr4 ,gilchrist thinks these ill adapted for the special purpose of book illustration which they were destined to subserve1 and reminds us that the absence of colour is a grave loss4 ,blake is said to have been paid only a guinea a plate for the forty-three engravings1 on which he worked for a year4 ,the ,lambeth period1 however1 seems not to have been an unprosperous one1 for he had many pupils4 ,several curious anecdotes of it were related after his death on the alleged authority of ,mrs4 ,blake1 but their truth seems doubtful4 ,it is certain that during this period he met with the most constant of his patrons1 ,mr4 ,thomas ,butts1 who for nearly thirty years continued a steady buyer of his drawings1 and but for whom he would probably have fallen into absolute distress4 ,it is now time to speak of the literary works--8pictured poesy10 like the woven poesy of ,the ,witch of ,atlas--produced during this period4 ,in #aghi1 the year of publication of the ,songs of ,innocence1 the series opens with ,thel4 ,in #agij comes ,the ,marriage of ,heaven and ,hell2 in #agic1 ,the ,gates of ,paradise1 ,the ,vision of the ,daughters of ,albion1 and ,america2 in #agid1 ,europe1 ,a ,prophecy1 and ,urizen2 in #agie1 ,the ,song of ,los1 and ,the ,book of ,ahaniah4 ,in #agig ,blake seems to have written1 or to have begun to write1 the mystical poem ultimately entitled ,vala1 never published by him1 and more than fifty years after his death found in ,linnell's possession in such a state of confusion that it took ,messrs4 ,ellis and ,yeats days to arrange the ,,ms41 which they fondly deem to be now in proper order4 ,it is printed in the third volume of their work on ,blake4 ,tiriel is undated1 but would seem to be nearly contemporary with ,thel4 ,the ,gates of ,paradise constitutes an exception to the general spirit of the works of this period1 the accompanying text1 though mystical enough1 being lyrical and not epical4 ,the seventeen beautiful designs1 emblematical of the incidents necessarily associated with human nature1 are well described by ,allan ,cunningham as 8a sort of devout dream1 equally wild and lovely40 ,the merits of this remarkable series of works will always be a matter of controversy4 8,whether10 as ,blake himself says1 8whether this is ,jerusalem or ,babylon1 we know not40 ,it must be so1 for they are purely subjective1 there is no objective criterion2 they admit of comparison with nothing1 and can be tested by no recognised rules4 ,in the whole compass of human creation there is perhaps hardly anything so distinctively an emanation of the mind that gave it birth4 ,visions they undoubtedly are1 and1 as ,messrs4 ,ellis and ,yeats well say1 they are manifestly not the production of a pretender to visionary powers4 ,whatever ,blake has here put down1 pictorially or poetically1 is evidently a record of something actually discerned by the inner eye4 ,this1 however1 leaves the question of their value still open4 ,to the pictorial part1 indeed1 almost all are agreed in attaching a certain value1 though the warmth of appreciation is widely graduated4 ,but literary estimation is not only discrepant but hostile2 some deem them revelation1 others rhapsody4 ,the one thing certain is the general tendency towards ,pantheism which ,mr4 ,swinburne has made the theme of an elaborate essay4 ,to us they seem an exemplification of the truth that no man can serve two masters4 ,blake had great gifts1 both as poet and artist1 and he aspired not only to employ both1 but to combine both in the same work4 ,at first this was practicable1 but soon the artistic faculty grew while the poetical dwindled4 ,not only did the visible speech of painting become more important to him than the viewless accents of verse1 but his poetry became infected with the artistic method4 ,he allowed a latitude to his language which he ought to have reserved for his form and colour1 and became as hieroglyphic in a speech where hieroglyphs are illegitimate as in one where they are permissible4 ,this is proved by the fact that the decline in the purity of poetical form and in the perspicuity of poetical language proceed pari passu4 ,thel1 the earliest1 is also both the most luminous and the most musical of these pieces4 ,could ,blake have schooled himself to have written such blank verse as he had already produced in ,edward the ,third and ,samson1 ,thel would have been a very fine poem4 ,even as it is its lax1 rambling semi-prose is full of delicate modulations3 ,the daughters of the ,seraphim led round their sunny flocks1 ,all but the youngest2 she in paleness sought the secret air ,to fade away like morning beauty from her mortal day4 ,down by the river of ,adera her soft voice is heard1 ,and thus her gentle lamentation falls like morning dew4 ,in every succeeding production1 however1 there is less of metrical beauty1 and thought and expression grow continually more and more amorphous4 ,blake may not improbably have been influenced by ,ossian1 whose supposed poems were popular in his day1 and from whom some of his proper names1 such as ,usthona1 seem to have been adopted4 ,many then deemed that ,ossian had demonstrated form to be a mere accident of poetry instead of1 as in truth it is1 an indissoluble portion of its essence4 ,there is certainly a strong family resemblance between ,blake's shadowy conceptions and ,ossian's misty sublimities4 ,on the other hand1 he may be credited with having made a distinguished disciple in ,walt ,whitman1 who would not1 we think1 have written as he did if ,blake had never existed4 ,what was pardonable in one so utterly devoid of the sentiment of beautiful form as ,whitman1 was less so in one so exquisitely gifted as ,blake4 ,both derive some advantages from their laxity1 especially the poet of ,democracy1 but both suffer from the inability of poetry1 divorced from metrical form1 to take a serious hold upon the memory4 ,one reads and admires1 and by and by the sensation is of the passage of a great procession of horsemen and footmen and banners1 but no distinct impression of a single countenance4 ,the general effect of these strange works upon the average mind is correctly expressed by ,gilchrist1 when he says1 speaking of ,europe3 8,it is hard to trace out any distinct subject1 any plan or purpose1 or to determine whether it mainly relates to the past1 the present1 or things to come4 ,and yet its incoherence has a grandeur about it as of the utterance of a man whose eyes are fixed on strange and awful sights1 invisible to bystanders40 ,what1 then1 did ,blake suppose himself to behold8 ,messrs4 ,ellis and ,yeats have devoted an entire volume of their three-volume work on ,blake to the exposition of his visions4 ,their comment is often highly suggestive1 but it is seldom convincing4 ,when the right interpretation of a symbol has been found1 it is usually self-evident4 ,not so with their explanations1 which appear neither demonstrably wrong nor demonstrably right4 ,not that ,blake talked aimless nonsense2 we are conscious of a general drift of thought in some particular direction which seems to us to offer a general affinity to the thought of the ancient ,gnostics4 ,it would be interesting if some competent person would endeavour to determine whether the resemblance goes any deeper than externals4 ,blake certainly knew nothing of the ,gnostics at first hand1 nor is it probable that he could have gained any knowledge of them from the mystical writers he did study1 ,behmen and ,swedenborg4 ,but similar tendencies will frequently incarnate themselves in individuals at widely remote periods of the world's history without evidence of direct filiation4 ,even so exceptional a personage as ,blake cannot be considered apart from his age1 and his age1 among its other aspects1 was one of mesmerism and illuminism4 ,the superficial resemblance of his writings to those of the ,gnostics is certainly remarkable4 ,both embody their imaginations in concrete forms2 both construct elaborate cosmogonies and obscure myths2 both create hierarchies of principalities and powers1 and equip their spiritual potentates with sonorous appellations2 both disparage matter and its ,demiurgus4 8,i fear10 said ,blake to ,robinson1 8that ,wordsworth loves nature1 and nature is the work of the devil4 ,the devil is in us as far as we are nature40 ,the chief visible difference1 that the ,gnostics' philosophy tends to asceticism1 and ,blake's to enjoyment1 may perhaps be explained by the consideration that he was a poet1 and that they were philosophers and divines4 ,perhaps the best preparation for any student of ,blake who might wish to investigate this subject further would be to read the article in the ,dictionary of ,christian ,biography upon the ,pistis ,sophia1 the only ,gnostic book that has come down to us1 and one which ,blake would have delighted in illustrating4 ,the ,gnostic belief in the all-importance of the transcendent knowledge which comes of immediate perception 77 reappears in him with singular intensity4 8,men are admitted into heaven10 he says1 8not because they have curbed and governed their passions1 or have no passions1 but because they have cultivated their understandings4 ,the fool shall not enter into heaven1 let him be ever so holy40 ,nothing in ,blake1 perhaps1 is so ,gnostic as the strange poem1 ,the ,everlasting ,gospel1 first published by ,mr4 ,rossetti1 though many things in it would have shocked the ,gnostics4 ,illustration3 ,,title ,,page ,,from ,,the ,,book ,,of ,,thel4 ,the strictly literary criticism of ,blake's mystical books may be almost confined to the ,book of ,thel1 for this alone possesses sufficient symmetry to allow a judgment to be formed upon it as a whole4 ,the others are like quagmires occasionally gay with brilliant flowers2 but ,thel1 though its purpose may be obscure1 is at all events coherent1 with a beginning and an end4 ,thel1 8youngest daughter of the ,seraphim10 roves through the lower world lamenting the mortality of beautiful things1 including her own4 ,all things with which she discourses offer her consolation1 but to no purpose4 ,at last she enters the realm of ,death himself4 ,the eternal gates' terrific porter lifted the northern bar2 ,thel entered in and saw the secrets of the land unknown4 ,she saw the couches of the dead1 and where the fibrous root ,of every heart on earth infixes deep its restless twists3 ,a land of sorrows and of tears1 where never a smile was seen4 ,she wandered in the land of clouds1 through valleys dark listening ,dolours and lamentations2 waiting oft beside a dewy grave ,she stood in silence1 listening to the voices of the ground1 ,till to her own grave-plot she came1 and there she sat down1 ,and heard this voice of sorrow breathed from the hollow pit4 ,the effect of the voice of sorrow upon ,thel is answerable to that of the spider upon little ,miss ,muffet4 ,this abrupt conclusion injures the effect of a piece which otherwise may be compared to a strain of soothing music1 suggestive of many things1 but giving definite expression to none4 ,messrs4 ,ellis and ,yeats1 however1 have no difficulty in assigning a meaning4 ,thel1 according to them1 is 8the pure spiritual essence10 her grief is the dread of incarnation1 and her ultimate flight is a return 8to the land of pure unembodied innocence from whence she came40 ,yet her forsaking this land is represented as her own act1 and it is difficult to see how she could have 8led round her sunny flocks0 in it if she had not been embodied while she inhabited it4 ,at the same time1 if ,messrs4 ,ellis and ,yeats are right1 no interpretation of ,blake can be disproved by any inconsistency that it may seem to involve4 8,the surface10 they say1 8is perpetually1 as it were1 giving way before one1 and revealing another surface below it1 and that again dissolves when we try to study it4 ,the making of religions melts into the making of the earth1 and that fades away into some allegory of the rising and the setting of the sun4 ,it is all like a great cloud full of stars and shapes1 through which the eye seeks a boundary in vain40 ,illustration3 ,design from the 8,book of ,urizen40 ,by ,w4 ,blake4 ,mr4 ,yeats1 putting his interpretation of ,blake's symbolism more tersely into the preface to his excellent edition of the ,poetical ,works1 describes it as shadowing forth the endless conflict between the ,imagination and the ,reason1 which1 we may add1 the ,gnostics would have expressed as the strife between the ,supreme ,deity and the god of this world1 the very