CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT 
 
 FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY 
 
 HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PR 4146.E47 
 
 The real Blake; a portrait biography, by E 
 
 3 1924 013 436 625 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013436625 
 
THE REAL BLAKE 
 
PUBLISHERS' ANNOUNCEMENT 
 
 Two vols, small deftly 8ve>, cloih^ i2J. net; 
 half 'leather, 15s. net. 
 
 THE POETICAL WORKS OF 
 WILLIAM BLAKE 
 
 Edited and Annotated by Edwin J. Ellis. 
 
 With Photogravure Frontispiece to each 
 
 Volume. 
 
 Crown Svo, •with Portrait^ buckrajn, gilt top, 
 6s. net. 
 
 WILLIAM BLAKE : a Critical Study 
 
 BY 
 
 ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 
 With a New Preface 
 
 Colombier folio, half-cloth, izs. 6d. net. 
 
 WILLIAM BLAKE 
 
 Etchings from his Works by 
 
 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT 
 
 Containing 8 Steel Plates and 2 Lithographs, all 
 India proofs ; with Descriptive Text. 
 
 LONDON : CHATTO & WINDUS 
 
"THE REAL BLAKE" 
 
 From the life-mask by Seville, the phrenologist, 
 lieprodticed by special permission of Sir W. B. Richmond, B.A. 
 
THE 
 
 EEAL BLAKE 
 
 A PORTRAIT BIOGRAPHY 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWIN J. ELLIS 
 
 WITH 13 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 LONDON 
 CHATTO & WINDUS 
 
 MCMVII 
 
 ^ 
 
TO 
 
 MY FRIEND 
 
 MAEK PEEUGINI 
 
PREFACE 
 
 This biography was written as a companion volunie to the 
 edition of the complete Poetical Works of William Blalce which 
 Messrs. Chatto and Windus have recently issued. Both works 
 were prepared and put in type at the same time, in 1904 ; but 
 there has been an unavoidable delay in their production. 
 
 For two years they lay dormant. But as they were already 
 in type the present writer, though author of the one work 
 and editor of the other, could not use this time by making 
 any substantial improvements either in the notes or the 
 narrative. Other works have come out since, but none that 
 attempts to take the place either of the edition of the poems 
 or of the biography, and none that adds anything important 
 to our knowledge of Blake's life or mind. A portrait- 
 biography of Blake is as much needed now as it was in 1904, 
 and by a larger group of readers, as a wider knowledge of 
 his importance has begun to grow up. 
 
 The present writer regrets not to have seen the edition 
 of the shorter poems published by Mr. Frowde of the Claren- 
 don Press, Oxford, under the editorship of Mr. Sampson, in 
 time to make any use of it in the complete Works. Mr. 
 Frowde's edition notices some few slight errors in the first 
 full edition of Blake, that prepared by the present writer 
 aided by Mr. W. B. Yeats for Mr. Quaritch. These slips of 
 the pen -have sometimes found their way into the present 
 edition. 
 
 Mr. Sampson had much good and careful assistance in 
 preparing his work. He is a professional teacher of biblio- 
 graphy, and gave his whole attention to verbal accuracy, He 
 took plenty of time, and has produced a work which is 
 
viii THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 a monumental record of every error that the hasty pen of 
 Blake himself or any of his previous editors had ever com- 
 mitted. The work shows every ailment from which every 
 text of Blake has suffered, and its long pages of notes are 
 like the wards of a hospital. 
 
 But Mr. Sampson, so skilled in extracting motes from the 
 eyes of his predecessors, has come before us with a beam or 
 two in his own eye, which may be mentioned here ; for it is 
 to be hoped that no serious student of Blake wUl omit to 
 get his volume, which is weU printed and full of biblio- 
 graphical information, though empty of interpretation or 
 intelligent poetic study. 
 
 Mr. Sampson says of some pieces in the early collection 
 called Blake's Poetical Sketches : " Mr. W. M. Eossetti (in the 
 Aldine edition) places the pieces in an order of his own, 
 omitting the prose, with the exception of the Prologue to 
 King John and Samson, which he prints as blank verse. 
 Ellis and Yeats foUow the Aldine edition, omitting Samson." 
 
 This is all absurdly wrong. The pieces " printed as blank 
 verse " are blank verse with a few irregularities, not more 
 frequent than those in many of Blake's other poems. They 
 were first printed as prose merely because Mrs. Barbauld, 
 author of the once celebrated Hymns in Prose, was one of 
 the literary people among whom Blake lived at the time of 
 writing. Ellis and Yeats did not " follow the Aldine edition," 
 as they had the advantage of using the exact facsimile of 
 the original issue which was executed for Mr. Quaritch by 
 the lithographer, Mr. Griggs, of Peckham Eye. Mr. Sampson's 
 wildest error is, however, the statement that Ellis and Yeats 
 omit the poem (which he miscalls prose) called Samson. It 
 almost covers pages 179 to 182 of their second volume. It 
 was, therefore, not invisible. The Couch of Death, omitted 
 in the Aldine edition, is also to be found on page 183. After 
 this we are not surprised when Mr. Sampson, rashly ven- 
 turing beyond the bounds of bibliography a very little way 
 into criticism, is equally unfortunate. He accuses Ellis and 
 Yeats of error in saying that Blake's poem called The Ever- 
 lasting Gospel " terminates, for us, with a loose end," simply 
 
PEEFACE ix 
 
 because he overlooks the words " for us," and considers that 
 Ellis and Yeats "failed to see" that the last part on the 
 MS. as we have it, which leaves off in the middle of a line 
 with an " &c.," was not meant by Blake for the close of the 
 poem, but implies that there was more, written on another 
 piece of paper, which is lost to us. He considers, in spite of 
 the words " for us " in Ellis and Yeats, that in observing, for 
 himself, that some of the poem must be lost, he is making 
 a critical discovery that had not been made by others before 
 him. He is similarly elate over having noticed one of the 
 many repetitions from Vala to be found in Jerusalem. He 
 should not call Vala, The Four Zoas. This was an early 
 title rejected by Blake. 
 
 Mr. Sampson's most unpardonable error is in calling his 
 collection Blake's Poetical Works, without any mention of the 
 fact that it contains less than half of these. He excludes all 
 those known as " Prophetic Books," as though that title (not 
 used by Blake in all cases) ranked them as prose ; neglecting 
 to recognise the magnificent verse in which most are written, 
 or the fact that the god of whom Blake himself claimed to 
 be a prophet is explained to be the Poetic Genius. 
 
 By the kindness of Mr. Eussell, Mr. Sampson is enabled to 
 give (in a note) these few lines by Blake, which were unknown 
 to the present writer, or they would have been included in the 
 biography, being his own account in brief of the story of his 
 life. 
 
 To MY Deakest Friend, John Flaxman — these lines 
 
 I bless Thee, Father of Heaven and Earth, that ever I saw John Flaxraan's 
 
 face. 
 Angels stand round my spirit in Heaven, the blessed of Heaven are my 
 
 fi'iends upon Earth. 
 When Flaxman was taken to Italy, Fuseli was given to me for a season. 
 And now Flaxman has given me Hayley, his friend, to be mine — such my 
 
 lot upgm Earth. 
 Now my lot in Heaven is this : Milton loved me in childhood and sliow'd 
 
 me his face ; 
 Ezrah came with Isaiah the Prophet, but Shakespeare in riper years gave 
 
 me his hand. 
 Paracelsus and Behmen appeared to me : terrors appeared in the Heavens 
 
 above. 
 The American war began : All its dark horrors passed before my face 
 
X THE KEAL BLAKE 
 
 Across the Atlantic to France. Then the French Eevolution commenc'd in 
 
 thick clouds. 
 And my Angels have told me that in seeing such visions I could not 
 
 subsist on the Earth 
 But by conjunction with Flaxraan, who knows how to forgive nervous fear. 
 
 12 Sep. 1800. 
 
 The date at the end is almost unnecessary. Eeaders of this 
 volume will see that it was most certainly written in 1800. 
 Its authenticity is obvious. The last lines are the most 
 valuable, pointing as they do to telepathic experiences and 
 horrors at this perturbed period of which we have no other 
 hint. " N'ervous fear " is not to be mistaken for either what is 
 usually called nervousness or for what is usually called fear. 
 
 The most surprising thing about the^e lines is the omission 
 of Swedenborg's name from them, showing that Blake was 
 at this time much more conscious of the distance beyond 
 Swedenborg's tether that he had travelled than of the help 
 which he owed to Swedenborg at an earlier stage of the 
 journey. Shortly after writing these lines to Flaxman, when he 
 had overhauled his old papers and "re-coUected his scattered 
 thoughts on art," he wrote the few and generous words about 
 Swedenborg in the poem called ilfi^tom, produced at that period. 
 
 I owe thanks to Mr. Fairfax Murray for permitting me to 
 print the whole of the Island in the Moon hei:e, in 1904, 
 before he presented the original manuscript to the Fitzwilliam 
 Museum, Cambridge ; and for placing his collection of Flax- 
 man's letters at my service for this volume, and showing me 
 some valuable letters of Blake, one of which, that to Mr. 
 Cumberland, is given in full here. The kindness of the Linnell 
 brothers has enabled me to see others in the original that have 
 been published elsewhere, and to re-examine the poem of Vala, 
 too hastily transcribed in the early excited pioneering days 
 when the Quaritch edition was under preparation. 
 
 The edition of Blake that is wanted in the future would 
 be one in which a capable and careful editor corrected for 
 Blake every line that his hasty hand mis-wrote, relegating to 
 foot-notes the record of the original slips of the pen. Then 
 the reader who loved poetry, and loved Blake for poetry's sake, 
 would be able to read him with uninterrupted pleasure, and 
 
PREFACE xi 
 
 the mere pedant would have a means of making himself 
 uncomfortable that would satisfy even Mr. Sampson. When 
 there is enough general understanding of Blake to enable a 
 full edition to dispense with all interpretation, then the 
 space given to notes would always find room for this, 
 their natural use. But the creation of such a text is an 
 invidious task, and no editor will undertake it who is not 
 prepared to be stoned publicly by every pedant, as Mr. 
 Sampson stones all editors indiscriminately. But one day, 
 perhaps, poetry, calling for volunteers as an officer does 
 before a breach is stormed, may find men ready for the work. 
 Meantime, a valuable sidelight on the real Blake comes 
 from an unexpected quarter since the printing of this 
 biography, and must be noticed here. In the number for 
 July 1905 of the Occult Review — a well-printed sixpenny 
 magazine — Miss M. Bramston, the novelist, has written, under 
 the title Automatic Romance, a cold, lucid, prosaic account 
 of her own experiences in involuntary production of fiction, 
 in which she relates how non-existent individuals, acting 
 apparently with wills and personalities of their own, literally 
 guide the pen when she is in a purely passive state, and create 
 dialogue for her which seems quite new to herself when she 
 reads it, and not due to any action of her own brain. She 
 explains how she acquired, cultivated, lost, and found again 
 the faculty of yielding her pen to such guidance, and why she 
 selected generally the names of personages whom she knew to 
 have only an imaginative existence, lest the complete splitting 
 up of her own personality into several should seem too like 
 the reception of " messages " from " spirits," as it does to 
 most " mediums," until it deceived herself, as it often deceives 
 them. The question whether real spirits give real messages 
 also, and whether there are real mediums, is not touched by 
 Miss Bramston's experiences ; but her case, and the way she 
 used, acquired, and lost her power so closely resembled Blake's, 
 and her account of this is so exactly like that to be collected 
 from isolated expressions in Blake's poems and " prophetic " 
 writings, that her self-analysis is invaluable to any one who 
 would understand Blake's mind. There are two differences 
 
xii THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 between Miss Bramston and Blake. Blake wrote poetry, Miss 
 Bramston prose. Blake had metaphysical opinions about 
 " imagination " and " eternity," due to considerations about 
 his experiences which do not seem to recommend themselves 
 to Miss Bramston's mind. Blake was stimulated to the 
 " creation" of his personages by thoughts of a myth-making, 
 impersonating kind, such as the ancients had when meditatmg 
 on the moods of human character. Then he mounted the 
 tripod and surrendered himself to oracular impulse. Miss 
 Bramston, when preparing herself for the exercise of similar 
 faculties, only yields to the novelist's artistic pleasure in con- 
 juring up personalities. Therefore Miss Bramston has pro- 
 duced picturesque and impressive dialogue and romance, and 
 Blake a great, if fragmentary, philosophic myth. 
 
 At this moment, while the Preface is still in proof, a 
 volume of Blake's Letters appears, containing also his Life 
 by F. Tatham, published by Methuen under the editorship 
 of Mr. G. B. Eussell. Tatham's Life does not quite fill fifty 
 pages, though printed in large type with -widely separated 
 lines. It is the contemporary memoir bound up in MS. with 
 Blake's one coloured copy of Jerusalem, formerly owned by 
 Mr. Quaritch, and lent to me when the Memoir for the 
 facsimile edition of Blake's works was prepared for him. 
 Afterwards Mr. Quaritch sold this Jerusalem, with Tatham's 
 MS., and made a trade secret of the purchaser's name. I am 
 glad that it has at last come to light and is published in full. 
 
 Not having my old notes by me here, I now look through 
 Mr. Eussell's volume to see if any essential matter from 
 Tatham's Life has passed unnoticed. I find pleasant personal 
 descriptions of Blake's good looks, good manners, good temper, 
 and patience under pain during his last illness, his know- 
 ledge of languages, and the fact that Mrs. Blake always 
 kept for him a guinea in the house more than he knew of, 
 and kept him well fed and "comfortable," though not 
 " portly " ; also that in his later years he always dressed 
 neatly in black (Gilchrist says, in knee-breeches), and 
 wore his hair falling down on his shoulders — facts not indi- 
 cated in the life-mask. 
 
PEEFACE xiii 
 
 Tatham defends, by a curious sentence telling how Blake 
 " enjoyed in the early part of his life not only comforts but 
 necessaries," the story that Blake was really robbed of £60 
 worth of plate at Hercules Buildings. "Whether £60 worth of 
 plate was a comfort or a necessary to a quiet man whose enter- 
 tainments consisted, so far as we know, of sometimes giving 
 Fuseli a chop or Flaxman a cup of tea, does not appear. Per- 
 haps Blake, who had fashionable pupils at this time, received 
 presents of plate from them which his enthusiastic gratitude 
 valued at £60, along with what he himself bought. 
 
 Tatham gives no hint that he disapproved of any of Blake's 
 views, only saying that much of his poetry was " unintelli- 
 gible," that he " wrote a good deal," and that he published 
 those of his works that were " most mysterious." Perhaps 
 the tale that Tatham committed wholesale destruction after 
 Blake's death may prove to be an exaggerated report, and 
 some " prophetic works " may yet be foimd. 
 
 Passing to the letters collected by Mr. Eussell, I find, 
 besides the one containing the few lines to Plaxman quoted 
 above, two or three that were unknown to me. They are about 
 a Dr. Trusler who was nearly persuaded by Mr. Cumberland 
 to employ Blake, but found his designs too symbolic. 
 
 They contain passages about art of interest to artists, and 
 show Blake's views at the period before the eighteenth 
 century was quite over, when, as his own designs to America 
 show, he was not yet out of sympathy with Greek art — a state 
 at which he seems to have arrived later through rebellion 
 against the frigidities of Flaxman and Hay ley. 
 
 This collection also includes part of a letter from Flaxman 
 in which there is indicated an unfulfilled project at one 
 time existing among Blake's friends to get him taken to 
 Eome to study art there ; and Mr. Eussell in some of his brief 
 and useful notes adds to the sparse allusions made by 
 Blake to a Work on Art (much of whose intended material 
 is given in the present volume from the MS. book, and 
 collected under the title " Public Address ") which went no 
 farther towards production than Blake's announcement that 
 he had " found a publisher " for it. 
 
xiv THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 The biographical contributions, therefore, for which I am 
 indebted to Mr. Eussell's volume consist of information about 
 how a journey was not taken, a book was not published, and 
 a patron did not employ. 
 
 Mr. Eussell's book, however, contains some good repro- 
 ductions, notably of Blake's engraving of a horse from his 
 own design, perhaps the most .unreal horse ever drawn ; and 
 the picture of the Last Judgment, whose first pencil sketch 
 is given here. This reproduction, which might have been 
 larger, is very valuable, as it is enough to prove that this is 
 the most beautiful, poetic, and decorative picture the world 
 contains, and also perhaps the most populated. Its figures are 
 literally innumerable. It is a sufficient answer to aU doubts 
 that Blake's feebler drawings suggest as to the overwhelming 
 value of his genius. He was always drawing, almost always 
 " out of his own head " ; and living as he did under depressing 
 and distracting artistic influences, he not only sometimes did 
 badly, but when he did so was too enfeebled by the eighteenth- 
 century influence to know it. In this picture and in the Joi 
 he takes a supreme place among the world's artists. 
 
 Mr. Eussell does ill to express a fear that Eome would 
 have done Blake harm. It is true that the " school " of Michael 
 Angelo, a school of mannerism and little else, influenced liim 
 for a moment when, as a boy, he engraved his " Joseph of 
 Arimathea among the Eocks of Albion." But the roof of 
 the Sis tine Chapel was painted many years before Michael 
 Angelo acquired the mannerism that his imitators exagger- 
 ated, and would have been like new wine to Blake. 
 
 Some apology is perhaps due to the reader for the very 
 slender account given in the present work of what was real 
 and essential in Blake that may be foimd in the artistic 
 story of his life. But only poetic artists who have vision 
 themselves would understand it. These are few, and their 
 experiences will explain to them better than words can even 
 the most paradoxical of the doctrines, and most puzzling of 
 the changes, in Blake the Artist. 
 
 EDWIN J. ELLIS. 
 
 Pakis, December 1906. 
 
PAGE 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTEE I 
 Who He Was .... .1 
 
 CHAPTER 11 
 How He Grew Up . . 7 
 
 CHAPTEE ni 
 
 Peace and War in the Abbey . . . .14 
 
 CHAPTEE IV 
 
 Blake, Swedenboeg, and Nature . . . 22 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 When Art Put Aside Letters . . . .29 
 
 CHAPTEE VI 
 
 True Love and False Metre . . .36 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 Words Missed — and Words Found . . .45 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII 
 
 'The Island in the Moon' . .66 
 
 XV 
 
xvi THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 CHAPTEE IX 
 
 'Mart' .... 
 
 PAGE 
 
 86 
 
 CHAPTEE X 
 
 How Robert Came and Went ^^ 
 
 CHAPTEE XI 
 
 After Robert Had Gone . . 101^ 
 
 CHAPTEE XII 
 
 The Notes to Swedenborg . .106 
 
 CHAPTEE Xni 
 
 Robert's Invention . . . .116 
 
 CHAPTEE XIV 
 
 Lavater . . • .122 
 
 CHAPTEE XV 
 
 'Thel' and 'Tiriel': Solitude and Style 152 
 
 CHAPTEE XVI 
 
 Liberty and Vision . . . 162 
 
 CHAPTEE XVII 
 
 England and America . . . .170 
 
 CHAPTEE XVIII 
 
 Helping and Being Helped . . . .184 
 
CONTENTS xvii 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 PAOB 
 
 Fblpham . . J90 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 For Readers Who Study Blake . . 208 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 SCHOLFIELD .... .225 
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 Gratitude to Hayley . . .237 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 Crombk ... . 247 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 'Jostling in the Street' . . . .263 
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 ' Public Address ' . . . . . 300 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 The 'Last Judgment' . . .313 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 Blake's Second Account op His 'Last Judgment' Picture, 
 
 for the Year 1810 ..... 317 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 A Little Bit op Interpretation . . .328 
 
xviii THE KEAL BLAKE 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 PAG] 
 
 His Three Leading Ideas . • 341 
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 Summing Up of the Position of 'Jerusalem' and 'Milton' Z54 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 Satan, Bacon, Rees, and Thornton . 359 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 Marginal Notes to the 'Discourses' of Sir Joshua 
 
 Reynolds, 1798 . . 371 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 Visions and Dante . . . 397 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 'Job' and Linnell . . 405 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 Blake and Wordsworth's Imagination 415 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 Samuel Palmer . 426 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 Last Friends and Last Hours . 430 
 
 POSTSCRIPT 437 
 
 INDEX 439 
 
ILLUSTEATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 " The Real Blake.'' From the life-mask by Deville, 
 
 the Phrenologist ....... Frontispiece 
 
 {Reproduced by special permiss'ion of Sir W. B. Richmond, R.A.) 
 
 Joseph of Abimathea among the Rocks of Albion . To face 23 
 
 " JocDND Day STANDS Tiptoe " „ 57 
 
 Two Pages op the MS. op The Island m the Moon, 
 containing the first written op the Songs of 
 Innocence ...... Between 80 and 81 
 
 Four Illustrations from Young's Night Thoughts „ 182 „ 183 
 
 "Death's Door." From Blair's GVosot . . . To face 253 
 
 " Descent of Man into the Vale of Death." From 
 
 Blair's Grave „ 257 
 
 The Last Judgment ,,271 
 
 "When the Morning Stars sang together." From 
 
 the Boole of Job „ 409 
 
 XIX 
 
THE KEAL BLAKE 
 
 CHAPTEE I 
 
 WHO HE WAS 
 
 In the year 1804, a century ago, William Blake sat in his 
 London rooms on the first floor of No. 17 South Molton 
 Street, dating the engraved title-pages of his two final 
 poems, each a volume in itself, feeling sure that at last he 
 had turned the corner in the pathway of his daily life, 
 and believing that he saw how he had come to that corner 
 through the past, and that he could see how to go forward 
 from it into the future. 
 
 Of ordinary daylight he had enough, but by no means 
 too much to work by. At the present day, as we walk down 
 the shady side of the street, going perhaps by the convenient 
 slanting short cut that it offers from the Bond Street Station 
 of the Central or " Tube " railway to the heart of Bond Street 
 itself, we can still look up and see several such windows as 
 he sat near. They have six small panes in the lower, and 
 six small panes in the upper half. But the front of No. 17, 
 where he laboured for seventeen years, is now re-glazed 
 with modern plate. Here, feeling at peace with all men, 
 and glowing with the warmth of affection and gratitude to 
 some, he began confidently to prepare for printing and 
 illustrating with his own hands the most picturesque and 
 profound symbolic poems that have ever been produced in 
 our language. The main subject of them was the imaginative 
 and affectionate moods of life, of how art leads to brother- 
 hood, and the two together to visionary power, and so to 
 immortality — to "eternal salvation"; for, as he held, "in 
 eternity all is vision." He began his last poetic task with 
 confidence, for he had reason to trust his friends, and to 
 trust his employments, and to trust his visions. He was 
 
 B 
 
2 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 practically certain that he could make his living by mean 
 within his power, without laying aside his poetic art. 
 
 And yet it was here that he was to feel the bitteres 
 disappointments of his life, and the deepest resentments 
 It was here that he, who had harmed no man and helpei 
 more than one, who had been consistently courageous an< 
 incessantly industrious, was soon to be reduced to writin| 
 in his private MS. book this entry: "Between two anc 
 seven in the evening: despair." His difficulty in thi 
 ordinary intercourse of life partly sprang from the fact tha 
 he always claimed to be a man of genius. His claim is nov 
 allowed so fully that when the merest tinted sketch, or bool 
 of poetry illuminated by his hand, is put up publicly fo: 
 sale, about fifty times the price that he obtained is frequently 
 given without hesitation, as the account-books of the Carfaj 
 Gallery, late of Eyder Street, or of Sotheby in Wellingtoi 
 Street, undoubtedly show. 
 
 Eecords of pounds, shillings, and pence, if they are no 
 the history of art itself, go a long way towards telling us iti 
 history, as a heap of dead shells go far towards revealing t( 
 us the story of the sea. This amazing increase in the recog 
 nised value of Blake's original work has not come suddenly 
 nor can it be put aside as a whim of fashion. It has growi 
 up slowly as the man himself has become more widely known 
 and has reached its towering height this year, when gossij 
 whispers that there are many new books of different kinds ii 
 preparation that are intended to show him to us more fully— 
 possibly more truly — than he has ever yet been shown. 
 
 "We all know something about him. Whoever has hearc 
 the name of William Blake knows that he was a poet of grea 
 sweetness, but great difficulty, and a painter of great spiritu 
 ality and power, but of visionary extravagance and more thai 
 dream-like unreality; but behind the poet and the painter is th( 
 man, and it is only beginning to be known that this man wai 
 as well worth understanding for his character as for his work 
 
 When, after his first and last attempt to live and labou: 
 in the country, he returned to the London battlefield o 
 art, pitching his tent in South Molton Street in 1804, hi 
 was forty-seven years of age, and in the very prime of hi 
 vigorous development. He had seen visions for forty years 
 and had kept his head. He had been married for twenty-twi 
 years, and his heart was fresh. He had been all his life con 
 fident of his genius, but was still the hardest of ploddin] 
 workers, He had been poor and obscure from the beginnin] 
 
WHO HE WAS 3 
 
 of his career, and had lived in the company of well-known 
 men, eminent men, and men of property; and he had not 
 become tainted with subserviency, but had remained inde- 
 pendent in heart and mind, and had paid his own debts from 
 his own earnings. He had more imagination than any man 
 of his age, but had never allowed it to betray him into 
 deceiving any one. He had the temperament of a Turk and 
 the fidelity of a knight. His hopes of position as an artist, 
 as a poet, and as a husband were disappointed, for his pictures 
 were undervalued, his poetry was very little read, and his wife 
 was childless ; and yet he remained as cheerful and pleasant 
 in all companies as the luckiest of the lucky, and in his 
 gloomiest moments kept his sorrow strictly at home. 
 
 The first event of poetic importance in Blake's life hap- 
 pened when he was four years old. He saw God in a 
 vision put His forehead to the window. This set the child 
 screaming. We only know of the incident through Mr. Crabb 
 Eobinson, in whose diary is an allusion to it made many 
 years later. There had been some conversation about visions, 
 and Mrs. Blake reminding her husband of this one, Mr. Eobin- 
 son jotted it down. Nothing more is told us beyond the bare 
 fact. The probability is that when the little boy's screaming 
 was over he told no one near him at the time about what he 
 had seen. It was too awful and confidential an experience. 
 Possibly the vision was only of a huge forehead and eyes 
 appearing at the window of an upper story, and seeming to 
 imply a figure of supernatural dimensions in the street. It 
 proves at least that William Blake had heard much of God 
 when he was only four years old, and had thought much of 
 what he had heard. His thoughts even then were pictorial. 
 What he thought, he saw. 
 
 He was a child who had plenty of time to think. His life 
 and mind in early years were not turned into mere foolishness 
 by constant endearments and amusement. He had the advan- 
 tage of not being a favourite. He was the third son, though 
 some of his contemporaries, who had never heard of the eldest, 
 afterwards thought that he was the second. John, the first son, 
 turned out' a scapegrace, and the family did not speak about 
 him after his death. The next brother, James, took his place, 
 passed for the eldest, and became the favourite. Although 
 John turned out ill, yet, while the boys were still all at home 
 together, their parents used to hold him up as an example to 
 William, who, for being so foolish and unpractical as to wish 
 to be an artist, was told that he would one day beg his bread 
 
4 THE KEAL BLAKE 
 
 at John's door. The contrary of this is what happened. Jol 
 died young — it is hinted, from the effects of dissipation — aft 
 being a soldier. In some of Blake's verses written at Felpha 
 he is recalled : 
 
 My brother Jolin, the evil one, 
 In a black cloud making his moan. 
 
 No more is known about him. But in the early days tl 
 fact that he was the favourite, and James the next in estee 
 as in age, gave William a certain freedom from the frequei 
 notice of his parents, an isolation that must have been of ui 
 to him, enabling him to dream unmolested. 
 
 That he said nothing about his first vision is not only 1 
 be inferred from the awfulness of it, but from the fact thi 
 Mrs. Blake, to whom he probably told of it during the summt 
 days of his courtship, had no further details to relate to M 
 Crabb Eobinson — or rather, none to remind her husband 1 
 relate. There is not a word about how his family took i 
 He would certainly have told her something about this : 
 the family had ever heard of it at aU. He probably ha 
 never spoken of the vision to any one until he mentioned i 
 to her that once, just as she recalled it to him afterward 
 Then through the hurry and rush of business and struggl< 
 and the crowding -in of other visions upon his mind, h 
 seems to have forgotten it altogether. 
 
 The next experience of the same kind of which we knoi 
 anything was three years later, when Blake was seven. On 
 pleasant day at Peckham Eye, where every house has a pretfr 
 garden, he saw a tree full of angels, " their bright wings be 
 spangling the boughs like stars," as he said in describing il 
 for in his natural delight he related this to his family, aji( 
 his father decided to give him. a thrashing for telling a lie 
 He probably began to do so with some severity. His mothe: 
 begged him ofi". His friend Frederick Tatham, who gatherei 
 facts about him in his old age, whether from himself or hi 
 wife, says that his mother herself beat him afterwards foi 
 having a vision of Ezekiel. Tatham's memoir is bound uj 
 with the handsomest coloured copy known of the poem caUec 
 " Jerusalem." It was in the possession of Mr. Quaritch tei 
 or eleven years ago, when the present writer was privU^ 
 to consult it. 
 
 "We also learn that Blake's fit of fury at being struck was sc 
 violent and appalling that it resulted in the decision that he was 
 not to go to school. In later life he wrote of himself : 
 
WHO HE WAS 5 
 
 Thank heaven I never was sent to school 
 
 To be flogged into following the style of a fool. 
 
 It is more probable that if he had been flogged at school at 
 all, the style into which this would have driven him would 
 have been that of a madman or a murderer. His feeling of 
 personal dignity was, next to the love of art and vision, the 
 ruling passion of his life. He long disUked the very word 
 father. It is often a term of reproach in his poems. He was 
 intensely affectionate, but held as a fixed rule that he must 
 be neither controlled nor criticised. His pride, like his genius, 
 was beyond all ordinary measure, and grew with his growth. 
 He could not be made to understand for many years that 
 people could disagree with him even in the mildest way, 
 unless they were actually wicked. He had from childhood 
 a gift of words as much above that of all other boys as his 
 gift of love and his gift of pride, and we may exercise our 
 more limited imaginations till they are tired without any 
 danger of going beyond what he is likely, in his indignation, 
 to have said to his parents about the flogging. He obtained 
 the mastery over them. They must have been of unusually 
 kind dispositions if their consequent dislike of him did not 
 rise to absolute hatred. 
 
 Among the other children that were bom to these parents 
 was a daughter, of whom little is known but that she hved 
 longer than aU the rest of the family, died unmarried, and 
 had to the last some distinction of bearing which seems to 
 have always been remarked in this family. Besides John 
 and James, WilUam had a third brother, Eobert, the best 
 beloved and youngest. 
 
 They grew up in the house behind their father's shop. He 
 was a draper, — a hosier as it was called then, — and attended 
 seriously to his business, saved a little money, and left a 
 respectable goodwill to James, the son who took his place 
 at his death. But he was not an ordinary shopman. His 
 name was not really Blake, but O'Neil. No one can study 
 the cast of William Blake's head made for Deville the phreno- 
 logist without seeing that he was an Irishman. His grand- 
 father was an O'Neil in Ireland when his father was born, — 
 the family does not know from what mother. This O'Neil 
 married a woman named Ellen Blake, who had some money 
 that came through whisky, and she gave him not only her 
 dowry but her name, for he was in trouble that tradition 
 says was political, and no one in Ireland was ever anxious to 
 
6 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 know more about a gentleman's misfortunes when so satis 
 factory an explanation could be offered. There were man 
 honourable men of good blood and good standing who wei 
 in political trouble in those days, and not all of them foun 
 a kind Ellen Blake into whose family their identity coul 
 vanish, while debt and all other troubles were also left oul 
 side. John O'lTeirs motherless boy, William Blake's fathe: 
 probably had no very legal name of his own. At any rat( 
 he accepted the name of Blake when his father adopted ii 
 and there would have been an end of the story had not Ellei 
 Blake borne to John O'Neil children of her own, and i 
 Dr. Carter Blake, who was descended from one of these 
 had not told the whole story to Mr. W. B. Yeats, on whos 
 authority it is given here. 
 
 William Blake's mortal and perishable existence is like . 
 sentence in a parenthesis. With a father across whose shieL 
 is a bar sinister, he not merely left no children of his owr 
 but he had no nephews or nieces. The family begins an( 
 ends in one generation from the date of its pseudonymou 
 founder, and no kin or next of kin to William Blake survive! 
 Even his grave is dif&cult to identify now, though its numbe 
 and place in the cemetery of Bunhill Fields is recorded. 
 
 Should those hidden bones ever be disturbed, the cast o 
 the head that answers for William's nationality will answe 
 for his identity. A copy of it is in the possession of Si 
 William Richmond, who was named after hira; and it i 
 reproduced in this volume by his kind permission. 
 
CHAPTEE II 
 
 HOW HE GREW UP 
 
 At first an attempt was made to teach Blake to be a hosier. 
 Unfortunately, he had a constitutional aversion to anything 
 like commerce. He hated money transactions, and even 
 hated money. In later days a patron who was buying a copy 
 of his Songs of Innocence and Experience as a sort of " veiled 
 charity," because Blake was dependent on such sales for his 
 bread, was rather taken aback when he tried to make him 
 a present of the work. 
 
 By adding to this spirit of anti-commercialism the wild 
 ways of his brother John, we can form a guess of how their 
 grandfather, the John O'Neil who married Ellen Blake, came 
 to be in both financial and political trouble at once. Fortu- 
 nately, there was a strain of severe conscientiousness in the 
 blood, and William had his share of this, and his long life of 
 struggle was an honest one. 
 
 When his parents gave up the idea of teaching him to be 
 shopman, they did not altogether deprive him of pocket- 
 money, and they allowed him to spend it as he chose. For 
 this a white stone must mark their memory. It is true, of 
 course, that they did not, because they could not, foresee 
 what lasting and wise use the character of the boy would 
 enable him to make of his opportunity. They were probably 
 glad enough that he seemed quiet, and was not heard of as 
 being in any mischief. 
 
 But, going back to his childish years with the knowledge 
 his writiflgs give us, we can see into the silent places of his 
 mind now, better than his father and mother could see then. 
 They noticed that the once bragging boy seldom spoke, 
 though he looked as vivacious as ever, going quickly about 
 with his flame-like golden-red hair on end, curling up all 
 over his head, his lips- sometimes moving as though he talked 
 to himself, but his large, dark, flashing eyes very seldom 
 
 7 
 
8 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 seeking theirs either with anger or in confidence. He was a 
 complete mystery. He did what they told him in the small 
 matters of daily life. We even suspect that he went so far 
 as to allow his upright flames of waving hair to be combed 
 down for him sometimes. The drawing that he afterwards 
 made to the " Wurse's Song," among the Songs of JExperienee, 
 shows a boy quite big enough to comb his own hair, who 
 stands folding his hands resolutely with the deliberate meek- 
 ness of a martyr, while golden locks, the colour of Blake's 
 own, are flattened on his head and reduced to respectability 
 by a young woman, perhaps his elder sister. There is no 
 allusion to combing in the verse. If this drawing is not a 
 fragment of autobiography it is incomprehensible. It is 
 certainly not introduced to serve a purpose either decorative 
 or pathetic, nor is it symbolic as are the drawings to some of 
 the songs. 
 
 Now, at between eight and ten years of age, he was grow- 
 ing into a more and more complete estrangement from his 
 parents, partly caused by resentful remembrance making 
 permanent the results of the appalling fits of fury that he 
 had shown when they had struck him, to teach him not to 
 pretend to have visions ; for Vision became more and more 
 sacred to him. But a deeper cause was at work. He had 
 made a discovery. The figure is formed /or beauty. From 
 .' that moment he was an artist. It is usually thought, even 
 by the educated classes, that an artist is diiferent from other 
 people merely because he has a talent for drawing or painting, 
 and likes pictures and the making of pictures, but that the 
 difference goes no deeper. 
 
 A boy who has discovered that the figure is formed for 
 beauty has in his mind an idea that alters the whole nature 
 of his thought and character from those of another boy 
 who does not know yet that it is formed for anything else 
 but use and strength, measuring and boasting, dressing or 
 washing, playing or whipping. As he grows up it even gives 
 him a delight in a quality of the fiesh— /or?ft — which is 
 independent of the attractions of sex. 
 
 The delight in form, and the belief that beautiful form is 
 one of the things chiefly worth considering in life, give the 
 mind food that it cannot obtain from gossip, philosophy, 
 religion, or commerce. History knows nothing of this delight. 
 It merely knows that, somehow or other, there were statues 
 well done by a few people at a particular time, and ill done 
 before and afterwards by everybody else. 
 
HOW HE GREW UP 9 
 
 If we are to have an idea of Blake as he grew up we must 
 first get to know what it is to discover the deUght in form 
 and the belief in form, and we must at every moment remind 
 ourselves how much, and of what sort, is the difference 
 between the mind of any one to whom this is a leading 
 thought, and the mind of those who divide man into flesh 
 and spirit and forget form — that is neither the one nor the 
 other. Form can be loved in those whom we absolutely 
 dislike, both for their ilesh and their spirit. Were this not 
 so, the majority of artists' models would starve. 
 
 We cannot go so far as to suppose that our doctrine, the 
 figure is formed for heauty, came into Blake's head in dog- 
 matic style when he was a little boy. We should not say 
 of Sir John Franklin that the notion that the North Pole 
 was formed for exploration was in his mind, as a set 
 phrase, in childhood, when his mother found him on the floor 
 instead of in his bed one night, and he gravely assured her 
 that he was hardening himself for his coming privations when 
 he should be a great traveller. Yet the emotional perception 
 of pv/rpose in this world of ours, and of duties arising from 
 this purpose, is perhaps among the youngest of thoughts, 
 even if it is obliged to wait till years bring maturity before 
 it can be given out as statement or shown in action. 
 
 Much in the same way as that in which a lad whose pet 
 idea is the sea will devour heavy books about Nelson or 
 Captain Cook, while the sporting boy reads about Mr. Selous, 
 and the mechanical boy about Watt, Stephenson, or Edison, 
 Blake worshipped and studied Eaphael, Michael Angelo, and 
 Albert Diirer. Eeligion awoke in him. As he said later, 
 "The worship of God is honouring His gifts in individual 
 men." So he used to go to the sales of prints where three- 
 penny bids were taken in those days, and where Langford, the 
 auctioneer, took a fancy to him because he showed knowledge 
 enough to pick out the best masters, called him his " little 
 connoisseur," and often knocked down lots to him "with 
 friendly precipitation." His father even bought casts for 
 him to copy at home — the Gladiator, Hercules, and Venus 
 de' Medici — and at ten years old sent him to draw at Parr's 
 Life School in the Strand. 
 
 The styles of prettiness and ugliness which in our own day, 
 like blue and brown streams, unite their currents, but not their 
 waters, to form the great river of modern art, have so swept 
 most of us along with them that it is difficult now to realise 
 that the old masters and the classics are not necessarily 
 
10 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 severe, distasteful, or at least disciplinarian to a young mind. 
 To those who take their first and best artistic delights from 
 these, they are as exciting as the story called Treasure Island 
 or as the best orchestral music. Our first admirations are 
 always exciting. The Old Testament was a novel to the 
 Puritans, and even now the grimmest and sternest works of 
 art in all the history of the world— the Pyramids themselves 
 — rouse to quick beating of the heart, and the deep breath of 
 excitement, ardent artistic youth, as they did in the days of 
 the Pharaohs. 
 
 From prints of Raphael's and Michael Angelo's works, as 
 from the Gladiator, the Hercules, and the Venus, Blake now 
 began to learn the artistic joys of the mind, the seed-sowing 
 delights of which he afterwards told in one of his proverbs 
 that says — 
 
 Joys impregnate : sorrows bring forth. 
 