phrase which ,mr4 ,yeats himself uses in describing ,urizen1 ,blake's ,evil ,genius1 8the maker of dead law and blind negation10 contrasted as the ,gnostics would have contrasted him with ,los1 the deity of the living world4 ,blake1 therefore1 has points of contact with the representatives of the ,french ,revolution on one side1 and with ,coleridge on the other4 ,mr4 ,yeats's interpretation is in itself coherent and plausible1 but the question whether it can be fairly deduced from ,blake himself is one on which few are entitled to pronounce1 and the causes of ,blake's obscurity are not so visible as its consequences4 ,to us1 as already said1 much of it appears to arise from his imperfect discrimination between the provinces of speech and of painting4 ,his discourse frequently seems a hieroglyphic which would have been more intelligible if it could have been expressed in the manner proper to hieroglyphics by pictorial representation4 ,as ,mr4 ,smetham says of some of the designs1 8,thought cannot fathom the secret of their power1 and yet the power is there40 ,it seems evident that the poem1 when a complete lyric1 generally preceded the picture in ,blake's mind1 and that the latter must usually be taken as a gloss1 in which he seeks to illustrate by means of visible representation what he was conscious of having left obscure by verbal expression4 ,the exquisite song of the ,sunflower1 for example1 certainly existed before the very slight accompanying illustration4 ,ah ,sunflower1 weary of time1 ,who counted the steps of the sun1 ,seeking after that sweet golden clime ,where the traveller's journey is done4 ,where the youth1 pined away with desire1 ,and the pale virgin shrouded in snow1 ,arise from their graves and aspire ,where my sunflower wishes to go4 ,the first of these stanzas is perfectly clear3 the second requires no interpretation to a poetical mind1 but will not bear construing strictly1 and its comprehension is certainly assisted by the slight fugitive design lightly traced around the border4 ,generally the pictorial illustration of ,blake's thought is much more elaborate1 but in ,songs of ,innocence and ,experience it almost always seems to have grown out of the poem4 ,in the less inspired ,prophetical ,books1 on the other hand1 the pictorial representation1 even when present only to the artist's mind1 seems to have frequently suggested or modified the text4 ,an example may be adduced from ,the ,book of ,thel4 ,why an ear1 a whirlpool fierce to draw creations in8 ,blake had noted the external likeness of the convolutions of the ear to the convolutions of a whirlpool2 therefore the ear shall be described as actually being what it superficially resembles1 and because the whirlpool sucks in ships1 the ear shall suck in creations4 ,it must also be remembered that ,blake's belief that his works were given him by inspiration prevented his revising them1 and that they were stereotyped by the method of their publication4 ,no considerable productions of the human mind1 it is probable1 so nearly approach the character of absolutely extemporaneous utterances4 ,before passing from the literary to the artistic expression of ,blake's genius in these books1 something must be said of the remarkable appendix to ,the ,marriage of ,heaven and ,hell entitled ,proverbs of ,hell4 ,these are a number of aphoristic sayings1 impregnated with ,blake's peculiarities of thought and expression1 but for the most part so shrewd and pithy as to demonstrate the author's sanity1 at least at this time of his life4 ,the following are some of the more striking3-- ,drive your cart and your plough over the bones of the dead4 ,the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom4 ,a fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees4 ,all wholesome food is caught without a net or a trap4 ,if the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise4 ,the fox condemns the trap1 not himself4 ,the eagle never lost so much time as when he submitted to learn of the crow4 ,the fox provides for himself1 but ,god provides for the lion4 ,he who has suffered you to impose on him1 knows you4 ,the tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction4 ,one law for the lion and ox is oppression4 ,the best wine is the oldest1 the best water the newest4 ,these are not the scintillations of reason which may occasionally illumine the chaos of a madman's brain1 but bespeak a core of good sense quite inconsistent with general mental disturbance1 though sufficiently compatible with delusion on particular subjects4 ,with incomparable art1 ,shakespeare has imparted a touch of wildness to ,hamlet's shrewdest sayings2 but ,blake speaks rather as ,polonius would have spoken if it had been possible for ,polonius to speak in tropes4 ,illustration3 ,,final ,,page ,,from ,,the ,,book ,,of ,,thel4 ,from the difficult subject of the interpretation of ,blake's mystical designs we pass with satisfaction to the artistic qualities of the designs themselves4 ,on this point there is an approximation to unanimity4 ,to some the sublime1 to others the grotesque1 may seem to preponderate1 but all will allow them to be among the most remarkable and original series of conceptions that ever emanated from a mortal brain4 ,to whatever exceptions they may be liable1 it enlarges one's apprehension of the compass of human faculties to know that human faculties have been adequate to their production4 ,they may be ranked with the most imaginative passages of ,paradise ,lost1 and of ,byron's ,cain as an endeavour of the mind to project itself beyond the visible and tangible1 and to create for itself new worlds of grandeur and of gloom in height and abyss and interstellar space4 ,wonderful indeed is the range of imagination displayed1 even though we cannot shut our eyes to some palpable repetitions4 ,in the opinion1 however1 of even so sympathetic a critic as ,dr4 ,wilkinson1 ,blake deserves censure for having degenerated into mere monstrosity4 8,of the worst aspect of ,blake's genius10 he says1 8it is painful to speak4 ,in his ,prophecies of ,america1 his ,visions of the ,daughters of ,albion1 and a host of unpublished drawings1 earth-born might has banished the heavenlier elements of art1 and exists combined with all that is monstrous and diabolical4 ,the effect of these delineations is greatly heightened by the antiquity which is engraven on the faces of those who do and suffer in them4 ,we have the impression that we are looking down into the hells of the ancient people1 the ,anakim1 the ,nephilim1 and the ,rephaim4 ,their human forms are gigantic petrifactions1 from which the fires of lust and intense selfish passion have long dissipated what was animal and vital1 leaving stony limbs and countenances expressive of despair and stupid cruelty40 ,we1 on the other hand1 should rather criticise ,blake for having failed to be as appalling as he meant to be4 ,his power1 as it seems to us1 consisted rather in the vivid imagination than in the actual rendering of scenes of awe and horror4 ,far inferior artists have produced more thrilling effects of this sort with much simpler means4 ,it would be wrong to say that his visions appear unreal1 but they do appear at a remove from reality1 a world seen through a glass darkly1 its phantasm rather than its portrait4 ,this1 however1 only applies to the inventions of ,blake's own brain1 which1 if we may judge by the moderate development of the back head in ,deville's cast1 lacked the force of the animal propensities requisite for the portrayal of cruelty and horror4 ,he could render the conceptions of others with startling force--witness the impressive delineation reproduced by us of the ,architect of the ,universe at work with his compasses2 and the simple pencil outline of ,nebuchadnezzar in ,mr4 ,rossetti's book1 engraved by ,gilchrist1 where the human quadruped creeps away with an expression of overwhelming and horror-stricken dismay4 ,this power of interpretation was to find yet finer expression in the illustration of the ,book of ,job4 ,blake's technical defects are indicated by ,messrs4 ,ellis and ,yeats as consisting mainly in imperfect treatment of the human form from want of anatomical knowledge4 ,he had always disliked that close study of the life which alone could have made him an able draughtsman2 it 8obliterated0 him1 he said1 and had resolved to quarrel with almost all the artists from whom he might have learned4 ,it must be remembered in his excuse that consummate colouring and consummate draughtsmanship are seldom found associated4 ,those who may feel disappointed with the reproductions of ,blake's mystical designs must also remember that these are but shadows of the artist's thought1 which needed for its full effect the application of colour by his own hand4 8,much10 says ,dante ,rossetti1 8which seems unaccountably rugged and incomplete is softened by the sweet1 liquid1 rainbow tints of the coloured copies into mysterious brilliancy40 ,the effect thus obtained may perhaps be best shown by ,mr4 ,gilchrist's eloquent description of the illuminated drawings in ,lord ,crewe's copy of ,america4 8,turning over the leaves1 it is sometimes like an increase of daylight in the retina1 so fair and open is the effect of particular pages4 ,the skies of sapphire1 or gold1 rayed with hues of sunset1 against which stand out leaf or blossom1 or pendent branch1 gay with bright-plumaged birds2 the strips of emerald sward below1 gemmed with flower and lizard1 and enamelled snake1 refresh the eye continually4 ,some of the illustrations are of a more sombre kind4 ,there is one in which a little corpse1 white as snow1 lies gleaming on the floor of a green over-arching cave1 which close inspection proves to be a field of wheat1 whose slender interlacing stalks1 bowed by the full ear and by a gentle breeze1 bend over the dead infant4 ,the delicate network of stalks1 which is carried up one side of the page1 the main picture being at the bottom1 and the subdued yet vivid green light shed over the whole1 produce a lovely decorative effect4 ,decorative effect is1 in fact1 never lost sight of1 even where the motive of the design is ghastly or terrible40 ,whatever the imperfections of ,blake's peculiar sphere1 it was his sphere1 and probably the only department of art in which he could have obtained greatness even if his technical accomplishment had been as complete as it was the reverse4 ,when painting on more orthodox lines he is often surprisingly tame and conventional4 ,how remote he was from the inane when he could revel in his own conceptions may1 notwithstanding the tremendous disadvantages inherent in reproduction1 be judged from the illustrations to his mystical books selected for this monograph1 the frontispiece and ,plate ,,iv4 of ,thel1 and the two subjects from ,america4 ,illustration3 ,the ,ancient of ,days setting a ,compass to the ,earth4 ,from a water-colour drawing by ,w4 ,blake4 ,british ,museum4 ,,chapter ,,iii ,blake's removal to ,felpham--,intercourse with ,hayley--,return to ,london--8,jerusalem0--,connection with ,cromek--,illustrations of ,blair's 8,grave0--,illustration of ,chaucer's 8,canterbury ,pilgrims0--,exhibition of his ,works and 8,descriptive ,catalogue40 ,blake was now about to make a change in his external environment1 which would have been momentous to any artist whose themes had been less exclusively discerned by the inner eye4 ,it is an extraordinary fact1 but there is absolutely no evidence that the poet who 8made a rural pen0 had as yet ever seen the country beyond the immediate neighbourhood of ,london4 ,it is vain to speculate upon the precise modification which might have been wrought in his genius by rural nurture or foreign travel4 ,now he was actually to become a denizen of the country for some years4 ,an introduction from ,flaxman had made him acquainted with ,william ,hayley1 a ,sussex squire and scholar1 now chiefly remembered as his patron and the biographer of ,cowper1 but esteemed in his own day as one of the best representatives of ,english poetry at what seemed the period of its deepest decrepitude1 though he is unaccountably omitted in ,porson's catalogue of the bards of the epoch4#d ,hayley1 having lost his son1 a pupil of ,flaxman1 and his friend ,cowper within a week of each other in the spring of #ahjj1 resolved to solace his grief by writing ,cowper's life1 and suggested that ,blake should live near him during the progress of the work to execute the engravings by which it was to be illustrated4 ,in ,august1 #ahjj1 ,blake removed from ,lambeth to ,felpham1 near ,bognor1 on the ,sussex coast1 where ,hayley occupied a marine villa1 his own residence at ,eastham being let on account of the embarrassment of his affairs4 ,the cottage was not provided by him for ,blake1 but the rent was paid by ,blake himself4 ,the change from ,lambeth to a beautiful country of groves1 meadows1 and cornfields1 with sails in the distance1 ,half lost in the liquid azure bloom of a crescent of sea1 ,the shining sapphire-spangled marriage ring of the land1 affected ,blake with enthusiastic delight4 8,felpham10 he wrote to ,flaxman1 8is 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 seen1 and my cottage is also a shadow of their houses40 ,he continues3 8,i am more famed in ,heaven for my works than ,i could well conceive4 ,in my brain are studies and chambers with books and pictures of old1 which ,i wrote and painted in ages of eternity before my mortal life2 and those works are the delight and study of archangels4 ,why then should ,i be anxious about the riches or fame of mortality80 ,it is clear that1 notwithstanding his theories of the deadness of the material creation1 ,blake valued natural beauty as an instrument for bringing him into more intimate connection with the visionary world4 ,at first the desired effect was fully produced4 ,blake began to compose1 or rather1 according to his own account1 to take down from supernatural dictation the ,jerusalem1 the most important in some respects of his mystical writings4 ,walking by the shore--the very shore where ,cary was afterwards to encounter ,coleridge--he habitually met ,moses and the ,prophets1 ,homer1 ,dante1 and ,milton4 8,all10 he said1 8majestic shadows1 gray but luminous1 and superior to the common height40 ,a description so fine1 that some may be inclined to deem it something more than a mere fancy4 ,unfortunately he also fell in with a fairies' funeral1 a stumbling-block to the most resolute faith4 ,by and by1 however1 the dampness of the cottage proved provocative of rheumatism1 and1 which was much more disastrous1 the mental climate proved unsympathetic4 ,hayley's patronage of so strange a creature as he must have thought ,blake does him the highest honour4 ,he appears throughout1 not only as a very kind man1 but1 what is less usual in a literary personage1 a very patient one4 ,he actually instructed ,blake in ,greek4 ,his kindness and patience did not1 however1 render him any the better poet2 he was an elegant dilettante at the best1 and ,blake must have chafed at the obligation under which he felt himself to illustrate his verses4 ,one ballad of some merit1 however1 8,little ,tom the ,sailor10 inspired ,blake with a striking if somewhat rude design1 and he adorned ,hayley's library with ideal portraits of illustrious authors4 ,the engraving work which he had to execute for ,hayley's life of ,cowper was also little to his taste1 but there seems no valid reason to charge him with neglect of it4 ,his own self-reproach1 indeed1 ran in quite a different channel3 he accused himself most seriously of unfaithfulness to his high vocation as a revealer and interpreter of spiritual things4 ,absence from town led him to write frequently to his friend and patron ,butts1 and these letters are invaluable indications not only of the frame of his mind at the time1 but of its general habit4 8,i labour10 he says1 8incessantly1 ,i accomplish not one-half of what ,i intend1 because my abstract folly hurries me often away while ,i am at work1 carrying me over mountains and valleys1 which are not real1 into a land of abstraction where spectres of the dead wander4 ,this ,i endeavour to prevent2 ,i1 with my whole might1 chain my feet to the world of duty and reality4 ,but in vain6 the faster ,i bind1 the lighter is the ballast2 for ,i1 so far from being bound down1 take the world with me in my flights1 and often it seems lighter than a ball of wool rolled by the wind4''' ,if we fear to do the dictates of our angels1 and tremble at the tasks set before us1 if we refuse to do spiritual acts because of natural fears or natural desires1 who can describe the dismal torments of such a state8''' ,though ,i have been very unhappy1 ,i am so no longer4 ,i have travelled through perils and darkness not unlike a champion4 ,i have conquered and shall go on conquering4 ,nothing can withstand the fury of my course among the stars of ,god and in the abysses of the accuser40 ,in plain ,english ,hayley strongly advised ,blake to give up his mystical poetry and design and devote himself solely to engraving1 and ,blake looked upon the advice as a suggestion of the adversary4 ,we do not know what ,hayley said4 ,if he thought that one of the ,poetical ,sketches or the ,songs of ,innocence was worth many pages of ,urizen apart from the illustrations1 he had reason for what he thought4 ,but ,blake's lyrical gift had all but forsaken him2 he was incapable of emitting 8wood-notes wild10 and the only way in which he could give literary expression to the inspiration by which he justly deemed himself visited was through his rhythmical form1 which to ,hayley may well have seemed monstrous4 ,it is highly probable that the pictorial part of ,blake's work found no more favour with ,hayley than the poetical2 at all events it is very certain that he greatly preferred his engraving1 and wished ,blake to follow the art by which he had the best prospect of providing for himself4 ,johnson and ,fuseli1 by ,blake's own admission1 had given the same advice2 and an obscure line in one of his rather undignified and splenetic epigrams against his well-intentioned friend may be interpreted as meaning that ,hayley had tried to bring his wife's influence to bear upon him for this end4 ,in any case he lost temper with ,hayley1 and wrote to ,butts 7,july1 #ahjc73 8,mr4 ,hayley approves of my designs as little as he does of my poems1 and ,i have been forced to insist on his leaving me in both to my own self-will2 for ,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 arts40 ,two months afterwards he returned to ,london1 but on better terms with ,hayley2 partly on account of the latter's generous conduct in providing for his defence against a charge of using seditious language1 trumped up against him by a soldier whom he had turned out of his garden4 8,perhaps10 he wrote to ,butts1 8this was suffered to give opportunity to those whom ,i doubted to clear themselves of all imputation40 ,the case was tried in ,january1 #ahjd1 and terminated in ,blake's triumphant acquittal4 ,an old man who had attended the trial as a youth said that he remembered nothing of it except ,blake's flashing eye4 ,illustration3 ,from ,blake's 8,america40 ,the engravings executed by ,blake for ,hayley during his residence at ,felpham were six for the life and letters of ,cowper2 four original designs for ballads by ,hayley1 including 8,poor ,tom10 and six engravings after ,maria ,t4 ,flaxman for ,hayley's ,triumphs of ,temper4 ,he did some work for ,hayley after his return to town--engravings for the ,life of ,romney1 and original designs for ,hayley's ,ballads on ,animals--and corresponded with him in a friendly spirit1 but the intimacy gradually died away4 ,blake was profoundly influenced by his residence at ,felpham in one respect2 he became acquainted with opposition1 and distinctly realised a power antagonistic to his aspirations4 ,he was thus stung into self-assertion1 and became hostile to the artists whose aims and methods he was unable to reconcile with his ideas4 ,the first hints of this attitude appear in the praises he bestows upon the work of his own which chiefly occupied him at ,felpham1 the ,jerusalem4 8,i may praise it10 he says1 8since ,i dare not pretend to be any other than the secretary2 the authors are in eternity4 ,i consider it as the grandest poem that this world contains4 ,allegory addressed to the intellectual powers1 while it is altogether hidden from the corporeal understanding1 is my definition of the most sublime poetry40 ,blake's allegory so effectually eludes both the reason and the understanding that ,messrs4 ,ellis and ,yeats frankly tell us that it is not for a moment to be supposed that their own elaborate interpretation will convey any idea to the mind unless it is read conjointly with the poem2 and if such is the commentary what must the text be8 ,if they are right the confusion is greatly increased by a wrong arrangement1 and by the numerous interpolations which ,blake subsequently introduced into the poem1 which1 though nominally issued in #ahjd1 was not1 they think1 actually completed until about #ahbj4 ,it suffers from being nearer prose than any of his former books4 8,when this verse was dictated to me10 he says1 8,i considered a monotonous cadence1 like that used by ,milton1 ,shakespeare1 and all writers of ,english blank verse1 derived from the modern bondage of rhyming1 to be a necessary and indispensable part of the verse4 ,but ,i soon found that in the mouth of a true orator such monotony was not only awkward1 but as much a bondage as rhyme itself40 ,what can be said of the ears that could find ,shakespeare's and ,milton's blank verse monotonous8 ,the truth is that ,blake's originally exquisite perception of harmony had waned with his lyrical faculty1 and he scoffs at what he is no longer able to produce4 ,yet the general grandiose effect of ,jerusalem is undeniable4 ,little as we can attach any definite idea to it1 it simultaneously awes and soothes like one of the great inarticulate voices of nature1 the booming of the billows1 or the whisper of the winds in the wood4 ,occasionally we encounter some beautiful little vignette like this3-- ,she creates at her will a little moving night and silence1 ,with spaces of sweet gardens and a tent of elegant beauty1 ,closed in by sandy deserts1 and a night of stars shining2 ,a little tender moon1 and hovering angels on the wing1 ,and the male gives a time and revolution to her space ,till the time of love is passed in ever-varying delights3 ,for all things exist in the human imagination4 ,this seems an illustration of what we have said of the dependence of ,blake's poetry upon his pictorial imagination1 for it is clearly nothing but a magnificent expansion of the midsummer night idyl of the glowworm shining for her mate1 8with her little drop of moonlight10 as ,beddoes beautifully says4 ,in artistic merit ,jerusalem is fully equal to any of ,blake's works4 ,there is less of the grotesque than in the others1 and even more of the impressive4 ,much1 however1 depends upon the colouring1 which varies greatly in different copies4 ,mr4 ,gilchrist warns us that it cannot be judged aright if we have not seen the 8incomparable0 copy in the possession of ,lord ,crewe4 8,it is printed in a warm reddish-brown1 the exact colour of a very fine photograph2 and the broken blending of the deeper lines with the more tender shadows--all sanded over with a sort of golden mist peculiar to ,blake's mode of execution--makes still more striking the resemblance to the then undiscovered handling of ,nature herself40 ,the general character of the design is excellently described by ,gilchrist4 8,the subjects are vague and mystic as the poem itself4 ,female figures lie among waves full of reflected stars3 a strange human image1 with a swan's head and wings1 floats on water in a kneeling attitude and drinks2 lovers embrace in an open water-lily2 an eagle-headed creature sits and contemplates the sun2 serpent-women are coiled with serpents2 ,assyrian-looking1 human-visaged bulls are seen yoked to the plough or the chariot2 rocks swallow or vomit forth human forms1 or appear to amalgamate with them2 angels cross each other over wheels of flame2 and flames and hurrying figures wreathe and wind among the lines40 ,it may indeed1 like ,blake's other productions of the kind1 be described as a gigantic arabesque1 imbued with a passion and pathos not elsewhere attempted in this branch of art4 ,illustration3 ,design from 8,milton40 ,by ,w4 ,blake4 ,the subject of ,milton1 from which one of our illustrations is selected1 is1 in ,mr4 ,swinburne's words1 the incarnation and descent into earth and hell of ,milton1 who represents redemption by inspiration4 ,something similar1 as we have seen1 is the idea of ,blake's fine mystical book1 ,thel1 and the pilgrimage through a lower sphere is also found in the oldest ,assyrian poetry4 ,the book1 like ,jerusalem1 is dated #ahjd1 but1 like its companion1 must have been composed