 When it was considered time to apprentice the boy to a 
 master that he might learn a trade or craft of some sort, it 
 was undoubtedly his wish to be made a painter. Gilchrist 
 has recorded for us that it was only because indentures to an 
 engraver cost less that he was bound to Basire, after he had 
 refused to be articled to the fashionable and fascinating 
 Eyland, because, as he said after being taken to see him, 
 " the man's face looked as though he would come to be 
 hanged." 
 
 This was a really surprising bit of second-sight, because 
 not only was Eyland prosperous and well liked imiversaUy 
 at the time, but he must have had an essentially honourable 
 expression as he had an essentially honourable nature, for 
 about ten years later, when he was in prison before execu- 
 tion for the forgery on a chartered company, made under 
 temptation and to the hurt of no visible and lovable indivi- 
 dual, for which he ultimately suffered the death penalty, 
 he was trusted on parole by his jailer, and allowed to walk 
 out with him, after giving his word that he would not use 
 this indulgence to make his escape. 
 
 It was not in order to rise in the social scale that young 
 Blake wished to be an artist instead of a draper. Nor did 
 he merely come to the conclusion that he must be one because 
 he liked art. A voice that others could not hear laid this 
 command upon him in plain words ; it said, " Blake, be an 
 artist." As for the social position of an artist then, he 
 recalled many years later, in writing to Mr. Cumberland, who 
 
HOW HE GREW UP 11 
 
 was trying to found what has become our National Gallery, 
 how they could both "remember when a print-shop was a 
 rare bird in London," and adds in the same letter : " I myself 
 remember when I thoxxght my pursuits of art a kind of 
 criminal dissipation and neglect of the main chance, which I 
 hid my face for not being able to abandon as a passion which 
 is forbidden by law and religion." 
 
 The fact that Blake's father bought casts for him of antique 
 statues (reduced copies, we must conclude), seems to indicate 
 that he was a very superior man, and to suggest that the only 
 source of estrangement between himself andhis son — the vexed 
 question of art — had turned into a source of union. Other 
 discord arose, however. One account of Mr. Blake the hosier 
 tells us that he was a dissenter. This is a softening of the truth, 
 and leaves it open to us to imagine that he was a Wesleyan. 
 In actual fact he was one of a much smaller minority than any 
 group of Evangelists or Methodists : he was a Swedenborgian. 
 Swedenborg, of course, was a visionary, a man to whorai 
 angels appeared, and to whom they taught a special and, it 
 must be confessed, a profoundly interesting and fascinating 
 as well as an almost credible and not at all improbable inter- j 
 pretation of the Bible. We feel as we read his works that 
 there is nothing like them in all literature, and those of us 
 who believe anything at all do not find it easy to resist his 
 teaching unless we close our ears entirely. Hardly any 
 one ever read him without admitting his fascination, and 
 even a Comtist will turn regretfully rather than contemptu- 
 ously from accepting all that he puts forth, while marvelling 
 at the mind that invented the system, and admiring the 
 character that moulded this mind. 
 
 A father may accept Swedenborgianism, however, without 
 being in the least inclined to admit that, because Swedenborg's 
 angels told him divine truth from vision, a little boy may 
 start up in his own family and claim to do the same thing. 
 
 Mr. Blake seems to have considered that too close an 
 acquaintance with Swedenborg's doctrines would not be par- 
 ticularly good for such a boy, and it can hardly have been 
 less than an equal cause of estrangement to put beside the 
 general want of acceptance of William's divine call that his 
 father should have discouraged him (to say the least) in 
 learning about the elder visionary. It had required evidently 
 no more than the meagre outlines of family instruction to 
 show Blake as a boy what he announced later — that it would 
 be part of his duty in life to outdo Swedenborg, correct him, 
 
12 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 and leave him high and dry as a mere writer of footnotes to 
 elder prophets, though he might have been of their company 
 himself. 
 
 "We require no friend of the household to tell us, on the 
 authority of personal memory, how irritating it was to Mr. 
 Blake, perpetually conscious of his position as an exile and 
 shopman, when he had made a pedestal for himself out of the 
 courage with which he had embraced the rarest, latest, and 
 at the same time the most deeply-thought religious opinion 
 of his day, to find his little boy growing up in a state of 
 indignant repudiation of the claim to prophetic sufficiency of 
 the teacher of this new and beautiful reading of the Bible. 
 What was good enough for the lad's father, what was a great 
 deal too good for the capacities of most of his father's con- 
 temporaries, was not to be treated with contempt and called 
 merely good enough, as far as it went, by the fiery-haired 
 stripling. 
 
 When the apprenticeship to Basire the engraver was a 
 settled thing Mr. Blake must have gone home with rather 
 a grim smile, reflecting that this rebellious boy would have 
 seven years of bending over copper plates, with a strong glass 
 fixed in his eye and liis nose nearly touching the square of 
 metal, while he laboriously cut lines and dots to represent 
 the shading of drawings that some artist, whom he probably 
 thought inferior to himself, had swept in with a free brush 
 at his ease. There would not be much room for preposterous 
 visions in the three inches between that arrogant young face 
 and the pitiless sheet of cold copper. Let the boy learn what 
 work was ; it would do him good. 
 
 If such thoughts as these did not pass through the mind 
 of Blake's father he would have been more than human, but 
 it is right to record that he did not arrange the apprentice- 
 ship with any purpose of inflicting on William a period of 
 discipline. William chose the life of an engraver for himseK. 
 Mr. Blake had gone so far on the road of concession as to 
 approve of the scheme that he should be a painter. Art 
 instruction was not to be had for nothing then, and the 
 painter to whom he applied — (Blake never seems to have 
 told Tatham, or any one else, who it was) — asked such a 
 heavy sum that the boy refused to have it spent upon him, 
 because " it would be unfair to his brother and sister." This 
 must have been final, as showing to the father how unfit 
 William was for the career of a shopman. 
 
 From the point of view of professional success Basire was 
 
HOW HE GEEW UP 13 
 
 not the best master to have chosen. His style of engraving 
 soon went out of favour, and the soft manner of Bartolozzi 
 replaced it. Blake was always indignant about this, and 
 always fiercely loyal to Basire, while his favourite aversions 
 were Bartolozzi, WooUett, and Strange. He began his 
 apprenticeship to Basire (at 31 Great Queen Street) in 1771, 
 and as long after as 1810 was still his faithful and enthusi- 
 astic upholder against all rivals, as we see by these few lines 
 in his MS. book : 
 
 WooUett I knew very intimately by his intimacy with Basire, and 
 I knew him to be one of the most ignorant fellows I ever knew. . . . 
 Woollett I knew did not know how to grind his graver : I know this. 
 He has often proved his ignorance before me at Basire's by laughing at 
 Basire's knife tools and ridiculing the form of Basire's graver, till 
 Basire was quite dashed and out of conceit with what he himself knew. 
 But his ignorance had a contrary effect upon me. 
 
 A partisan like this would have made a son worth having 
 if his father could have understood him in time. 
 
CHAPTEE III 
 
 PEACE AND WAR IN THE ABBEY 
 
 Blake only worked for two years continuously at Basire's, — 
 the years 1771 and 1772. It was during this time that he saw 
 Goldsmith, who, as wUl be remembered, did not live beyond 
 1774. Goldsmith was then over forty,and his large.round Irish 
 forehead was bare to the crown of the head. Blake, looking 
 out from under his thick crop of hair that started its flaring 
 upright life two inches above his eyebrows, immediately said 
 that he wished he could have a head like that when he 
 became a man. The short Irish nose and large Irish eyes of 
 Goldsmith he had already. As time went on, his hair receded 
 till it came no further forward than the exact middle of 
 the top of the head, although he was never bald. The por- 
 traits and the cast from life show that his wish was fulfilled. 
 The upper part of Blake's brow attained Goldsmith's full round- 
 ness. The lower part grew more protuberant than Goldsmith's, 
 and the back of the head with the chin that balanced it became 
 much longer and stronger. It is noteworthy that both men 
 were very envious and were exceedingly desirous to shine in 
 company, though Blake felt this craving aggressively and con- 
 fidently, and boldly satisfied it, except during his occasional fits 
 of doubt and depression when he was too gloomy to desire any- 
 thing. Goldsmith felt the hunger for appreciation with a 
 nervous helplessness, which placed him even further from gain- 
 ing it than he would have been if he had not felt the desire at 
 all. We still see Goldsmith unable to keep away from Dr. 
 Johnson's set of competitive talkers, though he only talked 
 "like poor Poll," and we pity him as he stayed for long 
 hours, watching, watching, watching, in the hope of getting 
 in a brilliant remark, and so making his exit with a decent 
 round of applause to comfort his craving ears, but finally 
 creeping off defeated and angry, with the memory of a 
 stammering blunder at which every one had laughed. 
 
 U 
 
PEACE AND WAE IN THE ABBEY 15 
 
 In the serious things of character the two men were 
 curiously contrasted. Blake hated money, and died poor but 
 solvent. Goldsmith actually worried himself to death in his 
 last illness over a debt of two thousand pounds, and when 
 he died earned Dr. Johnson's caustic funeral oration, — " "Was 
 ever poet so trusted?" But the thing that both Blake and he 
 had in common was conscience. It restrained the strong 
 man who hated restraint, and killed the weak one who could 
 not restrain himself. 
 
 But Blake was only as yet arriving at the possession of a 
 knowledge of his own character. He tried to feed his 
 emulousness now with the consolation that he knew how 
 to grind his tools better than Woollett, who became a more 
 popular engraver. 
 
 After the first two years, however, his position with his 
 master changed. Two new pupils came. They seem to have 
 been idle apprentices. Basire desired to exercise his 
 authority, and expected Blake, who he had discovered was 
 the strongest character in his studio,, to help him to do so. 
 He had got quite a wrong idea of Blake. To shine, to be 
 accounted a leader and a hero, was one thing, but to play 
 chief constable to a master as magistrate was quite another. 
 Blake was, in blood and spirit, an Irish chieftain. He was 
 not a Dogberry. Malkin says that the new pupils were too 
 cunning for him, and that he was too simple for them. 
 Nothing is more probable. Here he began to feel the first 
 disadvantage of having had no school experience. Blake had 
 not only escaped being " flogged into following the style of a 
 fool," but he had also escaped seeing little fools growing up 
 and reveahng their little meannesses as they did so. He was 
 always ready to suspect authority, but was not shrewd enough 
 to suspect rebellion. Veneration or regard was a feeling that 
 during his whole life he only felt towards two qualities, 
 genius and forgiveness. 
 
 Basire needed careful drawings made in Westminster Abbey 
 for some engravings that he was commissioned to execute. 
 He could not leave Blake in charge of his other apprentices. 
 He had (Jnly one thing to do. He sent him to the Abbey to 
 make the drawings. That he worked well and faithfully 
 now — 1772-1773 — is seen by the fact that he was allowed to 
 continue copying the tombs month after month, and that a 
 scaffolding was erected for him to study details that could 
 not be seen from the ground. He not only worked with 
 
16 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 fidelity but with delight and exultation, whidh had both an 
 immediate and a lasting result. 
 
 The lasting result was that he ceased to admire Greek 
 form exclusively and adopted Gothic form as his favourite. 
 "Greek form is permanent in the mathematical memory," 
 he afterwards wrote, " Gothic is living form." He even so 
 far abused the word Gothic as to apply it to all art that was 
 not directly derived from the antique without fresh reference 
 to imagination through nature. Eaphael and Michael Angelo 
 became Gothic in his mind, and certainly there have been 
 terms applied to them less illuminating and descriptive than 
 this. 
 
 The immediate result was that, in the state of imaginative 
 rapture in which he brooded while working, he was visited 
 by a vision of Christ and His apostles. They appeared, aa 
 all his visions did, to have life of their own, just as the 
 personages do who appear to us in dreams. That they shared 
 his views on Gothic form is certain, for long afterwards he 
 puzzled good Christians by writing that our Saviour and His 
 chosen twelve were artists. 
 
 The effect of this visit did not wear off. We must not 
 
 \ suppose that it consisted merely of an insane delusion, an 
 
 I affection of the optic nerve or the centres inamediately 
 
 '\ behind, such as persons in a state of alcoholic poisoning 
 
 ; suffer from when they begin to see black dogs. It shows the 
 
 '\ beginning of Blake's symbolic system of thought, although it 
 
 came some years before that system took literary shape as a 
 
 I myth and became the great message of his life. None the less, 
 
 i that it was a hallucination in the ordinary sense we need not 
 
 j doubt; only, it did not hallucinate. He believed it to be 
 
 ^ real only in a particular sense. It was not real as nature 
 
 I is, for the best of all reasons. Nature is not reaL Blake 
 
 never forgot that. Nature is a mental conception as much 
 
 as vision is a corporeal appearance. He may have been 
 
 frightened childishly or delighted childishly with his visions 
 
 ^ at an earlier time. They were beginning to be viewed now 
 
 I by his mind from a very high philosophic standpoint. He 
 
 I had, as it were, a private scaffolding built in the region of 
 
 I his intellect, and when he climbed this he was above the 
 
 ! level of insane delusions. Of this mental scaffolding some 
 account will be given when speaking of the period, not many 
 years later, when he lived on it altogether, like St. Simeon 
 Stylites on his column. 
 
 It has been recalled that at the time when Blake was 
 
PEACE AND WAE IN THE ABBEY IV 
 
 copying in the Abbey for Basire, a company of learned 
 persons belonging to the Society of Antiquaries, for which 
 Basire was making the engravings, obtained Eoyal permis- 
 sion to open the tomb of Edward I, and saw for a moment 
 the King's face as it was at the time of his death. It fell to 
 dust under the outer air immediately. Blake probably saw 
 it. He represented Basire, and would not be likely to have 
 refrained from using his position. 
 
 In our own time a similar visit was paid to the body of 
 Charles I. The head was found replaced on the neck, neatly 
 sewn round, the stitches being in the skin of the throat. The 
 face looked calm and handsome. No excuse, such as was 
 valid in Blake's day, can be offered for the fact that a flash- 
 light photograph was not taken at the very first moment of 
 exposure. While the selfish and unprovident persons for 
 whom the tomb was opened were gloating over the sight, 
 the nose of the King's face fell in, and the mask became a 
 horror. Such must have been what the desecrators of King 
 Edward's rest saw. It is hoped that they all went home 
 feeling like regicides, and dreaming of it for a month after. 
 Perhaps the next time such disgraceful permissions are 
 granted, proper precautions will be taken to save for history 
 a sight that no group of antiquarians has any right to possess 
 exclusively and to destroy for posterity. 
 
 There was another result of Blake's Westminster Abbey 
 studies. He altogether ceased to be even in the remotest 
 degree tied and bound with the consciousness of his social 
 position. At school and college he would have been con- 
 stantly reminded of it. The Kings, whether on — or in — the 
 tombs at Westminster, knew nothing about it, and in their 
 company he ceased to know more. He became their equal. 
 In the Poetical Sketches that were written at about this time, 
 the drama of Edward III is not composed by a plebeian. 
 The author is as much on a level with the King and his 
 nobles as Shakespeare himself was, although it was by seeing 
 the great ones of the earth reposing in eternal sleep that he 
 acquired his equality, and not by observing them at their 
 revels. "' 
 
 Both poets had, for their medium of expression, a certain 
 literary convention to start with. But the greater miracle 
 remains to us in Blake's one unfinished historical play. He 
 was a boy in his teens when he wrote it. He had an over- 
 whelming amount of suggestion in Shakespeare's plays and 
 yet was not overwhelmed by it. He had the most meagre 
 
 c 
 
18 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 fragment of document outside the pages of books to reveal 
 majesty to him as it Hved — merely its carven effigy made 
 after death, and perhaps one spice-bound corpse. Yet the 
 vitality of his work is as easy and as complete as that of 
 Shakespeare's, who must have been behind the scenes with 
 the British royalty and nobility in more senses than one. 
 
 Did visions of Edwards or Dagworths come to Blake and 
 perform before him? Were they real? Were they lost 
 echoes of now silent truth, from the far-off lives of the men 
 themselves ? We are not yet advanced enough on the road 
 that begins in a rash guess and ends in a truism, to attempt 
 to chronicle our conjecture of the answer to this riddle. 
 One result, certainly, is left by Blake's historic poetry. The 
 argument against Shakespeare's authorship of his own plays, 
 which gentlemanly but unilluminated minds occasionally 
 feel the weight of oppressively, and that consists chiefly 
 in the suspicion that a man of the middle classes could not 
 have written as Shakespeare wrote of the highest in the 
 land, is laid to rest for ever, and becomes as unfit for jJubhc 
 gaze as the face of a dead monarch when the cold air has 
 destroyed its form and dignity. 
 
 But the drawing -room fallacy, as this absurd contention 
 may be called, is not an enemy to be despised. It seems to 
 have been against Shakespeare's reputation, even in his 
 own lifetime. It continually revives. Men of the highest 
 literary position are known to have allowed it lately to use 
 their superciliousness to obscure their judgments. Their 
 raised eyebrows (to translate the long word) really seem to 
 have taken something away from the strength as weU as 
 from the height of their foreheads. They are not to be too 
 severely blamed. All second-class literature is full of 
 amusing failures in the tempting task of describing classes 
 of society to which the writer had no entrance. The 
 modern Baconian's error lies in judging the best by the 
 second best. 
 
 One reason may be ofiered for supposing that Blake had 
 visions among the tombs. He considered the heads as 
 portraits. He can hardly have given this opinion merely 
 from the fact that they were not of academic or classic type. 
 He is not at all likely to have thought that institutions like 
 Parr's life school existed then, or could have obtained casts 
 of antique statues whose originals were still hidden, to make 
 the taste of the sculptors of our early Westminster tombs 
 so classical that only portraits from life could escape the 
 
PEACE AND WAR IN THE ABBEY 19 
 
 academic influence or exhibit natural types different from 
 those that are to be learned from Greeks and Eomans. This 
 was true in the times of the Kings George, but in Blake's 
 most fanciful moment he did not suspect the days of the 
 Kings Edward of any such misfortune. He probably took 
 the short cut of consulting vision, and formed his opinion of 
 the portraits from this, though we have often to remind . 
 ourselves that he sometimes criticised and distrusted vision I 
 itself. He did not on that account omit to make what use i 
 he could of it, or cease to believe that it arose in some way ! 
 out of a vanished actuality. It was part of God's mind, i 
 like everything else, and, coming to him through his own 
 imperfect mind, was liable to perversion or, as he called it, 
 " infection." Still, in some eases, it is all that a man can 
 have to go by, and Blake made what he could of it, as a 
 historian will make what use he can of the gossip in some 
 scrap of an ancient private letter, while admitting that 
 gossip is not gospel. 
 
 But Blake had visitors in the Abbey of a less august and 
 dignified character than learned committees in the flesh, or 
 historical or sacred visions. The boys of Westminster School 
 had, in those days, the privilege of considering the Abbey 
 as " within bounds," and went there as often as they liked. 
 It is possible that Blake, innocently supposing that some of 
 them took a real interest in the monuments, allowed them 
 to climb up on his scaffolding. He once more had reason to 
 feel the disadvantage of not having learned at school what 
 mischievous young savages the youths of our civilised nation 
 often are. One of the rascals climbed a cornice, especially 
 to get above Blake and annoy him, — -probably by scattering 
 dirt on his drawing. This would quite account for the fury 
 which seized on Blake then and there. He did not recall 
 afterwards ^that he said a word to that boy. He simply 
 grasped him like a sack and flung him down on to the floor 
 of the Abbey below, and then, leaving him lying there, 
 walked off without waiting to see whether he was dead or 
 alive, and laid a complaint before the Dean. He was only 
 sixteen, but he made the Dean listen to him. It may be 
 supposed that the boy recovered, as the only result of the 
 affair recorded is that "Westminster boys lost their privilege 
 of making the Abbey a part of their playground. 
 
 All his life Blake claimed to recognise a sharp distinction 
 between friends and enemies. Nothing was too good for a 
 friend. Magnanimity to an enemy was not only absurd, but 
 
20 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 was a sort of treachery to friends in itself. "I am nc 
 Homeric hero," he says. He was a born partisan, and nevei 
 outgrew his inherited character. These words, which are tc 
 be found on the margin of a divided part of a proof of hi£ 
 engraving (1779), King Edward and Queen Eleanor, reveal 
 him as he was through life : " The Christian religion shows 
 that no man is indifferent to you, but that every one is either 
 your friend or your enemy — he must necessarily be either 
 the one or the other — and that he will be equally profitable 
 both ways if you treat him as he deserves." 
 
 Occasional outbursts of fury remained always noticeable 
 in Blake, but as time went on he became wary, and his 
 violence had a limit even during the very moment of its 
 explosion. When he admitted once having flung a copper- 
 plate across the room when out of patience with his own 
 engraving upon it, and was asked, " Did you not injure it ? " 
 " I took good care of that," he answered. This very frank 
 reply at once recalls the mingled caution and frenzy of his 
 great ancestor of Elizabethan days, Shawn O'Neil, who, when 
 he felt an uncontrollable fit of rage coming on, would order 
 his followers to bury him up to the neck in sand, so that he 
 might not do something to one of them which he would be 
 sorry for afterwards. 
 
 The digging-up of Shawn when his meekness returned to 
 him would offer the subject for a very pleasing historical 
 picture which seems to have escaped the attention of the 
 humorists of our day. 
 
 Blake, whose respectable father never seems to have men- 
 tioned to him his Irish origin, was always true to his ideal 
 of wrath as a righteous and justifiable emotion. " The tigers 
 of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction" is well 
 known as one of his aphorisms. It is among the Proverhs of 
 Hell, but this exhortation, written about fifteen years later in 
 Milton, page 25, lines 57, 58, may be read with it — 
 
 - pity the weak as your infant care. Break not 
 
 Forth in your wrath. 
 
 One terrific outbreak of wrath in others — this time wrath 
 of the multitude, of the weak grown strong for a moment 
 — was seen by Blake in 1780. The lower orders, who had 
 a very small amount of consideration in those days, suddenly 
 burst into tumult, and the Lord George Gordon No Popery 
 Kiots gave all Europe a hint of what a mob could do that, 
 imitated and exaggerated at the other side of the Channel 
 
PEACE AND WAR IN THE ABBEY 21 
 
 was to produce the French Eevolution. Gilchrist has a 
 paragraph about this : — 
 
 Half London was sacked, and its citizens for six days laid under 
 forced contributions by a mob, some forty thousand strong, of boys, 
 pickpockets, and "roughs." In this outburst of anarchy Blake long 
 remembered an involuntary participation of his own. On the third 
 day, Tuesday, 6th of June, " the Mass houses " having been demolished 
 — one in Blake's near neighbourhood, Warwick Street, Golden Square, 
 and various private houses also, — the rioters, flushed with gin and 
 victory, were turning their attention to grander schemes of devastation. 
 That evening the artist happened to be walking in a route chosen by 
 one of the mobs at large, whose course lay from Justice Hyde's house, 
 near Leicester Fields — for the destruction of which less than an hour 
 had sufficed — through Long Acre, past the quiet house of Blake's old 
 master engraver Basire in Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, 
 and down Holbom, bound for Newgate. Suddenly he encountered the 
 advancing wave of triumphant blackguardism, and was forced (for from 
 such a great surging mob there is no disentanglement) to go along in 
 the very front rank and witness the storm and burning of the fortress- 
 like prison and release of its three hundred inmates. 
 
 Gilchrist remarks also that Blake was lucky to have escaped 
 hanging /or being there. He seems to believe that Blake only 
 looked on. This is incredible. He must have rioted with the 
 rest, for he was " in the very front rank," and could not shirk. 
 He probably liked it, but it does not follow that he boasted 
 of it afterwards. His friendly hustling of Tom Paine, a little 
 later on, showed that he knew the value of a quiet tongue. 
 
CHAPTEE IV 
 
 BLAKE, SWEDENBORG, AND NATURE 
 
 But besides poetical Sketches that were soon to be published 
 by his friends, and bursts of wrath that, but for Tatham's 
 careful though brief record, would never have been published 
 at all, Blake seems to have begun to form his philosophy 
 while working alone in the great Abbey. 
 
 It is not certain how far he did so, because it is not clear 
 how much of the inscription that he placed on a plate that 
 he engraved for himself — that called Joseph of Arimathea 
 among the Bocks of Albion — is as early as the rest of the 
 engraving. That some of it is so is probable, but the inscrip- 
 tion is long, and there was nothing to prevent his adding to 
 it after the date was put down. Its appearance suggests that 
 he did so. The interval may have been only of minutes, but 
 it may have been of years. 
 
 His poetry of this time was stUl entirely free from any 
 trace of philosophy, but the vast idea may have come to him 
 now, to be afterwards put into verse under other influence. 
 The engraving itself shows a massive, antique hero, in a 
 helmet, walking slowly down a barren path between rocks, 
 with folded arms, and an expression of tranquil meditation. 
 The attitude of the legs suggests that this design may possibly 
 have been made from a sketch prepared by Michael Angelo 
 for a figure on Christ's left hand in the Last Judgment. 
 The arms and head are different. Perhaps there exists, 
 painted by Michael Angelo, some figure in a position exactly 
 like that in Blake's engraving, but which is now hidden in a 
 private collection. 
 
 Blake put " Michelangelo pinocit " on his plate, yet says 
 that it was made from a drawing. The plate bears the date 
 1773, and was therefore done when he was still sixteen, in the 
 year of the casting down of the Westminster boy, after not 
 more than two years of study with Basire. It is a fine work 
 
 22 
 
JusEiu OF Aj;lMATnEA AiULXi: THE Rocks of Ai,i;inN. 
 lliu earliest c-iigraviir^- by B\\Vv known. 
 
BLAKE, SWEDENBORG, AND NATURE 23 
 
 of its kind, and shows a quality that teaching did not improve 
 afterwards. The engraving measures 10 inches by 5J, and 
 may be seen in the Print Eoom of the British Museum. 
 It is in the title that he gave to this that, if we can believe 
 it to be all belonging to 1773, we find how early in life Blake 
 began to form his philosophic system. The full title of the 
 print, a representation of which; is here given, is : 
 
 Joseph of Arimathea among the Eocks of Albion, engraved by W. 
 Blake, 1773, from an old Italian drawing. Michelangelo pinxit. 
 This is one of the Gothic Artists who built the cathedrals in what we 
 caL. the Dark Ages, wandering about in sheepskins and goatskins, of 
 whom the world was not worthy. Such were the Christians in all Ages. 
 
 "Eocks of Albion" are symbolic. By them Blake here, 
 and throughout his Ufe, meant the " hard, cold, restrictive " 
 portions of mind that forbid imagination and say that the 
 five senses are the only gates by which truth can reach man. 
 In religion they mean the literal sense of Scripture that is 
 symbolised as a tomb in which the inspired Word, or Christ, 
 is laid. Joseph of Arimathea is the " Just Man " of whom 
 we shall hear soon in the "Argument" of Heaven and 
 Hell. He takes the form of a mythic personage later in 
 Blake's poetic life, and is called " Los," the " friend of Albion," 
 the spirit of poetry and probity. " Albion " is the ideal man, 
 not a human being, but the abstract of manhood who, when 
 inspired, becomes Christendom, and finally Christ, that ideal 
 Christ whose essence is inspired imagination, whose limbs 
 and members are ideas, when ideas are incarnate in living 
 persons, and who died and was laid in the rocks when 
 inspiration, entering fact, turned it to symbol, became dead 
 in it for a time, while only the literal meaning of that 
 symbol was apparent, — and arose when it was revealed. In 
 these few words on Blake's early engraving is told something 
 of the central tenets of a religion that he gave his life to 
 developing through art, myth, and poetry. 
 
 That he should have gone so far into symbolic Christianity 
 already will seem even more amazing than it is unless we 
 remember that he had been accustomed at home to hear 
 Swedenbdtgian talk, in which the Scriptures were treated 
 always as having a symbolic meaning. Unless we go to 
 Swedenborg's own works and see what he has to say, we 
 cannot form any picture to ourselves of either the character 
 or the power of Blake's mind, and we shaU at one moment 
 over-estimate him, while at another we shall do him very 
 much less than justice. 
 
24 "tHfi EEAL BLAKE 
 
 Swedenborg, whom Blake may have met in the streets as 
 an old man, had only died in 1772, a year before the date of 
 this design of Joseph of Arimathea. lie had lived to a great 
 age, having been bom as long ago as 1688, and his great 
 Symbolic Dictionary of the Bible was published in Latin 
 during the years 1749 to 1756, being completed the year 
 before Blake's birth. It is called Heavenly Secrets, if that be 
 a sufficient rendering of Arcana Ccelestia, its original title, by 
 which it is still known, even in translations. This, and the 
 Apocalypse Revealed, and the treatise On Divine Love and 
 Wisdom, seem all to have been owned by Blake's father, 
 though they were not studied by Blake himself till later. 
 The Symbolic Dictionary is the work of which it may be said 
 that Swedenborg stands or falls by it. A good English 
 translation nicely bound in slate -coloured boards may be 
 bought now in Bloomsbury Street, near the British Museum, 
 at the offices of the Swedenborg Society. There are twelve 
 volumes, none of them much more than an inch in thickness, 
 and the cost of each (at the office) is 2s. 3d. The last, 
 containing an index which is a dictionary in itself, is the 
 most necessary to readers of Blake, but all are full of sugges- 
 tions by which, partly through direct analogy, partly through 
 mere acceptance, and partly through positive opposition, 
 interpretations of Blake's myth are to be sought. Here again, 
 to most of us, the general morality and the sweet reUgious 
 tone of Swedenborg are the most attractive qualities, while 
 we admire his amazing lucidity, and the perfect if prolix 
 manner in which he has set forth his views, even if we with- 
 hold our assent from his claim that he could interpret the 
 arbitrary symbols in which, as Scripture itself informs us, all 
 who were not in the secret must expect to find the Word 
 hopelessly and purposely hidden, that seeing we might 
 see and not perceive, and hearing we might hear and not 
 understand, lest we should see with our eyes, and hear with 
 our ears, and understand with our hearts, and be converted 
 and healed. We are at first inclined to deny that Sweden- 
 borg had any special means of knowing more about the 
 matter than we could conjecture without his help. There 
 are so many religious maniacs, that we are tempted to set 
 him down as one of them when we learn that he claimed to 
 -iiave been directly and plainly taught by angels, and to have 
 been specially permitted to give that teaching to the world. 
 On the other hand, even if every tenth man had delirium 
 tremens, we should not doubt the reality of the retriever that 
 
BLAKE, SWEDENBORG, AND NATURE 25 
 
 goes oat shooting with us or with our friends and comes to 
 the whistle. 
 
 Blake accepted at once the angels and a very large 
 portion of the doctrine of Swedenborg. But when he 
 came to look into it a little later, as he tells us, he found it 
 fatally incomplete. He accounted for this by saying, not as 
 a profane jest, but in sober seriousness, that Swedenborg had 
 received his teaching from angels only, while he ought to 
 have consulted devils also. This was in 1790. After 1804 
 he wrote Devils are False Religions. One Swedenborgian idea 
 Blake had accepted on the mere hearsay of home teaching, and 
 adopted without any hesitation already, and he never aban- 
 doned it. As time passed it was more and more approved by 
 his imagination, and its importance to us, now that we are all 
 trying to understand him, consists in the fact that it changed 
 every idea that he would otherwise have found in religion, 
 and affected his standard of poetry and directed the flight of 
 his poetic imagination. 
 
 This idea was that the Bible is a secret writing that 
 inspiration contrived and that inspiration only can read. As 
 men of business, when describing certain stocks and shares 
 that they wish to buy or sell, conceal these under the names 
 of animals, countries, and articles of furniture or food, and 
 yet, when they read the documents in which these things are 
 written, see only the financial meaning of the words through 
 their knowledge of the "code," and not for one instant 
 picture to themselves the actual articles of commerce, of 
 utility, of landscape, or geography which, to an outsider, 
 would seem to be the subject of their correspondence, so 
 Swedenborg assures us the angels read the Old Testament 
 (through our eyes), seeing in its apparently matter-of-fact 
 histories a prolonged gospel relating only the sacred things 
 of the story of Christ's birth, growth, and character. 
 
 Blake adopted the code idea as not merely true of the 
 Bible, but as containing the essence of the highest poetry 
 wherever found. Inspiration he took to be truly one of the 
 intellectual powers of man, high above that lower faculty 
 called reason, which is a mere " ratio of the five senses," and 
 not properly intellectual at all. "Allegory," as he wrote 
 after he had used it for thirty years, " which is addressed to 
 the intellectual powers, while it is altogether hidden from 
 the corporeal understanding, is my definition of the most 
 sublime poetry." This passage occurs in a letter to his friend 
 and patron Mr. Butts, dated July 1803. 
 
26 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 Not from any single sentence, but from all the many 
 allusions he makes to such matters, we can gather what he 
 meant by " intellectual powers," and why he demanded of all 
 those of us who had any that we should understand his 
 allegories and visions. It is evident enough that in his final 
 poems, where all these names occur, the symbolic relationship 
 of Albion, Joseph of Arimathea, and Los — that is to say, of 
 an impersonation, a person, and a myth — must be altogether 
 hidden from the "corporeal understanding" or every -day 
 common sense. 
 
 His theory seems to have been that there was not, as 
 science teaches, matter from all eternity, but that there was 
 mind. Our own minds were portions of this before the dis- 
 advantage of birth caused the five senses to claim too much 
 of our attention through that corporeal understanding which 
 is composed from a mixture of their teachings from moment 
 to moment with a mingled memory of what they have 
 recorded since they began to inform us. It follows, of course, 
 that inspiration is a perception of that eternal mind to which 
 we have a perfect right, whether we are good or wicked men, 
 and to attain such inspiration is the duty of all who can do 
 so, while to strive towards it is the universal duty. 
 
 The exact time when Blake formed this opinion is not 
 certain. It relieved him of the necessity which Swedenboi^ 
 felt of hearing imaginative interpretations of Biblical symbolB 
 from angels who were invariably, Swedenborg says, the souls 
 of the dead. It did not require of others that they should go 
 to such source for similar interpretation. At the same time, 
 it did not invalidate such authority, for into this world of 
 imagination, this region of eternal mind, we shall all enter 
 after death, and it is not surprising if some are allowed partly 
 to return so as to communicate to us mentally what neither 
 we now, nor they when in life, could fully know. During 
 our period of " sleep " — our mortal seventy years — the 
 clamorousness of bodily sensations and thoughts interferes 
 with our hearing of the divine voice, and there is no reason 
 why we should not attend to what the dead have to say if 
 they are allowed to speak to us. 
 
 We all know that memory is bodily as well as mental. 
 The scrapings upon hills in Scotland, made in ancient times 
 by glaciers that crept downhill past their upright rocky 
 portions, are their memory of the ice-fields of the past. When 
 our brains are in such a state that the motion of substance 
 caused by the disturbance aroused by any mental act of 
 
BLAKE, SWEDENBOEG, AND NATUEE 27 
 
 perception leaves no scraping signature on the impressionable 
 wall past which the disturbance moves, we have no memory. 
 Memory may be called a scar's consciousness, as perception is 
 that of a blow. But when we look for as accurate and con- 
 venient a figure in which to describe an intention, the difficulty 
 is greater ; and when we wish to describe a tendency to form 
 an intention, it is still further increased. Even the last of 
 these three stages is, however, readily conceived as the virtual 
 velocity of the glacier before it began to move. 
 
 Blake, who had never been to school, had probably never 
 heard so technical an expression as " virtual velocity," coined 
 a term for it himself. It was mind in a state of patience. 
 He accounted for motion by the idea that mind is eternal, 
 but patience is not. Patience removed, mind moves; the 
 circle of Destiny begins, and all that our consciousness per- 
 ceives is generated. As a result, Man (as he called primaeval 
 mind, afterwards altering the name to Albion on reconsidering 
 the engraving now before us when writing a quarter of a 
 century later) — Man the eternal went through changes, 
 became the creator, produced matter by a contraction of 
 intellect, produced error, entered into it himself, became one 
 of us (who are natwally a mass of error), and on leaving the 
 state of error and returning to that of mind, now become 
 imaginative instead of patient, he taught us all how to do the 
 same ; and, in fact, did it in us, and does it in us only, and 
 when we ourselves do it. This is Christendom. We are the 
 Saviour and the saved. 
 
 In an article on Magic published in a volume of medita- 
 tions, called by the Blakean title Ideas of Good and Evil, by 
 the former collaborator of the present writer, Mr. W. B. Yeats, 
 all who are interested in it may find an account of certain 
 experiences that caused Mr. Yeats to form a belief in the 
 objective existence of a general memory, which is not that of 
 any individual, which exists as it were in the air, and on 
 which, by means of magical invocations or symbols, we can 
 draw at will. Events are recorded in the air, not the respir- 
 able air, the astral, and magic gives us ingress to that 
 reservoir of unspoken history. 
 
 Blake's theory went further. He held that all imagina- 
 tions are accompanied by a movement of an unknown some- 
 thing that never forgets its own movements, and unites us to 
 one another. He held that those of us who cultivate this 
 faculty of imagination enrich that vast store, and ultimately 
 go to dwell in the part of it usually called " heaven," but that 
 
28 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 he preferred to call " the Mind." Into this Flaxman went 
 when he died, Blake wrote, and he himself expected to follow 
 Flaxman there. Into this the fool cannot go, and to plead 
 personal holiness is not to be admitted, for " holiness is not 
 the price of entrance into heaven" (Preface to Jerusalem). 
 In heaven all is brotherhood. "In eternity all is vision." 
 There is a socialism of the soul therei, and communism of 
 property. Those of us who would understand Blake's designs 
 when still alive are invited by him to go to this heaven and 
 study them there. 
 
CHAPTEE V 
 
 WHEN AET PUT ASIDE LETTERS 
 
 In 1778 Blake's apprenticeship came to an end, and he did 
 some artistic study in the life-schools of the Eoyal Academy, 
 then a new institution. It is said that at Parr's when he 
 was ten he only studied from easts, though Parr's was called 
 a life -school. It is probable that he was now so deeply 
 interested in the human form that he left off writing poetry 
 altogether. It is a crucial moment in life when a boy begins 
 to draw from life, to see what the men and women among 
 whom he is to live are like without their clothing. From 
 easts and from the glass Blake had already learned that form 
 exists. This seems a most unnecessary thing to say, yet those 
 of us who are not artists do not so much as suspect what it 
 means, any more than children suspect what a lover sees in 
 the offered lips that he loves besides what they see in the 
 lips of their playmates. 
 
 Let us turn from words to form, itself for a moment, and 
 consider how much new mental action goes to seeing even a 
 portion. If we look at the shoulder of a woman, and follow 
 the line down its slope to the fullest part that already belongs 
 to the arm, and is one-third of the way to the elbow ; if now 
 we go down to the elbow and see the curve's fresh entrance, 
 like a fresh paragraph of the page, revealing the poetry 
 of the upper part with new meaning, as in architecture the 
 column gives new meaning to the arch ; if we begin again to 
 read what the form has written where the flesh widens for the 
 smooth face of the lower arm, and then learn the outer slope 
 that goes to where the centre line of the wrist, a little more 
 curved than the back of the hand, dies down into it as a wave 
 sinking dies into the flat shining surface of sea- water upon 
 sand ; if we compare the two sides of the arm, and listen to 
 the form as to the metre of a verse, perceiving how its curves 
 are not opposite to one another, but spring at difi'erent points, 
 
 29 
 
30 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 fading off with different spaces ; and if we do the same to the 
 body, rooted into the thighs as the throat into the back and 
 chest, and to the thighs, tapering with such slight difference 
 from straightness on the inner side, and so bold a swing 
 on the outer, we have fifty new and amazing rhymes and 
 melodies to learn, more beautiful than those of shells or of 
 fruits or flowers, and more dignified and less coquettish than 
 pretty schemes of clothing, and therefore more modest. 
 