at ,felpham4 ,nothing save actual and present contact with country scenes could have inspired such a passage as this1 the crown of all ,blake's unrhymed poetry3-- ,thou hearest the nightingale begin the song of spring3 ,the lark sitting upon his earthly bed1 just as the sun ,appears1 listens silent3 then springing from the wavy corn-field loud ,he leads the choir of day3 trill1 trill1 trill1 trill3 ,mounting upon the wings of light into the great expanse2 ,re-echoing against the lovely blue and shining heavenly shell3 ,his little throat labours with inspiration1 every feather ,on throat and breast and wings vibrates with the effluence divine3 ,all nature listens silent to him1 and the awful sun ,stands still upon the mountain looking on this little bird ,with eyes of soft humility1 and wonder1 love1 and awe4 ,such a passage shows how greatly ,blake might have gained as a poet had he been more intimate with external nature4 ,very splendid lines might be quoted from 8,milton10 such as 8,a cloudy heaven mingled with stormy seas in loudest ruin10 but they are glowing light upon a black core of obscurity4 ,mr4 ,housman's judgment applies to it as to all the works of its class4 8,they are the sign chiefly of a beautiful nature wasted for lack of equipment in formulating disputatively what grew out of his better work with all the thoughtlessness and glory of a flower40#e ,illustration3 ,from ,blake's 8,america40 ,several lyrical poems printed in ,blake's works may be assigned to this date4 ,some1 such as 8,the ,crystal ,cabinet0 and 8,the ,mental ,traveller10 are extremely mystical2 others1 such as 8,mary10 are of simply human interest2 others1 such as 8,auguries of ,innocence10 seem little remote from nonsense4 8,the ,everlasting ,gospel0 expresses his profoundest ideas with startling crudity4 ,none are wholly unmelodious1 but the old bewitching melody has gone from all1 unless from the lines introductory to 8,milton03-- ,and did those feet in ancient time ,walk upon ,england's mountains green2 ,and was the holy ,lamb of ,god ,on ,england's pleasant pastures seen8 ,and did the countenance divine ,shine forth upon our clouded hills8 ,and was ,jerusalem builded here ,among these dark ,satanic mills8 ,bring me my bow of burning gold1 ,bring me my arrows of desire3 ,bring me my spear3 ,o clouds unfold6 ,bring me my chariot of fire6 ,i will not cease from mental fight1 ,nor shall my sword sleep in my hand1 ,till we have built ,jerusalem ,in ,england's green and pleasant land4 ,illustration3 ,portrait of ,william ,blake4 ,from the engraving by ,l4 ,schiavonetti1 after ,t4 ,phillips1 ,r4,a4 ,blake1 who had settled at #ag1 ,south ,molton ,street1 ,oxford ,street1 was in the meantime dealing with a very different patron from ,hayley1 ,robert ,cromek1 a 8stickit0 engraver turned print-seller1 who tricked if he did not actually defraud him1 but who is entitled to the credit of having recognised his genius1 and of having brought forward works of his more adapted to attract public notice than anything he had yet done4 ,these were the twelve illustrations to ,blair's ,grave1 full of ,blake's peculiar genius and at the same time intelligible to all4 ,they had been executed in #ahjd and #ahje4 ,cromek1 who afterwards admitted that they were worth sixty guineas1 obtained them for twenty from the artist1 who had intended to publish them himself4 ,it had been understood that ,blake should have engraved them1 but ,cromek1 wisely from his own point of view1 but wrongfully as regarded ,blake1 intrusted the task to ,schiavonetti4 ,as a frontispiece1 they were accompanied by a portrait of ,blake from a drawing by ,phillips1 also engraved by ,schiavonetti1 which we have reproduced4 ,thanks to ,cromek's judicious engineering1 and the popularity of the poem illustrated1 the adventure proved a considerable success4 8,it is the only volume with ,blake's name on the title-page10 says ,mr4 ,gilchrist1 8which is not scarce40 ,the publication took place in #ahjh4 ,in the interval ,cromek1 calling upon ,blake1 had seen a pencil sketch of a design for the procession of ,chaucer's ,canterbury ,pilgrims4 ,failing to obtain a finished drawing from the artist1 who resented his previous treatment1 he proposed the subject to ,stothard1 withholding as apart from all questions of ,stothard's 8frigid and exemplary0 character would be most natural for him to do1 all mention of ,blake's drawing4 ,stothard accepted the commission2 his elaborate oil picture was exhibited in #ahjg with great success1 but at the cost of a breach with ,blake1 who went so far in his denunciation1 not only of ,cromek's underhand dealing but of the defects which he found in ,stothard's work1 that when he afterwards sought a reconciliation ,stothard remained impervious4 ,determined to vindicate his superiority1 ,blake completed1 exhibited1 and engraved his own fresco4 ,the exhibition1 accompanied by a remarkable 8descriptive catalogue10 to which we shall return--was not the success it might have been in the hands of the shrewd ,cromek4 ,the exhibition room was watched by ,blake's brother ,james1 whom ,crabb ,robinson asked whether he should be allowed to come again free in consideration of having bought four copies of the descriptive catalogue4 8,as long as you live10 answered the overjoyed custodian4 ,the success of the engraving was proportionate to that of the exhibition2 though it might have been otherwise if the roughness of the original design had been smoothed down by the deft ,schiavonetti4 8,blake's production10 says ,mr4 ,rossetti1 8is as unattractive as ,stothard's is facile2 as hard and strong as ,stothard's is limp2 one face in ,blake's design means as much on the part of the artist1 and takes as much scrutiny and turning over of thought on the part of the spectator1 as all the pretty fantoccini and their sprightly little horses in ,stothard's work40 ,the engraving of the ,pilgrimage in ,gilchrist's biography evinces the justice of this criticism2 though ,ellis and ,yeats rightly add that ,blake has given all his personages the eyes of visionaries4 8,a work of wonderful power and spirit1 hard and dry1 yet with grace10 says ,charles ,lamb4 ,the original fresco was purchased by ,elijah's raven1 the ever-ready ,butts4 ,we must now return to the illustrations to ,blair's ,grave1 which are not only the most popular of ,blake's works1 but among his greatest4 ,he showed in general more vigour in dealing with the conceptions of another than with his own1 the latter imbibing an element of fanciful grace from the gentle spirit which produced them4 ,hence ,the ,soul ,exploring the ,recesses of the ,grave1 reproduced from ,thel1 though one of the most poetical of the designs1 is one of the least powerful4 ,his rendering of ,blair's thoughts is marvellously direct and impressive1 whether the passion depicted be joy1 as in ,the ,reunion of the ,soul and the ,body 7given here71 or horror1 as in ,the ,death of the ,strong ,wicked ,man1 or an intermediate shade1 as in ,the ,soul hovering over the ,body4 ,none of these and few of the series1 once seen1 will easily be forgotten4 ,the most famous1 and deservedly so1 is the marvellous one1 a combination of two designs in ,america and ,the ,gates of ,paradise1 where the aged man1 impelled by a strong wind1 totters towards the portal of the sepulchre1 on the summit of which sits the rejuvenated spirit1 personified by a strong youth1 rejoicing in his deliverance1 but dazzled by the as yet unwonted light4 ,in all these designs the element of seemly1 yet slightly formal and conventional grace which ,blake had learned from ,stothard1 is very conspicuous4 ,the least successful1 as seems to us1 is ,the ,last ,judgment1 where ,blake appears as a minor ,michael ,angelo1 but this work as engraved differs widely from his description of the work as exhibited4 ,it may well be believed that the modified version was distinguished by great splendour of colouring4 ,other works of this period were two small frescoes exhibited at the ,academy in #ahjh1 ,christ in the ,sepulchre and ,jacob's ,dream2 the 8ornamental device0 engraved 7by ,cromek7 along with the frontispiece to ,malkin's ,father's ,memoirs of his ,child1 a graceful and pathetic composition2 three illustrations to ,shakespeare1 one of which1 the highly imaginative conception of the appearance of the ,ghost to ,hamlet1 is engraved in ,gilchrist's biography2 ,the ,babylonian ,woman on the ,seven-headed ,beast 7#ahji7 reproduced here2 a continuous series of designs produced for ,mr4 ,butts1 to be mentioned more fully hereafter2 and the pictures displayed along with ,the ,canterbury ,pilgrims at its exhibition 7#ahji74 ,we must now devote some attention to ,blake's appearance as an sthetic writer in the ,descriptive ,catalogue he put forth on this occasion1 with which his other principal deliverances on the subject of art may be advantageously grouped4 ,illustration3 ,the ,reunion of ,soul and ,body4 ,from ,blair's 8,grave10 illustrated by ,w4 ,blake4 ,blake's ,descriptive ,catalogue and his ,appeal to the ,public to judge between himself and his rivals in the department of engraving1 are a singular mixture of gold and clay4 ,the dignity which characterised his demeanour in life forsakes him as soon as he takes the pen into his hand1 and he reviles ,stothard1 ,woollett1 and others in a strain inconsistent with self-respect on his own part1 even had his criticism been well founded4 ,as a matter of fact1 it seems to have had no foundation1 and assuredly has not affected the reputation of his antagonists in the smallest degree4 ,at the same time it is impossible not to be moved by his earnestness4 ,he is evidently contending for principles of great importance to himself1 and through the mist of his confused and ungrammatical expression we seem to catch glimpses of high and serious truth4 ,a refreshing contrast is afforded by the passages devoted to ,chaucer1 which are truly admirable for their felicitous insight into the old poet4 8,for all who have read ,blake10 justly say ,messrs4 ,ellis and ,yeats1 8,chaucer is something more than the sweet spinner of rhyming gossip that he seems to most40 ,like ,ruskin1 and indeed all men of creative power1 ,blake is on much safer ground when he extols than when he censures4 ,to much the same period belongs a remarkable paper on his ,last ,judgment1 published by ,gilchrist from his ,,ms4 ,nothing of his admits us so fully into the sanctuary of his mind4 8,the ,last ,judgment10 he begins1 8is not fable or allegory1 but vision4 ,fable1 or allegory1 is a totally distinct and inferior kind of poetry4 ,vision1 or imagination1 is a representation of what actually exists1 really and unchangeably40 ,then follows an extremely graphic and vivid description of the painting1 interspersed with profound remarks1 such as 8,man passes on1 but states remain for ever2 he passes through them like a traveller1 who may as well suppose that the places he has passed through exist no more as a man may suppose that the states he has passed through exist no more2 everything is eternal40 8,i have seen1 when at a distance1 multitudes of men in harmony appear like a single infant40#f 8,in ,hell all is self-righteousness2 there is no such thing there as forgiveness of sin4 ,he who does forgive sin is crucified as an abettor of criminals40 8,angels are happier than men and devils1 because they are not always prying after good and evil in one another1 and eating the tree of knowledge for ,satan's gratification40 8,the ,last ,judgment is an overwhelming of bad art and science40 ,finally1 in words that state his own case as respects his reputed delusions1 he says3 8,i assert for myself that ,i do not behold the outward creation1 and that to me it is hindrance and not action4 #8,what6' it will be questioned1 #8when 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 crying1 #8,holy1 holy1 holy is the ,lord ,god ,almighty6' ,i question not my corporeal eye1 any more than ,i would question a window concerning a sight4 ,i look through it1 and not with it40 ,illustration3 ,the ,babylonian ,woman on the ,seven-headed ,beast4 ,from a water-colour drawing by ,w4 ,blake4 ,british ,museum4 ,blake's conception of the sun may be compared with ,dante's vision of the angels with the cloud3-- ,then lifting up mine eyes1 as the tears came1 ,i saw the ,angels1 like a rain of manna1 ,in a long flight flying back heavenward2 ,having a little cloud in front of them1 ,after the which they went1 and said1 8,hosanna60 ,and if they had said more1 you should have heard4 ,an earlier acquaintance with ,dante would undoubtedly have exerted a great influence upon ,blake4 ,not the least interesting part of ,blake's catalogue is his description of the pictures accompanying his ,canterbury ,pilgrims1 which include the strange patriotic allegories of ,nelson guiding ,leviathan and ,pitt guiding ,behemoth1 the latter of which is now in the ,national ,gallery2 ,satan calling up his ,legions2 ,the ,bard1 described by ,rossetti as 8a gorgeous piece of colour tone02 an idyll1 charming in conception whatever it may have been in execution1 representing goats nibbling the vine leaves that form the sole drapery of savage maidens2 and ,arthur's battle of ,camlan1 whence only three--the strongest1 the most beautiful1 and the ugliest of champions--escaped with their lives4 ,this picture ,seymour ,kirkup thought ,blake's best1 and ,allan ,cunningham his worst4 ,kirkup1 ,mr4 ,swinburne tells us1 remembered to the last 8the fury and splendour of energy there contrasted with the serene ardour of simply beautiful courage1 the violent life of the design1 and the fierce distance of fluctuating battle40 ,blake's estimate of his powers1 as conveyed in his descriptions of his works1 certainly does not err on the side of modesty2 perhaps he thought with ,goethe that 8,nur die ,lumpen sind bescheiden40 ,it is a more serious matter that the descriptions are crammed with statements far more significant than ,blake's visions of a condition of mental disorder1 such as that the ,greek marbles are copies of the works of the ,asiatic patriarchs2 that no one painted in oil1 except by accident1 before ,vandyke2 that ancient ,british heroes dwell to this day on ,snowdon 8in naked simplicity03 a species of ,welsh ,mahatmas1 as it would appear4 ,it would have been a judicious emendation if any one had suggested the substitution of 8lying spirits0 when the artist spoke of himself as 8molested by blotting and blurring demons40 ,more important than these idle extravagances1 though extravagant enough1 are the annotations on ,reynolds's discourses1 written a few years afterwards4 ,to read ,blake's abuse of this great artist with any patience1 one must remember that his expressions require to be translated out of his peculiar dialect into ordinary speech2 as when1 for example1 he says that ,correggio is a most effeminate and cruel demon1 he only means that he is a bad model for artists to follow4 ,yet there is a great and serious truth lying at the bottom of ,blake's declamation1 and his protest against the apparent tendency of ,reynolds to inculcate the feasibility of manufacturing genius by study was not uncalled for4 ,what he did not sufficiently remember was that the number of artists capable of what ,plato calls divine insanity1 must always be very small1 and that ,reynolds's precepts may be very serviceable for the rank and file of the great army4 ,as his denunciation of ,reynolds was partly prompted by personal grievances 7not the less real1 if the apparent paradox may be excused1 for being imaginary71 it is the more to his honour to find him breaking out into genuine admiration whenever1 in ,swedenborg's phrase1 the dry rod blossoms as ,reynolds affirms a truth4 ,it is also pleasant to receive ,samuel ,palmer's assurance that ,blake's splenetic outbreaks in print astonished those accustomed to his catholicity of criticism in conversation4 ,,chapter ,,iv ,blake's ,life in ,south ,molton ,street and ,fountain ,court--,acquaintance with ,linnell and ,varley--,drawings of ,visionary ,heads--,miscellaneous ,works in ,private ,collections--,illustrations of 8,job0--,work as an ,engraver--,acquaintance with ,crabb ,robinson--,illustrations of ,dante--,declining health and death--,general observations--,his principal ,biographer and ,critics4 ,very little is known of ,blake's life for several years after his exhibition4 ,william ,carey1 a rare example of disinterestedness among picture-dealers1 for he praised ,blake enthusiastically without having dealt with him1 says in his exposition of ,west's ,death on the ,pale ,horse 7#ahag71 8,so entire is the uncertainty in which he is involved that after many inquiries ,i meet with some in doubt whether he is still in existence4 ,but ,i have accidentally learned since ,i commenced these remarks that he is now a resident in ,london40 ,he was1 in fact1 continuing to live on his second floor in ,south ,molton ,street1 poor1 but content1 subsisting from day to day by hack work as an engraver1 and the occasional sale of a water-colour design or a coloured copy of one of his books1 but nowise squalid1 abject1 or destitute4 ,he was no longer able to publish on his own account as of old1 and the poems which he continued to produce abundantly1 all of which have perished1 met with the reception which was to be expected from earthly publishers4 ,blake smiled in pity1 assured that1 in his own figurative language1 they were handsomely printed and bound in heaven1 and eagerly perused by spiritual intelligences4 8,i should be sorry10 he afterwards said to ,crabb ,robinson1 8if ,i had any earthly fame1 for whatever natural glory a man has is so much taken from his spiritual glory40 ,he certainly had not thought so when he published his catalogue2 but there is no question of his perfect sincerity when he added1 8,i wish to do nothing for profit4 ,i wish to live for art40 ,though he had said 8,thought is act3 ,christ's acts were nothing to ,csar's if this is not so02 so intense was his own devotion to labour that for two years he never quitted his lodging1 except 7for the ridiculous will intrude where it is not wanted--imps grin in the cells of anchorites--7 for a pot of porter4 ,even while he engraved he read1 as the plate-marks on his books attest4 ,flaxman1 his steady friend from youth1 found him some work in engraving1 and praised him in conversation4 8,but ,blake's a wild enthusiast1 isn't he80 8,some think me an enthusiast10 answered ,flaxman1 who was1 in truth1 more than half a ,swedenborgian4 ,from this hermit's existence ,blake once more emerges1 in #ahah1 into comparative publicity through the intimacy he formed with a young painter of promise1 which he was destined to more than redeem4 ,this was ,john ,linnell1 who was introduced to him by ,mr4 ,george ,cumberland1 of ,bristol1 an enlightened patron of art4 ,at this time ,linnell was largely engaged in portrait painting1 and the plate of the portrait selected here for reproduction1 that of ,wilson ,lowry1 ,esq41 appears to have been worked upon by both him and ,blake1 bearing the name of each4 ,linnell1 though neither gentle nor mystical1 lived much in the world of the spirit1 and1 without sharing ,blake's peculiarities1 was rather attracted than repelled by them4 ,within a few days after making ,blake's acquaintance he had found him work to the amount of fifteen guineas1 and gradually introduced him to patrons1 including ,sir ,thomas ,lawrence1 a great gentleman as well as a fine painter1 who took the notice of ,blake which it became him to take in his position as ,president of the ,royal ,academy4 ,blake never encountered hostility from artists of true eminence4 ,reynolds advised him wisely1 though he would not think so4 ,lawrence patronised him2 and ,flaxman1 ,fuseli1 ,stothard1 ,linnell were1 so far as he permitted them1 real friends4 ,within a few years ,linnell had introduced him to a younger circle1 ready in a measure to sit at his feet1 and the rejected stone was honourably built into the corner4 ,of these we shall have to speak afterwards1 but one important intimacy mainly belongs to the period of #ahah-ba4 ,this was his acquaintance with ,john ,varley1 famed as one of the fathers of ,english water-colour painting1 but even more renowned as an astrologer4 ,indeed1 some of the stories told of his successful predictions are less startling to the uninitiated than to astrologers themselves1 who cannot comprehend on what principle of the art they could be made4 ,they certainly were not arrived at by vision or revelation1 for the good ,varley was a most unspiritual personage1 the very antipodes of seer or anchorite1 big1 sanguine1 jovial1 and everlastingly in the claws of the bailiffs4 ,astrology1 therefore1 a study which1 with all its fascination for an imaginative mind1 requires nothing but observation and calculation1 was the only occult science open to him2 for magic1 although a diabolical pursuit1 occasionally demands an amount of fasting inconvenient even for a saint4 ,varley would have wished to go further1 and finding the perception of visions inconsistent with his own corporeal and spiritual constitution1 was delighted to make the acquaintance of one who to this end needed but to open his eyes4 ,he speedily developed the practical idea that ,blake should depict the spiritual entities which he beheld4 ,blake forthwith set to work1 and ere long the portfolios of ,varley and ,linnell were enriched with those ghosts of fleas1 portraits of ,edward the ,third1 and men who built the pyramids1 which are better known to many than anything he ever did1 and are assuredly no mean examples of his imaginative power4 8,all10 says ,gilchrist1 8are marked by a decisive portrait-like character1 and are evidently literal portraits of what ,blake's imaginative eye beheld40#g ,this is corroborated by the account of ,varley1 who says1 8,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 #8,i see him now before me4' ,i therefore gave him a paper and a pencil1 with which he drew the portrait of which a facsimile is given in this number of ,varley's ,zodiacal ,physiognomy4 ,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 which the spirit having opened he was prevented from proceeding with the first sketch till he had closed it40 ,it was 8an idea with the force of a sensation10 as ,peacock's philosopher classifies the apparition in ,nightmare ,abbey4 ,shelley1 who also saw visions1 has enriched his note-books with similar delineations of imaginary figures1 generally vague and careless1 but sometimes very ,blake-like4 ,one of ,linnell's most spirited studies from life1 engraved in ,story's biography1 represents ,blake and ,varley in discussion4 ,illustration3 ,portrait of ,wilson ,lowry4 ,by ,john ,linnell4 ,engraved by ,blake and ,linnell4 ,these drawings were mostly executed in #ahai and #ahbj4 ,in the latter year ,blake lost his chief patron ,butts1 whose walls1 indeed1 had become so crowded with his works that he had almost ceased to give him commissions4 ,the greater part of the collection was dispersed in #aheb1 but the zeal of ,mr4 ,w4 ,m4 ,rossetti traced most of its constituents out1 and reference to his notes1 printed in the second volume of ,gilchrist's biography1 will enable us to convey some faint notion of its manifold opulence4 ,putting the ,job aside for the present1 the most remarkable appear to be the nine designs for ,paradise ,lost1 the property of ,mr4 ,j4 ,c4 ,strange1 in which1 says ,mr4 ,rossetti1 ,blake is king of all his powers of design1 draughtsmanship1 conception1 spiritual meaning1 and impression4 ,another set1 belonging to ,mr4 ,aspland1 of ,liverpool1 omits one subject and adds four4 ,another set of ,miltonic designs for ,comus1 rather distinguished by grace than grandeur1 has been recently published by ,mr4 ,quaritch4 ,another set of no less than one hundred and eighteen designs for ,gray's works1 in #ahfj in the possession of the ,duke of ,hamilton1 are reputed to rank among ,blake's finest productions1 but have not been inspected by any one competent to describe them4 ,among others especially commended by ,mr4 ,rossetti are ,the ,sacrifice of ,jephthah's ,daughter1 ,ruth1 ,the ,judgment of ,paris1 ,the ,wise and ,foolish ,virgins1 ,fire1 ,famine1 ,samson subdued1 ,the ,finding of ,moses1 ,moses erecting the ,brazen ,serpent1 ,the ,ghost of ,samuel appearing to ,saul1 ,the ,entombment1 ,the ,sealing of the ,sepulchre1 ,the ,angel rolling the ,stone from the ,sepulchre1 ,the ,river of ,life1 and ,hecate4 ,to these may be added ,the ,resurrection of the ,dead1 now in the ,british ,museum1 reproduced by us4 ,many others1 not belonging to the ,butts collection1 are described with equal enthusiasm2 and1 apart from all questions of technical execution1 usually splendid1 but lost upon those who have not access to the original works1 it may be said that the conceptions1 as described by ,mr4 ,rossetti1 would be impossible to one unendowed with the highest artistic imagination1 and that the body