 An ardent boy hungering for the touch and breath, for 
 the mere nearness and voice of womankind, goes to a studio, 
 and passing in to see for the first time the female form 
 entirely undraped, probably catches his breath and wonders 
 whether he will be able to sustain his self-control. He is 
 amazed at the serenity of nerve and the new fascination of 
 mind with which he finds the world's white flower offered 
 without its leaves. Here is something that he had not 
 foreseen. Here is a scheme, a harmony, in beauty. Here 
 generally is also some lapse from beauty, hitherto hidden by 
 costume, a lapse that is positive and aggressive, that repels 
 and startles him, for the fairest of the fair are not always to 
 be obtained in art schools. But at the worst he has a great 
 experience. He expected only to flnd in woman what man 
 desires. He finds what man admires, and above all what man, 
 especially if pretending to be an artist, should thoroughly 
 learn. For a while the passion of this learning absorbs him, 
 and in the delight of the mental understanding of form he 
 forgets that bodily attraction from one sex to another exists. 
 The novelty of silent cadences will also completely take from 
 him the wish to express himself in poetic words. Here is a 
 poetry without words, yet of more universal meaning. 
 
 If experience derived from studying the male form in the 
 same way gives a youth less surprise, it is chiefly because 
 passion is absent, and he knows something of male beauty 
 already. But here also he soon finds — like those who read a 
 great poem complete after only knowing of it from quotations 
 —that there is a bewildering beauty in the harmony, ex- 
 hilarating to learn, and in itself equally able to put all things 
 out of the mind until it is learned. 
 
 Above all, it puts out literature and landscape ; and music 
 itself, like love, is for a time forgotten. Later on, it produces 
 preference, taste, and distaste. The young artist, in learning 
 what form is, learns what it might be and generally is not. 
 If he is too quick and enthusiastic he comes to this stage, as 
 Blake did, too soon, and turns from the terribly imperfect 
 
WHEN AKT PUT ASIDE LETTERS 31 
 
 and sometimes even grotesque types that are offered to him 
 as "nature." He thinks he dislikes "nature." In happy 
 ancient Greece nature was generally sunny, well balanced, 
 easily beautiful, neither knotty nor scraggy. Men were 
 more often hke the stems of beech-trees. Now we are too 
 frequently like wind-blown oaks. Their best of art was the 
 produce of their best of luck. 
 
 Blake got far enough into the knowledge of modern figure 
 to falsely suspect the types in Greek statues of being mechanic- 
 ally composed ; and then he turned away from the actual 
 men offered to him for nude study because of their lack of 
 architectural harmony and of open-air colouring. His drawing 
 from himself naked, done in 1780, and called Morning or Olad 
 Day by Gilchrist, is his triumphant announcement that he had 
 found at home the solution of the artistic problem of form. 
 
 We are not told by Gilchrist (who reproduced the print 
 at the head of his fifth chapter) that the limbs are Blake's 
 own, but that they are so is undoubted. To be certain of 
 this, it is only necessary to compare the way in which the 
 arms grow from small, smooth, and oval shoulder muscles, 
 and from very large chest muscles, with either the Greek or 
 the English types of strength. If we alter them in outline 
 just enough to make them feminine instead of masculine 
 we shall see that they belong to the well-known type of 
 Irish beauty, which is admired, year after year, in evening 
 dress at the Castle balls in Dublin, and still more in London 
 drawing-rooms, where it is more rare. 
 
 The whole form is also exactly the same as that of the 
 figure called " William " in Milton, page 29, and even of the 
 " Eobert " which on page 33 repeats it in reverse. We 
 cannot but see that whatever model sat was Blake's source 
 of reference for anatomy during many years. It could only 
 be himself. The Los on page 21 is of the same type. 
 The way in which the full and rounded thighs grow from the 
 body further identifies it. This is not the figure of a tall man, 
 but certainly of a very strong one. Blake was not tall but 
 remarkably strong. He defines the type of greatest strength 
 as that which shows its power concentrated in the trunk and 
 tapering to the extremities, and that of greatest beauty as 
 the one that varies least from infancy to old age. If he had 
 trained from childhood he could have become a " Strong 
 Man " at a fair, and earned his living much more easily by 
 lifting big brass balls than by scraping little copper plates. 
 It would have been much less of a tax on his vitality and 
 
32 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 endurance. In Job, 1827, his last work, the same figure is 
 repeated, undistorted by time, — varied little " from infancy 
 to old age." 
 
 With the pedantry of an enthusiast, Blake became at once 
 intolerant of all art that was weak in the places where his 
 own artistic tastes were strong, and with his usual uncalculat- 
 ing and simple truthfulness he entirely forgot that he might 
 seem to be a " hater of dignitaries " if he uttered aloud what 
 was in his heart. His interview with Moser, Keeper of the 
 Academy, is quite natural. Like his interview with the Dean 
 of Westminster, when one remembers that he had never 
 been taught the fear of the schoolmaster as a little boy. He 
 recalls it in a note, pencilled on the margin of Eeynolds' 
 Discourses. The date of the incident cannot be later than 
 
 1782, as Moser died and was buried in the month of January 
 
 1783. Blake was probably a student at the time, — if so, the 
 incident related belongs to 1778, when he was twenty-one. 
 
 I was once looking over the prints from Raifaele and Michelangelo 
 in the library of the Royal Academy. Moser came to me and said, 
 " You should not study those old dry and stiff unfinished works of art 
 Stay a little and I will show you what you should study." He then 
 went and took down Le Brun and Euten's galleries. How did I 
 secretly rage ! I also spoke my mind. I said to Moser, "These 
 things which you call finished are not even begun ; how then can they 
 be finished?" 
 
 The fact that even genius can be mingled with a quality 
 so much the contrary of itself as mental vulgarity has been 
 proved to us lately by Gustave Dor^, and in literature by 
 other gods of a day. But Blake reverenced the word genius, 
 and would not hear of such a thing — a picture was only 
 legun to him when it had begun to have that line which is 
 the apostolic succession of the elect among artists. "True 
 art and science," he has laid down, "cannot exist but by 
 naked beauty displayed." To him it was unfortunately 
 never really displayed enough. 
 
 In his faculty of " vision " he had a substitute for nature 
 which enabled him to work with less return to study, and 
 less loss by the lack of such return, than any other artist 
 known. He also had more advantage than most from the 
 habitual inspection of his own and his wife's figures undraped. 
 His imagination suffered less from this home-study than from 
 any other kind, though he says, " Nature does and always 
 did weaken, deaden, and destroy imagination in me." It 
 always does this to all of us, as a hearty meal reduces (at the 
 moment) muscular strength. He did not always remember 
 
WHEN AET PUT ASIDE LETTEES 33 
 
 that at the same time nature, when studied, strengthens 
 talent, nor across the blinding vision did he see, when draw- 
 ing from imagination, the piece of paper on which he was 
 wrongly tracing the shape of his idea. He said, " I draw 
 perfectly from vision," and added, that others drew im- 
 perfectly from nature. 
 
 But the . study of nature improves the faculty of com- 
 parison between art and the idea, even if it weakens the idea, 
 and the study of vision weakens this, even if it strengthens 
 the idea. A purely visionary artist would never know when 
 he drew correctly from vision. His correctness would depend 
 entirely on a harmony between the nerves of the hand and 
 the nerves that produced the vision, an inborn harmony, 
 unaided and uncriticised, and his work would therefore be 
 wonderful when he was at peace with himself and in solitude, 
 but easily spoiled by distraction, irritation, or fatigue, and 
 diverted or weakened even by poetry. 
 
 Therefore when Mr. Mathews, in the preface to the 
 Poetical Sketches, explains the fact that these verses were 
 not corrected, by saying that since 1777 Blake was too busy 
 with " his profession " to attend to poetry, he must have been 
 repeating an expression of Blake's own, a recollection of the 
 absorbed fasciuation of original art study that had suddenly 
 taken him away from the pen so soon after the time when 
 he wrote these early poems. None of them bears a later date 
 than the last year of his apprenticeship. 
 
 His writing, whose recommencement was put aside by 
 art study, had probably stopped when the composition of 
 the drama of Edward III came to an end, in that year 
 before he began his new course of life-study. 
 
 He does not tell what broke it off. It was probably some 
 chilling lack of sympathy in some friend ; but once checked, 
 all poetry was forgotten for the human form, and lines that 
 can be drawn must have filled his mind, not lines that could 
 be written. 
 
 He could to a certain extent draw whenever he chose, but 
 he could no more command himself to be poetic when dis- 
 tracted by the irritations of daily life than we can command 
 ourselves to go to sleep when we are worried or cross. In 
 later years he wrote a good deal of verse when angry, and it 
 is so remarkably poor that it makes his real poetry even 
 more of a miracle. 
 
 His great secret was, that when he was able to devote 
 himself to imagination entirely he had genius. When dis- 
 
34 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 tracted by the miserable self -consciousness that either doubts 
 itself or rages at the doubts of some one else, his mind was 
 unable to free itself from self-consciousness and enter into 
 the absorbed trance of poetic creation. 
 
 He therefore was wise in resenting, as he always did, the 
 disparagement which those who cannot criticise believe to be 
 criticism. " Doubts are always injurious, especially when we 
 doubt our friends," he says ; and also, " Doubt is self-con- 
 tradiction " ; and again, " If the sun and moon should doubt 
 they'd immediately go out." Later he says, in one of his 
 letters, " I must be shut up in myself or reduced to nothing." 
 He talks of the mythic persons of his imagination, when they 
 became destroyed by arguments or other distractions of the 
 mind, as being " dissipated and drawn out into nonentity." 
 
 Some one once told him that Raphael died of dissipation. 
 He appears to have understood by dissipation distraction, 
 especially distraction from artistic contemplation — the tearing 
 to pieces of a mind continually trying to concentrate itself 
 and continually disturbed. He therefore answered that he 
 thought what was related was quite possible, and added that 
 " some people had nothing to dissipate," which was probably 
 true of the imagination of those to whom he was speaking. 
 This dissipation caused by any interruption and disturbance 
 is always painful. It is like being awakened from a sweet, 
 warm sleep to encounter some disagreeable task on a winter's 
 morning. It is, in fact, so very like this, that Blake always 
 called unimaginativeness " winter." The loss to us aU from 
 the foolish disturbance of imaginative peace that checked 
 the growth of the play Edward III must always remain 
 irreparable. 
 
 As the blood of martyrs, however, is the seed of the 
 Church, some good may yet come of that broken poem if 
 even one of those who read it achieves a perception how 
 much easier it is to injure an artist than to produce a work 
 of art. Those who are not artists are constantly injuring 
 those who are, beyond all power of reparation. The result 
 is that the art, even of the most gifted periods, only grows 
 by fits and starts when the destroyer is otherwise occupied. 
 The destroyer is sometimes an individual, sometimes a vast 
 chorus, and not infrequently acts as the perverter, beheving 
 himself to be the helper of art. He renders only such kinds 
 possible as can be done with his foolish approval. Most art 
 students are such perverters, and they injure each other. 
 We have the decadence of art in art-schools, and the per- 
 
WHEN AET PUT ASIDE LETTEES 35 
 
 petiiation of mediocrity and imitation as a consequence. A 
 true dream is never mediocre. We all paint the darkness in 
 our sleep with a force above that of an Academician. Our 
 minds are then at liberty. We have no self-consciousness, 
 and therefore no self-contradiction. We are not what Blake, 
 in The Keys of the Gates, calls " a dark Hermaphrodite." 
 
CHAPTEE VI 
 
 TRUE LOVE AND FALSE METRE 
 
 In what poetry Blake wrote during the years of his appren- 
 ticeship there is no trace at all either of Swedenborgianism 
 or of the myth of Los, Albion, and the four Zoas which 
 was the subject of his chief works later on. He was an 
 enthusiastic reader of Shakespeare at this time, and it was 
 remarked with surprise that he took a great pleasure in the 
 poems, the Venus and Adonis, and the Lucrece. They were 
 not fashionable. The taste that admired Pope could hardly 
 be expected to enjoy them. 
 
 His own first poems were written between the yeJirs 
 1768 and 1777, or, as the preface to the volume of Poetical 
 Sketches says, were " commenced in his twelfth and occasion- 
 ally resumed till his twentieth year." Chatterton produced 
 his poems, attributed to "Thomas Eowley, a monk of the 
 fifteenth century," in the year 1768. He was born in 1752, 
 five years before Blake, and is credited with being the first 
 of the moderns to break away from the poetic standard of 
 the misguided eighteenth century. It is just possible that 
 he influenced Blake, who afterwards upheld his pretended 
 " Thomas Eowley " poems as being really written (he meant 
 inspired) by Thomas Eowley, or an influence or spirit so 
 called. Blake had a way of attributing the good in art to 
 influences or spirits as the " authors " rather than to the man 
 that held the pen or pencil. He disclaimed the authorship 
 of his own poems more than once. 
 
 He would have considered it as quite probable that even 
 an actual Thomas Eowley, having died three hundred years 
 before, might have influenced Ohatterton's mind from his 
 eternal station in the Universal Mind to which he had 
 entered. If so, what Chatterton wrote he rightly attributed 
 to dictation. Blake would even speak of a mental influence 
 that produced work of any sort as having " dictated " it, as 
 
 36 
 
TEUE LOVE AND FALSE METEE 37 
 
 we shall see in the letter to Hayley about his brother Eobert, 
 after Eobert's death. It is in this sense that he continued 
 to attribute the Ossian of Macpherson to a real Ossian, after 
 Macpherson had admitted having written the poems himself. 
 
 But the early verses in the Poetical Sketches are stamped 
 with a quality that shows them as essentially and intimately 
 Blake's own, and if he began them in 1768, as Mr. Mathews 
 tells us, he is undoubtedly a pioneer. 
 
 None the less, he was continually roused to complete 
 artistic acts by hints, just as people unable to originate are 
 roused to imitation and distortion by completed artistic work. 
 We could wish to know, though we must always despair of 
 knowing, the order in which these poems were written. The 
 most surprising thing about them is that they are so easy in 
 style and so few in number. They are all he has to show 
 during seven years, and yet each probably only occupied a 
 few minutes. The reason must have been that his solitude 
 was still used more for reading than for writing, and more 
 for walking than for either. He always delighted in long 
 country walks, and the engraving for his apprenticeship filled 
 up most of the hours that found him unfatigued. 
 
 How much and how often he loved lightly, in a dreamy 
 and silent way, before he met Polly Woods, we shall also 
 never know. We suspect that the persons spoken of in the 
 poems were not the subjects of any long or intimate affection. 
 They were certainly not Kate his wife, though he addresses 
 " Kitty " in one of them, perhaps by a marginal insertion in 
 the MS. which is lost to us. He was already married when 
 she good-naturedly allowed them to be published. 
 
 The unfinished drama Edward III, being taken as the 
 last, would leave the years of his real romance, its breaking 
 off, the meeting of his future wife, his twelve months' engage- 
 ment, and the twelve months after his marriage, without any 
 poetical production at all, which was probably the case. 
 
 " Clara Woods," who seems to have been called " Polly " 
 familiarly, since we are told of " Polly " without being told 
 that Clara had a sister, was the name of the girl who was his 
 real first aiid last love. 
 
 "After"5oHiethlHg~Iess than a year the courtship came to 
 a sudden end. Blake was jealous. Polly was flirting. He 
 protested. We know of what kind his protests were. Polly 
 may be glad not to have been treated like the Westminster 
 boy. She kept the upper hand in the quarrel. He probably 
 considered her want of strict fidelity as a crime of Use-majeste 
 
38 THE KEAL BLAKE 
 
 against himself, for his view of woman was always Miltonio, 
 and was founded on Old Testament ideas. To himself, as we 
 know, he gave later the very frank if well -deserved title, 
 " a mental prince." 
 
 But we can only guess at the terrific thunder of his 
 reproaches, whose poetry was incomprehensible to the girl, 
 by her answer. She listened to his tirade, and at the end, 
 " Are you a fool ? " said she. " That cured me of jealousy," 
 said Blake afterwards, doing himself rather more than justice, 
 for more than two years later, in his own handwriting, on 
 the margin of a book of Lavater's aphorisms, we find, where 
 jealousy has been mentioned with rebuke, these words: 
 '•' Pity the jealous ! " 
 
 The shock, however, was a severe one. Blake's tempera- 
 ment being ardent, his character confident, and his heart 
 affectionate and trustful, the whole woof and warp of his 
 emotional fabric was torn to scraps at once. Love, self-regard, 
 and hope were wounded. Such a fit of extreme wretchedness 
 came upon him that, strong as he was, or rather precisely 
 because he was strong, he became seriously ill. Like " William 
 Bond " in the ballad, he " came home in a black, black cloud, 
 took to his bed, and there lay down." In fact, he never 
 entirely recovered, for to the end of his life he was hable to 
 suddenly fall into short illnesses that were only fits of extreme 
 and helpless melancholy, for which he himself said he foimd 
 " no cause." They were echoes of that first thunder-clap of 
 J disappointment. His parents, taking serious alarm, arranged 
 with a friend of theirs, a market-gardener named Bouchier.that 
 he should go and live at the garden-house for a while, in the 
 hope that he might recover his health among the flowers. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Bouchier had a dark-eyed pretty dat^hter 
 of four-and-twenty, named Catherine, who knew how to love 
 though she did not know how to read and write. She had 
 her own ideal, and was waiting for it. She was not to be 
 deceived by small civilities. She had admirers, and one of 
 them seems to have induced her mother to speak in his 
 favour, for there is no reason to suppose that it was merply 
 to get her out of the house that Mrs. Bouchier had already 
 asked Catherine to make up her mind about marriage. But 
 all the answer Catherine had given was : " I have not yet 
 seen the man." Now on the night of Blake's arrival, as she 
 came into the room where he was sitting with her family, 
 she saw the man and grew faint. It was love at first sight, 
 and never changed from that hour, but was stiU fresh and 
 
TRUE LOVE AND FALSE METEE 39 
 
 whole all through Kate's long married life, and even during 
 her short widowhood, between forty and fifty years later. 
 
 In the summer of 1782 she began to love. In 1827 Blake 
 died. In 1831 she followed him. 
 
 Of his proposal to her we have a few words only, as of his 
 jilting by his former love, but this is more than history has 
 kept for us of all the other poets of the world. The words 
 have been told over and over again, and it may almost be 
 said that until they are known Blake's symbolic system 
 itself is only half revealed. When the declaration was 
 made Blake had been describing his ill-treatment by Polly 
 Woods, and telling how miserable it had made him. 
 
 " I pity you from my heart ! " Catherine exclaimed. 
 
 " Do you pity me ? " he said. " Then I love you for that." 
 
 " And I love you," she answered. 
 
 This is certainly a true account of what was really said. 
 The authority for the words must have been Mrs. Blake 
 herself. Her memory was always good, as is that of most 
 healthy and clever people not taught to read and write, and 
 in this matter there is every reason to trust it, for the words 
 she remembered were CAddently the middle of a day's talk, 
 the turning-point of the conversation, the climax that is not 
 easily forgotten. 
 
 The response of Blake to her offer of pity tells several 
 things. The "then" shows Catherine's love to have been 
 betrayed by a look if not by a word already, so that Blake 
 knew quite well that she loved him. Probably the true 
 writing of his words would be : " Then I love you for that." 
 But we are not forced to emphasise the point in order to find 
 it evident. Whichever way the expression is read it means : 
 " I, who have so lately loved, have already seen that you love 
 me ; and you are so pretty and dear that I have been sorry 
 to think that I could not love you for such qualities — Polly 
 Woods was pretty and dear — and I have often wished that I 
 could find something different to love you for. I find it now 
 in your pity." 
 
 Here indeed was something entirely unlike Polly Woods, 
 and fit to win a new kind of love. It was a problem solved, 
 and Blake never lost a second in pouncing on the solution of 
 a problem while it was still red-hot in his heart. 
 
 Then came her formal acknowledgment of what he knew 
 already. We are not told where the words were spoken, 
 but in the long pathway of a nursery-garden is the probable 
 place, for lovers can be seen so clearly, and from so far, that 
 
40 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 a chaperon was not likely to be any nearer than the window 
 of the house. This, though open to let in the warm air, and 
 convenient for observation, would be well out of hearing. 
 
 It was not till he was more than forty years old that 
 Blake had a garden of his own, but all through his works 
 gardens are mentioned as places " of delight " — " a garden of 
 delight" is the usual phrase in Vala. "Vak" herself is 
 an allegoric personage, the essence of simplicity and feminine 
 love, and an allegory of masculine love meets her in her 
 garden, where it is said that " impressions of Despair and 
 Hope for ever vegetate " (Night IX, line 375). 
 
 From what we know of the way in which Blake would 
 snatch up an experience, treat it as what Swedenborg calls 
 " representative," and use it for a symbol, it is easily to be 
 understood that his place of love-making was Mr. Bouchier's 
 garden. But Mr. Bouchier the gardener was a practical man, 
 and so was Mr. Blake the hosier. Mrs. Bouchier had her 
 own favourite suitor for her daughter, the one whose cause 
 she had meant to plead when she received the discouraging 
 answer, " I have not seen the man." No one but the girl 
 herself wanted the jilted invalid apprentice just out of his 
 articles and his first love. 
 
 Finally it was decided that Blake should not see nor even 
 communicate with Kate Bouchier for a year. If he was still 
 in earnest at the end of that time, and if he had shown him- 
 self worthy, opposition was to be withdrawn. 
 
 Blake, though he loved, was not a lover, and therefore not 
 madly impatient. He himself wished to show what he was 
 made of. The plan suited him. There was never much 
 doubt that he would stand the test. He stood it, and on 
 Sunday, August 18, 1782, he was married in the church at 
 Battersea, then newly rebuilt and decorated with painted 
 windows to imitate real stained glass, which was not in that 
 day so easily procurable as in our own. 
 
 Blake's father was only half pleased that his son had 
 behaved steadily and gone through this year of trial that 
 ended in marriage. His disapproval of a mere uneducated 
 country girl was strong. He had looked on himself as 
 patronising the Bouchiers when he sent his son to board with 
 them. It was quite another thing to unite his family to 
 theirs. To our eye the difference in social height between a 
 hosier's son and a market-gardener's daughter may be too 
 subtle for appreciation, but Mr. Blake felt it not merely 
 because of the position, but chiefly for a reason he could not 
 
TRUE LOVE AND FALSE METRE 41 
 
 give. He could not say that it was a derogation because 
 he was really Mr. O'Neil. In actual fact, of course, he was 
 Mr. Nobody — he was not even Mr. Blake. 
 
 He appears to have kept his counsel, if not his temper, and 
 said nothing to his son. Of this we may feel certain. It is 
 wholly incredible that William Blake could have known the 
 story of his father's birth, and have made no symbolic use of 
 it. On the contrary, he calls himself " English Blake." 
 
 After his marriage there was a period of estrangement 
 from home affections. He set up house at 23 Green Street, 
 Leicester Eields, a street in which Hogarth lived then, and 
 where "junior branches of Royalty had lately abode." This 
 surely ought to have comforted Mr. O'Neil Blake. Whether 
 it did so or not, he kept his tent like Achilles. At this time 
 also Flaxman married and settled down. He had been 
 introduced to Blake by Stothard, whom Blake knew through 
 Basire. Flaxman had spent several years in Italy, and had 
 now returned to work entirely in London. He was one of 
 Blake's best friends for many years from this time. His 
 reputation helped Blake's then. Blake's memory perpetuates 
 his now. A pitiful misunderstanding separated them at 
 the last. In the end, which seemed a long way off in those 
 honeymoon days, they both died in the same year ; Flaxman 
 going first, but only preceding Blake by a few months. Their 
 names will always be remembered more closely together than 
 those of most " tigers of wrath " and " horses of instruction " 
 that are fated to run side by side on life's dusty road. 
 
 They did many services to each other. Blake lent 
 Flaxman so much of his imagination that he began to 
 recognise it again in Flaxman's designs, tame, sedate, and 
 well schooled as Flaxman's drawing always was, like his just 
 character and his formal handwriting. 
 
 Flaxman was one of the two artists referred to in the 
 Uttle couplet in Blake's MS. book, written in the times of 
 their misunderstanding. 
 
 I found them blind, I taught tliem how to see, 
 And now they know neither themselves nor me ; 
 
 and in this couplet to Flaxman's wife, written at the same 
 late period (it is to be hoped that she never saw it) — 
 
 To Nancy F . 
 
 How can I help thy husband's copying me ? 
 Should that make difference between thee and me ? 
 
42 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 Blake's politeness to Mrs. Flaxman has led him to overlook 
 the obvious fact that thee should be the last v?ord of the 
 second line, and the shallow, unpoetical state of mind in 
 which he wrote all his irate couplets, of which this is a 
 good specimen, concealed from him the fact that if he had 
 placed Mrs. Flaxman's pronoun at the end he would have 
 placed it at the highest point of emphasis, and given his 
 guest, as it were, the head of the table, as a man may in his 
 wife's absence, — and certainly Mrs. Blake is not present in the 
 couplet. The repetition which he gives instead of real 
 rhyme is not, of course, wrong in itself, but is clearly so in 
 this place. Blake's very smallest errors have so much 
 narrative hidden in them, — narrative of the mind, for whose 
 sake only that of the body is worth recollecting, — that this 
 has its claim not to be passed over. Here, as in many other 
 places, what seems merely Kterary criticism will often be 
 found to help the personal story, as the personal story helps to 
 direct literary criticism by explaining symbolic suggestions. 
 
 The first benefit that Blake received from the Flaxmau 
 family was an important personal service, one that showed 
 kindness and courage on their part, for Blake was an alarming 
 guest to take into society among quiet folk. They intro- 
 duced him to Mr. and Mrs. Mathews, of 27 Eathbone Place. 
 
 While Blake is remembered Mr. and Mrs. Mathews 
 cannot be forgotten, though he came to them only to be en- 
 couraged and patronised, as Michael Angelo went to Lorenzo 
 dei Medici. Mr. Mathews was a clergyman, and not a 
 merchant prince like Lorenzo, but he and his wife en- 
 couraged young artists and musicians, and he was not without 
 a touch of that urbane generosity with which some of the best 
 of artistic people who are not artists have, in periods of taste, 
 won to themselves immortality, when they only intended to 
 do an unrewarded kindness. 
 
 Flaxman was not, any more than Blake, a distinguished 
 man when Mr. Mathews first took htm up. A few years 
 before he brought Blake to the house he was only a quiet 
 boy, son of a plaster-cast seller, and very much in earnest 
 about classical art. Mrs. Mathews read Homer with him in 
 Greek, translating and explaining as she went along. This 
 alone must have meant many long hours of patient kinduess. 
 
 Since then Mr. and Mrs. Mathews had attained the 
 leading position that they deserved. It was known that 
 something better than gossip was to be heard at their house, 
 and many people of admitted literary distinction were glad 
 
TEUE LOVE AND FALSE METEE 43 
 
 to be received there. No. 27 Eathboue Place became known 
 as a salon. Grilchrist has preserved some of the names of the 
 regular guests, recalling how Mrs. Montagu and Mrs. Vesey 
 (whose blue stockings made " blue-stocking " a popular term 
 for literary ladies) set the fashion in London of literary 
 "reunions": — Mrs. Brooke (novelist and dramatist), Mrs. 
 Carter (learned and awful), Mrs. Montagu (sprightly and 
 fashionable), and Mrs. Barbauld — this is Gilchrist's catalogue 
 of celebrities among the friends of Mrs. Mathews. He adds, 
 that this is the Mrs. Montagu of whose mental powers Dr. 
 Johnson had a high opinion, and that she gave a dinner to 
 chimney-sweeps on May Day. We have here the evident 
 reason for the poems about the chimney-sweeps in Blake's 
 Songs of Innocence and Experience, where they seem, without 
 this explanation of their presence, to have been inserted merely 
 as a piece of far-fetched poetic humility. 
 
 When we recall, however, how at this time the pathos and 
 pieturesqueness of chimney-sweeps were actually thrust on 
 Blake's attention this suspicion vanishes. It was at the house 
 of Mrs. Mathews that he began to write his Songs of Innocence, 
 and there is nothing more probable than that the favourite 
 subjects of conversation among the people whom he met 
 there roused him up, not only to the verses about chimney- 
 sweeps, but to more of what is said and sung in these Songs 
 than we can now trace. It is certain that he left off this 
 kind of writing soon after he left off being among the habitual 
 guests of Mrs. Mathews, and that he never seriously adopted 
 it again. 
 
 Mrs. Barbauld is still faintly remembered by many people 
 now fifty or sixty years old, who were taught her Hymns in 
 Prose when they were children. These miserable metreless 
 paragraphs of gently devotional dreariness were composed 
 under the impulse of an idea that was in the air then, and 
 that made people think themselves original and superior for 
 trying to write in prose what is usually written in verse. 
 In America this kind of originality arose again lately, but 
 Walt Whitman was old-fashioned before he began. Blake's 
 desire to " out-do " all writers in his own day accounts for 
 the printing as prose of several pieces of not very irregular 
 verse in the Poetical Sketches, and for the composition of 
 the piece called " The Passions," first published in the August 
 number of the Monthly Review in 1903, rather more than a 
 century after it was written. 
 
 In this poem is Blake's first piece of what would have 
 
44 THE KEAL BLAKE 
 
 been called by readers of Eousseau "confession." This is 
 what he said of himself, writing it as prose. The editor who 
 prepared it for its appearance in the Monthly Review cut 
 it up into these lines : 
 
 My cup is filled with envy's rankest draught, 
 Desire still pines but for one cooling drop, 
 
 And 'tis denied. 
 While others in contentment's nest do sleep, 
 It is the cursed thorn wounding my breast 
 
 That makes me sing. 
 However sweet, envy inspires my song : 
 Prict by the fame of others, how I mount ! 
 And my complaints are sweeter than their joys. 
 
 This admission is one for which any admirer of Blake, who 
 wishes to keep himself free from timid insincerity when 
 trying to describe him, imxat be thankful. The truth of it is 
 evident enough to whoever enters into Blake's character, 
 but to announce it as the result of critical research would 
 seem ill-natured. It would even appear to be insincere, — to 
 be itself a disparagement growing out of envy of a great man 
 who is gone,— perhaps the most detestable of possible qualities 
 in a biographer. 
 
 Yet if we are not to descend to a tone of childish and 
 sentimental worship, but to admire Blake as Ben Jonson 
 admired Shakespeare, keeping just a little "on this side 
 idolatry," then this thing had to be said, and it can come 
 from no one with a better grace than from the man himself. 
 About twenty years later he repeated the confession of 
 envy in his MS. book, where he says that the sarcastic 
 verses to be found there in derision of Sir Joshua Eeynolds 
 were " written by a very envious man." 
 
CHAPTEE VII 
 
 WORDS MISSED — AND WORDS FOUND 
 
 The boast that his " complaints are sweeter than their joys " 
 that Blake makes in speaking of those whom he envied, and 
 his calling what he writes "my song," are, of course, per- 
 fectly justified expressions, but they take all justification 
 from the writing of this passage for print — it was certainly 
 written for print — as prose. There are several pages of it. 
 A further sin against his own poem done by the ever-gifted 
 and ever -reckless Blake was purposely wiped out, as the 
 quotation was copied for insertion in the last chapter merely 
 by the omission of three words, that seem to have been inserted 
 by an enemy expressly to injure the music. In fairness, in 
 stem and disapproving fairness, they must be now put back. 
 In the fourth fine of the quotation "downy" must be re- 
 inserted before "nest," and in the seventh "'tis" must be 
 restored before the word " envy " and " that " after it. Then 
 the passage stands, ready to trip up the reader as well as to 
 delight him, just as Blake left it. We read : 
 
 While others in contentment's (downy) nest do sleep, 
 and 
 
 However sweet, ('tis) envy (that) inspires my song. 
 
 When Blake came to the drawing-room of Mrs. Mathews 
 he found an interior as picturesque for its appearance as for 
 its guests. , There were even statuesque decorations made by 
 Flaxman in a kind of artificial stone composed of sand and 
 putty that could be worked in the hands like clay when it 
 was fresh, and would harden afterwards. There were painted 
 glass windows by Oram, another of the prot^g^es of Mrs. 
 Mathews, and " bookcases, tablets, and chairs ornamented to 
 accord with those of antiquity." 
 
 Blake brought with him his early ballads and poems, and 
 
 45 
 
46 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 sang some of them to his own tunes, which the musicians of 
 the drawing-room praised and noted down. But either they 
 are lost or have been quietly inserted in the compositions of 
 these people, who perhaps also had drunk of Envy's black 
 liquor. Perhaps every tune contained one or two impossible 
 notes which completely spoiled passages of value. If so, 
 probably Blake was most deeply attached to these, as it is 
 said the mothers of deformities are to their distressing 
 children. In any case, as Fuseli said some years later, 
 " Blake is dam' good to steal from." 
 
 The songs were certainly beautiful, however lawless, and they 
 made for Blake a party within a party in the drawing-room of 
 Mrs. Mathews, for "NoUekens" Smith, a fellow-guest who 
 heard the singing, tells us that, though some who came disHked 
 Blake for his " unbending deportment," yet he had " adher- 
 ents " who praised him for his " manly firmness of opinion." 
 
 In the early days, before it was known that he was a 
 devoted lover of his own errors and slips, Blake won so much 
 admiration for his first songs, those that he had written ia 
 the time before Polly "Woods, that Mr. Mathews wished 
 some of them published, and was even willing to bear half 
 the cost of their printing. Flaxman, young and warm- 
 hearted then, not yet disguising under prim and cold 
 impartiality his natural faculty of admiration, undertook to 
 bear the other half. Between them the little volume still 
 known as Poetical Sketches was printed, and the sheets were 
 presented to Blake to sell or distribute to his friends. We 
 are nowhere told that the copies were all bound, and there is 
 reason to suspect that they were not, and that the " sheets " 
 were quietly used by Blake afterwards chiefly to light his 
 fire. Newspapers were rarer and smaller then than now, and 
 fires must be lit with something. 
 
 This publication should have been, and with any other 
 man would have been, the cause of real gratitude and lasting 
 friendship. To Blake it was an almost undiluted annoyance, 
 and he found it, after the first moment of hope, an offence 
 very difficult to forgive. 
 
 The outrage began when the proofs came home, and Mr. 
 Mathews asked him to correct them. We can see, from our 
 side of the sandbank that more than a century has caused to 
 rise as the grains fell from the never-turned and bottomless 
 hour-glass of Old Time, how this must have revolted Blake. 
 He stood smiling in the sunny glow of his own self-satisfac- 
 tion, which may be called self -worship, since he believed his 
 
WOEDS MISSED— AND WOEDS FOUND 47 
 
 verses to be the voice of God within him, and held that the 
 only " worship of God is the honouring of His gifts in indi- 
 vidual men." Mr. Mathews showed him his first work in print. 
 Mr. Mathews had admired it {very naturally, we hear Blake 
 say in the silence of his own bosom). Mr. Mathews had 
 desired to have it printed {very proper). He had borne half 
 the cost {quite so; well, even half is something), and now 
 just before issuing it he wanted it corrected. ( What ?) 
 
 Behind the good-natured Irish smile, and hidden by the 
 musical and murmurously caressing Irish voice, Mr. Mathews 
 probably did not detect the amazed contempt with which 
 Blake received the suggestion. He accepted from Blake the 
 commonplace excuse, quite sincere as far as it went, that 
 since writing these things h^ had been too busy with art to 
 correct them ; and this, intended as a mere bit of personal 
 conversation, he put into a preface as an apology, to 
 Blake's intense disgust ; further offending him by calling the 
 compositions " sketches," a word hateful to Blake, as we know 
 by the indignant tone in which he made long afterwards the 
 perfectly absurd statement, " Michelangelo never sketched." 
 
 The one quality of Blake that, like his genius, those around 
 him could not measure was the enormous capacity for con- 
 tempt that his pride gave him. In the confidential pages of 
 his MS. note-book we find him, twenty years later, writing — 
 
 The only man I ever knew 
 Who did not almost make me spue 
 Was Fuseli. . . . 
 
 The reason why Fuseli was an exception was because he had 
 original powers of imagination. These were very much 
 inferior to Blake's own, as Blake knew perfectly well, but 
 yet they were very much superior to those of any other poetic 
 artist of his day. Fuseli, like Blake, had dignity, impressive- 
 ness, massive movement in his art, the poetic style, know- 
 ledge of the nude, a power of serious and almost sublime 
 composition. Who else could claim to possess these things 
 then ? Blake measured every one by his power to answer 
 that question. 
 
 It did not impress him with any feeling of respect that 
 Mr. Mathews stood far above the clergy about him in matters 
 of taste, as his wife did above their wives in knowledge of 
 Greek. He did not appreciate the beautiful voice in which 
 we are told Mr. Mathews read the service, nor the church 
 that was built for him by his admirers, He did not even 
 
48 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 discover that Flaxman had dealt generously in arranging 
 that he should be admitted at all to their house. 
 
 The Mathews family, who appeared to themselves to be 
 kind patrons of a clever boy; and the other guests, who 
 seemed to themselves to be eminent and important friends of 
 the kind patrons, willing to tolerate and even encourage the 
 clever boy, — seemed to Blake rather less than so many monkeys. 
 They almost " made him spue," because his mind was fixed 
 with devoted ardour upon passion, poetry, art, and beauty, 
 and they were tame dabblers in careful little pomposities. 
 Yet it requires intellect and taste superior to that of nine 
 people out of ten to be even a tame dabbler in little pomposi- 
 ties. Blake in cool moments did as much justice to his new 
 friends as any one, only he seldom had cool moments. He 
 was almost always in a fever of artistic and poetic enthusiasm, 
 and he despised the amateurs as an ardent soldier in war- 
 time despises the fat merchants and futile mayors and alder- 
 men of towns that he alone can defend and his equals alone 
 can endanger. Let those who have felt either the military 
 or the poetic temptation to contemptuousness treat Blake's 
 arrogance as it deserves. No one else has the smallest chance 
 of suspecting what it is or measuring its desert. The poorest 
 artist on the pavement has sinned the same sin. If he reads 
 this he will (if regenerate) beat his breast, and say in the 
 mood of the publican in the parable, " God be merciful to 
 me, a painter." 
 
 Below all emotional difficulty caused by red-hot egotism 
 that was so disinterested as to seem to its owner to be seK- 
 devotion, there was another reason why Blake did not correct 
 the pages of the Poetical Sketches, and it is final. He did 
 not because he could not. Any one who has handled or 
 studied his original manuscripts, and has seen the changes he 
 made from time to time as he re-read them, is continually kept 
 in a state of irritated wonder by finding that, though he often 
 retouched to alter, it was hardly ever to correct. Corrections 
 can be made when a man, taking up his work once more after 
 his mind is released from the chain of composition, sees that 
 what he has written is not, whether for sound or for sense, a 
 satisfactory embodiment of the idea which is the reason of 
 its being. If this is still unchanged, and the writer's pur- 
 pose of giving it a true expression still uncooled, he will 
 take the pen and strike out the stumbling words, put in 
 those that lift the meaning on their shoulders, and do at last 
 what he did at first in other places, where his energy worked 
 
WOEDS MISSED— AND WOEDS FOUND 49 
 
 without hitch or oversight. The corrections are unseen, and 
 all is unity. Blake hardly ever— it would be almost true to 
 say never — had this needful prolongation of his mood lof 
 conception, so that it could run on into a mood of judgment. 
 
 When he came out of the poetic fit he came like the three 
 Israelites from the furnace — scarcely was the smell of fire left 
 on his garments. If he tried to restore his burning mood by 
 hghting up his mind at his own pages, he generally set up a 
 new productive heat, not exactly the same as before, that 
 urged him to make changes, not corrections. This is true to 
 a certain degree of the best Irish poets now writing in English. 
 It seems to be a national characteristic. 
 
 Blake had this defect, as he had all his qualities, in an 
 exaggerated degree. He was so totally without the real talent 
 of criticism, that sees the should have^heen in the has leen, 
 that he did not know the difference between this and its 
 opposite, the pedantic and mischievous primness that so often 
 causes a merely smooth revision and defaces what it should 
 vitalise. While still smarting under the offence that he had 
 endured in being asked to correct the Poetical Sketches, he 
 wrote : 
 
 Improvement makes straight roads, but crooked roads without 
 improvement are the roads of genius. 
 
 Perhaps this wiU be remembered as the most outrageous 
 and inartistic piece of nonsense this truly great artist has 
 left us. He could not see that crooked roads, when not 
 crooked as genius hastily thought it had crooked them, could 
 be improved so that their beautiful crookedness should really 
 at last become what it had only seemed to be to their 
 designer in his preoccupation, caused by the mental absorp- 
 tion of the act of creation. This deficiency in Blake, this 
 critical blindness, was almost always absolute and unconscious, 
 like colour-blindness or tone-deafness to others. Those that 
 have it suffer, as of course we all know now, from a mild form 
 of a disease that is weU understood. But Blake had never 
 even heard of aphasia, and his misfortune cost him friend 
 after friend? all through an enthusiastic life in which, never- 
 theless, /WencZsAip was the one ideal that he held to be of 
 truly divine origin, and equal to genius. 
 
 This is the preface, or, as Mr. Mathews called it, the 
 " Advertisement," written for the Poetical Sketches : 
 
 The following Sketches were the production of untutored youth, 
 commenced in his twelfth, and occasionally resumed by the author till 
 
 B 
 
50 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 his twentieth year ; since which time, his talents having been wholly 
 directed to the attainment of excellence in his profession, he has been 
 deprived of the leisure requisite to such a revisal of these sheets as 
 might have rendered them less unfit to meet the public eye. 
 
 Conscious of the irregularities and defects to be found in almost every 
 page, his friends still believed that they possessed a poetical originality 
 which merited some respite from oblivion. These, their opinions 
 remain, however, to be reproved or confirmed by a less partial public. 
 
 The plea that the writer of this " Advertisement " urged 
 against the possible oblivion of the Poetical Sketches by the 
 public, need not be urged in favour of the preface itself. It 
 will be sufficiently protected by the charming vagueness of 
 the first sentence, in which we are not told what profession 
 the youth adopted in his untutored state, and by the 
 pleasant distinctness of the second, where we are told that 
 his friends believed that they (there is no other plural nomina- 
 tive in the paragraph as yet) possessed a poetic origiuality. 
 What other opinion they had of themselves is not told us. 
 Only one is mentioned, and " ithese, their opinions " remain 
 but inaccurately counted, however frankly expressed. The 
 style of the "Advertisement," at least, encourages in us a 
 cheerful frame of mind, and offers, unconsciously, a sufficient 
 apology for Blake's contemptuous feeling towards the writer. 
 Yet there is still interest for all who use the pen in looking 
 to see what it was that Blake (in six years since writing) had 
 not "leisure" to correct in these Poetical Sketches] We 
 must look closely at the weakness of a partly paralysed 
 Hercules if we are to value his strength. 
 
 In Edward III the play begins with a prayer. It is before 
 the battle of Cressy : 
 
 King. 
 O thou to whose fury, the nations are 
 But as dust, maintain thy servant's right — 
 
 The first line, by the inevitable if irregular pause after " fuiy," 
 is splendidly fit for its purpose, of course, but we are caught 
 at the second line and tripped up. What " genius " is there 
 in such a "crooked road without improvement" as this? 
 None, obviously. Let us venture to correct the metre and 
 go on again : 
 
 King. 
 thou to whose fury, the nations are 
 But as the dust, maintain thy servant's right. 
 Without thine aid the twisted mail and spear, 
 And forgfed helm and shield of seven times beaten brass, 
 Are idle trophies of the conqueror. 
 
WOEDS MISSED— AND WOEDS FOUND 51 
 
 Two words too many trip us up again in that last line but 
 one. Why "seven times"? Was not "beaten brass" 
 enough? Here is an idle trophy indeed. The speech 
 goes on : 
 
 When confusion rages, when the field is in a flame, 
 When cries of blood tear terror from heaven. 
 And yelling death runs up and down the ranks — 
 
 We are forced to stop again. Let us drop one word from 
 the first of these three lines, and its extra length then has 
 poetic value by forcing a great rapidity into the words 
 " when confusion rages," which become " when c'nf usion rages," 
 with a distinct and startled pause before the rest, which gives 
 a panting reality to the emotion. Then in the second line 
 " from " ought obviously to be read " out of," or we are a 
 syllable short : 
 
 When confusion rages, — when the field's aflame, — 
 
 When cries of blood tear terror out of heaven, 
 
 And yelling death runs up and down the ranks, 
 
 Let Liberty, the chartered right of Englishmen, — 
 
 Won by our fathers in many a glorious field, — 
 
 Enerve my soldiers. Let Liberty 
 
 Blaze in each countenance and fire the battle. 
 
 The enemy fight in chains, invisible chains, but heavy, — 
 
 We are once inore tripped. The line, 
 
 Enerve my soldiers. Let Liberty, 
 
 need not be complained of, because any actor or reader, 
 even one who reads to himself, would have the sense to 
 put a vocative " " before '' Let Liberty," as all is vocative 
 here, for the day when "soldiers" could be pronounced 
 as a word of three syllables has passed ; but the line 
 about the chains requires thought. It would be unreason- 
 able to ask Blake to take off the last two words, because, 
 though redundant, they are graphic, and happily add to the 
 terribleness of the idea and to the emphasis of the word 
 "invisible." But as "unseen" means practically the same 
 thing, and the word " chains " need not occur twice, a correc- 
 tion, obvious to every one but the flame-headed author, could 
 have been made. With no further changes than to take off 
 the word " then " from the next line, that Blake made to end 
 
 . . . then how can they be free ? 
 
 and adding the word "now," curiously missing at the end of the 
 sentence, we may get through this fine passage without more 
 trouble : 
 
52 THE KEAL BLAKE 
 
 The enemy fight in chains, unseen but heavy. 
 Their minds are fettered ; how can they be free ? — 
 While like the mounting flame 
 We spring to battle o'er the iloods of death ? 
 And these fair youths, the flower of England, 
 Vent'ring their lives in my most righteous cause, — 
 O sheathe their hearts in triple steel, that they 
 May emulate their fathers' virtues now I 
 
 Beside the retouched verses here we find fine irregular lines, 
 unimproved because needing no improvement. The pause 
 after the short one about the mounting flame, which is needful 
 that it may not cause us to step out of time to the march 
 music of the whole passage, is irregular, of course, but 
 eloquent. It gives us a moment in which to see " mounting 
 flame" in the flgure of speech. During the pause of four 
 syllables' worth of silence that flame leaps up before us, and 
 if our prosody is less full, our minds are fuller. In the word 
 " England " the letter I, lovingly prolonged, is a syllable in 
 itself. This now admittedly is correct prosody as weU as good 
 poetry, and it is not, as we may remember, a new device. 
 We have in Shakespeare's Troilus and Gressida — 
 
 The policy that's in a watchful state 
 Knows almost every grain of Pluto's gold, — 
 Keeps pace with thought, and almost, like the gods. 
 Does thoughts unveil in their dumb crad-l-es ; 
 
 which is perhaps authority enough, without a citation from 
 Shelley, who came after Blake, and did not even know of his 
 existence, but who has the same thing in his poem on Leonardo's 
 Head of Medusa. 
 
 It lieth gazing on the midnight sky, 
 Upon the misty mountain peak supine, 
 
 Below, far lands are seen tremb-1-ingly, 
 Its power and its beauty are divine. 
 
 But while accepting without pedantry the irregular as well 
 as the regular beauties of this prayer of King Edward in 
 Blake's play, we cannot suppose that the slips, which are not 
 beauties of any sort, were due to a mental bashfulness in the 
 presence of the royal person whom his imagination had con- 
 jured up, for the whole poem shows that he treats the King 
 as a god, or as " the policy that's in a watchful state " treats 
 mere subjects when it dares to "thoughts unveil in their 
 dumb cradles." The poet is the superior throughout. The 
 King's mind is the servant of his. 
 
WOEDS MISSED— AND WOEDS FOUND 53 
 
 Another utterly superfluous blunder, the result of over- 
 sight, not of temptation, consisting of the mere intrusion of 
 little unneeded words, is soon to follow. The next line is not 
 the sinner, though it scans only by compression. The King 
 now speaks to the Prince of Wales — 
 
 And thou, my son, be strong. Thou fight'st f r a crown 
 
 That death can never ravish from thy brow — 
 
 A crown of glory ; but from thy very dust 
 
 Shall beam a radiance to fire the breasts 
 
 Of youth unborn. Our names are written equal 
 
 In fame's wide trophied hall 'Tis ours to gild 
 
 The letters and to make them shine with gold 
 
 That never tarnishes. Whether Third Edward, 
 
 The Prince of Wales, Montacute, Mortimer, 
 
 Or even the least by birth gain brightest fame 
 
 Is in His hands to whom all men are equal. 
 
 It seems hardly credible, but in the unrevised sheets that 
 poor Mr. Mathews so regretfully and kindly published the 
 two lines above the last run : — 
 
 The Prince of Wales, or Montacute, or Mortimer, 
 
 Or even the least by birth shall gain the brightest fame. 
 
 The editor of Blake's poems in " Gilchrist " quietly skips all 
 this fine opening, and begins the play at the words "Our 
 names are written equal." But to fully appreciate the fatal 
 incapacity to correct which caused Blake to leave his manu- 
 scripts so fuU of flaws, it is not enough to have noticed cases 
 of oversight where, among whole pages that were flung aside 
 unread, there are lines left with the overgrowths of the first 
 hurry and fever of improvisation unpruned. It is necessary 
 to look at the kind of slips he leaves untouched in lines that 
 he has read over and altered, believing that he had corrected 
 them, and to see in these the halting and incomplete nature 
 even of his alterations. The MS. of Vala has many such 
 oversights. The poem is written entirely in a fluent and 
 melodious line of fourteen syllables, on which Blake has so 
 stamped the signature of his genius that he has made it his 
 own for eve'r, as Spenser made the stanza of the Faery Queen 
 and Petrarch the sonnet. It is a line almost as elastic as 
 that of Shakespearian blank verse, and its elasticity enables 
 it to fill itself with every different form of emphasis and 
 significance. Here is an example of its use with an extra 
 but unaccented syllable, a style of ending for which the 
 technical term " weak " is so ridiculous and misleading : 
 
54 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 Terrified, Urizen heard Ore, now certain that he was Luvah ; 
 And creeping Ore began to organise a serpent body. 
 
 ^ ^ Fate, Night VII, Kne 153. 
 
 The second line is not very sonorous, but it has its just place 
 in the general sound -scheme, as can be seen by even the 
 hastiest reference to the page where it is found. Blake, whose 
 pen was going at its usual headlong pace, did not set down 
 the words so as to hit the true measure at once. 
 The line was first written thus : 
 
 Creeping, he began to organise a serpent body, 
 
 which lacks weight in two of the syllables. If we add to it 
 the words " did Ore " at the end, it would be rhythmical, but, 
 in the mouth of any one but a peasant, impossible. 
 
 Blake of course did not add the deficient syllables. He 
 left the line at the moment, but he felt vaguely that some- 
 thing should be done to show that Ore, and not Urizen or 
 Luvah, was the organiser of the serpent body. He changed 
 the line into 
 
 And Ore he began to organise a serpent body, 
 
 and left it, again forgetting that he had lost the word 
 " creeping," which is technical in his system and essential to 
 the myth, for it implies that the state " length and breadth " 
 is entered, and the state " height and depth " is abandoned. 
 What remained was still not a line at all. But he was at 
 the end of his patience, and he never took the trouble to 
 make it one. The present writer, as editor, has been obliged 
 here, as in other lines of Vala, to come to his aid, and this 
 time actually to compound a line from his fragments. But 
 this has not been done, as similar service was rendered in 
 Eossetti's freer day, without a note (in the Quaritch edition) 
 enabling the reader to see what had happened. Another 
 example — lines 163 and 164 of Night IX, as numbered in 
 the Quaritch edition — stood thus in the MS. : 
 
 Saying, that I had never drunk the wine nor eat the bread 
 Of darii mortality, nor cast my eyes into futurity, nor turned 
 My back, darkening the present, clouding with a cloud. 
 
 Originally the second of these lines was written — 
 
 Of dark mortality, nor cast my eyes into the west, nor turned, 
 
 which would have been a good line if it had ended at " west," 
 a pause being suggested after "cast," thus emphasising "my 
 
WORDS MISSED— AND WORDS FOUND 55 
 
 eyes.'' The words " nor turned " would then begin the next 
 line. That they belong to that line is seen by the fact that 
 it is too short without them. Blake, going over his MS., did 
 not make the obvious correction that would at least sort .up 
 the lines into verses, and not leave syllables hanging to the 
 end of one that were required to begin another. But, on 
 consideration, he decided that the associations with the 
 symbohc west and Urizen's journey (it is Urizen who is 
 speaking here) did not make out his meaning clearly enough. 
 He substituted the word " futurity " for " west," striking his 
 pen through it. He even made this incorrect correction 
 incorrectly, for he omitted to strike his pen through the 
 word " the." So line 164 now stood thus : 
 
 Of dark mortality, nor cast my eyes into the futurity, nor turned, 
 
 in which swollen and chaotic state he left it, and it is so left 
 in the Quaritch edition, the unerased definite article before 
 "futurity" only being omitted, though the present writer 
 regrets now that, weary with many emendations, he did not 
 put the whole passage into metre with a note to tell what 
 was done. It should obviously read : 
 
 Urizen wept in the dark deep, anxious Ms scaly form 
 
 To reassume the human, and he wept in the dark deep, 
 
 Saying — " Oh that I had never drunk the wine, nor eat the bread 
 
 Of dark mortality, cast eyes into futurity, 
 
 Nor turned my back dark'ning the present, clouding with a cloud, 
 
 Building arches high and cities, turrets, towers, and domes." 
 
 " Saying " at the beginning of the third line has the value 
 of a single short unaccented syllable only. But this is only 
 one of many places where editorial duty became too heavy to 
 bear. So I left Blake, by an oversight, in the tangle of his own 
 oversights, as he was left under compulsion in the days of the 
 Poetical Sketches by Mr. Mathews. Yet whole paragraphs 
 and pages in the finest parts of Vala, as in those of all his 
 long poems, are flawless, musical, dignified, firm, melodious, 
 and original in a degree, as is now gradually becoming 
 admitted, above the highest reach of any other writer of 
 English whatsoever. 
 
 Gradually we are forced into seeing that Blake, in his 
 inspired moods, had the power of hypnotising himself, — 
 unless indeed other powers of a spiritual nature, as he him- 
 self suspected, hypnotised him. However this may have 
 been, the result was that he became, when the fit was on 
 
56 THE HEAL BLAKE 
 
 him, like Trilby in Du Maurier's novel, singing the divine 
 lei canto when under the nervous concentration of Svengali's 
 influence. When this went off she, it will be remembered, 
 could not sing a musical note, and Blake, who did not always 
 correctly record the song he sang, when in the fit, in his 
 everyday state could not correct an erroneous line, even 
 • when its own musical form was plainly indicated in its errors. 
 
 He fully recognised these two states in himself, but the 
 account he gave of them was by no means always the same. 
 When "exalted in terrific pride," he would claim that his 
 errors were beauties, and that they were proofs of his genius, 
 while every one who wished them changed was a mischievous 
 fool, and his enemy. In saying this he was perfectly sincere, 
 and in many cases perfectly justified. The people of his day 
 would probably have been mischievously willing to see his 
 few really good irregularities also ground down into flatness. 
 
 In another mood he simply said that his poems wdre 
 " dictated to him," and that he " might praise them, since the 
 authors were in eternity." 
 
 Whichever account we may accept, one thing follows. 
 There were two Blakes, and they could not edit one another. 
 Yet he absolutely requires editing. Eossetti solved the 
 problem by touching him up secretly. The present writer, 
 for sincerity's sake, and to relieve the reader from being 
 distracted from enjoyment of the poems by a nervous appre- 
 hension that he is not really reading the author but the 
 editor, has noted every emendation he has ventured to intro- 
 duce. But to leave what Eossetti happily called the " pious 
 duty " of correctiion unperformed would have been the very 
 cowardice of pedantry, unfair to reader and to author. 
 
 The few examples of Blake's blunders here given are not 
 intended as literary criticism, but as part of the material 
 without which a narrative of the growth of his mind could 
 not have been written, and Blake without Blake's mind 
 would have been as far from the real Blake as was the Blake 
 of the earlier biographical and critical essays, among all of 
 which is to be found no portrait whatsoever. But however 
 necessary it may be to know truly the paradoxical story of 
 his metrical errors, even when we have dug up the root of 
 this mystery we are still outsiders, and have not entered into 
 his living mind. We must know also the causes and origins 
 of his inspired moments. Many of the experiences in his 
 daily life that suggested symbols to him are not to be 
 recovered now. They were trifles that left no trace before 
 
iiifiKiiaiiii-s;^ 
 
 Appaix-ntly illustrating the lines, 
 ■ JociTiicl Day stands ti[itue on the niibty mountain tops — " 
 
WORDS MISSED— AND WORDS FOUND 57 
 
 they foundered in the stream of time. They live in his 
 poetic use of them only. But to know of a few is to know 
 of them all. Some have been already mentioned, but one or 
 two more may be considered. 
 
 We have already seen how the country walks of Blake 
 while still apprentice produced his first lyrical utterances, 
 while the cold tombs of the Abbey were the parents of his 
 red-hot scenes of Elizabethan drama. It was Elizabethan, of 
 course, from the pricking of the cruel spur of envy that 
 goaded him to try to " out-do " Shakespeare. Sometimes a 
 mere word let fall by chance would set him off into a pro- 
 ductive fever of imagination, and be the cause of a sweet and 
 never-to-be-forgotten poem or ballad. 
 
 There is a revelation of how this happened. The word 
 "jocund," which also perhaps inspired his drawing of Jocund 
 Day, called Glad Day by Gilchrist, was first to inspire a 
 poem, as may be gathered from the notes written in later 
 life that have been already referred to, about WooUett the 
 engraver, who dared to be contemptuous of Basire. From 
 those reminiscences we also learn that among WooUett's 
 prints was one called Jocund Peasants. At the moment 
 when this was under Blake's eye, and he saw " Jack Brown " 
 working on it for WooUett, he was not thinking of writing 
 Anecdotes of Artists. He was in the poetic exaltation of 
 the years that produced the verses afterwards printed by the 
 kind Mr. Mathews under the title Poetical Sketches. 
 
 At that time he was Trilby entranced, and the youthful 
 blood in his veins was the Svengali that made the magic 
 passes as he strode about the green fields in his holiday 
 rambles. To him in this easily inspirable state the word 
 "jocund" was enough. It set him off at once, as a match 
 sets off a firework, and we have — 
 
 I love the jocund dance, 
 
 a poem whose third stanza begins — 
 
 I love the peasant cot, 
 
 which is evidently directly produced by the imaginative 
 delight with which he gave life and love from his own 
 mental riches to the title of another print claimed at the 
 same date by WooUett, called The Cottagers. 
 
 Every one will recall an example of an incident almost 
 similar, noted in Keats's letter to John Hamilton Reynolds, 
 
58 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 written April 17, 1817, from Carisbrook. Keats is at the 
 time nervous from want of regular rest, as he says almost 
 apologetically, as if to explain such weakness as the fact 
 that the passage in Lear — 
 
 Do you not hear tlie sea ? 
 
 has " haunted him intensely." 
 
 Then the letter give^ the sonnet beginning — 
 
 It keeps eternal whisperings around, 
 
 which was the result of that intense haunting. 
 
 In the high tide of what may be called Blake's missionary 
 activity, when the whole purpose of his life was — 
 
 To open the eternal worlds, to open the immortal Eyes, 
 Of Man inwards, into the worlds of Thought, into Eternity, 
 Ever expanding in the Bosom of God, the Human Imagination, 
 
 he was still caught sometimes by a word. 
 
 I give you the end of a golden string, 
 
 Only wind it into a ball. 
 It will lead you in at heaven's gate 
 
 Built in Jerusalem's wall, 
 
 he wrote as a little outburst of cheering to encourage those 
 who were likely to faint by the way in threading the mazes 
 of his great poem Jerusalem. The verse seems to have been 
 similarly the result of a chance suggestion in one word. 
 We find on another page of the MS. book, where this little 
 quatrain is crowded into a margin and written upside down 
 so as to catch his eye among its confused and crammed-up 
 leaves — 
 
 " 2nd May 1807. Found the word Golden." 
 
 In the Jerusalem the lines are printed by Blake on page 77, 
 which is known to have been engraved long after 1804— the 
 date of the title-page. There is only one clue to its period. 
 The page of the MS. on which it occurs shows, by the 
 manner in which the entries crowd on one another, — the prose 
 paragraphs written wherever room could be found for them 
 in and out of spaces left by epigrams, short poems, and 
 sketches, — that the reminiscence about Woollett and Jack 
 Brown was written after — ^probably soon after — the quatrain 
 about the golden string. These reminiscences were to form 
 part of an advertisement to the Canterbury Pilgrims, including 
 
WOEDS MISSED— AND WOEDS FOUND 59 
 
 Anecdotes of Artists, which could not have been written before 
 1808 or 1809. It was therefore in the mood of reminiscence, 
 and not long before he wrote about the days when he had 
 found the word " jocund," that he " found the word golden." 
 This is natural enough. To the prolific mind the void of 
 nature, when entered into, " becomes a womb that heaves in 
 enormous circles." It is probable, in fact, that the verse he 
 wrote after finding " the word golden," by recalling to him a 
 similar experience of earlier years, brought back the time 
 when he used to see WooUett, and to boil with suppressed 
 indignation at his prosperity, while Basire was going out of 
 fashion. This would now lead to the production of Anecdotes 
 (^Artists in the year 1808 or 1809. 
 
 The Passions, the one more poem so lately come to light 
 that seems to belong to the period of the Poetical Sketches, 
 has a value of a special kind. It enables us to see that moods 
 underlie all Blake's mythic names, and that real mental 
 relationships are intended by his mythic genealogies. 
 
 The one quality of his work which most encourages the 
 reader, when wearied by its wonders, is its continuity of 
 general scheme from the opening of his life to its close. 
 This quality is difficult to find, however, for a very natural 
 reason. It was a matter of course to Blake, and he only 
 took pains to show it now and then under revolt from the 
 incredulous and patronising contempt of those who excused 
 themselves for not understanding him by whispering that he 
 did not understand himself. He was slow to learn how those 
 who could not comprehend him despised him, though it is 
 the lesson that is the beginning of maturity, and there is 
 perhaps hardly any one, with any strength or generosity at 
 all, who has not at times attempted to gather the feeble as 
 Christ would have gathered Jerusalem, " as a hen gathereth 
 her chickens under her wings," only to find that they " would 
 not." Continuity is difficult to trace in Blake, because the 
 thing in his work that interested him was not its continuity, 
 as a rule, but was each separate flash of imaginative creation 
 as it flared up in his mind. He despises the artistic quality 
 called by painters " getting together " in a picture, — a merit 
 first violently thrust upon the attention of connoisseurs by 
 Eembrandt with his single-spot scheme of illumination. 
 Blake, in furious rebellion against the cheap praise that has 
 grown rank about this, exclaims, " Eeal effect is the making 
 out of parts." He loves " minute particulars," and called 
 them the beloved " little ones " of the parent Imagination. 
 
60 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 He loves separate emotions, — first one, then the other. He 
 loves almost anything better than sequence, gradation, con- 
 tinuity. His pictures, whether light or dark, are patchy. 
 Sustained will expressed with gradated fervour was unknown 
 to him. There would have been, we see, no plot in hie 
 Edward III or his Island in the Moon, as there was none 
 in the lighting of his paintings. In each figure each muscle 
 is " made out " with as much foreground emphasis as each 
 other muscle. The toes and fingers are equally insisted 
 on. In sculpture this is right, no doubt, but it makes the 
 difference, of course, between a painting and a picture in 
 an illusionary art like that which uses a flat surface to 
 express depths and distances. Blake never discovered that 
 he was not a painter, but was constitutionally a born scidptor. 
 He was a pioneer in colour as in verse, but though he has 
 the first place as a maker of lyric maxims or poetic proverbs 
 and of philosophic myth, by a similar oversight he thought 
 himself a writer of epic poetry. His only idea of plot m 
 literature may be symbolised by the numbers 1, 2, 1, or a 
 " fall into division and a resurrection into unity " ( Vda, 
 Night 1, 1. 17). 
 
 In the Job series he seemed to have a plot in his draw- 
 ings. It is the same thing, — a fall from plenty, a return to 
 plenty. There is no plot. The sons, daughters, flocks and 
 herds that, in the Bible, make Job's plenty at the end are 
 not the same that make it at the beginning, but to Job's 
 elastic mind they seem the same. He reaUy thinks of nothing 
 but himself and his God. All else is an occasion to show his 
 faith and his God's power. No one can call this a plot. 
 
 Blake's mythic and symbolic scheme is therefore not the 
 backbone of his myth or his symbolism. It is an accident, 
 and is due to the significance, of which he never lost sight, 
 being always a reference to the essentially unchanged truths 
 of life, feeling, and mind. It is precisely its union of the firm 
 and the unsought that makes the unity of his work the irre- 
 fragable proof, and the only proof, of his sanity. Let no 
 praise, therefore, be stinted to those who, like Gilchrist, 
 D. G. Eossetti, and Mr. Swinburne, believed in this sanity, 
 and announced it, though the proof was hidden from them. 
 
 Only habitual readers of Blake possess it even now, for it 
 is not to be found without going over the whole of his work. 
 It is like the treasure buried in the farmer's field, which he 
 told his sons was two feet below the surface, but of whose 
 place he gave no further indication, with the result that they 
 
WORDS MISSED— AND WOEDS FOUND 61 
 
 dug up the whole ground, and when the crops of the deep- 
 turned soil were sold they obtained the treasure. A hint of 
 Blake's continuity of meaning, however, may be offered here, 
 as it is to be gathered from his early poem The Passions, 
 which, as belonguig to the period of Poetical Sketches, is 
 printed in the preliminary pages to the Chatto and Windus 
 complete Poetical Works of William Blake. This may be 
 traced by comparing the use of the words Pride and Oiant, 
 Flood, City, etc., and names of cities in the poem with the 
 same words and names elsewhere — 
 
 But Pride awoke, nor knew that Joy was born, 
 And taking poisonous seed from her own bowek 
 
 In the monster Shame infused. 
 Forth came Ambition, crawling like a toad : 
 Pride bears it in her bosom and the gods 
 All bow to it. So great its power is 
 That Pride inspired by it prophetic saw 
 The kingdoms of the world and all their glory. 
 
 Giants of mighty arms, before the flood 
 
 Cain's city built with murder. 
 Then Babel mighty reared him to the skies, — 
 
 Babel with a thousand tongues. 
 Confusion it was called and given to Shame. 
 
 This Pride observing inly grieved to see, 
 
 But knew not that the rest was given to Shame 
 
 As well as this. 
 Then Nineveh, and Babylon, and Tyre, 
 And even Jerusalem, the Holy City 
 
 Was shown ; 
 Then Athens' learning and the pride of Greece, 
 And, further from the rising sun was Eome, 
 
 Seated on Seven Hills, 
 The mistress of the world, — emblem of Pride. 
 She saw the Arts their generous treasures bring 
 And Luxury his bounteous table spread. 
 
 These are lines 11 to 35 of the poem's 165. 
 
 We shall be told presently in Jerusalem that the moods 
 are eternal, and that man passes through them as a traveller 
 through cities. Some of these moods Blake called already by 
 the names of cities. His myth began at this point in fact, 
 since all myths are stories about moods made possible by 
 giving them personal names. But Blake's first step being 
 taken, there was a long pause, while his life was filled with 
 artistic rather than literary thought. 
 
 The world in a material sense is, Blake always repeats, 
 the result of an intellectual error in our moods,— indeed, no 
 
62 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 one looks on it as real, except because it gives pain and 
 pleasure, which themselves are two mental experiences. 
 Pain could be got rid of if our minds were in the right state, 
 as it is artificially destroyed by merely distracting attention 
 from it, whether by hypnotism or a martyr's ecstasy. Blake 
 tells how Albion's centres become " open to pain " when he is 
 not in the right imaginative state. He is always spoken of 
 as the Giant. His sons are giants. In the Marriage of 
 Heaven and Hell we hear of "The Giants who formed 
 this world into its several existence and now live it in 
 chains," and it becomes clear that they are energetic moods. 
 They are, in fact, "portions of Being." Everything and 
 every one in Blake's myth are portions of Being. These early 
 "giants" live in chains which are the "cunning of weak 
 minds which have power to resist energy." They " condense 
 into nations" {Jerusalem, page 53, line 8), are bound by 
 females (Jerusalem, page 67, line 45). Albion's "sons "are 
 the moods that beUeve in the reality of Nature which obhges 
 them, even when good, to be so far evil as to be haters of 
 free love, — a thing only perfect and happy ia Nature's oppo- 
 site. Imagination, the Eternal. Their father's selfhood, or 
 "reasoning power," builds "Vala," or natural love, by the 
 force of his conviction, and she becomes their mother. 
 They are so many natural demonstrations, and they dehght 
 in the war of argument. They destroy even natural love, 
 and make the world what it is to nine-tenths of our labour- 
 ing and respectable classes, a place with weary certainty of 
 evil and destruction, unrelieved by illusion, pleasure, or 
 hope. They think dreaming to be siuf ul, and prefer Morality 
 and Mystery (Babylon), thus losing all the brotherhood 
 that imaginative Pity (Jerusalem) would bring to them. 
 
 Cities are emotional states. From the book of Urizen 
 onwards they are constantly referred to. They are always 
 feminine. Cain's city is Cain's emotional condition produced 
 by the murder of a holy capacity of dreaming called Abel. 
 The Flood is the rush of general belief in the five senses that 
 overwhelmed all the mental wisdom of life except such arts 
 as were saved and called Noah and his sons. 
 
 The other "cities" in this list may be read of in 
 Jerusalem in many places. 
 
 Babel— in page 7, lines 18, 20 ; page 8, line 20 ; page 60, 
 line 56 ; page 85, line 18. 
 
 Babylon, whose references in Jerusalem under this one of 
 her names only here follow, is heard of more frequently, and 
 
WOEDS MISSED— AND WORDS FOUND 63 
 
 is also called Eahab and Vala, the goddess Nature, Bacon, 
 Newton, Locke, and the tree of Mystery. 
 
 Page 18, line 29 
 
 20, 
 21, 
 24, 
 
 26 
 30 
 25 
 26 
 
 „ „ 27 
 
 „ „ 30 
 
 » >i "1 
 
 27, in ballad 
 
 34, line 8 
 
 Page 42, line 63 
 
 52, in the prose 
 60, line 23 
 „ II 39 
 
 61, 
 
 74, 
 
 75, 
 82, 
 
 34 
 35 
 16 
 31 
 19 
 18 
 
 Page 82, line 27 
 31 
 36 
 
 84, „ 8 
 12 
 
 85, „ 32 
 38 
 48 
 
 93, „ 25 
 
 The multitude of her names helps the reader to understand her 
 in the end, though they at first require from him a keenly 
 imaginative attention if he is to escape confusion. 
 
 Nineveh is scarcely remembered ; it is mentioned on page 
 7, line 18, merely as an "admired palace" of the mind 
 reduced to ruins by the argumentative mood. 
 
 Tyre appears on page 63, line 43, and page 86, line 32, 
 first as a limit of the Land of Canaan, — a mood that rolls 
 apart from Albion though it is " higher " or more " inward " 
 than the mood that remains, and as one of the "golden 
 sandals " that once clothed the feet or nether parts of the 
 imagination of Albion. 
 
 Athens and Greece suggest the pride of accuracy in art 
 rather than of vitality to Blake. He says that Greek art is 
 mathematic. He did not in the least understand it. Eome, . 
 emblem of Pride, is the vicar of that part of Christ, as well 
 as of the feeble matter-of-fact and feminine part. The 
 serpent in Him is that sin that he " put on in the Virgin's 
 womb," as related by Blake in The Everlasting Gospel, given 
 in the Chatto and Windus edition with absolute fulness. Pride 
 is very fully treated there. Keeping constantly in miod that 
 Christ is the Human Imagination, the Eternal Thing in Man 
 that unites us all to one another till we become through it 
 One Man on whom death has no power and for whom the 
 flesh has no illusions and " reasoning from the loins '' no 
 fallacies, and remembering that Imagination was so closely 
 interwoven with Art in Blake's mind that he said, " Christ 
 and his Apostles were artists," there is no difficulty in 
 following that poem and uniting its ideas to those of the 
 verses on " The Passions." 
 
64 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 I was standing by when Jesus died : 
 What they called Humility I called Pride : 
 
 is among its rhymes. 
 
 That the masculine or intellectual is attracted by 
 imaginative emotion, and the materialistic or experience- 
 convinced part of our lives is attracted by the emotion of 
 comparison, not of direct enjoyment, — by the feeling of 
 superiority, not of delight, — is declared by Blake in another 
 allusion to pride in Jerusalem — 
 
 For Men are caught by Love : Woman is caught by Pride 
 
 (Page 81, line 6) 
 
 — a theory, disguised as a sentiment, repeated on page 87, 
 line 16. 
 
 That personal comparison is an essential characteristic of 
 our imaginative mind and actually animates its imagination, 
 producing jealousy and envy, he is always repeating. In 
 Jerusalem, a little further on, page 88, lines 22 to 33, we 
 have it set forth again. The male pride is a phase equally 
 the enemy of disinterested imagination (the "Lamb of 
 God "), and may be traced in the poems wherever the Spectre 
 or Eeasoning Power becomes Self-righteous. The seventeenth 
 stanza of the long ballad in the preface to the second chapter 
 of Jerusalem makes this clear. The feminine Jerusalem her- 
 self is here or elsewhere without pride or self-interest or 
 comparison, and is the emotional origin of brotherhood in 
 man, therefore the " Bride " of the " Lamb." 
 
 And thou, O Lamb of God, whom I 
 Slew in my dark self-righteous pride, 
 
 Art thou returned to Albion's land, 
 And is Jerusalem thy Bride ? 
 
 Of course Blake was always credulous about the theories 
 and names, and violently opposed to the hierarchical arrange- 
 ment, of the Roman Church. That the two are opposite to 
 one another is obvious enough, and refusing to shut his eyes 
 to either, he was at one moment found talking like a middle- 
 class Protestant, and the next moment like a sentimental 
 person of good birth and feeble capacities of historical medi- 
 tation who is being drawn into the great whirlpool by the 
 Church's well-known " influence." 
 
 In this first allusion to Eome on its seven hUls we see it 
 chiefly as the patron of the lower forms of art. The seven 
 hills are the heads of the seven dragons, of course. Per 
 
WOEDS MISSED— AND WORDS FOUND 65 
 
 opposite kinds of animus regarding the Church, see the childish 
 passages in the latter part of the preface to the third chapter 
 of Jerusalem, the taunting suggestion to the "spectre" in 
 page 64, line 12, and the picture of Urizen as Pope with bat's 
 wings in the ninth page of Europe. 
 
 The words "flood " and " table " are found elsewhere in Blake 
 with symbolic purpose. The "flood" is that of the "five 
 senses " that overwhelmed all but those forms of art referred 
 to under the names of Noah and his sons. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 'THE ISLAND IN THE MOON' 
 
 Blake's indignation in 1783 was no longer against Woollett 
 of " the word jocund," but against the kind people who had 
 attempted to correct him while daring to patronise him. In 
 this mood, and, as we must suppose at this time, though there 
 is no date on the MS. and none on the watermark of the 
 paper, Blake wrote his one attempt at a funny book. Like 
 his one attempt at an historical play, it was never finished. 
 It is now printed for the first time. 
 
 Its place here is not as a specimen of his work. It is part 
 of his life-story. No one can hope at this distance of time 
 to give a better account of the general impression Blake 
 received from his introduction to educated, tasteful, and 
 literary society than is to be gathered from this pasquinade. 
 The incidents in it are perhaps imaginary, and there are no 
 recognisable portraits. Blake is even careful to avoid them. 
 He gives the dialogue about Voltaire to male voices, though 
 the subject must have belonged especially to Mrs. Montagu. 
 The sketch seems to have been written with perfect good- 
 nature as well as in a mood of perfect contempt. 
 
 That Blake himself was in the wrong about the correcting 
 of the Poetical Sketches, and that he had behaved badly to the 
 friends who had encouraged and helped him, does not seem 
 to have entered his head. In this piece of sarcasm he rolls 
 his patrons about as a big dog might roll half-a-dozen little 
 dogs with his paw, and he thinks himself very good-natured 
 for not breaking their backs with one snap. 
 
 As we read The Island in the Moon it is necessary to be 
 at some pains in order not to lose all enjoyment of it, 
 through feeling too much disgust at the offensively conceited 
 ingratitude of the young author who could write such 
 mockery of people at whose house he received his iirst 
 encouragement in poetry, and from whom he had accepted 
 
'THE ISLAND IN THE MOON' 67 
 
 the substantial and soM benefit of the payment shared with 
 Flaxman for their publication. But the fault of his character 
 was never of the kind that we usually call conceit. Prom 
 the moment that the Mathews family had ceased to admire 
 him unreservedly they had actually ceased to be his friends. 
 In Jerusalem, page 43, Hnes 56, etc., we read : 
 
 It is easy to acknowledge a man to be great and good while we 
 Derogate from him in trifles and small articles of that goodness. 
 Those only are his friends who admire his minutest powers. 
 
 And we have already heard (page 30, lines 10, 11) of " Albion's 
 children " — 
 
 Being not irritated by insult, bearing insulting benevolences 
 They perceived that corporeal friends are spiritual enemies. 
 
 These lines were written more than a quarter of a century 
 after Mr. Mathews wrote the preface to the Poetical Sketches, 
 and so caused all his circle to incur the sarcasm of The 
 Island in the Moon, and they referred to Hayley, but the 
 Blake who wrote them was the same man, and his feeling 
 about his work and what his friends owed to it was the 
 same. 
 
 THE ISLAND IN THE MOON 
 
 In the Moon is a certain Island near by a mighty continent, which 
 small Island seems to have some affinity to England, and, what is 
 more extraordinary, the people are so much alike, and their language 
 so much the same, that you would think you were among your friends. 
 In this Island dwell three Philosophers — Suction the Epicurean, Quid 
 the Cynic, and Sipsop the Pythagorean. I call them by the names of 
 their sects, though the sects are never mentioned there, as being quite 
 out of date. However, the things still remain, and the vanities are the 
 same. 
 
 The three Philosophers sat together thinking of nothing. In comes 
 Etruscan Column the Antiqiiarian, and after an abundance of enquiries 
 to no purpose, sat himself down and described something that nobody 
 listened to. So they were employed when Mrs. Gimblet came in. The 
 comers of her mouth seemed — I don't know how, but very odd, as if 
 she hoped you had not an ill opinion of her, — ^to be sure, we are all 
 poor creatures ! "Well, she seated (herself) and seemed to listen with 
 great attention while the Antiquarian seemed to be talking of virtuous 
 cats. But it was not so. She was thinking of the shape of her eyes 
 and mouth, and he was thinking of his eternal fame. The three 
 Philosophers were at this time each endeavouring to conceal his 
 laughter (not at them but) at his own imagination. 
 