is worthy of the spirit4 ,illustration3 ,the ,resurrection of the ,dead4 ,from a water-colour drawing by ,w4 ,blake4 ,british ,museum4 ,prominent among these designs are the set of illustrations to ,job1 now the property of the ,earl of ,crewe4 ,a duplicate set belonged to ,mr4 ,linnell1 who1 8discounting as it were10 says ,gilchrist1 8,blake's bill on posterity when no one else would10 commissioned this from him1 tracing the outlines from ,butt's copy himself1 and handing them over to ,blake to complete4 ,this was done in ,september1 #ahba1 and when the drawings were completed in #ahbc ,linnell went further still1 and commissioned ,blake to engrave them1 a stroke which has probably effected more than anything else for the artist's fame1 for the drawings which have set him on such a pinnacle1 if unengraved1 would have remained virtually unknown to the world4 ,the terms also were liberal4 ,blake was to receive #ajj for the twenty-two plates and #ajj more out of the profits4 ,when the publication barely covered its expenses1 ,linnell1 reflecting that the plates remained in his possession in virtue of the agreement1 not unreasonably but very handsomely allowed ,blake #ej more4 ,but for this manna from heaven ,blake's last years would have been spent in engraving pigs and poultry after ,morland4 ,linnell1 who was himself an excellent engraver1 further conferred an important benefit upon him by making him acquainted with the best style of ,italian engraving4 ,blake proved a docile pupil at sixty-five1 and his plates to ,job are not only technically the best he ever executed1 but occupy an important place in the history of the art4 ,the glory of ,job1 however1 is not in the engraving1 but in the invention1 which1 beautiful in the soft and idyllic passages1 rises into sublimity when the theme appeals strongly to the creative imagination4 ,it is especially remarkable as being one of the very few instances of a worthy representation of the ,almighty4 ,the tender humanities of ,christian art are absent3 all is awful1 ,hebraic1 and strictly monotheistic4 ,among the most remarkable designs may be noted that where the exulting fiend pulls down the mansion upon ,job's sons and daughters 7reproduced here72 the frantic speed of the messenger of evil1 who bursts out with his tale before he is well within hearing1 while another follows with equal haste hard upon him1 and the uninterested sheep graze on undisturbed2 the terrible scene where ,satan1 a figure repeated in essentials from works of earlier date1 smites the prostrate ,job with sore boils2 ,eliphaz besieged with phantoms1 to all seeming not less real than himself 7also given here72 the morning stars singing together2 the downfall of the wicked2 and the ,lord answering ,job out of the whirlwind4 ,passages even of the less striking designs often have a singular fascination1 such as the night-piercing stars in the ,elihu scene1 which would be impressive in the absence of any human figure2 ,behemoth and ,leviathan1 the ne plus ultra of grotesque grandeur1 which we have also given2 and the bowed backs of ,job's accusing friends when the ,lord blesses him4#h ,on the whole1 though others of ,blake's designs may be more transcendent of ordinary human faculty1 he has scarcely executed anything displaying all his faculties so well combined and in such perfect equilibrium2 and1 were it necessary to rest his fame upon one set of works1 this would probably be selected4 ,as a scriptural theme it appealed with especial strength to ,english sympathies1 and having been selected by ,gilchrist for reproduction1 it is more widely known than any of his works except the illustrations to ,blair's ,grave4 8,the original water-colour designs10 ,rossetti says1 8are much larger than the engravings1 and generally pale in colour1 with a less full and concentrated effect than the engravings1 and by no means equal to them in power and splendid decorative treatment of the light and shade4 ,on the other hand1 they are often completer and naturally freer in expression1 and do not exhibit a certain tendency to over-sturdiness of build and physiognomy in the figures40 ,fine as is the figure of ,satan in ,the ,destruction of ,job's ,sons and ,daughters1 it is1 ,mr4 ,rossetti thinks1 much finer in the water colour4 ,on the other hand1 8the effect of sublimity and multitude in ,when the morning stars sang together is centupled in the engraving by adding the upraised arms of two other angels to right and left1 passing out of the composition40 ,the whole account suggests how desirable it would be to have many of ,blake's unpublished water colours translated into black and white1 could engraver or etcher of the needful force be found4 ,illustration3 ,woodcut from ,thornton's ,pastoral4 ,in #ahba ,blake had performed another work of moment1 his first and last wood-engravings4 ,these were to illustrate ,phillips's imitation of ,virgil's first pastoral1 republished by ,dr4 ,thornton1 a physician and botanist4 ,blake was a novice in this branch of art1 and the cuts answer to ,dr4 ,thornton's own description of them3 8,they display less of art than of genius40 ,but nothing could more effectually confirm the principle enunciated by their critic in the ,athenum3 8,amid all drawbacks there exists a power in the work of the man of genius which no one but himself can utter fully40 ,rude as they are1 their force is extraordinary2 few things can be more truly magical than the glimpse of distant sea in the second of those engraved by ,gilchrist4 ,at the same time they are not in the least ,virgilian1 and in this respect form an instructive contrast with the exquisite though unfinished ,virgilian illustrations of ,samuel ,palmer4 ,palmer1 though putting in a cypress now and then as a tribute to couleur locale1 provides ,virgil substantially with the same style of illustration as he had been producing all his life for other ends1 and yet this seems as appropriate to the text as ,blake's is discrepant4 ,it is interesting to speculate what effect an ,italian residence of two or three years1 such as ,palmer had enjoyed1 would have produced upon ,blake beyond the inevitable one of dissipating his monstrous delusions about ,italian artists4 ,he would probably have gone chiefly with the view of studying ,michael ,angelo1 but we suspect that the influences of ,italian landscape would in the long run have proved fully as potent4 ,in #ahba ,blake removed from ,south ,molton ,street to ,fountain ,court1 ,strand1 near the ,savoy1 where he occupied two rooms on the first floor4 ,the reason may have been that the house was kept by a brother-in-law of ,mrs4 ,blake's named ,baines1 the only trace we have of any connection with his wife's family4 ,economy too may have had its influence2 his means were very low1 not yet improved by the donation of #be he received from the ,academy next year1 or his arrangement with ,linnell in the year following4 ,at the worst1 however1 the rooms were always clean and neat1 thanks to ,mrs4 ,blake's industry and devotion2 and ,blake's manner always had the simplicity and dignity of a gentleman4 ,that his circumstances improved was almost entirely the doing of ,linnell1 who not only provided for his wants by commissions1 but made him what his genius had never made him1 the patriarch of a band of admirers1 almost disciples4 ,coming frequently to visit ,linnell at ,hampstead1 ,blake fell in with a group of young men who resorted thither1 four of whom at least--,samuel ,palmer1 ,edward ,calvert1 ,george ,richmond1 and ,f4 ,o4 ,finch--became artists of great distinction4 ,one characteristic these young men had in common3 they were as far as possible from the theory of art for art's sake1 but only valued art as the outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace of consecration to the ,power behind ,nature4 ,the biographies of ,palmer and ,calvert disclose the priestlike spirit in which they wrought1 a spirit akin to that of their pre-,raphaelite successors1 but apparently less impregnated with the ordinary atmosphere of the studio4 ,these were just the men to treat the aged ,blake as the antediluvian youth ought to have treated the aged ,jubal2 and the patriarchal influence is visible both in their writings and their works1 not always to the advantage of the latter1 if we may judge by the examples preserved of ,palmer's early labours4 ,but all seemed fair in the light of fond retrospect4 ,twenty-eight years after ,blake's death ,samuel ,palmer addressed a letter to ,mr4 ,gilchrist1 long and full of interesting particulars relating to ,blake's opinions on art2 but the gist of the estimate of the man is conveyed in few words4 8,in him you saw at once the ,maker1 the ,inventor2 one of the few in any age2 a fitting companion for ,dante4 ,he was energy itself1 and shed around him a kindling influence1 an atmosphere of life1 full of the ideal4 ,he was a man without a mask2 his aim single1 his path straightforwardness1 and his wants few2 so he was free1 noble1 and happy40 ,illustration3 ,the ,destruction of ,job's ,sons and ,daughters4 ,from the 8,book of ,job40 ,by ,w4 ,blake4 ,a very important witness to ,blake's demeanour and opinions in his later years is ,henry ,crabb ,robinson the diarist1 whom we have already met as a visitor to ,blake's exhibition1 and who had made him the subject of an essay in a ,german periodical4 ,robinson was the right man in the right place1 not being a mystic or enthusiast to fall down at ,blake's feet1 nor yet a man of the world to deride him as a visionary1 but an inquisitive observer of great intellectual range and most kindly and tolerant disposition1 ready to allow that things might exist of which his philosophy had not dreamed1 and whom abnormal opinions1 if held in evident sincerity1 might startle but could hardly shock4 8,it is strange10 says he1 8that ,i who have no imagination1 nor any power beyond that of a logical understanding1 should yet have a great respect for religious mystics40 ,thrown into ,blake's company in #ahbe1 he has recorded his conversations with him at considerable length in his delightful diary1 as yet but partially published4 ,his description of ,blake's 8interesting appearance0 agrees with that of his own circle4 8,he is pale1 with a ,socratic countenance1 and an expression of great sweetness1 though with something of languor about it except when animated1 and then he has about him an air of inspiration4 ,the tone and manner are incommunicable4 ,there are a natural sweetness and gentility about him which are delightful40 ,having heard of ,blake's visions1 ,robinson was not surprised to find him asserting that the visionary gift was innate in all men1 and only torpid for want of cultivation2 but he must have had much ado to digest such statements as that the world was flat1 that ,wordsworth was a ,pagan1 and that 8what are called the vices in the natural world are the highest sublimities in the spiritual world40 ,not understanding that by atheism ,blake meant1 in his own words1 8whatever assumes the reality of the natural and unspiritual world10 ,robinson was naturally aghast when ,locke was classed with atheists1 and ventured what must have appeared to him the conclusive rejoinder that ,locke had written in defence of ,christianity4 ,blake1 who probably understood ,robinson's definition of atheism as little as ,robinson did his1 8made no reply40 ,some of ,blake's remarks are well worthy of preservation4 8,art is inspiration4 ,when ,michael ,angelo1 or ,raphael1 or ,mr4 ,flaxman does any of his fine things1 he does them in the spirit40 8,irving is a sent man4 ,but they who are sent go further sometimes than they ought40 8,dante saw devils where ,i see none40 ,illustration3 ,with ,dreams upon my ,bed thou scarest me4 ,from the 8,book of ,job40 ,by ,w4 ,blake4 ,dante must have been much in ,blake's thoughts just then1 for ,robinson found him occupied with the long series of illustrations of the poet commissioned by ,linnell1 the last important work of his life4 ,the history of the commission is thus related by ,linnell's biographer1 ,mr4 ,story4 8,although the ,job had been paid for1 ,linnell continued to give him money weekly4 ,blake said1 #8,i do not know how ,i shall ever repay you4' ,linnell replied1 #8,i do not want you to repay me4 ,i am only too glad to be able to serve you4 ,what ,i would like1 however1 if you do anything for me1 is that you should make some designs for ,dante's ,inferno1 ,purgatorio1 and ,paradiso4' ,blake entered upon the work with