 This was the situation of this improving company when in a great 
 hurry Inflammable Gas the Wind - finder entered. They seemed to 
 
68 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 rise and salute each other : their tongues went in question and answer, 
 but their thoughts were otherwise employed. "I don't like his eyes," 
 said Etruscan Column. " He's a foolish puppy," said Inflammable Gas, 
 smiling on him. 
 
 The three Philosophers — the Cynic smiling, the Epicurean seeming 
 studying the flame of the candle, the Pythagorean playing with the 
 cat — ^listened with open mouths to the edifying discourse. 
 
 " Sir," said the Antiquarian, " I have seen these works, and I do 
 affirm that they are no such thing. They seem to me to be the most 
 wretched, paltry, flimsy stuff that ever " 
 
 " What d'ye say ? What d'ye say ? " said Inflammable Gas. " Why 
 — why, I wish I could see you write so." 
 
 " Sir," said the Antiquarian, " according to my opinion the author 
 is an arrant blockhead." 
 
 " Your reason — ^your reason ? " said Inflammable Gas. " Why — ^why, 
 I think it very abominable to call a man a blockhead that you know 
 nothing of." 
 
 " Eeason, sir ? " said the Antiquarian. " I'll give you an example for 
 your reason. As I was walking along the street I saw a vast number of 
 swallows on the rails of an old Gothic square. They seemed to be 
 going on their passage, as Pliny says. As I was looking up, a little 
 outri fellow, pulling me by the sleeve, said, ' Pray, sir, who do they all 
 belong to?' I turned myself about with great contempt. ! Said I, 
 ' Go along with you, fool ! ' ' Fool ! ' said he, ' who do you call fool 1 1 
 only asked you a civil question.' I had a great mind to have thrashed 
 the fellow, only he was bigger than I." 
 
 Here Etruscan Column left off. 
 
 Inflammable Gas, recollecting himself (said), " Indeed I don't think 
 the man was a fool, for he seems to me to have been desirous of enquir- 
 ing into the works of nature ! " 
 
 " Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! " said the Pythagorean. 
 
 It was re-echoed by Inflammable Gas to overthrow the argument 
 
 Etruscan Column then, starting up and clenching both his fists, was 
 prepared to give a formal answer to the company. But Obtuse Angle, 
 entering the room, having made a gentle bow, proceeded to empty his 
 pockets of a vast number of papers, turned about and sat down, wiped 
 his face with his pocket-handkerchief, and shutting his eyes, began to 
 scratch his head. 
 
 " Well, gentlemen," said he, " what is the cause of strife ? " 
 
 The Cynic answered, " They are only quarrelling about Voltaire." 
 
 " Yes," said the Epicurean, " and having a bit of fun with him." 
 
 "And," said the Pythagorean, "endeavouring to incorporate their 
 souls with their bodies." 
 
 Obtuse Angle, giving a grin, said, "Voltaire understood nothing 
 of the mathematics, and a man must be a fool i'faith not to xmderstand 
 the mathematics." 
 
 Inflammable Gas, turning round hastily in his chair, said, " Mathe- 
 matics ! He found out a number of Queries in Philosophy." 
 
 Obtuse Angle, shutting his eyes and saying that he always under- 
 stood better with his eyes shut (replied), " In the first place, it is of no 
 use for a man to make queries, but to solve them, for a man may be a 
 fool and make queries, but a man must have a good sound sense to 
 solve them. A query and an answer are as different as a straight line 
 and a crooked one. Secondly " 
 
'THE ISLAND IN THE MOON' 69 
 
 " I — I — I — aye ! Secondly, Voltaire's a fool," says the Epicurean. 
 
 " Pooli ! " says the Mathematician, scratching his head with double 
 violence. " It is not worth quarrelling about." 
 
 The Antiquarian here got up, and, hemming twice to show the 
 strength of his lungs, said, " But, my good sir, Voltaire was immersed 
 in matter, and seems to have understood very little but what he saw 
 before his eyes, like the animal upon the Pythagorean's lap, always 
 playing with its own tail." 
 
 " Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! " said Inflammable Gas. " He was the glory of 
 France. I have got a bottle of air that would spread a plague." 
 
 Here the Antiquarian shrugged up his shoulders, and was silent 
 while Inflammable Gas talked for half an hour. 
 
 When Steelyard the Lawgiver, coming in talking with an Act of 
 Parliament in his hand, said that it was a shameful thing that Acts of 
 Parliament should be in a free state. 
 
 It had so engrossed his mind that he did not salute the company. 
 
 Mrs. Gimblet drew her mouth downwards. 
 
 Chapter II 
 
 TiUy Sally the Siptippedist, Aradobo, the Dean of Morocco, Miss 
 Gittipin, Mrs. Nannicantipot, Mrs. Jistagatint, Gibble Gabble the wife 
 of Inflammable Gas, and little Scopprell entered the room. 
 
 (If I have not presented you with every character in the piece, call 
 me Ass.) 
 
 Chapter III 
 
 In the moon, as Phoebus stood over his Oriental Gardening, a " 
 ay, come, I'U sing you a song," said the Cynic. 
 
 " ' The trumpeter (spat) in his hat,' " said the Epicurean. 
 
 " and clapt it on his head," said the Pythagorean. 
 
 " I'll begin again," said the Cynic. 
 
 Little Phoebus came strutting in 
 With his fat belly and his round chin, 
 What is it you would please to have ? 
 Ho ! Ho ! 
 I won't let it go at only so, so. 
 
 Mrs. Gimblet looked as if they meant her. Tilly SaUy laughed like 
 a cherry clapper. Aradobo asked, " Who was Phoebus, sir ? " 
 
 Obtuse Angle answered quickly, "He was the God of Physic, 
 Painting, Perspective, Geometry, Geography, Astronomy, Cookery, 
 Chemistry, Mechanics, Tactics, Pathology, Ohrascology, Theology, 
 Mythology, Astrology, Osteology, Somatology (sic)— in short, every art 
 and science adorned him as beads round his neck." 
 
 Here Aradobo looked astonished and asked if he understood 
 Enp-aving. 
 
 Obtuse Angle answered, " Indeed he did." 
 "Well," said the other, "he was as great as Chatterton." 
 Tilly Sally turned round to Obtuse Angle and asked who it was 
 that was as great as Chatterton. 
 
70 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 " Hay ! How should I know ? " answered Obtuse Angle. " Who 
 was it, — Aradobo ? " 
 
 " Why, sir," said he, " the gentleman that the song was about." 
 
 "Ah," said Tilly Sally, "I did not hear it What was it. Obtuse 
 Angle?" 
 
 " Pooh," said he. " Nonsense ! " 
 
 "Mhm," said TiUv Sally. 
 
 " It was Phoebus, said the Epicurean. 
 
 " Ah, that was the gentleman," said Aradobo. 
 
 "Pray, sir," said Tilly Sally, "who was Phoebus ?" 
 
 Obtuse Angle answered, "The Heathen in the old ages used to 
 have gods that they worshipped, and they used to sacrifice to them. 
 You have read about that in the Bible." 
 
 "Ah," said Aradobo, "I thought I had read of Phoebus in the 
 Bible." 
 
 "Aradobo, you should always think before you speak," said Obtuse 
 Angle. 
 
 " Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! He means Pharaoh," said TiUy SaUy. 
 
 " I am ashamed of you, — making use of the names in the Bible," said 
 Mrs. Jistagatint. 
 
 "I'll tell you what, Mrs. Imagerine. I don't think there's any 
 harm in it," said Tilly Sally. 
 
 "No," said Inflammable Gas. "I have got a camera obscura at 
 home." 
 
 " Law ! What has that to do with Pharoe ? " said TiUy SaUy. 
 
 " Pho ! Nonsense ! Hang Pharoe and all his hosts," said the 
 Pythagorean. "Sing away, Quid." 
 
 Then the Cynic sang — 
 
 Honour and Genius is all I ask, 
 
 And I ask the gods no more. 
 
 No more, No more, \ The three philosophers 
 No more, No more. J bear chorus. 
 
 Here Aiadobo sucked his under lip. 
 
 Chapter IV 
 
 "Hang names!" said the Pythagorean. "What's Pharoh better 
 than Phoebus, or Phoebus than Pharoh ? " 
 
 " Hang them both," said the Cynic. 
 
 " Don't be profane," said Mrs. Intagatist. 
 
 " Why ? " said Mrs. Nannicantipot. 
 
 " I don't think it's profane to say ' Hang Pharoh and son ! ' " said 
 Mrs. Sinagain. "I'm sure you ought to hold your tongue, for you 
 never sa,y anything about the Scriptures, and you hinder your husband 
 from going to church." 
 
 " Ha, ha ! " said Inflammable Gas. " Why, don't you like going to 
 church ? " 
 
 " No," said Mrs. Nannicantipot " I think a person may be as good 
 at home." 
 
 "If I had not a place of profit that forces me to go to church," 
 said Inflammable Gas, " I'd see the parsons all hanged,— a parcel of 
 lying " 
 
'THE ISLAND IN THE MOON' 71 
 
 " Oh ! " said Mrs. Istagatint. " If it was not for churclies and chapels 
 I should not have lived so long. There was I, up in the morning at 
 four, when I was a girL I would run like the dickens tiU I was all in 
 a heat. I would stand till I was ready to sink into the earth. Ah, 
 Mr. Huffcap would kick the bottom of the pulpit out with passion, — 
 would tear off the sleeve of his gown and set his wig on fire, and throw 
 it at the people. He 'Id cry and stamp and kick and sweat, and all for 
 the good of their souls." 
 
 " I'm sure he must be a wicked villain,'' said Mrs. Nannicantipot, 
 " a passionate wretch. If I was a man I'd wait at the bottom of the 
 pulpit stairs and knock him down, and run away ! " 
 
 " You would, you ignorant jade ? I wish I could see you hit any 
 of the ministers ! You deserve to have your ears boxed, you do." 
 
 " I'm sure this is not religion," answers the other. 
 
 Then Mr. Inflammable Gas ran and shoved his head into the fire 
 
 and set his hair all in a flame, and ran about the room ' No, no, 
 
 he did not ; I was only making a fool of you. 
 
 Chapter V 
 
 Obtuse Angle, Scopprell, Aradobo, and Tilly Sally aU met in Obtuse 
 Angle's study. 
 
 " Pray," said Aradobo, " is Ohatterton a Mathematician ? " 
 
 " No," said Obtuse Angle. " How could you be so foolish as to think 
 that he was ? " 
 
 " Oh, I did not think he was, — I only asked," said Aradobo. 
 
 " How could you think he was not, and ask if he was ? " said Obtuse 
 Angle. 
 
 "Oh no, no. I did think he was, before you told me, but after- 
 wards I thought he was not." 
 
 Obtuse Angle said, " In the first place you thought he was, and 
 then when I said he was not, you thought he was not. Why, I know 
 that." 
 
 " Oh no, sir, I thought that he was not, but I asked to know whether 
 he was." 
 
 " How can that be ? " said Obtuse Angle. " How could you think 
 that he was not ? " 
 
 " Why," said he, "it came into my head that he was not." 
 
 "Why, then," said Obtuse Angle, "you said that he was.'' 
 
 " Did I say so ? Law ! I did not think I said that." 
 
 "Did not he ?" said Obtuse Angle. 
 
 " Yes," said Scopprell. 
 
 " But I meant " said Aradobo, " I— I— I can't think. Law, sir, 
 
 I wish you would teU me how it is." 
 
 Then Obtuse Angle pvit his chin in his hand and said, " Whenever 
 you think, you must always think for yourself." 
 
 "How, sir?" said Aradobo. "Whenever I think, I must think 
 myself ? I think I do. In the first place " said he with a grin. 
 
 " Poo ! Poo ! " said Obtuse Angle. " Don't be a fooL" 
 
 Then Tilly SaUy took up a Quadrant, and asked, " Is not this a 
 sun-dial?" 
 
 "Yes," said ScoppreU, " but it's broke." 
 
72 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 At this moment the three Philosophers entered, and lowering 
 darkness hovered over the assembly. 
 
 " Come," said the Epicurean, " let's have some rum and water, and 
 hang the mathematics ! Come, Aradobo ! Say something." 
 
 Then Aradobo began, "In the first place I think. I think that 
 Chatterton was clever at Fissie Follogy, Pistinology, Aridology, Aro- 
 graphy, Transmography, Phizography, Hogamy, Hatomy, and hall 
 that, but, in the first place, he eat very little, wickly (sic). That is, he 
 slept very little, which he brought into a consumption ; and what was 
 that that he took ? Pissic (sic) or something, — and so died ! " 
 
 So all the people in the book entered the room, and they could not 
 talk any more to the present purpose. 
 
 Chapter VI 
 
 They all went home and left the Philosophers. Then Suction asked 
 if Pindar was not a better poet than Ghiotto (sic) was a painter. 
 
 " Plutarch has not the life of Ghiotto," said Sipsop. 
 
 " No," said Quid, — " to be sure, he was an Italian." 
 
 " Well," said Suction, — " to be sure, that is not any proof." 
 
 " Plutarch was a nasty ignorant Puppy," said Quid. " I hate your 
 sneaking rascals. There's Aradobo in ten or twelve years will be a 
 far superior genius." 
 
 " Ah ! " said the Pythagorean, " Aradobo wiU make a very clever 
 fellow." 
 
 " Why," said Quid, " I think that any natural fool would make a 
 very clever fellow, if he was properly brought up." 
 
 " Ah, hang your reasoning ! " said the Epicurean. " I hate reasoning. 
 I do everything by feeling.' 
 
 " Ah ! " said Sipsop, " I only wish Jack Tearguts had had the cutting 
 of Plutarch. He understands Anatomy better than any of the ancients. 
 He'll plimge his knife up to the hilt in a single drive, and thrust his 
 fist in, and all in the space of a quarter of an hour. He doesn't mind 
 their crying, though they cry ever so. He'll swear at them and keep 
 them down with his fist, and tell them that he'll scrape their bones if 
 they don't lie still and be quiet. What the devil should these people 
 in the hospital that get it done for nothing make such a piece of 
 work for 1 " 
 
 " Hang that," said Suction ; " let's have a song." Then the Cynic 
 sang — 
 
 1. 
 
 When old corruption first began, 
 
 Adorned in yellow vest, 
 He committed on Flesh a whoredom, 
 
 Oh, what a wicked beast ! 
 
 From thence a callow babe did spring, 
 And old corruption smiled, 
 
 To think his race should never end. 
 For now he had a child. 
 
'THE ISLAND IN THE MOON' 73 
 
 3. 
 
 He called him surgery, and led 
 
 The babe with his own milk, 
 For flesh and he could ne'er agree. 
 
 She would not let him suck. 
 
 4. 
 
 And this he always kept in mind. 
 
 And found a crooked knife, 
 And ran about with bloody hands 
 
 To seek his mother's life. 
 
 5. 
 
 And as he ran to seek his mother, 
 
 He met with a dead woman, 
 He fell in love and married her ; 
 
 A deed which is not common. 
 
 6. 
 
 She soon grew pregnant and brought forth 
 
 Scurvy and spotted fever. 
 The father grinned and skipped about, 
 
 And said, " I'm made for ever ! 
 
 7. 
 For now I have procured these imps 
 
 I'll try experiments." 
 With that he tied poor scurvy down 
 
 And stopped up all his vents. 
 
 And when the child began to swell. 
 
 He shouted out aloud, 
 " I've found the dropsy out, and soon 
 
 Shall do the world more good." 
 
 He took up fever by the neck 
 
 And cut out all its spots, 
 And through the holes that he had made 
 
 He first discovered guts. 
 
 "Ah," said Sipsop, "you think we are rascals— you think we are 
 rascals. I do as I choose. What is it to anybody what I do ? I am 
 always unhappy too. When I think of surgery,— I don't know. I do 
 it because I like it. I think, somehow, I'll leave it off, 'There was a 
 woman having her cancer cut, and she shrieked so I was quite sick." 
 
 Chapter VII 
 
 " Good-night," said Sipsop. 
 " Good-night," said the other two. 
 
 Then Quid and Suction were left alone. Then said Quid, " I thmk 
 that Homer is bombast, and Shakespeare is too wild, and Milton has 
 
74 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 no feelings: they might easily be outdone. Chatterton never writ 
 those poems ! A parcel of fools, going to Bristol ! If I was to go, I'd 
 find it out in a minute." , ., . . 
 
 " If I don't knock them all up next year in the Exhibition, I U be 
 hanged," said Suction. " Hang philosophy ! I would not give a 
 farthing for it ! Do all by your feelings, and never think at all about 
 it. I'm hanged if I don't get up to-morrow morning by four o'clock 
 and work Sir Joshua." 
 
 " Before ten years are at an end," said Quid, " I will work those poor 
 milksop devils, — an ignorant pack of wretches ! " 
 
 So they went to bed. 
 
 Chaptee VIII 
 
 Steelyard the lawyer, sitting at his table, taking extracts from 
 Hervey's Meditations Among the Tombs and Young's Night Thoughts. 
 
 " He is not able to hurt me," said he, " more than making me con- 
 stable or taking away the parish business. That ! 
 
 My crop of corn is but a field of tares, 
 
 says Jerome. Happiness is not for us, poor crawling reptUes of the 
 earth. Talk of happiness — happiness ! It's no such thing. Every one 
 has a something. 
 
 Hear then the pride and knowledge of a sailor, 
 
 The spritsail, foresail, mainsail, and his mizen. 
 A poor frail man ! God wot I know none fraUer. 
 I know no gieater sinner than John Taylor. 
 
 If I'd only myself to care for I 'Id soon make Double Elephant look 
 foolish, and FilUgree work. I hope I shall live to see 
 
 The wreck of matter and the crush of worlds, 
 
 as Young says.'' 
 
 Obtuse .Ajigle entered the room. 
 
 " "What news, Mr. Steelyard ? " 
 
 " I am reading Thison and Aspasis," said he. 
 
 Obtuse Angle took up the books one by one. 
 
 " I don't find it here," said he. 
 
 " Oh no," said the other, " it was the Meditations ! " 
 
 Obtuse Angle took up the book and read till the other was quite 
 tired out. 
 
 Then Scopprell and Miss Qittipin coming in, Scopprell took up a book 
 and read the following passage : — 
 
 " An Essay on the Human Understanding, by John Lookye Gant." 
 
 "John Locke," said Obtuse Angle. 
 
 " Oh, ay, — Lock," said Scopprell 
 
 " Now here," said Miss Gittipin, — " I never saw such company in my 
 life. You are always talking of your books. I like to be where we 
 talk. You had better take a walk, that we may have some pleasure. 
 There's Double Elephant's girls. They have their own way. And 
 there's Miss Filligreework, she goes out in her coaches, her footman and 
 her maids, and Stormont's and Balloon hats, and a pair of gloves every 
 
'THE ISLAND IN THE MOON" 75 
 
 day, and the Sorrows of Wertlier, and Robinsons ; and the Queen of 
 France's Puss colour, and my cousin Gibble Gabble says that I am like 
 nobody else. I might as weU be in a nunnery. Then they go in post- 
 chaises and stages to Vaxhaul and Eaneleigh, and I hardly faiow what 
 a coach is, except when I go to Mr. Jaoto's. He knows what riding is, 
 and his wife is the most agreeable woman. You hardly know she has 
 a tongue in her head, and he is the funniest fellow, and I do believe he'll 
 go in Parliament ■with his master, and they have black servants lodge 
 at their house. I never saw such a place in my life He says he has 
 six-and-twenty rooms in his house, and I believe it, and he is not such 
 a bear as Quid thinks he is." 
 
 " Pooh ! Pooh ! Hold your tongue. Hold your tongue," said the 
 lawgiver. 
 
 ■This quite provoked Miss Gittipin, to interrupt her in her favourite 
 topic, and she proceeded to use every provoking speech that ever she 
 could, and he bore it more like a saint than a lawgiver, and with great 
 solemnity he addressed the company in these words : — 
 
 "They call women the weaker vessel, but I think they are the 
 strongest. A girl has always more tongue than a boy. I have seen a 
 little brat no higher than a nettle, and she had as much tongue as a city 
 dark (sic). But a boy would be such a fool not to have anything to 
 say, and if anybody asked him a question he would put his head into a 
 hole and hide it. I am sure I take but little pleasure. You have as 
 much pleasure as I have. There I stand and bear every fool's insult. 
 If I had only myself to care for I would wring off their noses." 
 
 To this Scopprell answered, " I think the Ladies' discourses, Mr. 
 Steelyard, are some of them more improving than any book. That is 
 the way I have got some of my knowledge." 
 
 " Then," said Miss Gittipin, " Mr. Scopprell, do you know the song 
 of Phoebe and JeUicoe ? " 
 
 " No, Miss," said SooppreU. 
 
 Then she repeated these verses, while Steelyard walked about the 
 room. 
 
 Phcebe, dressed like beauty's queen, 
 Jellicoe in faint pea-green, 
 Sitting all beneath a grot 
 Where the little lambkins trot ; 
 
 Maidens dancing, loves a-sporting, 
 All the country folk a-courting, 
 Susan, Johnny, Bet, and Joe 
 Lightly tripping on a row. 
 
 Happy people, who can be 
 In happiness compared to ye ? 
 The pilgrim with his crook and hat 
 Sees your happiness compleat. 
 
 " A charming song, indeed. Miss,'' said Scopprell. 
 
 Here they received a summons to the Philosopher's house. 
 
 Chaptee IX 
 
 " I say, this evening we'll all get drunk, — I say— dash !— an Anthem, 
 an Anthem ! " said Suction. 
 
76 THE KEAL BLAKE 
 
 Lo the bat on leaden wing, 
 Winking and blinking, 
 Winking and blinking, 
 Winking and blinking, 
 Like Dr. Johnson. 
 
 Quid. "Oho," said Dr. Johnson 
 To Soipio Africanus, 
 "If you don't own mo a philosopher, 
 I'll kick your Eoman Anus." 
 
 Suction. "Aha," to Dr. Johnson 
 Said Scipio Africanus, 
 " Lift up my Roman Petticoat 
 And kiss my Koman Anus." 
 
 And the cellar goes down ^vith a step. (Gramd chorus.) 
 
 " Ho, Ho, Ho, Ho, Ho, Ho, Ho, Ho, Hooooo.mypoooooorsiiides. I, 
 I should die if I was to live here ! " said ScopprelL " Ho, Ho, Ho, Ho, 
 
 Ho ! " 
 
 Ist Voice. Want matches ? 
 
 2n(i Voice. Yes, yes, yes. 
 
 \st Voice. Want matches ? 
 
 2nd Voice. No. 
 
 1st Voice. Want matches * 
 
 2nd Voice. Yes, yes, yes. 
 
 \st Voice. Want matches ? 
 
 2nd Voice. No. 
 
 Here was great confusion and disorder. Aradobo said that the boys 
 in the street sing something very pretty and funny about matches. 
 Then Mrs. Nannicantipot sang : 
 
 I cry my matches as far as Guild Hall ; — 
 God bless the Duke and his aldermen aU ! 
 
 Then sang Scopprell : 
 
 I ask the gods no more, — 
 No more, no more. 
 
 "Then,'' said Suction, "come, Mr. Lawgiver, your song." 
 And the Lawgiver sang : 
 
 As I walked abroad on a May morning 
 
 To see the fields so pleasant and gay. 
 
 Oh there did I spy a young maiden sweet 
 
 Among the violets that smell so sweet. 
 Smell so sweet, — smell so sweet. 
 Among the violets that smell so sweet. 
 
 " Hang your violets ! Here's your rum and water. ay," said 
 Tilly Sally, " Joe Bradley and I was going along one day in the sugar- 
 house. Joe Bradley saW' — for he had but one eye — saw a treacle jar. 
 Soke goes of his blind side, and dips his hand up to the shoulder in 
 
'THE ISLAND IN THE MOON' 77 
 
 treacle. 'Here, lick, lik, like!' aaid he. Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! 
 for he had but one eye. Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! Ho ! " 
 Then sang Scopprell : 
 
 And I ask the gods no more, — 
 No more, no more. 
 No more, no more. 
 
 " Miss Gittipin," said he, " you sing like a harpsichord. Let your 
 bounty descend to our fair ears and favour us with a fine song." 
 Then she sang : 
 
 This cock he would a-wooing ride, 
 
 Kitty alone, — Kitty alone, — 
 This frog he would a-wooing ride, — 
 
 Kitty alone and I ! 
 Sing, cook, I carry Kitty alone, 
 
 Kitty alone, — Kitty alone, — 
 Oock, I carry Kitty alone, — 
 
 Kitty alone and I ! 
 
 " Charming ! Truly elegant ! " said Scopprell. 
 And I ask the gods no more ! 
 " Hang your serious songs ! " said Sipsop, and he sang as follows :— 
 
 Fa ra ro bo ro 
 
 Fa ra bo ra 
 Sa ba ra za ba rare roro 
 Sa ra ra ra bo ro zo zo 
 
 Kadara 
 Sarapodo no flo ro. ' 
 
 " Hang Italian songs ! Let's have English ! " said Quid. " English 
 genius for ever ! Here I go : 
 
 Hail, Matrimony, made of Love, 
 To thy wide gates how gi'eat a drove 
 
 On purpose to be wed do come. 
 Widows and maids and youths also. 
 That lightly trip on beauty's toe 
 
 Or sit on Beauty's bum. 
 
 Hail, finger-footed lovely creatures. 
 The females of our human natures, 
 
 Formed to suckle all mankind. 
 'Tis you that come in time of need ; 
 Without you we should never breed. 
 
 Or any comfort find. 
 
 For if a damsel's blind or lame. 
 
 Or Nature's hand has crooked her frame, 
 
 Or if she's deaf, or is wall-eyed. 
 Yet if her heart is well inclined. 
 Some tender lover she will find 
 
 That fainteth for a bride. 
 
78 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 The universal Poultice this, 
 To ease whatever is amiss 
 
 In damsel Or in widow gay. 
 It makes them smile, it makes them skip : 
 Like birds just cured of the pip, 
 
 They chirp, and hop away. 
 
 Then come ye maidens, come ye swains, 
 Come to be cured of your pains, _ 
 In Matrimony's golden cage." 
 
 "Go and be hanged!" said ScopprelL "How can you have the 
 face to make game of matrimony 1" ..... , 
 
 Then Quid called upon Obtuse Angle, and he, wiping his face and 
 looking on the comer of the ceiling, sang : 
 
 To be, or not to be, 
 Of great capacity, 
 
 Like Sir Isaac Newton, 
 Or Locke, or Doctor South, 
 Or Sherlock upon Death ? 
 
 I'd rather be Sutton. 
 
 For he did build a house 
 For aged men and youth, 
 
 With walls of brick and stone. 
 He furnished it within 
 With whatever he could win. 
 
 And all his own. 
 
 He drew out of the stocks 
 His money in a box. 
 
 And sent his servant 
 To Green the bricklayer 
 And to the carpenter ;— 
 
 He was so fervent. 
 
 The chimneys were three score. 
 The windows many more. 
 
 And for convenience 
 He sinks and gutters made 
 And all the way he paved 
 
 To hinder pestilence. 
 
 Was not this a good man. 
 Whose life was but a span, 
 
 Whose name was Sutton, — 
 As Locke, or Dr. South, 
 Or Sherlock upon Death, 
 
 Or Sir Isaac Newton ? 
 
 The Lawgiver was very attentive, and begged to have it sung over 
 again and again, till the company were tired, and insisted on the 
 Lawgiver singing a song himself, which he readily complied with. 
 
 This city and this country has brought forth many Mayors, 
 To sit in state and give forth laws out of their old oak chairs. 
 With face as brown as any nut with drinking of strong ale ; 
 Good English hospitality, then it did not fail. 
 
'THE ISLAND IN THE MOON' 79 
 
 With scarlet gowns and broad gold lace would make a yeoman sweat, 
 With stockings rolled above their knees and shoes as black as jet, 
 With eating beef and drinking beer, they were stout and hale i 
 Good English hospitality, then it did not fail I 
 
 Thus sitting at the table wide the Mayor and Aldermen 
 Were fit to give laws to the city ; each eat as much as ten. 
 The hungry poor entered the hall, to eat good beef and ale. 
 Good English hospitality, then it did not fail ! 
 
 Here they gave a shout, and the company broke up. 
 
 Chapter X 
 
 Thus these happy Islanders spent their time. But felicity does not 
 last long, for, being met at the house of Mr. Inflammable Gas the 
 Wind-finder, the following affairs happened. 
 
 "Come, Flammable," said Gibble Gabble, " and let's enjoy our- 
 selves. Bring the puppets." 
 
 "Hay,— hay," said he, "you, — she !— why — ya ! ya. How can you 
 be so foolish ? Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! She caUs the experiments puppets ! " 
 
 Then he went upstairs and loaded the maid with glasses, and brass 
 tubes, and magic pictures. 
 
 " Here, ladies and gentlemen," said he, " I'll show you a louse, or a 
 flea, or a butterfly, or a cockchafer, the blade bone of a tittle-back {sic). 
 No, no. Here's a bottle of weed that I took up in the bog, and— dear, 
 dear, the water's got into the sliders ! Look here, Gibble Gabble ! 
 Lend me your handkerchief, Tilly Sally.'' 
 
 Tilly Sally took out his handkerchief, which smeared the glass 
 worse than ever. Then he screwed it on. Then he took the sliders, 
 and then he set up the glasses, for the ladies to view the pictures. 
 Thus he was employed, and quite out of breath, while Tilly Sally and 
 Scopprell were pumping at the air-pump. Smack went the glass. 
 
 " Hang ! " said Tilly SaUy. 
 
 Inflammable Gas turned short round and threw down the table and 
 glasses, and pictures, and broke the bottles of wind, and let out the 
 Pestilence. 
 
 He saw the Pestilence fly out of the bottle, and cried out, while he 
 ran out of the room : 
 
 " 0, come out ! Come out ! We are putrefied ! We are corrupted ! 
 Our lungs are destroyed with the Flogiston (sic). This will spread the 
 plague all through the Island ! " 
 
 He was downstairs the very first. On the back of him came all the 
 others in a heap. 
 
 So they need not bidding go. 
 
 Chapter XI 
 
 Another merry meeting at the house of Steelyard the Lawgiver. 
 After supper Steelyard and Obtuse Angle had pumped Inflammable 
 Gas quite dry. They played at forfeits, and tried every method to get 
 good-humour. 
 
80 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 Said Miss Gittipin, " Pray, Mr. Obtuse Angle, sing us a song." 
 Then he sang : 
 
 Upon a Holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean, 
 The children walking two and two in grey or blue and green. 
 Grey-headed beadles walked before, with wanda as white as snow, 
 Till into the high dome of Paul's they, like Thames waters, flow. 
 
 what a multitude they seemed, these flowers of London town ! 
 Seated in companies they sit, with radiance all their own. 
 The hum of multitudes were there, but multitudes of lambs. 
 Thousands of little girls and boys raising their innocent hands. 
 
 Then, like a mighty wind, they raise to heaven the voice of song. 
 Or like harmonious thundering the seats of heaven among. 
 Beneath them sit the reverent men, the guardians of the poor. 
 Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door. 
 
 After this they all sat silent for a quarter of an hour, and Mrs. 
 Nannicantipot said, " It puts me in mindTof my mother's song — 
 
 When the voices of children are heard on the green. 
 
 And laughing is heard on the hill ; 
 My heart is at rest within my breast. 
 
 And everything else is still. 
 
 Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down. 
 
 And the dews of night arise ; 
 Come, come, leave off play, and let us away 
 
 Till the morning appears in the skies. 
 
 No, no, let us play, for it is yet day. 
 
 And we cannot go to sleep — 
 Besides in the sky the little birds fly, 
 
 And the meadows are covered with sheep. 
 
 Well, well, go and play while the light fades away, 
 
 And then go home to bed. 
 The little ones leaped, and shouted, and ran. 
 
 And all the hills echoed." 
 
 Then sung Quid : — 
 
 father, father, where are you going ? 
 
 Oh do not walk so fast ; 
 Oh, speak, father, speak to your little boy, 
 
 Or else I shall be lost. 
 
 The night was dark and no father was there. 
 
 And the child was wet with dew. 
 The mire was deep, and the child did weep. 
 
 And away the vapour flew. 
 
 Here nobody could sing any longer, tiU Tilly Sally plucked up a 
 spirit, and he sung : 
 
 I say, you Joe, 
 Throw us the ball. 
 I've a good mind to go, 
 And leave you all. 
 

 ^ 
 
 ^f^ /uSD ;^i«3^ a^^Jiii -L/^y^ cc^u..^ ^M^iir^j,^ 
 
 r V-i^ 
 
 ^jU^i. uA^ «t ■->^y/'^^y U^t^i ^Lcy Z^It^c /i~«X<n>^ ^ 
 
 y/uP (J-/^ -»^ '^ t^^O yf''^^ ^SB^ n^4rMi/ty V 
 
 '^a\-r 
 
 
 Page fucm the MS. of "The Islaxi. ix the Moon," 
 ril.owinf, where the .s'o«,/s c>/ y«,u,a„cv aft.rwar.Ls „„ml,.rea 11 and 24 ivere tir.t writta. 
 

 ^^^-y^ 'j.-^ir^ ic'a/ii J.r /-^,. , 
 
 ^/j/x^d. /iJi^ yieoA ^y^"--^ ^^ 
 
 
 
 o^ €ii>^ 'y^/j/-^ djA 
 
 yZ. -r^iU J-^-^ ,^a^ ^'t^"/^^ *^^iA 
 
 9L 
 
 
 Jlfii'^ 
 
 /., 
 
 
 
 
 ^z<L d»-tr •t^^ ^-hj»tj ;t*-iu '^/uj2^ ^ "Ji-^Ct^ 
 
 Page fi;u,m thk US. or "The Isi,a>:ii ik the JIoun," 
 Sliowiiig where the .?'/«</ nf Iniiucence afterwards imiiibere'l 13 was first writfeii. 
 
•THE ISLAND IN THE MOON' 81 
 
 I never saw such a bowler, 
 To bowl the ball in a t — d (tansey), 
 And to clean it with my handkeroher 
 Without saying a word. 
 
 That Bill's a foolish fellow, 
 
 He has given me a black eye. 
 
 He does not know how to handle a bat 
 
 Any more than a dog or cat. 
 
 He has knocked down the wicket 
 
 And broke the stumps. 
 
 And runs without shoes to save his pumps. 
 
 Here a laugh began, and Miss Gittipin sang : 
 
 Leave, leave me to my sorrow. 
 
 Here I'll sit and fade away ; 
 Till I'm nothing but a spirit. 
 
 And I love this form of clay. 
 
 Then if chance along this forest 
 
 Any walk in pathless ways, 
 Through the gloom he'll see my shadow, 
 
 Hear my voice upon the breeze. 
 
 The Lawgiver, all the while, sat delighted to see them in such a 
 serious humour. " Mr. ScoppreU," said he, " you must be acquainted 
 with a great many songs." 
 
 " Oh, dear sir ! Ho, Ho, Ho, I am no singer. I must beg of one of 
 those tender-hearted ladies to sing for me." 
 
 They all declined, and he was forced to sing for himself : 
 
 There's Dr. Clash 
 
 And Signor Falalasole : 
 they sweep in the cash, — 
 
 Into their purse('s; hole. 
 
 Great A ! Little A, 
 
 Bouncing B. 
 Play away, — play away, 
 
 You're out of the key. 
 
 Fa me sol. Fa me sol. 
 
 Musicians should have 
 
 A pair of very good ears. 
 And long fingers and thumbs, 
 
 And not like dancing bears. 
 
 Fa me sol. La me fa sol. 
 
 Gentlemen, gentlemen ! 
 
 Kap, rap, rap, — 
 Fiddle, fiddle, fiddle,— 
 
 Clap, clap, clap. 
 
 Fa me la sol. La me fa sol. 
 
82 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 Then said the Lawgiver, " Funny enough ! Let's have Handel's 
 water piece — 
 
 A crowned king, 
 
 On a white horse sitting, 
 
 With his trumpets sounding, 
 
 And banners flying, 
 
 Through the clouds of smoke he made his way. 
 
 And the shout of his thousands fills his heart with rejoicing and victory. 
 
 And the shout of his thousands fills his heart with rejoicing and victory. 
 
 Victory ! Victory ! 'Twas William, Prince of Orange, — 
 
 (Here a page is wanting, if not more. ) 
 
 — thus illuminating the manuscript." 
 
 "Ay," said she, "that would be excellent." 
 
 " Then," said he, " I would have all the wording engraved instead of 
 printed, and at every other leaf a liigh-ftnished print, — all in three 
 volumes folio, — and sell them (for) a hundred pounds apiece. They 
 would print off two thousand." 
 
 " Then," said she, " whoever will not have them will not deserve to 
 live." 
 
 " Don't you think I have something of the goat's fece ? " said he. 
 
 " Very like a goat's face,'' she answered. 
 
 " I think your face," said he, " is like that noble beast the tiger. 
 Oh, I was at Mrs. Sicknacher's, and I was speaking of my abilities, but 
 their nasty hearts, poor devils, are eat(en) up with envy. They envy 
 my abilities, and all the women envy your abilitiea" 
 
 " My dear, they hate people who are of higher abilities than their 
 nasty, filthy selves. But do you outface them, and then strangers will 
 see that you have an opinion.'" 
 
 " Now I think we should do as much good as we can when we are 
 at Mr. Femality's. Do you snap, and take me up, and I will laU into 
 such a passion. I'll hollow and stamp, and frighten all the people 
 there, and show them what truth is." 
 
 At this instant Obtuse Angle came in. 
 
 " Oh, I am glad you are come," said Quid. 
 
 Having begun with laughter, Blake ends very suddenly 
 with a mixture of feelings. He has drifted by a mere accident 
 into the idea of the Songs of Innocence, the book through 
 which he is still best known all the world over. He was too 
 young and good-natured to keep up the mood of bitter 
 derision for long at a time. He has lost his way into the 
 region of beauty when he intended mere mockery. It occurs 
 to him suddenly that he has hit on a new kind of art, and he 
 pauses. The Songs of Innocence, with their pages printed on 
 floating tints of sunrise, with their verses nestled up against 
 quaint or pretty designs, and with the touch of the author's 
 own hand upon every page, have always been an invention 
 about which the world has wondered with increasing delight. 
 The price of a copy (including the second part, the Songs of 
 
'THE ISLAND IN THE MOON' 83 
 
 Experience) in Blake's time was five guineas. A hundred 
 guineas would not be considered unusual now, and more has 
 been paid for the best examples. 
 
 Those of us who have been dissatisfied with the mere 
 vague, general attribution of their originality and sweetness 
 to Blake's spirituality and genius are no longer to be kept at 
 arm's length from the author by the prestige of these beautiful 
 words. We can come nearer to his mind. We find that the 
 substance or sentiment of the opening poems was due to his 
 amusement at the sentimentality of the ladies who sang 
 similar songs at Eathbone Place, while the form and appear- 
 ance were invented as a mock at the hare-brained projects of 
 one of the men who wanted to be preposterously original in 
 order to outdo the others. To outdo is a phrase in this 
 caricature which went straight to the centre of Blake's 
 character. There is a similar meaning to the word " work " 
 in these pages. " I could work him " simply meant " I could 
 excel so as to humiliate him " in the Eathbone Place drawing- 
 room. 
 
 But just as vulgar people become especially revolting and 
 unendurable when they try to be witty, so poetic people — 
 those at least in whom the real faculty of poetry is deep 
 down — cannot remain shallow and childish, even when only 
 intending to make fun, if they compose verse iipon really 
 beautiful and lovable subjects. The simplicity of lovers in a 
 grot will bring a sweetness to the tune of their words, and 
 the subhmity and pathos of a crowd of innocent children as 
 they sing tunes, feeling the pinch of mutability as sunset 
 puts a term to their wild play, has a magic power on the 
 nerves of poets as they write, and affects the verse itself ; so 
 that what comes forth under such influences is not verse 
 merely, but poetry. 
 