alacrity1 concurrently with the engraving of the ,job designs1 and the two together occupied the old man for the rest of his life40 ,during all this period ,linnell was remitting ,blake money1 as the latter's notes in acknowledgment prove4 ,linnell undoubtedly acquired the designs at a low price1 but immediately upon ,blake's death he endeavoured to dispose of them for the benefit of the widow4 ,failing in this he kept them1 never attempting to make anything by them2 and they are still in the possession of his family4 ,blake studied ,italian to qualify himself more effectually for his task1 and is said to have acquired it2 when ,robinson saw him1 however1 at an early stage of the commission it is true1 he was working by the aid of ,cary's ,english version4 ,he executed no less than ninety-eight drawings1 several of which were left in an unfinished state4 ,seven have been engraved4 ,the merits of the series have been variously estimated4 ,mr4 ,rossetti considers them 8on the whole a very fine series1 though not uniformly equal in merit40 ,mr4 ,yeats1 so well qualified by his own imaginative gift to enter into the merit of ,blake's work1 thinks them the finest of all his productions4 ,robinson1 who saw ,blake at work upon them1 says1 8,they evince a power ,i should not have anticipated of grouping1 and of throwing grace and interest over conceptions monstrous and horrible40 ,for our own part1 we must regretfully admit that when we saw them at the ,old ,masters' exhibition the monstrosity and horror appeared more evident than the grace and interest4 ,we could not deem ,dante's conceptions adequately rendered2 the colour1 too1 often seemed harsh and extravagant4 ,blake went on working upon them until his death1 when ,mrs4 ,blake sent them to ,linnell4 ,they thus escaped the fate of ,blake's other artistic and literary remains left in his widow's possession1 which after her death were appropriated1 apparently without any legal authority1 by a person named ,tatham1 who had been much about ,blake in his later years1 and who ultimately destroyed them in deference to the mandate of a religious sect with which he had become connected6#i ,illustration3 ,behemoth and ,leviathan4 ,from the 8,book of ,job40 ,by ,w4 ,blake4 ,the end was now near4 ,during #ahbg ,blake's health greatly failed from catarrh and dysentery1 and he could no longer go up to ,hampstead to see ,linnell4 ,linnell wished him to quit the damp neighbourhood of the river1 and live in his own house in ,cirencester ,place1 part only of which he used as a studio4 ,but ,blake said1 8,i cannot get my mind out of a state of terrible fear at such a step40 ,he also said1 8,i am too much attached to ,dante to think much of anything else40 ,one of his last works was the colouring of ,the ,ancient of ,days for the elder ,tatham1 who paid him at a higher rate than he was accustomed to receive4 ,blake accordingly worked his hardest1 and when it was finished 8threw it from him1 and with an air of exulting triumph exclaimed1 #8,there1 that will do1 ,i cannot mend it4'0 ,later still he exclaimed to his wife1 8,you have ever been an angel to me1 ,i will draw you10 and produced a sketch1 8interesting1 but not like40 ,on ,august #ab he died1 8composing and uttering songs to his ,maker40 ,he was buried in ,bunhill ,fields1 in a grave which cannot now be identified4 ,it is little to the honour of his countrymen that no public memorial of him should exist4 ,a better one could not be than his own ,death's ,door in the illustration to ,blair's ,grave1 treated as a bas-relief with the necessary modifications4 ,the artist whose life had been spent in a condition so little remote from penury did not leave a single debt1 and the accumulated stock of his works sufficed to support his widow in comfort for the four years for which she survived him4 ,friends1 indeed1 aided1 ,linnell and ,tatham successively giving her house-room1 and others assiduously recommending her stores of drawings to wealthy patrons4 ,she died in ,upper ,charlotte ,street1 ,fitzroy ,square1 and was buried beside her husband in ,bunhill ,fields4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the artistic processes used by ,blake are a subject of considerable discussion4 ,notwithstanding his constant description of his pictures as 8frescoes10 it seems certain that he never resorted to fresco in the ordinary acceptation of the term4 ,linnell1 who must have been exceedingly familiar with his work1 told ,mr4 ,gilchrist3 8,he evidently founded his claim to the name fresco on the material he used1 which was water-colour on a plaster ground 7literally glue and whiting72 but he always called it either fresco1 gesso1 or plaster40 ,linnell added that when he himself obtained from ,italy the first copy that ever came to ,england of ,cennino ,cennini's ,trattato della ,pittura1 a sixteenth-century treatise1 edited in #ahbb from the original ,,ms41 ,blake1 who was soon able to read it1 8was gratified to find that he had been using the same materials and methods in painting as ,cennini describes1 particularly the carpenter's glue40 8,unfortunately10 says ,linnell1 8he laid this ground on too much like plaster to a wall10 and when this was so applied to canvas or linen the picture was sure to crack1 and many of ,blake's best works have suffered great injury4 ,oil he disliked and vituperated4 ,the reason probably was that1 contrary to what might have been expected1 his system of execution was by no means bold and dashing1 but deliberate and even slow4 ,he drew a rough dotted line with pencil1 then with ink1 then colour1 filling in cautiously and carefully4 ,all the grand efforts of design1 he thought1 depended on niceties not to be got at once4 ,he seems1 in fact1 to have worked very much in the spirit of the medival illuminators1 and the general aspect of a page of one of his ,prophetical ,books reminds us forcibly of one of their scrolls4 ,whether any direct influence from them upon him is traceable would be difficult to determine4 ,keats had evidently seen illuminated manuscripts1 and been deeply impressed by them2 but nearly forty years elapsed between the publication of the first of ,blake's ,prophetical ,books and the composition of ,keats's ,eve of ,st4 ,mark4 ,in one respect ,blake certainly differed from the ancient miniaturists2 he wrought mainly from reminiscence1 and disliked painting with his eye on the object4 ,his memory for natural forms must have been very powerful4 ,blake is endowed in a very marked degree with the interest ascribed by ,goethe to ,problematische ,naturen1 men who must always remain more or less of a mystery to their fellows4 ,in ancient times1 and perhaps in some countries at the present day1 he would have been accepted as a seer2 in his own age and country the question was rather whether he should be classed with visionaries or with lunatics4 ,a visionary he certainly was1 and few will believe either that his visions had any objective reality1 or that he himself intended them to be received merely as symbols4 8,you can see what ,i do1 if you choose10 he said to his friends4 ,he thus confused fancy with fact2 unquestionably1 therefore1 he laboured under delusions4 ,but delusions do not necessarily amount to insanity1 and1 however ,blake erred in form1 it may be doubted whether in essentials he was not nearer the truth than most so-called poets and artists4 ,every poet and artist worthy of the name will confess that his productions1 when really good for anything1 are the suggestion of a power external to himself1 of an influence which he may to a certain extent guide1 but cannot originate or summon up at his will2 and in the absence of which he is helpless4 ,in personifying this influence as the ,muse1 or howsoever he may prefer to describe it1 such an one is usually fully aware that1 in obedience to a law of the human mind1 he is bestowing personality and visibility upon what is actually invisible and impersonal1 but not on that account unreal4 ,some there are1 however1 whose perceptions are so lively1 or their power of dealing with abstractions so limited1 that the mental influences of which they are conscious appear to them in the light of personalities4 ,such was ,blake1 and the peculiarity in him was probably closely connected with the childlike disposition which rendered him so amiable as a man4 ,as a child it naturally never occurred to him to question the reality of his visions1 and he grew up without acquiring the critical habit of mind which would have led him to do so4 ,with him 8the vision splendid0 did not ,die away1 ,and fade into the light of common day4 ,such a state of mind is quite compatible with sanity4 ,the question is not whether the person ,gives to airy nothings ,a local habitation and a name1 but whether he allows his conduct to be actuated by them to the extent of inverting the rules of right and wrong1 wasting his substance1 or becoming offensive to others or dangerous to himself4 ,it is even possible to travel far in this direction without arriving at the confines of insanity4 ,prince ,polignac brought the monarchy of the ,restoration to ruin in deference to imaginary revelations from the ,virgin ,mary1 yet no court of law would ever have placed him under restraint4 ,with ,blake not the faintest suggestion of such a thing is possible4 ,except for one or two incidents1 related upon doubtful authority1 he appears throughout his life in the light of an exemplary citizen1 and in his unselfishness and unworldliness contrasts with his ,sadducan neighbours in a way that forbids us to call him mentally diseased1 though he may have been mentally warped4 ,the value of his mystical utterances is quite another question4 ,the occasional splendour of the poetry in which they are couched will not be disputed1 any more than their general confusion and obscurity4 ,commentators have striven hard to elicit the sunbeam from the cucumber2 we pass no judgment on their efforts1 further than may seem to be implied in the observation that in our opinion the chief mission of ,blake's mystical poetry was to be the vehicle of his finest and most characteristic art4 ,his ideas1 many profound and worthy of close attention1 may1 we think1 be more advantageously collected from his prose aphorisms and the fragments of his conversation2 and in this respect he is by no means singular4 ,the one great achievement which unquestionably entitles him to the distinction of an inspired man1 is to have produced in boyhood1 without set purpose or any clear consciousness of what he was doing1 lyrics recalling the golden prime of ,english poetry1 and instinct with a music to which1 since ,chatterton was no more1 no contemporary save ,burns was capable of making the slightest approach4 ,it is true that reaction against artifice and conventionality was in the air of the time1 and was already announced by evident symptoms4 ,to compare1 however1 the highly creditable efforts in this direction of even such poets as ,cowper and ,mickle with the achievements of this stripling is to become sensible at once of the difference between talent and inspiration4 ,blake's gifts and shortcomings as an artist are sufficiently revealed by the examples of his work which accompany this essay4 ,it need merely be remarked here that1 apart from the great army of artists of genius who move on recognised lines1 transmitting the succession from the age of ,zeuxis and ,phidias to our own1 there is1 as it were1 a parallel column skirting it on the by-roads of art2 and that at certain periods of ,art's history the genius which has forsaken the more conspicuous of her manifestations has seemed to take refuge with etchers1 or designers1 or delineators of the life of the people4 ,it has frequently happened of late that men whose work was chiefly done for books and periodicals1 and who during their lives were scarcely regarded as artists at all1 have upon their deaths been deservedly exalted to very high places4 ,blake is perhaps the most striking and remarkable example of this class4 ,blake's peculiarities as a man1 and the anecdotes of which he became the subject1 secured him earlier attention as artist and poet than his works would have obtained on their own account4 ,not long after his death he was made 7#ahcj7 the subject of one of ,allan ,cunningham's ,lives of ,british ,painters1 in the main a fair and impartial biography1 rather in advance of than behind its time4 ,cunningham1 however1 possessed no sort of spiritual kinship with ,blake1 who