 This innate tendency to tune the measure in harmony 
 with the thought was Blake's real muse, though he never 
 knew it. This was the " author in eternity " who " dictated 
 to him" his "mild song." When he wrote mere sarcasm 
 about conceit, envy, folly, and fraud, that author went on a 
 journey like*Baal and could not be called, or peradventure 
 he slept and would not be awakened. 
 
 In the small portion of the MS. of The Island in the 
 Moon here reproduced we see the handwriting of the first of 
 the Songs of Innocence as it was composed, and we see 
 beyond that of the second a fragment of how the manu- 
 script ran on, — a sarcastic piece of deliberate foolishness, not 
 
84 THE KEAL BLAKE 
 
 even free from the reproach of coarseness. Blake was so 
 deficient in the power of seizing the value of his own literary 
 work that it was only a page or two later that he was piilled 
 up hy seeing that he was playing with what should be im- 
 portant and beautiful, when his artistic imagination saw the 
 poems of the future printed on rainbows of beauty and making 
 visible on the page the colours of the excitement that their 
 delight owned as an atmosphere. 
 
 We are sometimes reminded that the faculty of seeing 
 colour at all in nature around us is very imperfect still ia 
 our branch of the Aryan race, and is of very modem develop- 
 ment. There was as little colour in art as there was in music 
 harmony a few centuries ago. The harmony of to-day is as 
 new as the seven colours now commonly found in the rain- 
 bow. Our fathers ordy saw three. 
 
 An improvement in general perception seldom comes to a 
 whole race, or even to a whole country, at once. A great 
 man here, and a great man there, first sees or hears in his 
 mind what others are taught to see and hear through him. 
 
 Blake's own faculty of vision in art will soon be within 
 most people's power, though it still causes his sanity to be 
 suspected by many people who know more of medical text- 
 books than of the imagination which they parcel out so ghbly 
 into normal and morbid. The idea that " normal " supphes 
 us with a criterion by which to measure sanity is, Max Nordau 
 notwithstanding, as funny as anything in The Island in the 
 Moon. Blake himself deliberately advised artistic youth to 
 " cultivate imagination till it reaches vision." 
 
 There is an idea now gaining ground that colours have a 
 direct relation to sounds, as these have to emotions. Blake 
 has left an accidental observation which tells his own position 
 here in a way that reveals, as an inherent quality of his 
 emotional organism, the origin of the colouring that covers 
 the pages of the Songs of Innocence, and explains why he 
 instantly saw, even though first conceived in fun, the serious- 
 ness of the idea of treating printed verse in this way. In the 
 description of the appalling vision of Leviathan in the Marriage 
 of Heaven and Hell we are told, " His forehead was divided 
 into streaks of green and purple, like those on a tiger's 
 forehead." 
 
 These colours are those of the emotions of " vegetative " 
 or physical fury that we cannot separate from our imagina- 
 tions when we think of a tiger's forehead. 
 
 With the Songs of Innocence, not as printed, but as first 
 
'THE ISLAND IN THE MOON' 86 
 
 written during the time of The Island in the Moon, really 
 closes the first or literary period of Blake's poetic life. 
 
 Before the Songs of Experience were added to them the 
 great change began in his manner of thought which sets him 
 not merely in advance of all other writers, but apart from 
 them. 
 
 He was now about to become altogether a myth-maker. 
 He did not for some years know the fact, and it was still 
 longer before he himself perceived the importance of it. But 
 the need had been felt for this change, and the time for the 
 change was at hand. 
 
 Before it is considered, however, a change of another kind 
 that belongs to this period of his life calls aloud to be looked 
 at and understood. 
 
CHAPTEE IX 
 
 ' MARY ' 
 
 However glad we may be to glean something from The 
 Island in the Moon about the opening of Blake's career, 
 about how his best -known works came to be produced, or 
 about how he bore himself among the Hterary people of his 
 day, this, we cannot help feeling, is not enough. The Rath- 
 bone Place period was the beginning of his married Ufa. 
 " Here is the poet," we say to ourselves as we read, " but where 
 was the husband ? " 
 
 Only on the last page of the Island is there any indication 
 that such a thing as married life existed. It appears here in 
 the caricature of a couple who are conspiring at home to 
 make a sensation at a literary party. Such a scheme, with 
 no intention that it should be realised, may very probably 
 have been hatched between Mr. and Mrs. Blake. One of the 
 two speakers is the intending author of the ideal volume 
 whose real form, when it came to be produced, was that of 
 the Songs of Innocence. The wife in this dialogue seems to 
 have formed a very bad opinion of the " nasty, filthy," and 
 "envious" people of the literary coterie. Envy was one 
 thing when it stimulated a poetic nature to make sweet 
 songs ; it was quite another thing when it led mean natures 
 to utter abuse or detraction. 
 
 Mrs. Blake must have been, in the early months, several 
 times to Eathbone Place. She had learned to read and write 
 since she married, and that was but lately. She had lived 
 a useful life for five -and -twenty years, and had learned 
 qualities of common -sense without the aid of literature, 
 qualities which in old age were to develop into the marked 
 precision, formal and methodical habits, and primness of 
 manner that were noticed in her during her last years. She 
 was certain to have at this time of her early marriage quite 
 as much contempt as her husband had for the literary 
 
 86 
 
'MARY' 87 
 
 preciousness that was, along with better things, to be found 
 at the evening parties given by Mrs. Mathews. Of what 
 was worth respecting or enjoying there she probably did not 
 understand enough to enable her to annoy her husband by 
 being any more just to the dilettante circle than he was. 
 
 For what happened, and how they both felt about it, we 
 have several sources of information, the best of which are 
 Blake's own poems about " Mary." They are not dated, but 
 were composed probably in 1783 or 1784, since, it seems, 
 they were found by Mr. E. Heme Shepherd jotted down on the 
 fly-leaves of Blake's bound copy of the Poetical Sketches, if we 
 read his hint on the subject rightly. In the first of these 
 "Mary" poems we learn that a very pretty and very simple girl 
 (Mrs. Blake was both) went for the first time into a drawing- 
 room among artificial people of eighteenth-century habits, 
 and received the usual high-flown compliments which were 
 considered suitable to good breeding at that period. That 
 Blake would ever have thought of writing verses on such a 
 subject had not Mrs. Blake had such an experience, is not 
 probable. He would not even have discovered the possibility 
 or the possibilities of such a situation. We have already seen 
 how rapidly a suggestion would caU up in his mind a poetic 
 conception ; a word would sometimes be enough, or the sight 
 of an engraving. Here he had the sight of the drama being 
 acted ia real Hfe, with his wife as heroine. 
 
 In the poem, " Mary " does not adopt the tone of mock 
 modesty expected from her in an atmosphere of mock 
 gallantry. She is not well-bred. She shows her love for her 
 husband in the drawing-room as coolly as though she were 
 alone in a wide garden. There was only a look of the eye or 
 a touch of the hand, perhaps. The outrageousness was not so 
 much in the sign of love given as in the shameless sincerity 
 of it. Very naturally, all the others felt outraged. The 
 selfishness of such a proceeding is the sin. Catherine did 
 not know that, so when she was scolded she did not take 
 it meekly. She thought that she had as much right to 
 love her husband in her own way as he thought that he 
 had to write his verses in his own way. Both were con- 
 demned. He was pronounced obstinate, and she indecent. 
 
 Cut to the heart, and not at all understanding what she 
 had done, Catherine tried to efface herself as ignorantly as 
 she had put herself forward. She became a dowdy. This was 
 not what was wanted at aU. It offended the hostess and the 
 gallant young guests at the same time. They all combined 
 
88 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 against her once more. She left off going into the httle 
 corner of society that she had rashly entered, and took with 
 her sad, bitter, and ineffaceable memories, but not the smallest 
 spark of real comprehension of the fact that would have 
 been obvious to almost any one else — that the whole trouble 
 was at least as much her own fault as that of the people who 
 hurt her feelings. There was just one person who understood 
 it all as little as she did. Blake, his perceptions of conduct 
 darkened by the ideal, could no more see truly what had 
 happened than a man who walks about carrying a large and 
 brilliant lamp in his hand that shines in his face can judge 
 the faces of people at the farther side of that lamp. 
 
 Blake certainly continued to go to Eathbone Place for 
 literary purposes, but from now began the "unbending 
 demeanour" that Smith noticed a year after the Poeticd 
 Sketches were printed. It is not because Blake wrote down 
 the story of his wife's dilut in the poem of Mary, or because 
 this is found in the leaves of a book that he had in his hands 
 at the time, that we know the story to be true. All this was 
 so because it must have been. We rather understand the 
 poem from the truth than the truth from the poem. Not in 
 any single page, but yet, legibly and plainly, the story of what 
 else happened now is written a little later in Blake's works. 
 When Catherine had first entered the Eathbone Place 
 drawing-room, and Blake, who was not yet quite in love 
 with her, though he loved her, saw her beauty, as all who 
 were there saw it, in its fresh country sweetness and charm, 
 a new and natural love awoke in him that was not merely 
 gratitude nor pity, but actual desire. He saw her in full 
 dress. Her smooth neck and long, slender, but firmly 
 rounded arms were, though he knew them at home, revealed 
 to him all over again, as they bore the looks of admiration 
 that pressed on them from every man in the room. He was 
 roused to a new pride and a new craving. Polly Woods was 
 forgotten at last. Catherine learned that she had married a 
 giant. The volcanic energy with which Blake did all that 
 roused his enthusiasm was now shown in the fire of new- 
 married life lived at its highest and fullest. 
 
 In marrying Catherine he had come to his wife as 
 innocent as she had come to him. He had lived at home. 
 He had lived poor. He had spent his little pocket-money on 
 art. He had thrown his energy into long walks and his 
 desires into early love-making of the most chaste and ideal 
 kind. Catherine was not a feeble, maid. She was well able 
 
'MAEY' 89 
 
 to respond to his needs. She had been brought up in the 
 open air, and in future years was to show the vigour that 
 was in her by sharing with her husband the thirty- and forty- 
 mile walks in which he delighted to spend the long hours of 
 a summer's day. But at the very outset of this honeymoon- 
 year she received, along with the revelation of love's violence, 
 the blow of blighting censorious contempt just as her heart 
 was opening out to faith in life, and trust in those whose 
 position enabled them to claim to be her superiors. 
 
 Till now she had always been the superior. As the only 
 daughter of a substantial tradesman, and as a pretty brunette, 
 tall, graceful, attractive, she had not lived to be five-and- 
 twenty without being courted over and over again, and 
 learning how to hold her own against the elbow-pinching, 
 waist-gripping, Kp-snatching gallantries of the robust seeds- 
 men in her father's nursery garden. Their manners must 
 have been a rough caricature of the liberties that frolicsome 
 young bloods in those days were accustomed to take pubUcly 
 in Covent Garden. Now she had a new experience. Suave 
 and artificial compliments were followed by the most wound- 
 ing contempt. She had never been so praised before. She 
 had never been despised at all. 
 
 In bitter misery of heart she lost the power to find her 
 whole world in her husband's arms, in the divine fever of 
 married love. His confident demands of rapture revolted 
 her. She lost sympathy and Unity with him. They saw 
 themselves suddenly as two. strangers. The modesty that 
 had been so long the stronghold of her self-respect had only 
 been lulled asleep in the Venusberg for a moment. And 
 now, just when it ought to have most firmly and sedulously 
 kept its eyes shut, it woke up. She alienated by rebuke the 
 husband whose love she had won by pity first, and by 
 pleasure after. 
 
 The shock to him was as unforeseen and deadly as had been 
 the shock of the drawing-room world's contempt to her. In 
 the perfect selfishness of their warm and undisciplined hearts, 
 they neither of them saw what was happening. It was quite 
 hidden from her that she was telhng him that the spite of a 
 few strangers who had no claim whatsoever on her considera- 
 tion was of more weight with her than the whole heart's love 
 and whole body's vigour of her pure, true, and fiery husband, 
 and could sadden her more than his love could delight and 
 absorb. Yet this was exactly what her inability to forget 
 their slights and respond to his love as before, when they 
 
90 THE KEAL BLAKE 
 
 still admired her, said to him more plainly thau she could 
 have spoken it in words. She did not see that she herself 
 was inflicting on him a slight made up of all that she had 
 received, that she was passing on the wounds, and in her hands 
 the knife was driven deep into the soul by the addition to its 
 power of the vigour of a new love and new hope. But that, 
 of course, is what he felt. When his love did first begin she 
 did call that love a sin, as he reminded her long afterwards 
 in the verses called Broken Love. She was now like Vala in 
 the net of religion, and not Vala the innocent, who in olden 
 days " forgave the furious love " of Albion (Jerusalem, page 20, 
 line 37). Blake did not take his disaster easily. He rebelled 
 with fury against her pretence of claiming in the bridal room 
 to repeat the high-handed law-giving from the female to the 
 male that might have been becoming in her as a pure maid 
 among enterprising and unpolished suitors. Virginity is a 
 throne ; matrimony is another. But they are not the same 
 throne, and the dignity and sovereignty of one is so unhke 
 the dignity and sovereignty of the other as to be almost its 
 opposite. What is to be done with a wife whose heart does 
 not teach her this ? 
 
 For a while Blake's fury and indignation made him 
 almost blunder into wickedness. Modesty seemed to him 
 now to be the only sin. He never quite disentangled it from 
 prudery all his life long. He began by making a mistake, 
 as unjustifiable as his wife had made in claiming to map out 
 the limits of the passionate love that he offered to her. He 
 told her that if she set up such boundaries he had a right to 
 give to others what she shut off from herself. Just as a man 
 becomes half a thief from the moment that he discusses the 
 stability of the rights of property, and questions how far 
 these may be forfeited by a neglect of the duties that go 
 with them, so Blake became half unfaithful to her in his 
 anger. Half unfaithful only, however, — the theoretic half. 
 He fumed out to his wife a theory of matrimony as preposter- 
 ously arrogant and patriarchal as hers was preposterously 
 vestal. He claimed the right of Abraham to give to Hagar 
 what Sarah refused. Both these poor children of the heart 
 must be forgiven. They were very miserable. They were 
 lost in the labyrinth of love's forest, and were leading one 
 another astray. 
 
 Blake lay down on his bed, choked with the love that was 
 flung back on him. His wife sat weeping and pale, feehng 
 not only despised, but deserted. She did not know that if 
 
'MARY' 91 
 
 her husband had really deserted her he would not be ill in 
 this way, but would be only ill in the soul, while his health 
 would have been sparkling, and his cheerfulness hard, brazen, 
 and inaccessibly unscrupulous. His wife now called in his 
 sister, with the instinct that makes woman turn to woman 
 when in despair of man, and Blake, in a delirium of misery, 
 rebellious and estranged, refusing to be tortured by the 
 frigidity of his foolish and sobbing wife any longer, burst out 
 with his announcement that he would take some one else in 
 her place, some merry and attractive girl who should do him 
 justice. 
 
 At this a deadly fear and horror came over poor Catherine, 
 whose sore heart could bear no more. That her husband had 
 led her into the false and fg,lsely-educated world, where she 
 had been despised, was bad enough in him, and that he had 
 shown not an atom of sympathy with her in her misery, but 
 had expected her to come home, forget it aU, and blend 
 herself entirely in his masterful appetite, was worse. There 
 was desertion of the heart, in this claim to use her like a 
 slave for his pleasure when unhappiness had taken from her 
 the power to answer as a bride should to his love. But now 
 had come the worst of all. She was to be publicly cast off 
 and shamed before his family. She felt her courage give 
 way, and crying out in her desolation, she fell down in a heap 
 by the bed. 
 
 Something else as well as her courage gave way then. In 
 that cry and that heavy fall, and in the great trouble Blake 
 and his sister had to bring her to consciousness again when, 
 with a sudden pang of pity, he threw off selfishness from his 
 heart, and once for all gave himself entirely to her, we have 
 the sad knowledge why this vigorous and unstained young 
 couple lived childless all their lives. 
 
 Catherine was at that moment on her way to become a 
 mother. But, as is often the case with those who are checked 
 by a sudden shock or accident when in this condition, she 
 could never from that hour go through it to the end of the 
 allotted mon|hs of preparation where another life should wait 
 to meet her, giving and receiving welcome. 
 
 Fortunately for us poor mortals, there is nothing so robust 
 in all the world as wedded love. If it is not absolutely killed, 
 nothing can prevent it from recovering most of its youth and 
 strength in a very short time. 
 
 Within a month or two after this incident Mr. and Mrs. 
 Blake were laughing together over the follies of the Mathews 
 
92 THE KEAL BLAKE 
 
 circle, as he read bits of The Islaiid in the Moon to her, 
 which we can guess, though we have no certain knowledge, 
 was written to amuse her while she was regaining her 
 bodily strength after the illness that cost her her hopes of 
 maternity. 
 
 When the literary joke had done its work, and had given 
 place to the composition of the Songs of Innocence, Blake may 
 have also written the long rigmarole about The Passions, in 
 which he tells of the emulousness of his own character, very 
 unkindly calling it envy. Now also he must have written 
 the poems Mary and William Bond. Writing the Island 
 had restored to him his poetic faculty, and while the cause 
 of these poems was not much earlier, the time when he 
 ceased to have leisure or taste to attend to that kind of 
 composition was not much later than the winter of 1783-84 
 Further allusions to the same incidents are to be found in 
 the poem Vala, but the style is now altogether changed, and 
 the allusions are much more difficult to recognise, being now 
 woven closely into the myth, and coloured with the artistic 
 meaning of the surrounding symbolism. 
 
 The only difficulty which any reader will have in making 
 up his mind to accept Mary and William Bond as rhymed 
 reminiscence, thinly masked, comes from the fact that " Mary" 
 is, in these poems, not merely Blake's wife, but the lyrical 
 and emotional side of his genius, and he is not merely 
 writing about Catherine, but also about this part of his own 
 nature. This is so strikingly evident that the present writer 
 admits having thought — and said — until but lately that 
 " Mary " was only Blake's poetic nature and not a human 
 being at all, — his Bmanation, to use the term he adopted, 
 and made so well known. Los is partly the twin brother, 
 and in a sort of way the mythic husband of Enitharmon, 
 who is, in the great dream, the Emanation of a being called 
 Urthona, who was an aspect of Los. Enitharmon herself is 
 described as " the vegetated mortal life of Los, — ^his emana- 
 tion, yet his wife until the sleep of death is past," in 
 Jerusalem, page 14, line 13. And Los becomes " one " with 
 Blake himself in Milton, page 20, line 12. 
 
 "Enitharmon" is not "Mary" merely, but belongs to 
 another order of writing and another period, yet what is said 
 of her partly applies to "Mary," who was both a woman 
 and a symbol. 
 
 It will be noticed that in the verses about " Mary " there 
 are lines — 
 
'MARY' 93 
 
 Why was I not bom with a different face ? 
 Oh why was I born like this envious race ? 
 
 which occur, hardly changed, as part of a short poem written 
 m a letter about ten years later, in which Blake laments over 
 the diiference between himself and the people about him. 
 It is given with the title " A Cry " in the Ohatto and Windus 
 Poetical Works of William Make. " Mary " might, therefore, 
 have been only an aspect of his own mind. 
 
 But at the period of the incident from which the poem 
 Mary sprang, Blake was not yet come to the analysing frame 
 of mind which would have made it at all likely that he should 
 have so written about his artistic or poetic frame of mind ; and 
 even if he had, there was absolutely nothing in the world of 
 dreams, or in that of common fact, which could have caused 
 him to write in exactly this manner about his poetry or his 
 emotions, while there was all the material ready to hand for 
 such reference to what he had just learned of society, of 
 beauty, of envy, of jealousy, of love, and of pity, through his 
 married experiences. It was still part of his poetic habit to 
 so treat personal recollection, and when he wrote these lines 
 he was just at the right distance from the experiences, — not 
 too far and not too near so to treat them. In Broken Love 
 he returns to them from farther off, and in a different vein. 
 Nearly twenty years had gone by. 
 
 Hardly were these poems written, and probably while Tlie 
 Island in the Moon was in progress — for this would account 
 for the suddenness of its stopping — when a change came in the 
 current of Blake's life. His father died, and was buried in 
 BunhiU Fields, July 4, 1784. Mr. Blake's opposition to his 
 son's marriage with Catherine Bouchier, and his absence 
 from the ceremony itself, had produced a final estrangement 
 between them that was never healed. Blake was not at his 
 father's deathbed. 
 
 We cannot even be sure that he did not write the book of 
 Tiriel shortly after.- In this poem fathers are first held up 
 before us as the natural enemies of their children until 
 a more advanced senility reduces them in their turn to a 
 childish state. It dates between 1783 and 1788. That is 
 all that we can learn with any certainty from its contents, 
 but its paper, even without a dated watermark, is enough 
 to place it earher than 1790. 
 
CHAPTEK X 
 
 HOW ROBERT CAME AND WENT 
 
 The MS. of The Island in the Moon is written on two half- 
 quires of paper, whose watermark has only the letters G. E., 
 but no date. ■ The outside sheet of the first portion of it is 
 lost. This deprives us of the title-page, which may have 
 borne a date, and also of the last page but one of the MS. 
 itself, in whose dialogue a gap will be noticed. The second 
 half-quire, containing at its beginning the broken final page, 
 was otherwise left nearly blank, as the MS. was abruptly 
 dropped. But it seems to have lain beside Blake for a time, 
 while he was being annoyed by a conversation about some 
 list or catalogue of effects, to which he could only give a 
 divided and forced attention, for this second half-quire has 
 been turned over, and on the back are two slight scribbles 
 representing the lion lying down by the lamb, and a number 
 of horses' heads scattered about, almost repeating one another. 
 Blake's own name is repeated twice near the top, and is 
 smudged out while wet, and a number of letters n and u, 
 written large in a copy-book hand, spread themselves vaguely 
 among the horses' heads, the full word " numeration " being 
 in the middle of the page. This suggests that the MS. was 
 lying on the table the very day on which James came to talk 
 business with William about cataloguing and dividing their 
 father's personal estate. 
 
 Mr. Blake the hosier probably died intestate. If he 
 made a wiU, the provisions of it left something in common 
 between the brothers, for not long afterwards we find Blake 
 agreeing with Lavater that you do not truly know a man till 
 you have divided an inheritance with him. " Numeration " 
 must have preceded such division. 
 
 In Gilchrist's Life of Blake we are not told of this, but 
 we learn that " the second son James, a year and a half 
 William's senior, continued to live with the widow Catherine, 
 
 94 
 
HOW EOBEET CAME AND WENT 95 
 
 and succeeded in the hosier's business." In the iirst paragraph 
 of that biography (which begins with the second chapter, the 
 first being preliminary) we are mistakenly told that William 
 was the second son, a statement in which earlier authorities, 
 deceived by the omission of John's name from the family con- 
 versations, agree. Most of Blake's friends simply had never 
 heard of his brother John at all. Catherine was the name 
 of Blake's mother as well as of his wife. 
 
 That some money was divided among the brothers is 
 evident in another way, for Blake immediately left his 
 house, 23 Green Street, Leicester Fields, and took No. 27 
 Broad Street, next door to what was now his brother's place of 
 business. He opened a print-shop here in partnership with 
 an elder apprentice of Basire's named Parker, who is said to 
 have been by six or seven years his senior. J. T. Smith 
 (" Nollekens " Smith), one of the " envious " guests of Mrs. 
 Mathews, who did not follow Blake with unquahfied admira- 
 tion, says (in his Book for a Rainy Bay) that Mrs. Mathews 
 found the money for this partnership. This has a look of 
 gossip and exaggeration on the face of it, though there may 
 have been some portion of truth in the story. Mrs. Mathews 
 may have continued to help and encourage Blake after the 
 trouble over the uncorrected poetical sketches had cooled her 
 husband's affection for him. Parker must have contributed ; 
 but if none of the capital came from the home stock it is 
 difficult to understand why the shop was established next 
 door to James in a house not built for a shop at aU, and why 
 James used to "pester" William with "bread -and -cheese 
 advice," as we are told by Smith that he did. There was also 
 some sort of business arrangement made by which Eobert, 
 the youngest son, was given to William as an apprentice and 
 lodged in his house. This was not done on payment of a 
 sum for articles, perhaps, but that James considered it to be 
 business we need not doubt. There was a quid •pro quo of 
 some sort. 
 
 Blake was morbid aboxit money, and it was very difficult 
 to make him understand that it is, of all subjects, the one 
 where egotism is especially forbidden, even though com- 
 petition 'may be admitted. Like many proud, generous, 
 egotistic people, Blake had not the least idea that his egotism 
 was a particularly unpermissible form of selfishness. He, in 
 later Ufe, told Mr. Robinson that the offer of money used 
 to make him turn pale. No doubt it did, but we should 
 rather have had the fact from any lips but his own. That 
 
96 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 he had an exaggerated fear of being degraded by money 
 transactions, and so grew to hate money, is known and is 
 easy to understand. He was the grandson of one spendthrift, 
 and the brother of another. He was the son of a careful 
 man of business, and the brother of another. He had in 
 his blood the most irritable impatience of seeming to be a 
 bargainer or a grasper, with the strictest ideas of probity. 
 We can never forget that he lived in poverty and did not 
 die in debt. What this meant to a man of his temperament 
 and his powers must always be a thing to be wondered at, 
 and admired at least as much as his art and poetry. He 
 was an exceedingly hard worker. Between the termination 
 of his apprenticeship to Basire in 1778 and his father's 
 death in 1784 he had done a good deal of work. Much 
 of it must have been distributed into books and portfolios, 
 from which it has slowly vanished ; but the industrious 
 compilers of Gilchrist's Life have recorded enough to vin- 
 dicate Blake's character as a man of toil as well as a man of 
 genius. 
 
 The titles include, first, those designed and engraved by 
 Blake : 
 
 King Edward and Queen Eleanor (no date), a composition 
 with more than a score of figures. The size is not given in 
 the catalogue ; but putting together the two fragments, on 
 which Blake afterwards wrote part of Vala, Night VII, it 
 must have measured about 18 inches by 10. The figures are 
 grouped in an old-fashioned theatrical style, like the last 
 tableau of a Shakespearian act, and all highly shaded as well 
 as the wall and floor. The shading over the wall spaces only 
 of this represented many days of work. 
 
 Morning, or Glad Day (1780). — At this the list of works 
 both designed and engraved by Blake ends, tiU it is resumed 
 in 1791 with the plates to Mary Wollstonecraft's Tales for 
 Children. There is such a striking difference of style be- 
 tween the King Edward and the Glad Day, that many others 
 after Blake's own designs must have come between that are 
 now lost. Those engraved from other people's compositions 
 do not account for the change of manner. Of these there 
 are mentioned — 
 
 The Joseph of Arimathea (10 x 5| in.). 
 
 Several plates in the Memoirs of HoUis. 
 
 Several plates in Gough's Monuments, etc. 
 
 Asia and Africa (after Stothard), a frontispiece to a 
 System of Geography, 1779. 
 
HOW EGBERT CAME AND WENT 97 
 
 Eight plates, after Stothard, for the Novelists Magazine, 
 1779, 1782. 
 
 Clarence's Dream, for Enfield's Speaker, after Stothard. 
 Published by Johnson, 1780. 
 
 Four plates for Scott of Amwell's Poems, after Stothard. 
 Published by Buckland, 1782. 
 
 Two plates, after Stothard, for the Lady's Pocket-Book, 
 1782 or 1783. 
 
 Nine or ten plates for Ritson's English Songs, out of a 
 total of nineteen, after Stothard. Published by Johnson, 
 1783. 
 
 The Fall of Rosamond (circular ; 2 inches), after Stothard. 
 Pubhshed by Macklin, 1783. 
 
 Zephyrus and Flora, Galisto, after Stothard. Published 
 after the death of Blake's father by Parker and Blake, 1784, 
 though probably engraved before. 
 
 This gives hardly more than thirty plates in six years — 
 five plates a year. If they averaged in price ten pounds a 
 plate, that was as much as we can suppose to have been paid, 
 and means a pound a week of laborious, artistic, skilful, and 
 anxious work. If a statistician were to calculate how much 
 an hour Blake made, he would find it amounted to a sum 
 resembling that which is paid now to young doctors, writers, 
 and the clergy, but refused by artists' models in the schools 
 and stevedores at the docks. There is no reason to believe 
 — even if we suppose the prices paid were the best in the 
 market, and that a dozen or more plates have been lost since 
 Blake's time altogether — that Blake made more than thirty 
 or thirty-five shillings a week. 
 
 Though his brother James was acting as the head of the 
 family now, Blake seems to have felt that he had suddenly 
 attained a position of ascendency, after having been looked 
 down upon for the whole of his life up to this time. He 
 was the only married brother. He had a house of his own, 
 where he was master. Even from the point of view that a 
 business man takes, he believed that his choice of a pro- 
 fession was about to be justified. As usual, we find him 
 putting down' his personal feelings in a work of art without 
 loss of time. In the year after that at whose close the death 
 of his father and his own change of house to Broad Street 
 happened, we find that he executed several pictures of 
 Joseph and his Brethren, in one of which the brethren bow 
 down to Joseph. They form (Gilchrist's catalogue says) " a 
 line sheaf-like group." 
 
 H 
 
98 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 The works that he had executed with the brush, along 
 with the engravings already quoted, before 1785, are all 
 important : 
 
 The Fenance of Jane Shore. 
 
 King Udward and Queen Meanor (from which he engraved). 
 
 War unchained by an Angel. (Marked £utts in the list. 
 We have no letters to Butts tiU many years later. Pre- 
 sumably the picture was not sold when painted.) 
 
 A Breach in a City, the Morning after a Battle. 
 
 The Bard, from Gray. (This picture was exhibited in 
 London in 1906 at the Carfax Gallery. Its brown tone 
 curiously recalls Giorgione. We should not have ventured to 
 compare Blake to a Venetian artist in his lifetime. He 
 would have gone into a paroxysm of rage.) 
 
 The Bard and the Joseph series went to the Academy 
 Exhibition in 1785, and were therefore done within nine 
 months after Blake's father died. They must have been his 
 first designs in his new home. The Josephs are traced by 
 Gilchrist, who says that they were not marked with the 
 star, that meant for sale, not sold, at the Eoyal Academy in 
 those days, he explains (when did the change of meaning 
 begin ?) ; and he relates how they afterwards were bought by 
 a picture-dealer at a furniture sale in their original and un- 
 becoming rosewood frames (so, gold was not necessary at the 
 Eoyal Academy then !), and were sent to the International 
 Exhibition of 1862. 
 
 For two years and a half Eobert lived with Wilham as 
 his pupil. He was always the best beloved and most popular 
 of the Blake brothers. William's affection for him was one 
 of the strongest feelings he had ever known, and its memory 
 lasted all his life. The happy days of brotherhood and close 
 union did not last long. One story from those times makes 
 us intimate with that home and lets us into aU its secrets. 
 It is well known now, and has been repeated in every 
 biography. Here it is in the words of Gilchrist : — 
 
 "One day a dispute arose between Eobert and Mrs. 
 Blake. She, in the heat of discussion, used words to him 
 his brother (though her husband too) thought unwarrantable. 
 A silent witness thus far, he could now bear it no longer, but, 
 with characteristic impetuosity — when stirred — rose and 
 said to her : ' Kneel down and beg Eobert's pardon directly, 
 or you never see my face again.' A heavy threat, uttered in 
 tones which, from Blake, unmistakably showed that it was 
 meant. She, poor thing, ' thought it very hard,' as she would 
 
HOW EOBEET CAME AND WENT 99 
 
 afterwards tell, to beg her brother-in-law's pardon when she 
 was not in fault ! But being a duteous, devoted wife, though 
 by nature nowise tame or dull of spirit, she did kneel down 
 and meekly murmur, ' Eobert, I beg your pardon, I am in 
 the wrong.' ' Young woman, you lie,' abruptly retorted he, 
 ' / am in the wrong.' " 
 
 Two things we see once more from this, though we already 
 knew them — Blake was not in love with his wife, yet lovingly 
 reconciled to being her husband, but his wife was in love with 
 him fully, absolutely. Eobert — " Bob," as every one called 
 him — was a moral education to Blake at this time, and kept 
 his heart aUve with brotherly love when it might have fallen 
 into the death of self-satisfaction. So great was the danger 
 and so near, that Blake knew ever afterwards through what 
 pern he had then gone, and what death had been at the 
 farther side for him if he had not been guided through by 
 his affection for Eobert. 
 
 Love in the one complete sense of that word — the real 
 and perfect madness that inhabits, as Shakespeare has told 
 us, " in the finest wits of all " — would never come to Blake 
 again. He had had it. Polly Woods had brought it and 
 taken it away. That was all she had had to do with him. 
 She had done it, and gone. It could never be done again. 
 Every one noticed through all the mature and all the declining 
 years of Blake's life how devotedly attached he was to his 
 wife. She was his " beloved." That was his name for her. 
 It was a true name. He had earned the right to use it by 
 his fidelity from the hour of his great discovery that love 
 does not live only in the hot sunshine, but even more in the 
 moony night. But she was not his love. As for the girl 
 that was, or that had been, he had no more to do with her. 
 He never wished to see her again, and he never saw her. 
 That was a comfort, so far, of a kind. 
 
 But he could not get it quite out of his head that there 
 was something very grand and noble in himself, or he would 
 not have made this great discovery of his, and returned to 
 the wife that loved him the gift of pity that she had brought 
 to him in his dark hour, restoring it with such high-piled 
 interest. Bob, with his cheery ways and his cleverness and 
 companionability, put all that now out of the region of Blake's 
 daily meditations. There was a contagious healthfulness 
 about Bob. He was in no sort of moral danger himself, and 
 by his mere presence he saved his brother from drifting into 
 something very like the character of a Pharisee. This was 
 
100 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 Eobert's "message." It had also been in early times his 
 part in life to attract the affection of his play-fellow, J. T. 
 Smith, whose attention became in this way drawn to 
 William, the arrogant and gifted brother. Smith being of a 
 gossiping nature, the result was that when he came to write 
 his Booh for a Rainy Bay he told us several scrappy but 
 illuminating facts about Blake that we could very ill have 
 spared. Had there been no Bob and no Smith, posterity 
 would now have only half a Blake. 
 
 And then Eobert, having delivered his message and played 
 his part, seemed to have found no other business in life, 
 and though they tried hard to keep him, he would not stay. 
 Blake did all he could for him. He did not leave the 
 nursing to his wife. He threw himself into the desperate 
 struggle with death, as though he could force the enemy out 
 by his own strength. During the last fortnight he watched 
 day and night by his brother's bed without sleeping. He 
 had his reward. He saw the soul spring from the suddenly 
 still, blind body, and ascend upwards, clapping its hands for 
 joy. Then taking this sight with him Blake went to bed, 
 and slept continuously for three days and nights. 
 
CHAPTEE XI 
 
 AFTEE EGBERT HAD GONE 
 
 When he woke up and returned to the activities of life, 
 Blake felt an absolute need for a fresh set of opinions to 
 console him and a fresh set of aspirations to arouse him to 
 effort. He could not take up his existence where he had 
 laid it down when he fell into that long sleep, probably with 
 a last conscious wish that he might wake from it as his 
 brother had awakened from the sleep of Ufe. 
 
 His wife was now his only companion. As they drew 
 closer together she must have told him something of the 
 sense of desolation and hopeless misery with which she had 
 gone about her household duties during those three long 
 days, while he had lain from night to morning, and round 
 again to night, in an unapproachable isolation of slumber 
 that must have seemed almost more terrifying than that of 
 the dead body which lay in the next room. 
 
 Then it must have been that he told her of the vision 
 that he had seen — the soul of Eobert escaping, not merely 
 in peace, or in an awful joy, but with childish and exuberant 
 glee. 
 
 She had not seen it. What sort of reality had these 
 visions that one could see while they were hidden from 
 another ? Blake argued. He was always arguing. It must 
 ever be held as one of the innumerable wonders that cling 
 about him that he alone among our greatest poets was so 
 greatly given to this unpoetic habit. He had argued with 
 the keeper of the Eoyal Academy when he was only a student. 
 He argued with the guests of Mrs. Mathews. He argued 
 with all the books he read, as we see by his notes on their 
 margins. He was not in the least likely to spare his wife. 
 But at last all argument came down to this — " Were it not 
 better to believe vision with all our might and strength, 
 though we are fallen and lost ? " In the first of what are now 
 
 101 
 
102 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 called his " Prophetic Books," written after Eobert's death — 
 The Ghost of Abel — Blake puts these words into the mouth 
 of Eve. Probably the question in actual fact was put to him 
 by his wife, after he himself had treated the visionary 
 experience with such mercilessly abstract and metaphysical 
 handling that she had found all its consolation squeezed 
 out of it. 
 
 The view, however, was not that of his wife only, but of 
 his natural and unintellectual secret inner self. His philo- 
 sophic self did not rise to the height of such inspired 
 simplicity till it had passed through self-annihilation, and 
 Eeason had consented to that suicide which is its one sole 
 and sufficient deed of real virtue. 
 
 Never in the higher portions of his poems can the reader 
 disentangle what he tells us as from himself in the feminine 
 mood and what as from his wife. Her character was so 
 natural and frank, and so free from mental coquettishness, 
 epigram, paradox, and sarcasm, that when she speaks he hears 
 the eternal voice of the blood that is the liquid soul, and 
 when he answers with opposition and personal pride and 
 logic, his own blood feels the hardness of the bones, and 
 knows that these are the dust of death disguised in the 
 solidity of the imperative mood, that claims to be the 
 fraternal and righteous affirmaiive. The words, " his emana- 
 tion, yet his wife," tell us from now onwards that Blake 
 and Catherine had entered together into the composite 
 solitude of their lives, and he had risen up and shut-to 
 the door. 
 
 Now also he turned with fresh activity to the study of 
 Swedenborg, which thus led him to form during the years 
 1788, 1789, and 1790 the complete symbolic system of 
 thought of which, to our lasting misfortune, we shall never 
 have more than an imperfect record, for poverty prevented 
 the printing of many of his books during his life, and his 
 virtuous but very stupid friend Tatham conscientiously 
 burned invaluable manuscripts after his death because their 
 theology was not that of the Irvingite church. 
 
 When the inheritance was divided that came to the 
 brothers at Mr. Blake's death, no one can possibly beheve 
 that most of the books did not come to William. He alone 
 would have really cared for them. He alone had to take his 
 revenge for the opposition to his visions, and even the per- 
 secution — so he considered it — with which his parents had 
 met his divine call. Perhaps he had not enough time to 
 
AFTER EGBERT HAD GONE 103 
 
 read during the first days of Robert's apprenticeship. After- 
 wards Robert's illness had absorbed every energy. Now poor 
 " Bob " was dead, and the tension was over. Consolation 
 was what the thirst of Blake's soul desperately demanded. 
 Consolation meant vision, and in vision he had no companion 
 upon earth who could pretend to an equality with him. 
 That he should turn to Swedenborg was a simple necessity. 
 
 What Parker, Blake's partner in the shop, had to say to 
 this can be guessed, and how ill Blake took attempts to make 
 him do any ordinary workaday duty in its own time, instead of 
 at his good pleasure, we can understand. What is recorded 
 is simply that the partnership came to an end, and that 
 Blake gave up the house at 27 Broad Street, which he had tried 
 in vain to make into a shop, and moved to Poland Street, 
 undoubtedly to find a cheaper shelter. Perhaps also he was 
 glad to get away from his brother James, for it was likely to 
 be during the disputes with his partner that James wasted 
 good common-sense upon him and received nothing in return 
 but that reputation for having " pestered " him with " bread- 
 and-cheese advice," which is all that has come down to our 
 own day of his conduct at this time. But James was a good 
 brother. He lent his own house later for Blake's exhibition 
 of pictures, and he deserved better treatment than he 
 received. Blake was in no state to question with himself 
 how he was treating any one. The new idea of developing 
 vision was everything to him. He had a purpose in life 
 once more. Art and poetry possessed a new meaning. He 
 also had a message for the world. 
 
 Of course, the "rank draught'' of envy with which he 
 complains frankly that his cup of Hfe was filled so full was 
 not all emptied yet. He still drank of it, and we detect the 
 bitter savour of its wormwood even in his most generous 
 words. But he was not now trying to out-sing the Islanders 
 in the Moon, or even to out- dramatise the Elizabethans and 
 Shakespeare himself. He would out-prophesy Swedenborg. 
 
 If any one who possesses his copy of the Seaven and Hell, 
 of the Heavenly Mysteries, and the Apocalypse Revealed 
 would come forward and show us the notes in their margins, 
 he would shsd a light on what still remains dark about 
 Blake's development of mind at this period. 
 
 There is a pause between the date of Tiriel and that of 
 The Ghost of Abel, neither of them later than 1788, and the 
 Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 1790, with its companions, 
 Thel, the Visions of the Daughters of AlUon, etc. The lost 
 
104 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 book of Outhoon must go with these in date as in subject. 
 The Songs of Innocence, though engraved in 1789, do not fill 
 the gap. They had been written years before. The Songs 
 of Experience do not fill it. They were accumulated during 
 five years, and engraved in 1794. The lost though pubhshed 
 work, the French Bevolution, a Poem in Seven Books, whose 
 first book was produced at the price of one shilling by Johnson, 
 does not fill it. This was printed in 1791. The whole seven 
 books were probably never written. The entire edition must 
 have been destroyed in 1793 after the September massacres, 
 and even the few copies that were sold were probably burned 
 by their owners. The one scrap called Lafayette is the only 
 certain trace we have left of it. 
 
 All this leaves the years 1787 or 1788 to 1790 without 
 any adequate record of the action or growth of Blake's mind. 
 It was the period of incubation, when he laid his golden egg, 
 the great Myth. But this was not a goose's egg, but rather 
 a kiwi's. Du Maurier once reminded us playfuUy what 
 symbolism is in the fact that "the kiwi bird lays such a 
 large egg that it takes two kiwis to hatch it." 
 
 The difficulty of dating Blake's first two books is that, 
 even more markedly than his last two, each has two dates. 
 Tiriel may have been written and copied out carefully, all but 
 the last few lines, with the purpose of being read, if not 
 printed, by some one in the Mathews' drawing-room, perhaps 
 Mr. Mathews himself. It was written on the very cheap 
 paper used for The Island in the Moon, of which Blake bought 
 a quantity in the very poor days of the first year of his 
 marriage. He certainly did not make himself uncomfortable 
 by buying any more of it after his father's inheritance came 
 to him. Something better was to be found in the stock-in- 
 trade of the firm Parker and Blake. 
 
 But the last portion of Tiriel is a little later than the rest, 
 and perhaps even later than the words " MS. of Mr. Blake " 
 written on the slate -coloured paper cover into which the 
 poem was stitched with the intention of being handed to 
 somebody, though this label was probably added when Mr. 
 Mathews was given up and the manuscript taken to Johnson 
 
 the bookseller. No man writes " MS. of Mr. (anybody) " 
 
 on the cover of a work when he merely intends to put it into 
 the drawer of his own desk. 
 
 There is an allusion to a lady, a child, a sofa, and a 
 dog, whose history we do not know, in the close of the 
 poem. There are lines that even unite it to America and 
 
AFTER ROBERT HAD GONE 105 
 
 to the Visions of the Daughters of Albion, which were poems 
 not even thought of when that spongy paper was bought on 
 which Tiriel was written. The Ghost of Abel, in the same 
 way, bears two dates, but these, 1788 and 1822, are printed 
 by Blake himself, and they tell their own story. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE NOTES TO SWEDENBORG 
 
 If we have not the copies of Swedenborg's books which may 
 have come to Blake from his father's bookshelf, we have, in 
 the library, 'of the British Museiim, a copy of the volume 
 on Angelic Wisdom concerning the Divine Love, which was 
 published in English in 1787 — the year of Robert's death 
 it was heard of, we need have no doubt, among the very 
 small group of Swedenborgians in London as soon as it came 
 out, and Blake is likely to have acquired it at once, being 
 now not without a few spare shillings. There are notes of 
 his on the margin every few pages, almost all through it. 
 Those on the fly-leaf cover the whole of the blank space. 
 Unfortunately, some tidy person — we do not know who — 
 began to rub them out, and most of them are entirely 
 illegible. 
 
 One can trace this curious beginning to the long and 
 effaced paragraph — " There is no good will. "Will is always 
 evil " ; which seems, if not universally applicable, especially 
 written of the man who used that india-rubber. Incidentally, 
 it explains Blake's use of the word "hell." " Will," " evil," 
 " hell," " desire," are practically synonyms. Shakespeare, of 
 course, used "will " frequently in a secondary sense as mean- 
 ing " lust," just as " desire " is used now. 
 
 It is not possible to give a true picture of Blake's mind as 
 he read this book of Swedenborg's without reprinting it as 
 well as copying his notes. But as there is no space here for 
 such ideal completeness of record, the sentence in each para- 
 graph that is nearest the pencil note, or that to which it 
 seems to have been intended as an answer or a comment, is 
 given, and then the note. 
 
 The portions of text quoted from Swedenborg are not 
 verbally always exactly the same as Blake's edition, but are 
 from an even better and later translation of the same Latin 
 
 106 
 
THE NOTES TO SWEDENBOEG 107 
 
 original. Swedenborg is so prolix that a few passages are 
 purposely condensed. Where this is done it is mentioned. 
 As a rule, the condensation is not a re-composition, but only 
 the omission of the verbose accumulations of Swedenborg's 
 elaborate diction. 
 
 From now Blake divided the different men, or sorts of 
 man, in each man as distinctly as Swedenborg does, who 
 calls them discrete. The natural man, celestial man, spiritual 
 man, and rational man are Swedenborg's divisions. Blake 
 went further, called them " lifes," then " Zoas," had visions 
 of them, gave them names (Urizen, Luvah, Tharmas, and 
 Urthona), and claimed that they were the same that Ezekiel 
 saw. Blake, going beyond Ezekiel, perceived that each had 
 an evil as well as a good aspect and action, and that each had 
 a feminine portion, without which he was altogether evil. The 
 masculine is, taken alone as a group of tendencies, merely 
 Will, Selfhood, Reason, symbolically called " Head," " Heart," 
 "Loins." The feminine alone is Sensation, Pity, Sorrow — 
 again "Head," "Heart," "Loins." Each when alone fights 
 imagination, the sacred first-born Word of God, the logos by 
 whom all things are made. Swedenborg never saw this, 
 therefore the divisions of Swedenborg do not even correspond 
 exactly to the " four Mighty Ones " in Blake, nor are they 
 equally descriptive of the truth. Blake also perceived the 
 personality of states and spaces, and gave many of them 
 names. 
 
 The meaning of this will be seen in the early part of the 
 notes to Swedenborg. The germ of the idea of the Marriage 
 of Heaven and Hell can be seen in his note to par. 68. We 
 also see the origin of the expression " Albion's reactor " in 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 In No. 82 we find what was running in Blake's head 
 while he wrote several well-known passages in the Marriage 
 and in Jerusalem. 
 
 It is pleasing to the self-love of our century to notice how 
 childishly lacking in the true self-consciousness of thought 
 are Swedenborg's dicta about vacuum. If all the world 
 were abolished to-morrow, we ask ourselves, would nothing 
 subsist ? The fact that something had existed would subsist. 
 When is departs, was remains. If, after a gap of vacuum, 
 the universe were restored, we ask ourselves, would that prove 
 that something else had existed, when is had gone besides was'i 
 We suspect that the tendency to restore itself must have 
 existed, called will he. We begin to discover that verbs and 
 
108 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 tenses are as much forms of existence as nouns, and that the 
 more immaterial a thing is, the easier it is to our minds to 
 conceive it as existing, and that vacuum is the habitat of the 
 most obstinate and irrepressible of all our ideas that insist on 
 considering themselves as existences. 
 
 Under No. 169 the ideas of death and life are contrasted, 
 as though they were as simple as yes and no, instead of each 
 being a mental region so difficult for transport that the 
 Boundary Commission has not yet succeeded in making the 
 tour and mapping out the frontier of either. 
 
 In Swedenborg's No. 295 we have a hint about how Blake 
 composed his mythic names, adapting them from any that he 
 could pick up, and so far altering as to bring in significant 
 letters. 
 
 In the note to Swedenborg's No. 315 we have the explana- 
 tion of the phrase in line 2 of the last page of Jerusalem, a 
 poem that began to grow from this seed of Swedenborg's 
 philosophy, turning it into art, vision, myth, as it grew, and 
 adding much philosophy to it also. 
 
 By comparing all these notes with Blake's works it will 
 be seen that he never ceased to largely accept Swedenborgian 
 thought, as far as it went, and to regret that in this as in 
 other books of Swedenborg he could not adopt without addi- 
 tion or change what he read. Yet, whenever he reflected on 
 Swedenborg's hmitations he was stirred to anger. The 
 Marriage of Heaven and Hell is full of bitter derision 
 against him, though Blake none the less looked on him as the 
 attendant angel of a risen Christianity. Those of us who 
 have read both will generally feel that Swedenborg is beyond 
 nine men out of ten, while Blake is far beyond Swedenborg. 
 
 The present writer's experience enables him to bid the 
 reader hope that after twenty-five years of uncounted and 
 uncountable readings of Blake he will find in him new 
 beauties, new revelations, new suggestions of value con- 
 tinually, and that on a return to consideration of Bibheal 
 writers after such finding he wUl discover new symboho 
 relations to real life in all early Christian doctrine. 
 
 In the end, our personal feelings toward revelation must 
 turn upon our attitude of mind towards the great question 
 of what constitutes personality, and upon whether we adopt 
 as the answer " Always one thing," or " Sometimes one thmg, 
 and sometimes another," x — y or sometimes z. 
 
 There will be noticed an instructive and interpreting tone 
 in these notes that makes it seem that they were written by 
 
THE NOTES TO SWEDENBOEG 109 
 
 Blake for some one else, — probably for Mrs. Blake, whom he 
 was now educating. The numbers in the references here are 
 those of the paragraphs of Swedenborg's work, and are the 
 same for all editions and translations of it. S. is put before 
 Swedenborg's words, B. before Blake's. 
 
 BLAKE'S MAEGINAL NOTES TO SWEDENBORG'S 
 ANGELIG WISDOM GONGERNINO THE DIVINE LOVE 
 
 S. (1) The wise man perceives this (that thotight, speech, and action 
 grow warm in proportion as the affection belonging to love grows 
 warm), not from the knowledge that Love is the Life of Man, but from 
 his experience that these things are so. 
 
 B. They also perceive this from knowledge, but not from the natural 
 part. 
 
 S. (2) No one knows what the life of man is unless he knows that it 
 is love. 
 
 B. This was known to me, and thousands. 
 
 S. (7) It (that the Divine is not in Space) cannot be comprehended 
 by a natural idea. 
 
 B. What are natural ideas ? 
 
 S. (7 again) A man nevertheless may comprehend this by natural 
 thought, provided he admits into it something of spiritual light. 
 
 B. Mark this. 
 
 S. (7 again) A spiritual idea does not derive anything from space, 
 but it derives its all from state. 
 
 B. Poetic idea. 
 
 S. (8) It may appear from these premises that by a merely natural 
 idea man cannot comprehend that the Divine is everywhere and yet 
 not in space, and that angels and spirits comprehend this clearly, con- 
 sequently that man also may, provided he admits into his thought 
 something of spiritual light. The reason why a man may comprehend 
 this is that it is not his body which thinks but his spirit, — consequently 
 not his natural but his spiritual part. 
 
 B. Observe the difference between natural and spiritual as seen by 
 man. Man may comprehend, but not his natural or external man. 
 
 S. (10) In the spiritual world appear spaces . . . distances . . . 
 appearances according to spiritual aflBnities, which are of love and 
 wisdom, that is of good and truth. . . . The Lord is everywhere . . 
 appears high above as a sun in the heavens, of which there are three 
 . . . the hells under them according to their (reception or) rejection of 
 love and wisdom. 
 
 B. He who loves feels love descend into him, and if he is wise, may 
 perceive it from the Poetic Genius, which is the Lord. 
 
 S. (11) God is very man. In aU heavens there is no other idea of 
 God than the idea of a man. The reason is that heaven, as a whole, 
 and in every part, is in form as a man, and the Divine which is with 
 the angels constitutes heaven. . . . The Africans who acknowledge one 
 God . . . entertain concerning God the idea of a man. When they 
 hear that a number of persons entertain the idea of God as of a little 
 cloud in mid air they ask where such persons are, and being told that 
 they are among the Christians they declare it to be impossible. 
 
110 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 B. Man can have no idea of anything greater than man, as a cup 
 cannot contain more than its capaciousness. But God is a man, not 
 because he is so perceived by man, but because he is the creator of man. 
 
 Think of a white cloud as being holy, you cannot love it ; but think 
 of a holy man within the cloud, Love springjs up in your thought 
 For to think of holiness distinct from man is impossible to the affec- 
 tions. Thought alone can make monsters, but the affections cannot 
 
 S. (12) Thoy who are more wise than the common pronounce God 
 to be invisible. 
 
 B. Worldly wisdom, or demonstration by the senses, is the cause of 
 this. 
 
 S. (13, end) The negation of God constitutes helL 
 
 B. The negation of the Poetic Genius. 
 
 S. (14, middle) Soul is not possible apart from its body, nor body 
 apart from its souL 
 
 B. Thought without affection makes a distinction between love and 
 wisdom as it does between body and spirit. 
 
 S. (2V, 28) If a person . . . should say that a plurality of Infinites, 
 of Uncreates, of Omnipotents, and of Gods is possible, provided they 
 have one and the same essence ... is not the same essence one 
 identity? . . . 
 
 B. Essence is not Identity, but from Essence proceeds Identity, and 
 from one Essence may proceed many Identities as from one affection 
 may proceed many thoughts. Surely this is an oversight That there 
 is but one Omnipotent, Uncreate, and God I agree. But that there is but 
 one Infinite I do not. For if all but God is not Infinite they shall 
 come to an end, which God forbid. 
 
 If the Essence was the same as the Identity, there could be but one 
 Identity, which is false. Heaven would, on this plan, be but a clod. 
 
 {On opposite margin) 
 
 But one and the same Essence is therefore Essence and not Identity. 
 
 S. (40) Appearances . . . first form understanding, and these appear- 
 ances the mind cannot shake off ... if the cause lies deep, unless it 
 keeps the understanding some time in spiritual light 
 
 B. This it can do while in the body. 
 
 S. (41) This can be demonstrated only by such things as a man can 
 perceive by virtue of the sense of his own body. Therefore by these 
 things it shall be demonstrated. 
 
 B. Demonstration is only by bodily senses. 
 
 S. (49, condensed) The love of God in us is a human and not a 
 divine quality, for if divine it would be part of God's infinity in us 
 loving the rest outside us, and it is contrary to the essence of God to 
 love himself. 
 
 B. False. Take it so or the contrary it comes to the same, for if a 
 thing loves it is infinite. Perhaps we only differ in the meaning of 
 the words Infinite and Eternal. 
 
 • S. (68) Man is only a recipient of life . . . from his hereditary evil 
 he reacts against God. In proportion as he believes that all his life is 
 from God . . . reaction becomes the property of action, and acts with 
 God as from himself. 
 
 B. God and evil are here both good, and the two contraries married 
 
 S. (69) Two things are proper to nature — space and time. ... He 
 who knows how to raise his mind above the ideas which flow from 
 
THE NOTES TO SWEDENBOEG 111 
 
 space and time passes from thick darkness into light ... he disperses 
 the thick darkness of the natural light, and relegates its fallacies from 
 the middle to the sides. 
 
 B. (after correcting the word middle into centre, and sides into 
 circumferences). When the fallacies of darkness are in the circumference 
 they cast a bound about the infinite. 
 
 S. (condensed) Spaces and times in spiritual life are not settled as 
 in natural life, but have relation to states of love and are mutable with 
 these. Angels do not comprehend when we say that the divine fills 
 spaces, for they do not know what spaces are, but they understand 
 when we say that the divine fills all things. 
 
 B. Excellent. 
 
 (Blake approves without comment, underlines, or uses several ex- 
 pressions, such as the following.) 
 
 S. (72) Natural man . . , relapses into his life's love ... his will, 
 and this love dissipates these (spiritual) things and immerses his 
 thou.ght in space, in which his lumm, which he calls rational light, 
 abides. 
 
 (73) Time in the spiritual world is only a quality of state. 
 
 (76) Who cannot . . . think of God apart from Time is itnable to 
 perceive eternity otherwise than as eternity of time, and then in 
 thinking of God as from eternity he must needs fall into confusion. 
 He thinks from a beginning ... an attribute of time. . . . His de- 
 lirium lies in the thought that God has existed from himself, from 
 which he falls headlong into the origin of nature from itself. . . . 
 Between which (the infinite and the finite) there is no ratio. 
 
 B. How can life create death ? 
 
 (79) The Divine in the whole heaven and the Divine in an angel 
 is the same, wherefore the whole heaven can appear as one angeL . . . 
 The church ... an entire society of Heaven, has appeared as one man 
 ... as big as a giant ... as small as an infant. . . . The Divine is 
 the same in greatest things and least things. 
 
 (82) I once heard angels conversing with Newton on vacuum. 
 They said they could not bear the idea of a vacuum ... as nothing. 
 Newton said that he knows that the Divine which Is fills all things. 
 He exhorts all those who converse with him concerning vacuum to 
 beware of the idea of nothing, calling it a swoon, because in nothing 
 no actuality of mind is possible. 
 
 (The following are also among Swedenborgian phrases that entered 
 into Blake's mind and never left it again. They will be recognised as 
 showing through in much of his poetry.) 
 
 (84) The two worlds are distinct ... in the spiritual world is heat 
 and light, the good of charity and the truth of faith. Heat and light 
 cannot derive, their origin from any other source than that of a sun 
 ... in the spiritual world there is another sun than in the natural 
 world. 
 
 (86) That sun is the Divine Love and Wisdom that are one, and 
 appear as a sun in that world. 
 
 (103) By the Most High is signified the inmost. 
 
 (129) Angels constantly turn their faces to the Lord as a sun, and 
 thus have the south to the right, the north to the left, and the west 
 at the back. 
 
112 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 (151) The Lord created the universe and all things belonging to it 
 by means of the (spiritual) sun, which is the first proceeding of the 
 Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom. 
 
 (154) In the spiritual world are the causes of all things, and in the 
 natural world are the eflfects of all things. 
 
 {After a long gap the direct marginal commentary is resumed.) 
 
 S. (163) Without two suns, the one living and the other dead, there 
 can be no creation. 
 
 B. Fake philosophy according to the letter, but true according to 
 the spirit. 
 
 S. (164) Natural things in their origins are dead . . . suns are 
 origins ... the dead sun is created through the living sun by the 
 Lord. 
 
 B. How could life create death ? 
 
 S. (165) A dead sun was created . . . that things may be fixed . . . 
 that existences may come forth which shall be . . . ever enduring. 
 The terraqueous globe is a basis and firmament upon which they exist 
 
 B. They exist literally about the sun, and not about the earth. 
 
 S. (166) All things were created by the Lord through the living sun 
 and nothing through the dead sun. 
 
 B. The dead sun is only a phantasy of evil men. 
 
 S. (181, condensed) Men in their natural heat and light do not know 
 spiritual heat except by a certain delight of love, nor spiritual light 
 except by perception of truth. 
 
 B. He speaks of men as mere earthly men, not as receptacles of 
 spirit, or else he contradicts 257. 
 
 (257 is quoted and annotated below, in its place) 
 
 S. (182) Degrees of spiritual heat cannot be described from experi- 
 ence, because love, to which spiritual heat corresponds, does not come 
 under ideas of thought, but spiritual light can be described because 
 light, being of light, falls into those ideas. 
 
 B. This is certainly not to be understood according to the letter, for 
 it is false by all experience. Who does not and may not know of love 
 and wisdom in himself ? 
 
 S. (220) By works (so often mentioned in the Word, where we are 
 told that a man's salvation depends on them) are meant uses which are 
 actually done, for charity and faith is in uses and according to uses. 
 
 B. The whole of the New Church is in Active Life and not in Cere- 
 monies at all. 
 
 S. (237) Man comes first into the natural degree. This increases 
 . . . until he reaches . . . the rationaL The second degree, the 
 spiritual, ... is opened by the love of uses . . . love towards the 
 neighbour . . . the third degree ... by love toward the LoixL 
 
 B. Study science till you are blind. Study intellectuals till you are 
 cold. Yet science cannot teach intellect. Much less can intellect teach 
 affection. How foolish it is then to assert that Man is bom in only 
 one degree, when that one degree is receptive of the three degrees ; 
 two of which he must destroy or close up or they will descend. If he 
 closes up the two superior then he is not truly in the third, but de- 
 scends out of it into mere Nature or HeU (see No. 239). Is it not also 
 evident that one degree will not open the other, and that science will 
 not open intellect, but that they are discrete, and not continuous so as 
 
THE NOTES TO SWEDENBOEG li3 
 
 to explain each other except by correspondence which has nothing to 
 do with demonstration, for you cannot demonstrate one degree by the 
 other, for how can science be brought to demonstrate intellect without 
 making them continuous and not discrete ? 
 
 S. (239) There is in every man a natural, spiritual, and celestial 
 impotency by birth, and in act when they are opened. 
 
 B. Mark this. It explains 238. 
 
 S. (later in 239) Man . . . after death, if he becomes an angel . . . 
 speaks ineffable things incomprehensible to the natural man. 
 
 B. Not to a Man, but to the natural Man. 
 
 S. (241) Every one who consults his reason whilst it is in the light 
 is able to see that a man's love is the end of all things belonging to 
 him. 
 
 B. Whilst it is in the Ught (underlined). 
 
 S. (244) The understanding does not lead the will. Wisdom does 
 not produce love. 
 
 B. Mark this. 
 
 S. (256) A man, so long as he lives in the world, and is therefore in 
 the natural degree, cannot be elevated into very wisdom as it is with 
 the angels. 
 
 B. See Sect. 4 of the next number. 
 
 S. (257, Sect. 4) Still, the man with whom the spiritual degree has 
 been opened comes into that wisdom when he dies, and he can also 
 come into it by a laying asleep of the sensations of the body, and by an 
 influx into the spiritual things of his mind from above. 
 
 (Sect 5) Thought comes out of the mind's spiritual substances, not 
 out of its natural substances. 
 
 B. This is to be understood as unusual in our time but common in 
 ancient. This is while in the body. Many persons understand him 
 (Swedenborg) as if a man in the natural body was only conversant with 
 natural substances, because themselves are mercenary and worldly, and 
 have no idea of any but worldly gain. 
 
 S. (257) It may be confirmed, and indeed is confirmed, by the 
 wicked to themselves that there is no God . . . nature created herself 
 . . . religion is to keep simple minds in bonds . . . human prudence 
 does all things. 
 
 B. Who shall dare to say after this that elevation is of self, and is 
 Enthusiasm and Madness, and is it not plain that self-derived intelli- 
 gence is worldly demonstration ? 
 
 S. (294) Those things which constitute the spiritual sun are from 
 the Lord, and are not the Lord, therefore they are not life in itself. 
 
 B. This assertion that the spiritual sun is not life explains how 
 the natural sun is dead. 
 
 (294, later) As things which flow forth from an angel or a man are 
 not the angel or the man, biit are from them, devoid of life . . . 
 making one with them no further than that . . . they have been 
 taken out of the forms of their bodies which were the forms of their 
 life. Men with natural ideas cannot express this. 
 
 B. How absurd then would it be to say that no man on earth has a 
 spiritual idea after reading No. 257. 
 
 S. (295) Angels were told to think spiritually and . . . tell what 
 they thought . . . They could not. . . . No word of spiritual speech is 
 like natural speech . . . nor of spiritual writing kke natural . . . 
 except the letters, each of which has an entire meaning. 
 
 I 
 
114 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 B. They could not tell him in natural ideas how absurd must men 
 be to understand him, as if he said the angels could not express them- 
 selves at aU to him. 
 
 S. (304, condensed) There is progression of fibres and vessels in man, 
 and their states from their first principles where they are in the Ught 
 (underlined) and heat to ultimates in shade and not in heat. 
 
 B. We see here that the cause of an ultimate is the absence from 
 heat and light, 
 
 S. (315) Heat, light, and atmospheres of the natural world conduce 
 absolutely nothing to the image of creation. 
 
 B. Therefore the Natural Earth and Atmosphere is a Phantasy. 
 
 S. (315, continued) They only open seeds, maintain their shoots 
 in expansion, and put upon them matters which fix them, but this not 
 by Powers derived from their own Sun. 
 
 B. Mark this. 
 
 S. (316) There is a progression in the forms of animals and vege- 
 tables from first principles to iiltimates, and from ultimates to first 
 principles. WiU and understanding are primes : thought and action 
 ultimates. 
 
 B. A going forth and returning.' 
 
 S. (324) There is nothing in the created imiverse which has not 
 correspondence with something in man, affections, thoughts, or even 
 organs and viscera of the body . . . not with these as substances but 
 as uses. 
 
 B. Things and substances are so different as not to correspond. 
 
 (A long portion here of the book has no note made, but Blake read and 
 partly used afterwards many remarks in it, such as : (371) "There is 
 a correspondence of the will with the heart, and of the understanding 
 with the lungs." This recalls all that is said in Jerusalem and Milton 
 about the furnaces and bellows of Los.) 
 
 S. (404, condensed) There is thought out of affection for truth, it is 
 wisdom, — but there is a thought out of memory through the sight of 
 the natural mind. 
 
 B. Note this. 
 
 S. (410) Love or the will joins itseK to wisdom or understanding, 
 and wisdom or understanding does not conjoin itself to love or the will 
 
 B. Mark this. 
 
 S. (410, later, condensed) Knowledge which love acquires is not of 
 understanding, but of love. It flows in from the spiritual world not 
 to the understanding but to love in the understanding. It appears as 
 if the understanding received it, but this is a fallacy, and as if love 
 conjoined itself to affection, but this is a fallacy. 
 
 B. Mark this. Note this. 
 
 S. (410, stiU later) Love acts through truths, deriving nothing from 
 understanding, but acting as though wisdom came from it, from some 
 determination of Love cafied affection. 
 
 B. Mark this. 
 
 S. (411) Therefore love conjoins itself to understanding, not the 
 converse. 
 
 B. Mark this. 
 
 S. (417) Any one who is familiar with the anatomic structure of the 
 lungs, and collates it with the understanding, can see clearly that the 
 understanding does nothing of itself. 
 
THE NOTES TO SWEDENBOEG 115 
 
 B. Mark. 
 
 S. (412, later) My knowledge of the fabric of the lungs fully con- 
 vmced me that love through its affections conjoins itself to the under- 
 standing, and that the understanding does not conjoin itself to the 
 affection of love. 
 
 B. Mark. 
 
 S. (413) The wisdom or understanding, out of the potency given to 
 it by love or the will, is able to receive those things which are light 
 from heaven, and to receive them. 
 
 B. Mark this. 
 
 S. (414) Love cannot be elevated through honour or gain as an end. 
 . . . Love towards the neighbour from the Lord is the love of wisdom. 
 The light in man corresponding to winter is . . . wisdom without 
 love. . . . 
 
 B. Is it not false, then, that Love receives its influx through the 
 understanding, as was asserted in the Society ? 
 
 S. (419) Material love has become impure through the separation 
 from heavenly love in parents. 
 
 B. Therefore it was not created impure aiid is not naturally so. 
 
 S. (419, later) In so far as the love puts heaven in the first place 
 and the world in the second ... it is raised into the heart of heaven 
 and conjoined to the light of heaven. 
 
 B. Therefore it may not receive influx through the understanding. 
 
 S. (421) The love or will is defiled in the understanding and by it, 
 if they are not elevated together. 
 
 B. Mark this. They are elevated together. 
 
 S. (422) The understanding is not become spiritual or celestial, but 
 the love does. When the love is so it makes its spouse, the under- 
 standing, spiritual and celestial. 
 
 B. underlines this. 
 
 S. (432, condensed) The initiament or primitive of man as it is in 
 the womb after conception no man can know because it cannot be seen. 
 It is of spiritual substance that does not faU into natural light. . . . 
 The right half of the brain at smallest is of love, the left of imderstand- 
 ing. Its form within is in the form of heaven, but its exterior form 
 was seen in it in opposition to that Order and Porm. 
 
 B. Heaven and Hell are bom together. 
 
 In Swedenborg's Angelic Wisdom concerning the Divine 
 Love it is also taught that — (288) " Inasmuch as God is a 
 Man, therefore the universal Heaven in the complex is as 
 one man, and it is distinguished into regions and provinces 
 according to the members, viscera, and organs of a man. . . . 
 All these provinces are distinct from one another. . . . The 
 angels who constitute heaven are the recipients of love and 
 wisdom from the Lord, and eecipients aee images." 
 
 The last three words relate what may be called the iirst 
 law of mysticism. It contains a conceivable relation between 
 the Imagination in Blake's sense of the word, and the Logos. 
 
CHAPTEK XIII 
 
 Robert's invention 
 
 In the year 1788-89 Blake was not only busy with his 
 studies of Swedenborg, he received from a dream or vision of 
 his dead brother Kobert the invention of the kiad of printing 
 in which he published all his autograph books. Eobert 
 directed him to write and draw in a liquid varnish that 
 would protect a copper plate from being eaten away by acid, 
 and then to leave the plate in an acid bath till only the hnes 
 were left standing up. He could then roll an ordinary 
 printing roller soaked with printing ink over the surface and 
 print as from an ordinary block. 
 
 As this is usually told from Blake's own account of it, we 
 cannot help understanding it as though Blake were a medium, 
 and the spirit of Eobert came to him and spoke to him. 
 "Whether such a thing be possible or not seems to be still a 
 matter in dispute with most people, but we have an incorrect 
 idea of Blake if we look upon him as here claiming to be 
 a "medium"; though he would seem to speak as though 
 that were his idea of himself. Whatever the " mediumistic " 
 faculty may be, it is one which imagination does not help, 
 but rather hinders and distorts. Blake's imagination being 
 habitually in a state of boiling activity, ready at the smallest 
 suggestion to boil over, we should expect him to be less of a 
 medium than most people, while his Swedenborgian habit of 
 talk, dating back to before he possessed more than a childish 
 smattering of Swedenborg, would naturally cause him to 
 refer to the dead in such a way that mediums, especially 
 those who were not Swedenborgians, would claim him as one 
 of themselves. 
 
 In fact, he seems to have possessed a very slight and easily 
 disturbed and deceived faculty of an occult or psychic sort, 
 showing itself in presentiment and intuition, and leading him 
 as often to errors as ^o revelations. His views of the subsist- 
 
 116 
 
EGBERT'S INVENTION 117 
 
 ence of the influence of the dead upon us were almost 
 identical with those of Auguste Comte, as was most of his 
 philosophy. The circle of joined hands at a stance, the 
 " man exists not but by brotherhood " of Blake's formula, and 
 the mystic " Humanity " of Comte are all phases of the same 
 thing, as is the French writer's epigram : " 11 y a toujours 
 quelqu'un qui aura plus d'esprit que qui que ce soit, — c'est 
 tout-le-monde." The thing is multiple personality, — a subject 
 whose psychology is yet in its infancy. The language in 
 which Blake spoke was picturesque, and disguised the 
 Positivism of the ideas, as Positivism, on the other hand, 
 disguises its own truth by the distressingly unpicturesque 
 nature of the way in which it is presented. 
 
 The letter already referred to of Blake to Hayley, with whom 
 he was not yet acquainted at the time of Eobert's death, written 
 a few years later, when Hayley had just lost a son, gives a 
 view of the spiritual communications from Eobert that might 
 have been written by Comte himself, if he had been educated 
 in the Swedenborgian school. Blake is enclosing a drawing 
 that he has made of Hayley's son. The letter is dated 
 Lambeth, May 6, 1800 :— 
 
 Dear Sir — I am very sorry for your immense loss, which is a 
 repetition of what all feel in this valley of misery and happiness mixed. 
 I send the shadow of the departed angel and hope that the likeness is 
 improved. The lips I have again lessened, as you advised, and done a 
 good many other softenings to the whole. I know that our deceased 
 friends are more really with us than when they were apparent to our 
 mortal part. Thirteen years ago I lost a brother, and with his spirit I 
 converse daily and hourly in the spirit, and see him in my remembrance, 
 in the region of my imagination. I hear his advice, and even now 
 write from his dictate. Forgive me for expressing to you my enthusiasm, 
 which I wish all to partake of, since it is a source of immortal joy, even 
 in this world. By it I am the companion of angels. May you continue 
 to be so more and more, and to be more and more persuaded that every 
 mortal loss is an immortal gain. The ruins of Time build mansions in 
 Eternity. 
 
 I have also sent a proof of Pericles for your remarks, thanking you 
 for the kindness with which you express them, and feeling heartily 
 your grief with a brother's sympathy. — I remain, etc. 
 
 Some small portion of Blake's ideas of life and death may 
 be sketched as follows : — Just as while the generations run 
 on there is seen a personal tendency to take shape which is a 
 spiritual influence that survives the disa;gpearance of a man's 
 features when they are melted down in ]^s own seed, and is 
 capable of blending with other features*' in an equally non- 
 existent state in a woman's seed, and as it depends on and 
 
118 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 yet stamps and moulds mental faculties, when these are still 
 non-existent, so there is something personal that survives by 
 joining in brotherhood the non-existence of each of us through 
 death. In fact, it only becomes free to be fully alive when it 
 ceases to be obliged to work at forming and feeding a mortal 
 body at all. The chief qualities of the framework that is 
 called a mortal body are time and space. The mind, free 
 from these, is necessarily immortal, and is even immortal 
 before it gets free from them. Therefore, the immortal part 
 of the mind (for much of the mind is as mortal as the body, 
 and is only used to keep the body alive and teach it to 
 propagate) is able during life to have communication with 
 immortality, which is the whole mind of those who, being dead, 
 no longer waste mentality on corporeal needs. 
 
 The conditions of identity are different after death. Minds 
 merge themselves in Mind, as when a sheep-pen is removed 
 the particular portion of the meadow where the sheep were 
 confined merges in the acres around. Yet a characteristic 
 living mind turning itself toward the general mind can com- 
 municate with a sympathetic mind merged in the mass. 
 Memory is existence in Time ; Imagination is existence in 
 Eternity; Contraries vivify; Space without motion is not 
 yet alive ; Space with motion is not space only, but is partly 
 Time ; Space without place is barren ; Place is an idea, an 
 imagination ; Space is Nature. 
 
 This is only a free sketch of a small portion of Blake's 
 creed, not quoted from any particular passages of his, but it 
 may be enough to put us on our guard against reading him 
 iia a rough and ready sense which should attribute to him 
 either materialistic spiritualism or Positivist metaphysics. 
 
 We must, as Swedenborg warns us, immerse our minds in 
 contemplative celestial light for some time before they will 
 work in any other than the corporeal manner, whose space 
 and time are its essence, for the corporeal is the manner that 
 our own essence habitually needs for its own purposes, and 
 only habit can conquer habit. 
 
 By whatever means of communication Blake received his 
 idea from Eobert, even if memory of him produced a vision 
 during waking hours exactly like a dream, and this vision 
 spoke as our dreams do, and told him what to do, the result 
 was that he had a new occupation. It was now possible to 
 print the pictorial poems, and tint them, as his Islander in 
 the Moon had suggested. 
 
 After the partnership with Parker was broken off and 
 
EGBERT'S INVENTION 119 
 
 the removal completed, Blake gave a large amount of his 
 time in Poland Street to this work, writing little at first, but 
 reading Swedenborg and Lavater when not producing his 
 Songs of Innocence. 
 
 He also proceeded, with the emulation that was so 
 inherent in him, to outdo his own Songs of Innocence by 
 beginning to add the Songs of Experience to them, though 
 these rather bitter rhymes can hardly have belonged to 
 an early period of this secluded and almost solitary sec- 
 tion of his life, — the years immediately following Eobert's 
 death. 
 
 That time is divided — so far as we can learn — in this way. 
 Eobert's death in 1787 closes a period that is practically 
 given to art exclusively, and that lasted from the breaking 
 off of the Poetical Sketches in 1776, with only The Island in 
 the Moon and such Songs of Innocence as were written in it 
 at the close and thought too good for its pages. 
 
 The troubles over the partnership and its dissolution, with 
 the removal to No. 28 Poland Street, shared the year 1788 
 with readings from Swedenborg and the writing of the Booh 
 of Thel. The revelation of the method for printing the 
 Songs of Innocence is now received, and these and the Book 
 of Thel are put on copper, with the " first stereo " of the 
 Ghost of Abel — 1788-1789. Blake now writes the part of 
 the Marriage of Heaven and Hell aimed at Swedenborg, and 
 begins to put it on copper. While doing so he reads Lavater's 
 Aphorisms, and annotates them. (These annotations are given 
 in full in the next chapter. As in the case of the notes to 
 Swedenborg, only just the few lines necessary to understand 
 what Blake was referring to in his note are given from the 
 annotated author.) Then the Proverbs of Hell are written 
 and added. This brings Blake's personal work up to 1790, and 
 closes a period. Gilchrist notes the Flight into Egypt, Christ 
 blessing little Children, and Death and Hell teem with Life 
 (afterwards, he says, engraved in the Marriage of Heaven 
 and Hell, leaf 10, as painted in 1790). The reference seems 
 incorrect; page 10 has the Devil reading the Proverbs of 
 Hell from a scroU for its pictorial portion. 
 
 After this year Blake's style began to change because 
 he was less solitary. He did a long series of fifty plates 
 from designs by Chodowiecki for Elements of Morality by 
 Mary WoUstonecraft, and this brought him continually to 
 Johnson's shop, where he met the authoress and also Dr. 
 Price, Dr. Priestley, Godwin, and Tom Paine Here 
 
120 THE KEAL BLAKE 
 
 came Fuseli, who met Mary Wollstonecraft for the first time 
 in 1790. 
 
 Blake had struggled through his bereavement and his 
 business disappointments alone, and had struggled through 
 them into poetry, into " believing vision " along with his wife, 
 into an increasing love for her, and the beginning of his great 
 myth, of which the first trace is the mention in Thel of the 
 "Eternal Gates' Terrific Porter" who opened the "Northern 
 Bar." "We are to know this porter as for many years the 
 laborious spirit inhabiting Blake, who is called Urthona and 
 Los under different aspects, as told in all the later poems. 
 
 Blake was now thirsting for a little "jostling in the street," 
 though he admits that " great things " are not done by it. 
 He threw himself with delight into the revolutionary talk 
 that he heard at Johnson's, and, as usual, was not satisfied 
 unless he could outshine every one else. He came amongst 
 them with his Song of Liberty in his hand, and walked out 
 from them into the streets of London with a cap of Liberty 
 on his head. It was a very unsafe thing to do. The mob 
 might have lynched him in the name of order. We do not 
 hear that any other of Johnson's guests defied public opinion 
 in this way. 
 
 Blake persuaded himself for a while that he was finding 
 friends. Friendship — the half-way house between selfhood 
 (all evil) and eternal brotherhood, the "multiple per- 
 sonality," the ultimate good- — ^was his ideal all through life, 
 yet it was only in his later years that his exuberant character 
 and terrific self-love could be toned down enough to make 
 any friendship safe from resentment and quarrel, dearly as 
 he loved every human being that came near him and said a 
 few kind words to him. He, in fact, was so eager for unity 
 with his fellows that, in spite of his mental contempt for 
 people, he would respond from the heart to the merest 
 civility. He studied Lavater's Aphorisms at this time with 
 the serious intention of educating himself in the art of 
 friendship, as his naive and shrewd marginal notes show 
 on almost every page. 
 