found his first really congenial commentator in a veteran philosopher1 still happily spared to us1 ,dr4 ,james ,garth ,wilkinson1 who in #ahci1 the year of the first collected edition of ,shelley's poems1 republished ,songs of ,innocence and ,experience with an anonymous preface claiming for ,blake something like his proper position as a lyric poet1 and accompanied by judicious remarks upon his paintings4 ,dr4 ,wilkinson would probably have expressed himself still more decidedly if he had written a few years later1 but the movement towards the exaltation of the more spiritual aspects of ,english poetry as typified in ,wordsworth and ,shelley was as yet but incipient1 and the stars of ,tennyson and ,browning were hardly above the horizon4 ,little further seems to have been done for ,blake1 until1 about #ahee1 the late ,mr4 ,alexander ,gilchrist began to write his biography1 published in #ahfb1 a labour of love and diligence which will never be superseded1 especially since the revision it has received in the definitive edition of #ahhj1 brought out by his widow4 ,the value of ,gilchrist's labours is greatly enhanced by the accompanying illustrations1 which allow a fairly adequate conception to be formed of ,blake's pictorial genius1 by the reprint of much of his most characteristic literary work1 and by the copious descriptions of his drawings by ,mr4 ,w4 ,m4 ,rossetti and ,mr4 ,f4 ,shields4 ,since ,gilchrist wrote1 ,mr4 ,swinburne 7#ahfh7 has investigated ,blake's thought with special reference to its ,pantheistic tendency1 and ,messrs4 ,ellis and ,yeats1 in a most comprehensive work in three volumes 7#ahia71 including additional biographical particulars and copious illustrations1 which comprise the previously unpublished 8,vala10 have striven to present ,blake's mysticism as a coherent system of thought4 ,valuable monographs are also prefixed to the editions of ,blake's poems by ,rossetti 7#ahhc7 and ,yeats 7#ahic71 and to the selection from his literary works by ,mr4 ,housman 7#ahic71 this last perhaps on the whole1 after ,gilchrist's biography1 the most desirable possession for the literary student of ,blake4 ,of the numerous detached essays upon ,blake the most important1 perhaps1 are that by the late ,mr4 ,smetham1 republished in his ,essays1 and in the second volume of ,gilchrist's biography1 and that by ,james ,thomson1 author of ,the ,city of ,dreadful ,night1 appended to his ,shelley1 a ,poem 7#ahhd74 ,it is exceedingly difficult to obtain a proper idea of ,blake as an artist1 from the extent to which his designs depend upon colouring1 and the great inequality of this colouring1 which is often not his own4 ,in ,mr4 ,gilchrist's opinion1 the copy of ,the ,song of ,los1 in the ,print ,room of the ,british ,museum1 and a volume of miscellaneous designs1 in the same collection1 represent him with adequate fairness2 and these fortunately are public property4 ,the finest specimens of his work seen by his biographer are apparently in the collection of the ,earl of ,crewe1 and therefore not generally accessible4 ,those belonging to private collectors must of necessity be continually changing hands1 and few students have the time or the opportunity to make the thorough investigation of them accomplished by ,mr4 ,rossetti4 ,fortunately the illustrations in ,gilchrist's biography1 where the whole of the ,job series is reissued1 suffice to establish ,blake's genius as a designer1 even though destitute of the charm of colour4 ,mr4 ,bell ,scott has executed effective etchings after him2 ,mr4 ,quaritch has republished the drawings for ,comus2 in #ahgf the ,songs of ,innocence and ,experience and the ,prophetic ,books up to ,los were reprinted together1 but only to the extent of a hundred copies1 nor was the execution very satisfactory4 ,it cannot be said that ,messrs4 ,ellis and ,yeats have entirely overcome the difficulties of reproduction2 yet1 perhaps1 for those unable to obtain access to the copies tinted by the artist1 or even to the uncoloured plates in the original edition1 nothing so well displays the wilder and more weird aspects of his genius as the reprints in their third volume1 especially those from ,jerusalem4 ,blake's character and works will long remain the subject of criticism and speculation1 for the world does not easily forgo its interest in what ,goethe calls 8problematic natures40 ,by another famous saying of ,goethe's he cannot profit1 8,he who has sufficed his own age has sufficed all ages10 nor can he be reckoned among those who have been in advance of their age1 except in those exquisite early songs which died away before the actual arrival of the better time4 ,but it would not be too much to say of him that he revealed possibilities1 both in poetry and painting1 which without him we should hardly have suspected1 and which remain an unexhausted seed-field of inspiration for his successors4 ,it is labour lost to strive to make him transparent1 but even where he is most opaque ,sparks spring out of the ground1 ,like golden sand scattered upon the darkness4 ,nor is the general tendency of art towards a world of purity1 harmony1 and joy unrepresented in him2 sometimes this even seems the conclusion to which all else is merely subservient1 as in the series of illustrations to ,job1 the ideal representation of his own history4 ,illustration3 ,sweeping the ,parlour in the ,interpreter's ,house4 ,,footnotes #a ,november #bj has been stated as the date1 but the above is shown to be correct by the horoscope drawn for ,november #bh1 #g4de ,p4,m4 in ,urania1 or the ,astrologer's ,chronicle1 #ahbe1 published therefore in ,blake's lifetime1 and undoubtedly derived from ,varley4 #b ,if1 however1 the 8,kitty0 of 8,i love the jocund dance0 is ,catherine ,boucher1 this poem at least must be later than #aghj1 unless the name has been substituted for another1 as has been known to happen4 #c ,as for example 8,man lies by a rock-bound shore1 his thoughts flying forth from him in likeness of delicate airy figures driven by the wind to perish in the endless sea as soon as born40 ,in the absence of the drawings themselves such descriptions affect us like the projects for unwritten stories in ,hawthorne's ,american ,note ,book4 #d ,poetis nos laetamur tribus1 ,pye1 ,petro ,pindar1 parvo ,pybus2 ,si ulterius ire pergis1 ,adde his ,sir ,james ,bland ,burges4 #e ,blake is seldom detected in borrowing1 but when he tells us that ,milton's shadow fell ,precipitant1 loud thundering1 into the sea of ,time and space1 he is clearly1 though perhaps unconsciously1 reminiscent of ,dyer's ,towers ,tumbling all precipitate down dashed1 ,rattling around1 loud thundering to the ,moon4 #f ,the same remark is the subject of one of the finest passages of ,lucretius3-- ,praeterea1 magnae legiones quom loca cursu ,camporum complent1 belli simulacra cientes1 ,fulgur ibi ad clum se tollit1 totaque circum ,aere renidescit tellus1 subterque virum vi ,excitur pedibus sonitus1 clamoreque montes ,icti rejectant voces ad sidera mundi2 ,et circumvolitant equites1 mediosque repente ,tramittunt1 valido quatientes impete1 campos2 ,et tamen est quidam locus altis montibus1 unde ,stare videntur1 et in campis consistere fulgur4 #g ,not always without assistance from the eyes of others2 for the portrait of ,edward the ,first is clearly a reminiscence of that which in ,blake's time adorned ,goldsmith's ,history4 #h ,it is observable that ,job's wife1 so disadvantageously treated in ,scripture1 is by ,blake represented as the sufferer's loving companion throughout4 ,this was probably out of tenderness to ,mrs4 ,blake1 from whom1 indeed1 upon a comparison between her portrait as a young woman and the ideal representation of the ,patriarch's spouse1 his model for the latter would seem to have been derived2 but if so the inference seems justified that ,blake regarded the story of ,job as emblematic of his own history4 #i ,it must be now about thirty-five years since we received a visit from this person2 how he had found us out we cannot recollect4 ,he stated that he had lived by painting miniatures1 and1 having been deprived of his customers by photography1 proposed to devote himself to historical painting1 to the great prospective advantage of ,british art4 ,he considered his forte to be the delineation of bare arms1 and wished to be recommended to a subject which would afford scope for the exercise of this department of the pictorial faculty4 ,we suggested the interment of the young princes in the ,tower2 he thanked us and departed2 and we saw no more of him4 ,he admitted having parted with all the relics of ,blake that had been in his possession1 but sought to convey that they had been sold1 not destroyed1 which may be partly true4 ,,index 8,america10 #bi1 #ch1 #dj1 #eb 8,appeal to the ,public10 #eb ,aspland1 ,mr41 #fb 8,babylonian ,woman1 ,the01 #eb ,bain1 ,thomas1 #bi 8,bard1 ,the01 #ef ,basire1 ,james1 #h ,blair's ,grave1 ,illustrations to1 #di1 #ea1 #eb1 #gb ,blake1 ,catherine1 #aj1 #ah1 #bj1 #bi1 #ff1 #gj ,blake1 ,james1 #g1 #h1 #af ,blake1 ,john1 #h ,blake1 ,robert1 #h1 #ag1 #ah ,blake1 ,william2 his birth and parentage1 #g2 sent to ,pars ,school1 #h2 apprenticed to ,basire1 #i2 marries ,catherine ,boucher1 #aj2 settles in ,poland ,street1 #ah2 removes to ,lambeth1 #bh2 his sojourn at ,felpham and intercourse with ,hayley1 #dg2 returns to ,london1 #di2 his friendship with ,linnell and ,varley1 #ei1 #fj2 his death1 #gb ,bognor1 #da 8,book of ,ahaniah1 ,the01 #bi ,boucher1 ,catherine see ,blake1 ,catherine ,british ,museum1 #bb1 #fb1 #gg ,butts1 ,thomas1 #bi1 #dc1 #dd1 #eb1 #fa1 #fb ,calvert1 ,edward1 #ff 8,canterbury ,pilgrims1 ,the01 #eb1 #ef ,carey1 ,william1 #eh ,cennini1 ,cennino1 #gc 8,christ in the ,sepulchre10 #ed 8,comus10 #fb ,cowper1 ,william1 #da1 #dc1 #dd1 #ge ,crewe1 ,earl of1 #ch1 #df1 #fb1 #gg ,cromek1 ,robert1 #di1 #ea1 #eb ,cumberland1 ,george1 #ei ,cunningham1 ,allan1 #cj1 #ef1 #gf ,dante1 ,illustrations to1 #fi1 #gj 8,death on the ,pale ,horse10 #eh ,descriptive ,catalogue by ,blake1 #eb ,deville1 #ch ,eartham1 #da 8,edward ,,iii410 #ac1 #ca ,ellis and ,yeats1 ,messrs41 #h1 #ah1 #cj1 #cb1 #cc1 #ce1 #ch1 #de1 #ea1 #ed1 #gj1 #gf1 #gg 8,europe10 #ca 8,everlasting ,gospel1 ,the01 #cc ,felpham1 #bg1 #da1 #db1 #dd1 #de1 #dh ,finch1 ,g4 ,o41 #ff ,flaxman1 #ae1 #bh1 #da1 #db1 #ei1 #fi ,fuseli1 #bg1 #dd1 #ei 8,gates of ,paradise1 ,the01 #bi1 #cj1 #eb ,gilchrist1 ,alexander1 #i1 #ad1 #af1 #ai1 #bg1 #bi1 #ca1 #ch1 #df1 #di1 #ea1 #eb1 #ed1 #fj-fb1 #fe1 #ff1 #fh1 #gc1 #gf ,godwin1 ,william1 #bg ,gray1 ,illustrations to works of1 #fb ,hamilton1 ,duke of1 #fb ,hayley1 ,william1 #ah1 #db-dd1 #di ,holcroft1 #bg ,housman1 #dh1 #gg 8,jacob's ,dream10 #eb 8,jerusalem10 #db1 #de1 #df1 #dh ,job1 ,illustrations to the ,book of1 #fb1 #fd1 #gj1 #gg1 #gh ,johnson 7publisher71 #bg1 #dd 8,joseph of ,arimatha10 #i ,lamb1 ,charles1 #bj1 #ea ,lawrence1 ,sir ,thomas1 #ba1 #ei ,linnell1 ,john1 #cj1 #ei1 #fj1 #fb1 #fd1 #fi1 #gb1 #gc 8,los1 ,the ,song of01 #bi ,malkin1 #i1 #eb 8,marriage of ,heaven and ,hell1 ,the01 #bi1 #cf ,matthews1 #ae 8,milton10 #df1 #dh1 #di 8,morning101 #i 8,nelson guiding ,leviathan10 #ef ,o',neil1 #h ,ossian1 #ca ,paine1 ,tom1 #bg ,palmer1 ,samuel1 #eg1 #ff1 #fh ,paradise ,lost1 ,illustrations for1 #fb ,parker1 ,robert1 #af1 #ag ,pars1 ,william1 #h 8,penance of ,jane ,shore10 #i ,phillips1 ,thomas1 #di ,piroli1 #bh 8,pitt guiding ,behemoth10 #ef 8,poetical ,sketches10 #aj1 #ac1 #af1 #ai1 #dc 8,prophecies of ,america10 #cg 8,proverbs of ,hell10 #cf ,reynolds1 ,sir ,joshua1 #eg1 #ei ,richmond1 ,george1 #ff ,robinson1 ,crabb1 #cb1 #ea1 #ei1 #fh-gj ,rossetti1 ,dante1 #ch ,rossetti1 ,william1 #ag1 #bj1 #cc1 #ch1 #ea1 #fa1 #fb1 #fe1 #gj1 #gf1 #gg ,ryland1 ,william1 #h 8,samson10 #ca 8,satan calling up his ,legions10 #ef ,schiavonetti1 #di1 #ea ,shields1 ,frederick1 #bi1 #gf 8,simple1 ,david01 #af ,smetham1 #gg ,smith1 ,j4 ,t41 #af 8,songs of ,experience10 #ae1 #bj1 #ba1 #bc-be1 #bg1 #ce1 #gf1 #gg 8,songs of ,innocence10 #ae1 #bj1 #ba1 #bc1 #be1 #bg1 #bi1 #ce1 #dc1 #gf1 #gg ,stothard1 ,thomas1 #af1 #ag1 #ea1 #ed1 #ei ,strange1 ,j4 ,c41 #fb ,swinburne1 ,a4 ,c41 #cj1 #dg1 #ef1 #gf ,tatham1 #gj1 #ga1 #gb 8,thel1 ,the ,book of01 #bi1 #ca1 #cc1 #cf1 #dj1 #dg ,thomson1 ,james1 #gg ,thornton1 ,dr41 #fe 8,tiriel10 #cj 8,urizen10 #bi1 #dc 8,vala10 #bi1 #gg ,varley1 ,john1 #ef1 #fj 8,vision of the ,daughters of ,albion10 #bi1 #cg ,whitman1 ,walt1 #ca ,wilkinson1 ,j4 ,garth1 #gf ,wollstonecraft1 ,mary1 #bg ,woollett1 #ed ,young's ,night ,thoughts1 ,illustrations to1 #bi