 One touch seems to have roused him particularly. He 
 could not have sat stiU with quiet pulses when learning that 
 these Aphorisms were composed (by the hundred) during a 
 single autumn while Lavater was moving about from place 
 to place. 
 
 Here was a record to pull down ! The Proverbs of Hell 
 were probably written as an "out-doing" of this, in some 
 
EOBEET'S INVENTION 121 
 
 limited tim >- ; perhaps half-au-hour. There is nothing, even 
 in their concentration, that would oblige Blake to pause 
 and meditate. He became stupid when he thought slowly. 
 Consideration was done by him unconsciously, when he did 
 not know that he was thinking at all. Then, in a state of 
 excitement, the result came tearing forth in " human form," 
 — that is, in living utterance of poetic picturesqueness. 
 
CHAPTEK XIV 
 
 LAVATER 
 
 Lavater's Aphorisms form a wise and pleasant little book. 
 The style is not without a sort of large-eyed childishness iu 
 its innocent depth of well-meaning thought. Blake not 
 only read each one of the aphorisms with careful con- 
 sideration, but wrote marginal comments on them, which 
 he considered made his own private copy of the book a 
 composite work done in a sort of personally separate, but 
 spiritually joined, collaboration. He wrote "Will Blake" 
 beneath the name "Lavater" on the title-page, and sur- 
 rounded the two with the outline of a heart, in the con- 
 ventional form used for valentines and playing-cards. 
 
 The sentence of Lavater which led to the making of these 
 marginal notes is this : 
 
 Aphorism 633. 
 
 If you mean to know yourself, interline such of these aphorisms as 
 affect you agreeably in reading, and set a mark to such as left (de) a 
 sense of uneasiness with you, and then show your copy to whom you 
 please. 
 
 On the first page Blake refers the reader to this for the 
 reason of his annotations. 
 
 Gilchrist has given a selection from them. But as it is 
 the purpose of this book to set forth Blake visibly and accu- 
 rately, we cannot spare a word of such valuable help as we 
 get here from his own hand. Gilchrist says that Fuseh 
 remarked, when Blake showed him these annotations, that 
 any one could read his character in them. The frontispiece 
 that Blake engraved to the book is from a painting by Fuseli, 
 representing a theatrical sort of eighteenth-century Hamlet 
 sitting in an elaborate attitude of meditation, while a cherub 
 in the sky shows him a tablet with rNfiei 2EAYT0N 
 
 122 
 
LAVATEE 123 
 
 (" Know thyself ") in capital letters upon it. The engraving is 
 good. It is accurately and conscientiously Fuseli, and Fuseli 
 treated with a silky suavity and richness of surface in the 
 hero's clothing, and a pleasant, not too heavy, obscurity in 
 the mysterious clouds that fill his study. Here follow such 
 aphorisms as are annotated with their numbers, and Blake's 
 comments, printed in Italics : 
 
 Know, in the first place, that mankind agree in essence as they do 
 in their limbs and senses. 
 
 (This is true Christian philosophy, fa/r above all abstraction.) 
 
 As in looking upward each beholder thinks himself the centre of the 
 sky, so Natiire formed her individuals that each must see himself the 
 centre of being. 
 
 {Let me refer to a remark on Aphorism 533, and another on 630.) 
 
 8. 
 
 Who pursues means of enjoyment contradictory, irreconcilable, and 
 self-destructive is a fool, or what is called a sinner. Sin and destruction 
 of order are the same. 
 
 (A golden sentence.) 
 
 11. 
 
 The less you can enjoy, the poorer and scantier yoiu'self, — the more 
 you can enjoy, the richer, the more vigorous. 
 
 (Underlined by Blake.) 
 
 You enjoy with wisdom or with folly as the gratification of your 
 appetites capacitates or unnerves your powers. 
 
 (False, for weak is the joy that is never wearied.) 
 
 13. 
 
 Joy and grief decide character. What exalts prosperity ? What 
 embitters grief? What leaves us indifferent? What interests us? 
 As the interest of man, so his God. As his God, so he. 
 
 {All gold.) 
 
 14. 
 
 What is a man's interest ? What constitutes his God, the ultimate 
 of his wishes, the end of his existence ? Either that which on every 
 occasion he communicates with the most unrestrained cordiality, or 
 hides from every profane eye and ear with mysterious awe, — to which 
 he makes every other thing a mere appendix ;— the vortex, the centre, 
 the comparative point from which he sets out, on which he fixes, to 
 which he irresistibly returns ;— that, at the loss of which you may safely 
 
124 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 think him inconsolable ; that which he rescues from the grip of danger 
 with equal anxiety and boldness. 
 
 (All gold.) 
 
 The story of the painter and the prince is well known. To get at 
 the best piece in the artist's collection the prince ordered " Fire ! " to 
 be cried in the neighbourhood. At the first noise the artist abruptly 
 left the prince and seized his darling, his Titian. The alarm proved a 
 false one, but the object of purchase was fixed. The application is easy. 
 Of thousands it may be decided what loss, what gain would affect them 
 most. This the Sage of Nazareth meant when He said, " Where thy 
 treasure is, there will thy heart be ako." The object of your love is 
 your God. 
 
 {This should be written in gold letters on our temples.) 
 
 16. 
 
 The greatest of characters no doubt would be he who, free of all 
 trifling accidental helps, could see objects through one grand immutable 
 medium, always at hand and proof against illusion and time, reflecting 
 every object in its true shape and colour, through aU the fluctuations 
 of things. 
 
 {This was Christ.) 
 
 20. 
 
 Distinguish with exactness in thyself and others between wishes and 
 wiU in the strictest sense. 
 
 Who has many wishes in general has but little will Who has 
 energy of will has few diverging wishes. ' Whose will is bent with energy 
 on one must renounce the wishes for many things. Who cannot do this 
 is not stamped with the majesty of human nature. The energy of 
 choice, the union of various powers for one, is alone will, bom under the 
 agonies of self-denial and renounced desires. 
 
 {Admirable. Regeneration.) 
 
 21. 
 
 Calmness of will is a sign of grandeur. The vulgar, far from hiding 
 their will, blab their wishes. A single spark of occasion discharges 
 the child of passions into a thousand crackers of desire. 
 
 (Uneasy.) 
 
 28. 
 
 The glad gladdens. Who gladdens not is not glad. Who is fatal 
 to others is so to himself To him heaven, earth, wisdom, folly, 
 virtue, and vice are equal To such an one tell neither good nor bad 
 of thyself 
 
 (Underlined all but the last sentence by Blake.) 
 
 32. 
 
 Let the degree of egotism be the measure of confidence. 
 (Uneasy.) 
 
LAVATER 125 
 
 36. 
 
 Who begins with severity in judging another ends commonly with 
 falsehood. 
 
 (False. Severity of judgment is a great mrtue.) 
 
 37. 
 
 The smiles that encourage severity of judgment hide malice and 
 insincerity. 
 
 {False. Aphorisms should he wmversally true.) 
 
 39. 
 
 Who without pressing temptation tells a lie wiU without pressing 
 temptation act ignobly and meanly. 
 
 (Uneasy : false. A man may tell a lie for his own pleasures, hut if 
 amy one is hurt hy his lying he mil confess his lie. See No. 124.) 
 
 40. 
 
 Who under pressing temptation to lie adheres to truth, nor to the 
 profane betrays aught of a sacred trust, is near the summit of wisdom 
 and virtue. 
 
 (Excellent.) 
 
 44. 
 
 You can depend on no man, on no friend but him who can depend 
 on himself. He only who acts consequentially towards himself will 
 act so towards others, and vice versa. 
 
 Man is for ever the same, — the same under every form, in all situa- 
 tions and relations that admit of free and unrestrained exertion. The 
 same regard which you have for yourself you have for others, for 
 nature, for the invisible Noumen which you call God. Who has wit- 
 nessed one free and unrestrained act of yours has witnessed alL 
 
 (AU but the first and third sentences underlined by Blake.) 
 
 54. 
 
 Frequent laughing has been long called a sign of a little mind, 
 whilst the scarcer smile of harmless quiet has been complimented as 
 the mark of a noble heart. But to abstain laughing and exciting 
 laughter, merely not to oifend, or to risk giving offence, or not to 
 debase the iajyard dignity of character, is a power unknown to many 
 a vigorous mind. 
 
 (I hate scarce smiles : I love laughing.) 
 
 59. 
 A sneer is often the sign of heartless malignity. 
 (Da/mn sneerers.) 
 
126 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 61. 
 
 I know not which of these two I should wish to avoid most, the 
 scoffer at virtue and religion who with heartless villainy butchers 
 innocence and truth, or the pietist, who crawls, groans, blubbers, and 
 secretly says to gold. Thou art my hope ! and to his belly. Thou art 
 my god ! 
 
 (J hate crawlers.) (The epithets here underlined by Blake.) 
 
 All moral dependence on him who has been guilty of (me act of 
 positive cool villainy against an acknowledged virtuous and noble 
 character is credulity, imbecility, insanity. 
 
 ( is being like him, rather.) 
 
 63. 
 
 The most stormy ebullitions of passion, from blasphemy to murder, 
 are less terrific than one single act of cool villainy. A still rabies is 
 more dangerous than the paroxysms of a fever. Fear the boisterous 
 savage of passion less than the sedately grinning villain. 
 
 {Brave !) (All underlined by Blake.) 
 
 66. 
 
 Can he love truth who can take a knave to his bosom ? 
 {No.) (Underlined by Blake.) 
 
 67. 
 
 There are offences against individuals to aU appearance trifling 
 which are capital offences against the human race. Fly him who can 
 commit them. 
 
 (Underlined by Blake.) 
 
 68. 
 
 There ought to be a perpetual whisper in the ear of plain honesty— 
 "Take heed not even to pronounce the name of a knave." He will 
 make the very sound of his name a handle of mischiet And do you 
 think a knave begins mischief to leave oflf ? Know this : whether he 
 be overcome or be foiled, he will wrangle on. 
 
 {Therefore pronounce him u, knave. Why should honesty fear a 
 knave f) 
 
 69. 
 
 Humility and love, whatever obscurities may involve religious tenets, 
 constitute the essence of true religion. The humble is formed to adore, 
 the loving to associate with eternal love. 
 
 {Sweet.) (The second sentence underlined.) 
 
LAVATEE 127 
 
 70. 
 
 Have you ever seen a vulgar mind warm or humble or a proud one 
 that could love ? Where pride begins, love ceases. As love, so numiUty. 
 As both, so the still real power of man. 
 
 [Pride may love.) 
 
 71. 
 
 Everything may be mimicked by hypocrisy, but humility and love 
 united. The humblest star twinkles most in the darkest night. The 
 more rare humility and love united, the more radiant when ttiey meet. 
 
 (All this may he mimicked very well. This aphorism certainhj was an 
 oversight, for what are all crawlers lut mimickers of hwmiUty and love T) 
 
 73. 
 
 Modesty is silent when it would not be improper to speak. The 
 humble, without being called upon, never recollects to say anything 
 of himself. 
 
 (Uneasy.) 
 
 78. 
 
 The wrath that, on conviction, subsides into mildness is the wrath 
 of a generous mind. 
 
 80. 
 
 Thousands are hated, while none are ever loved, without real cause. 
 The amiable alone can be loved. 
 
 81. 
 
 He who is loved and commands love when he corrects or is the 
 cause of uneasiness must be loveliness itself ; and 
 
 82. 
 
 He who can love him in the moment of correction is the most 
 amiable of mortals. 
 
 83. 
 
 He to whom you may tell anything may see everything and will 
 betray nothing. 
 
 (The above five are underlined by Blake.) 
 
 86. 
 The freer you feel yourself in the presence of another, the more free 
 is he : who is free makes free. 
 (Bather uneasy.) 
 
 92. 
 
 Who instantly does the best that can be done, what no other could 
 have done, and what all must acknowledge to be the best, is a genius 
 and a hero at once. 
 
 (Uneasy.) 
 
128 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 93. 
 
 The discovery of truth by slow progressive meditation is wisdom. 
 Intuition of truth not preceded by perceptible meditation is genius. 
 
 (Underlined by Blake.) 
 
 94. 
 
 The degree of genius is determined by its velocity, clearness, depth, 
 simplicity, copiousness, extent of glance (coitp d'ceil), and instantaneous 
 intuition of the whole at once. 
 
 (Copiousness of glance !) 
 
 96. 
 Dread more the blunderer's friendship than the calumniator's enmity. 
 (J dovht this.) 
 
 97. 
 
 He only who can give durability to his exertions has genuine power 
 and energy of mind. 
 
 (Uneasy: sterling.) 
 
 98. 
 
 Before thou callest a man hero or genius, investigate whether his 
 exertion has features of durability, for all that is celestial, all genius, 
 is the offspring of immortality. 
 
 (Uneasy: sterling.) 
 
 99. 
 
 Who despises all that is despicable is made to be impressed with all 
 that is grand. 
 
 (Underlined by Blake.) 
 
 107. 
 
 Who takes from you ought to give in his turn, or he is a thief. I 
 distinguish taking and accepting, robbing and receiving. Many give 
 already by the mere wish to give, their still unequivocal wish of 
 improvement and gratitude, while it draws from us, opens treasures 
 within us that might have remained locked up even to ourselves. 
 
 (Nohle and generous.) 
 
 114. 
 
 Who writes as he speaks, speaks as he writes, looks as he speaks and 
 writes, is honest. 
 
 (Underlined by Blake.) 
 
 124. 
 Who has a daring eye tells downright truths and downright lies. 
 (Contrary to No. 39, hut most true.) 
 
LAVATEE 129 
 
 141. 
 
 Many trifling inattentions, neglects, indiscretions, are so many un- 
 equivocal proofs of dull frigidity, hardness, and extreme egotism. 
 (Bather uneasy.) 
 
 150. 
 As your enemies and your friends so are you. 
 (Very uneasy.) 
 
 151. 
 
 You may depend upon it ttat he is a good man whose intimate 
 friends are all good, and whose enemies are characters decidedly bad. 
 (Uneasy. I fear I have not many enemies.) 
 
 157. 
 
 Say not you know another till you have divided an inheritance 
 with him. 
 
 (.' .f) (UnderHned by Blake.) 
 
 163. 
 
 Who at the pressing solicitation of bold and noble confidence hesitates 
 one moment before he consents, proves himself at once inexorable. 
 
 (Uneasy. I don't believe it.) 
 
 164. 
 
 Who at the solicitations of cunning, self-interest, or impudence 
 hesitates one moment before he refuses, proves himself at once a silly 
 giver. 
 
 (Uneasy.) 
 
 168. 
 
 Whenever a man undergoes a considerable change in consequence of 
 being observed by others, whenever he assumes another gait, another 
 language than what he had before he thought himself observed, be 
 advised to guard yourself against him. 
 
 (Bather uneasy.) 
 
 170. 
 
 I am prejudiced in favour of him who can solicit boldly without 
 impudence. He has faith in human nature. 
 
 176. 
 
 As a man's salutation, so the total of his character. In nothing do 
 we lay ourselves so open as in our manner of meeting and salutation. 
 
 K 
 
130 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 177. 
 
 Be afraid of him who meets you with a friendly aspect and in the 
 midst of a flattering salutation avoids your direct, open look. 
 
 (The above three underlined by Blake.) 
 
 185. 
 All flattery is a sign of littleness. 
 (Not always.) 
 
 190. 
 
 The more honesty a man has, the less he affects the air of a saint. 
 The affectation of sanctity is a blotch on the fece of piety. 
 
 {Bravo !) 
 
 191. 
 
 There are more heroes than saints (heroes I call rulers over the 
 minds and destinies of men) — ^more saints than humane charactera 
 Him who humanises aU that is within and around himself adore. I 
 know but of one such by tradition. 
 
 (Sweet) 
 
 193. 
 
 Who seeks those that are greater than himself, their greatness 
 enjoys, and forgets his greatest qualities in their greater ones, is already 
 truly great. 
 
 (I hope I do not flatter myself that this is pleasant to me.) 
 
 215. 
 The friend of order has made half his way to virtue. 
 (Underlined by Blake.) 
 
 216. 
 
 There is no mortal truly wise and restless at once. Wisdom is the 
 repose of minds. 
 
 (Bather uneasy.) 
 
 232. 
 
 The connoisseur in painting discovers an original by some great line, 
 though covered with dust and disguised by daubing, so he who studies 
 man discovers a valuable character by some original trait, though 
 unnoticed, disguised, or debased. Eavished at the discovery, he feels it 
 his duty to restore it to its own genuine splendour. Him who in spite 
 of contemptuous pretenders has the boldness to do this, choose for your 
 friend. 
 
 (The last sentence underlined by Blake.) 
 
LAVATEE 131 
 
 234. 
 
 Who writes what he should tell, and dares not tell what he writes, is 
 either like a woK in sheep's clothing, or like a sheep in a wolfs skin. 
 (Some cannot tell what they can write, though they dare.) 
 
 238. 
 
 Know that the great art to love your enemy consists in never losing 
 sight of the man in him. Humanity has power over aU that is human. 
 The most in human man still remains man, and never can throw off 
 all taste for what becomes a man. But you must learn to wait. 
 
 (None can see the man in the enemy. If he is ignoranthj so, he is not 
 truhj an enemy, — if maliciously, not a man. I cannot love my enemy, for 
 my enemy is not a Tuian. But I can love him as a beast, and wish to heat 
 him.) 
 
 243. 
 He who welcomes the look of the good is good himself. 
 (Underlined by Blake.) 
 
 244. 
 
 I know deists whose religiousness I venerate, and atheists whose 
 honesty and nobleness of mind I wish for, but I have not yet seen the 
 man who could have tempted me to think him honest who publicly 
 acted the Christian whilst privately he was a positive deist 
 
 [Bravo !) (The last two lines underlined by Blake.) 
 
 246. 
 
 He who laughed at you till he got to your door, flattered you as you 
 opened it, felt the force of your argument while he Was with you, 
 applauded when he rose, and after he went away blasts you, has the 
 most indisputablte title to an archdukedom in helL 
 
 (Such a one I could never forgive whilst he continued such a one.) (All 
 underlined, though irregularly, by Blake.) , 
 
 251. 
 
 Ask not only, "Am I hated ?" but, "by whom?"— "Am I loved?" 
 but " why ? " As the good love thee, the bad will hate thee. 
 
 [Uneasy.) The last sentence underlined by Blake.) 
 
 262. 
 
 Who can act or perform as if each work or action were the first, the 
 last, and only one in hisi[life, is great. 
 
 (Underlined by Blake.) 
 
132 THE KEAL BLAKE 
 
 266. 
 
 We can do all by speech and silence. He who understands the 
 double art of speaking opportunely to the moment and of saying not 
 a syllable more or less than it demanded, and he who can wrap 
 himself up in silence when every word would be vain, will under- 
 stand to connect energy with patience. 
 
 (Uneasy.) 
 
 268. 
 
 Let the unhappiness you feel at another's errors and the happiness 
 you enjoy in their (sic) perfections be the measure of your progress in 
 wisdom and virtue. 
 
 (Excellent.) (Underlined by Blake.) 
 
 Who becomes every day more sagacious in observing his own 
 faults and the perfections of another, \\'ithout either envying him 
 or despairing of himself, is ready to mount the ladder on which angels 
 ascend and descend. 
 
 (Noble.) 
 
 272. 
 
 The more there is of mind in your solitary employments, the more 
 dignity there is in your character. 
 
 (Underlined by Blake.) 
 
 He who can at all times sacrifice pleasure to duty approaches 
 sublimity. 
 
 (Marginal score by Blake.) 
 
 279. 
 
 Between the best and the worst there are, you say, inniunerable 
 degrees — and you are right. But admit that I am right too in saying 
 that the best and the worst differ only in one thing — ^in the object of 
 their love. 
 
 (Would to God that every one would consider this.) 
 
 280. 
 
 What is it you love in him you love ? What is it you hate in, him 
 you hate ? Answer this closely to j'ourself, pronounce it loudly, and 
 you will know yourself and him. 
 
 (All gold.) 
 
 282. 
 
 If you see one cold and vehement at the same time, set him down 
 for a fanatic. 
 
 (i.e. hypocrite.) 
 
LAVATEE 133 
 
 285. 
 
 Who can hide magnanimity stands on the supreme degree of human 
 nature, and is admired by the world of spirits. 
 
 (Underlined by Blake.) 
 
 291. 
 He has not a little of the devil in him who prays and bites. 
 (There is no other devil. He who bites without praying is only a heast.) 
 
 292. 
 
 He who when called upon to tell a disagreeable truth tells it boldly 
 and has one, is both bolder and milder than he who nibbles in a low 
 voice and never ceases nibbling. 
 
 {Damn such.) (Underlined from disagreeable to voice.) 
 
 293. 
 
 As the shadow follows the body, so restless suUenness the female 
 knave. 
 
 (This form of the aphorism is from the second edition, showing the 
 adoption of a correctionof the press made by Blake in the first. The 
 word sullenness was there printed subtleness. 
 
 295. 
 Be not the fourth friend of him who had three before and lost them. 
 {Excellent rule.) 
 
 298. 
 
 Want of friends argues either want of humility or courage, or 
 both. 
 
 (Uneasy.) 
 
 299. 
 
 He who at a table of forty covers, thirty-nine of which are exquisite 
 and one indifferent, lays hold of that, and with a " damn your dinner ! " 
 dashes it in, the landlord's face, should be sent to Bethlem or Bride- 
 well, and whither he who blasphemes a book, a work of art, or perhaps 
 a man of nine-and-thirty good, and but one bad quality, and calls those 
 fools or flatterers who, engrossed by the superior number of good 
 qualities, would fain forget the bad one (?— the missing query at the 
 end here is added by Blake, who answers the question thus). 
 
 (To hell till he behaves better ! Mark that I do not believe there is such 
 a thing literally, but hell is the being shut up in the possession of corporeal 
 desires which shortly weary the man, fob all life is holy.) 
 
134 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 318. 
 
 Keep him at least three paces distant who hates bread, music, and 
 the laugh of a child. 
 (2716 best in the book) 
 
 323. 
 Between passion and lie there is not a finger's breadtL 
 (Lie is the contrary to passion.) 
 
 324. 
 
 Avoid like a serpent him who writes impertinently yet speaks 
 politely. 
 
 {A dog ! Get a stick to him!) (Underlined by Blake.) 
 
 328. 
 Search carefully if one patiently finishes what he boldly begun. 
 (JJneasy.) 
 
 329. 
 
 Who comes from the kitchen has something of its smoke. Who 
 adheres to a sect has something of its cant The coUege air pursues 
 the student, and dry inhumanity him who herds with literary pedants. 
 
 (The second sentence underlined by Blake.) 
 
 331. 
 
 Call him truly religious who believes in something higher, more 
 powerful, more living than visible nature ; and who, clear as his own 
 existence, feels his conformity to that superior being. 
 
 (Underlined by Blake.) 
 
 332. 
 
 Superstition always inspires littleness ; religion, grandeur of 
 mind. The superstitious raises beings inferior to himself to deities. 
 
 {No man was ever truly superstitious who was not truly religious as far 
 as he knew. 
 
 The superstitious is ignorant honesty. This is beloved of God and man, 
 
 I do not know that there is such a thing as superstition in the strict 
 sense of the word. 
 
 A man must deceive hvmself before he is superstitious, and so he is a 
 hypocrite. 
 
 Hypocrisy is as distinct from superstition as the wolf from the lamb.) 
 
 (These comments seem to have been written separately in this order 
 on the margins, and when writing the last Blake drew his pen through 
 the word " Superstition " in the aphorism, and substituted Hypocrisy. 
 In the same manner he corrected " superstitious " in the aphorism into 
 hypocrite.) 
 
LAVATEE 135 
 
 333, 
 
 Who are the saints of humanity 1 Those whom perpetual habits of 
 goodness and grandeur have made nearly unconscious that they are 
 good or grand, — heroes with infantine simplicity. 
 
 {Jhis is heavenly !) (The last four words underlined by Blake.) 
 
 335. 
 
 The jealous is possessed by a " fine mad devil " and a dull spirit at 
 once. 
 
 {Pity the jealous.) 
 
 342. 
 
 He alone has energy that cannot be deprived of it. 
 (Underlined by Blake.) 
 
 343. 
 
 Sneers are the blasts that precede quarrels. 
 {Hate the sneerer !) 
 
 344. 
 
 Who loves will not be adored. 
 (False.) 
 
 No great character cavils. 
 (Underlined by Blake.) . 
 
 349. 
 
 355. 
 
 He can love who can forget all — and nothing. 
 (Underlined by Blake.) 
 
 356 
 
 The purest religion is the most refined Epicurism. He who in the 
 smallest given time can enjoy most of what he shall never repent, and 
 what furnishes enjoyments still more unexhausted, still less changeable, 
 is the most religious and the most voluptuous of men. 
 
 {True Christian philosophy.) (Underlined as far as enjoyments by 
 Blake.) 
 
 360. 
 
 The generous who is always just, and the just who is always 
 generous may, unannounced, approach the throne of God. 
 (Underlined from may by Blake.) 
 
 365. 
 
 Let me once more in other words repeat it — he is the king of kings 
 who longs for nothing and wills but one at once. 
 (Underlined from and by Blake. ) 
 
136 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 366. 
 
 Spare the lover without flattering his passions. To make the pangs 
 of love the butt of ridicule is unwise and harsh. Soothing meekness 
 and wisdom subdue in else unconquerable things. 
 
 (And consider that love is life.) 
 
 367. 
 
 There is none so bad (as) to do the twentieth part of the evil he 
 might, nor any so good as to do the tenth part of the good it is ia his 
 power to do. Judge yourself by the good you might do, and neglect ; 
 and of others by the evil they might do, and omit ; and your judgment 
 will be poised between too much indulgence for yourself and too much 
 severity on others. 
 
 (Most excellent.) 
 
 370. 
 
 To him who is simple and inexhaustible, like nature, simple and 
 inexhausted nature resigns her sway. 
 (Underlined from like by Blake.) 
 
 373. 
 
 How can he be pious who loves not the beautiful, whilst piety is 
 nothing but the love of beauty ? Beauty we call the most vaned one, 
 the most united variety. Could there be a man who should harmoni- 
 ously unite each variety of knowledge and of powers, would he not be 
 most beautiful ? Would he not be a god ? 
 
 (This is our Lord.) (God underlined by Blake.) 
 
 375. 
 
 The unloved cannot love. 
 (Doubtful.) 
 
 376. 
 
 Let the object of love be careful to lose none of its loveliness. 
 (Marked with a side asterisk by Blake, but not with any comment. 
 Probably intended to arrest the attention of Mrs. Blake.) 
 
 379. 
 
 We cannot be great if we calculate how great we, and how little 
 others are ; and calculate not how great others, and how minute, how 
 impotent ourselves. 
 
 (Uneasy.) 
 
 381. 
 
 He loves unalterably who keeps within the bounds of love, — who 
 always shows somewhat less than what he is possessed of, nor ever 
 utters a syllable or gives a hint of more than what in fact remains 
 behind (and who) is just and friendly in the same degree. 
 (Is possessed, syllable, more than, and behind underlined by Blake.) 
 
LAVATER 137 
 
 390. 
 
 There is a manner of forgiving so divine that you are ready to 
 embrace the offender for having called it forth. 
 
 (This I cannot conceive.) 
 
 391. 
 
 Expect the secret resentment of him whom your forgiveness has im- 
 pressed with a sense of his inferiority. Expect the resentment of the 
 woman whose professed love you have repulsed. Yet, surer still, 
 expect the unceasing rancour of envy against the progress of genius. 
 
 (If you expect his resentment you do not forgive him now, though you 
 did once. Forgiveness of enemies can only come upon their repentance.) 
 
 397. 
 
 Whatever is visible is the vessel, or veil, of the invisible past, 
 present, future. As man penetrates to this more or perceives it less he 
 raises or depresses his dignity of being. 
 
 (A vision of the Eternal Now.) 
 
 398. 
 
 Let none turn over books or roam the stars in quest of God who sees 
 Him not in man. 
 
 (Underlined from in quest by Blake.) 
 
 399. 
 
 He alone is good who, though possessed of energy, prefers virtue with 
 the appearance of weakness to the invitation of acting brilliantly ill. 
 
 (Noble. But, mark ! Active Evil is better than Passive good. 
 (With the appearance, to the invitation, Irillianthj ill underlined by 
 Blake.) 
 
 400. 
 
 Intuition (what the French call cowp d'ceil) is the greatest, simplest, 
 most inexhausted gift a mortal can receive from heaven. Who has 
 that has all, and who has it not has little of what constitutes the good 
 and great. 
 
 (Uneasy. Doubtful.) 
 
 403. 
 
 As the presentiment of the possible deemed impossible, so genius, so 
 heroism. The hero, the man of genius, are prophets. 
 
 (The last eight words underlined by Blake.) 
 
 (Note. — In Blake's edition, the first, this ended with the extra words, 
 "every genius, every hero is a prophet." These were struck out in the 
 second edition, whose corrected numberings, diflferent from those of 
 Blake's copy by a sustained error often after 285, are followed here.) 
 
138 THE KEAL BLAKE 
 
 404 
 
 He who goes one step beyond his real faith or presentiment is in 
 danger of deceiving himself and others. 
 (Uneasy.) 
 
 406. 
 
 He who to obtain much will suffer little or nothing can never be 
 called great, and none (can) ever (be called) little who, to obtaia one 
 great object, will suffer much. 
 
 {The man who does this is a sectary ; therefore not great.) 
 
 409. 
 You beg as you question, you give as you answer. 
 {Excellent.) (Underlined by Blake.) 
 
 413. 
 
 He knows little of the man who trasts him with much that cares for 
 no one. 
 
 {So he does.) (The translator has made this rather obscure by his 
 unhappy arrangement of words. The meaning, of course, is, " He who 
 trusts with much the man who cares for no one, knows little of him.") 
 
 414. 
 
 Love sees what no eye sees, love hears what no ear hears, and what 
 never rose in the heart of man love prepares for its object. 
 
 {Most excellent.) {Hears what no ear hears, never rose in the heart of 
 man, and love prepares for underlined by Blake.) 
 
 416. 
 
 Him who arrays malignity in good nature, and treacheiy in famil- 
 iarity, a miracle of omnipotence alone can make an honest man. 
 
 {No omnipotence can act against order.) 
 
 4:17. 
 
 He who sets fire to one part of a town to rob more safely in another 
 is, no doubt, a villain. What wiU you call him who, to avert suspicion 
 from himself, accuses the innocent of a crime he knows himself guilty 
 of, and means to commit again ? 
 
 {Damn him !) 
 
 422. 
 
 The richer you are, the more calmly you bear the reproach of 
 poverty. The more genius you have, the more easily you bear the re- 
 proach of mediocrity. 
 
 (The second sentence underlined by Blake.) 
 
LAVATEB 139 
 
 425. 
 
 There is no instance of a miser becoming a prodigal without losing 
 his intellect, but there are thousands of prodigals becoming misers. It, 
 therefore, your turn be profuse, nothing is so much to be avoided as 
 avarice. And if you be a miser, procure a physician who can cure an 
 irremediable disorder. 
 
 (Excellent.) (Yov/r turn he profuse, nothing is so much to he avoided as 
 avarice, underlined by Blake.) 
 
 427. 
 
 Avarice has sometimes been the flaw of great minds. Great men 
 produce effects that cannot be produced by a thousand of the vulgar, 
 but great minds are stamped by expanded benevolence, unattainable by 
 most. 
 
 {With exipamded henevolence underlined by Blake.) 
 
 430. 
 
 He is much greater and more authentic who produces one thing 
 entire and perfect than he who does many by halves. 
 
 (JJneasy.) 
 
 434. 
 
 Say what you please of your humanity, no wise man wiU ever 
 believe a syllable while I and mine are the two only gates at which you 
 sally forth and enter, and through which alone all must pass who seek 
 admittance. 
 
 {Uneasy.) 
 
 437. 
 
 Who hides love to bless with unmixed happiness is great, like the 
 King of heaven. 
 
 (/ do not understand this, or else I do not agree to it. I Icnow not what 
 hiding love means.) 
 
 (Ambiguous in the translation. The word his understood before love 
 would suggest the meaning, Who hides the fact that he would love to 
 bless, etc.) 
 
 439. 
 
 Trust not him with your secrets who, when left alone in your room, 
 turns over youY papers. 
 
 (Uneasy, hut I hope I should not do it.) 
 
 440. 
 
 A woman whose ruling passion is not vanity is superior to any man 
 of equal faculties. 
 
 {Such a woman I adore.) 
 
140 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 441. 
 
 He who has but one way of seeing everything is as important for 
 him who studies man as fatal to friendship. 
 
 (This I do not understand.) 
 
 442. 
 
 He who has written will write again, says the Frenchman. He who 
 has written against you will write against you again. He who has 
 begun certain things is under the curse of leaving off no more. 
 
 (Blake crossed out the second sentence, and corrected the word cv/rse 
 in the last into hlesdng.) 
 
 450. 
 
 Nothing is more impartial than the stream-like public — always the 
 same, and never the same, — of whom, sooner or later, each misrepre- 
 sented character obtains justice, and each calumniated, honour. He who 
 cannot wait for that is either ignorant of human nature, or feels that he 
 was not made for honour, 
 
 (Uneasy.) 
 
 452. 
 
 The obstinacy of the indolent and weak is less conquerable than that 
 of the fiery and bold. 
 
 (Underlined by Blake.) 
 
 453. 
 
 Who, with calm wisdom alone, imperceptibly directs the obstinacy 
 of others, will be the most eligible friend or the most dreadful enemy. 
 
 (This must he a grand fellow.) 
 
 455. 
 
 He is condemned to depend on no man's modesty and honour who 
 dares not depend on his own. 
 
 y-) 
 
 The frigid smiler, crawling, indirect, obtrusive, brazen-faced, is a 
 scorpion whip of destiny. Avoid him. 
 
 (Never forgive him till he mends.) 
 
 476. 
 
 Distrust your heart and the durability of your fame if, from the 
 stream of occasion, you snatch at a handful of foam ; deny the stream, 
 and give its name to the frothy, bureting bubble. 
 
 (Uneasy. This I lament that I have done.) 
 
LAVATEE 141 
 
 477. 
 
 If yoii ask me which is the real hereditary sin. of human nature, do 
 you imagine I shall answer pride, or luxury, or ambition, or egotism ? 
 No, I shall say. Indolence. Who conquers indolence will conquer all 
 the rest. 
 
 {Pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was the sin of Sodom. 
 See Ezekiel, chap. xvi. 49th verse.) 
 
 479. 
 
 An entirely honest man, in the severe sense of the word, exists no 
 more than an entirely dishonest knave. The best and the worst are 
 only approximations of those qualities. Who are those that never con- 
 tradict themselves ? Yet honesty never contradicts itsel£ Who are 
 those that always contradict themselves ? Yet knavery is mere self- 
 contradiction. Thus the knowledge of man determines not the things 
 themselves, but their proportions — the quantum of congruities and 
 incongruities. 
 
 {Man is a twofold being — one part capable of evil and the other capable 
 of good. That which is capable of good is not also capable of evil, but that 
 which is capable of evil is also capable of good. This aphorism assumes to 
 consider man as simple, and yet capable of evil. Now, evil and good 
 cannot exist in a simple being, for thus two contraries would spring from 
 one essence, which is impossible. But if man is considered as only evil, 
 and God only good, how then is regeneration effected which turns the evil to 
 good by casting ont the evil by the good ? See Matthew, chap. xii. verses 26, 
 27, 28, 29.) 
 
 4se. 
 
 Sense seeks and finds the thought ; the thought seeks and finds 
 genius. 
 
 {And vice versa. Genius fmds thought without sense, and thought 
 thus produced finds sense.) 
 
 493. 
 
 No wheedler loves. 
 
 {Better a wheedler than no lover, though) 
 
 494. 
 
 Great minds comprehend more in a word, a look, the squeeze of a 
 hand, than vulgar men in day-long conversation or the most assiduous 
 correspondenca 
 
 (/ agree.) 
 
 496. 
 
 The poet who composes not before the moment of inspiration, and, 
 as that leaves him, ceases, composes, and he alone, for all men, all 
 classes, and all ages. 
 
 {Most excellent.) {The moment of inspiration, leaves him, ceases, and 
 he alone for all, all classes, all ages, underlined by Blake.) 
 
142 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 497. 
 
 He who has frequent moments of complete existence is a hero, 
 though not laurelled, is crowned without crowns, a king. He only who 
 has enjoyed immortal moments can reproduce them. 
 
 (0 that men would seek immortal moments ! that men would con- 
 verse with Ood!) {Who has frequent, complete existence, not laurelled, 
 without crowns, a king, who has enjoyed, and Tnoments can reproduce 
 them, underlined by Blake.) 
 
 498. 
 The greater that which you can hide, the greater yourself. 
 
 (Pleasant.) (The &st five words singly underlined, the last four 
 trebly by Blake.) 
 
 504. 
 
 He who cannot forgive a trespass of malice to his enemy has never 
 yet tasted the most sublime enjoyment of love. 
 
 (Uneasy. This I know not.) 
 
 508. 
 
 You may have hot enemies without having a warm friend, but not 
 a fervid friend without a bitter enemy. The qualities of your friends 
 will be those of your enemies : cold friends, cold enemies — half friends, 
 haK enemies — fervid enemies, warm friends. 
 
 (Very uneasy, hut truth.) 
 
 511. 
 
 He who reforms himself has done more towards reforming the public 
 than a crowd of noisy, impotent patriots. 
 
 (Excellent.) (All underlined by Blake.) 
 
 513. 
 
 He wiU do great things who can avert his words and thoughts from 
 past irremediable evils. 
 
 ■ (Not if evils are past sins, for these a man should never avert his 
 thoughts from.) 
 
 516. 
 
 He who is ever intent on great ends has an eagle eye for great 
 means, and scorns not the smallest. 
 
 (Great ends never look at means, but produce them (sic) spontaneously.) 
 
 522. 
 
 Take from Luther his roughness and fiery courage, from Calvin his 
 hectic obstinacy, from Erasmus his timid prudence, hypocrisy and 
 fanaticism from Cromwell, from Henry IV. his sanguine character, 
 
LAVATEE 143 
 
 mysticism from F^nelon, from Hume his aU-unhinging subtilty, love 
 of paradox and brooding suspicion from Rousseau, naivety and elegance 
 of knavery from Voltaire, from Milton the extravagance of his all- 
 personifying fancy, from Eaphael his dryness and nearly hard precision, 
 from Eubens his supernatural luxury of colour— deduct this oppressive 
 exuberance from each, rectify them according to your own taste ; what 
 will be the result? Your own correct, pretty, flat, useful — for me, 
 to be sure, quite convenient vulgarity. And why this amongst maxims 
 of humanity? That you may learn to know this exuberance, this 
 leaven, of each great character, and its effects on contemporaries and 
 posterity, that you may know where the d e f is, there must be a b c. 
 He alone has knowledge of man who raises each character and makes 
 it that which it shall be, and something more or less than it shall be. 
 
 _ (Deduct from a rose its redness, from a lily its whiteness, from a 
 diamond its hardness, from a sponge its softness, from an oah its height, 
 from a daisy its lowness, and rectify everything in nature as thy philo- 
 sophers do, and then we shall return to chaos, and Ood will he compelled to 
 be eccentric, if He creates, happy philosopher ! Variety does not neces- 
 sarily suppose deformity, for a rose and lily are variations, and both 
 beautiful. Beauty is exuberant, but not of ugliness, but of beauty, and if 
 ugliness is adjoined to beauty, it is not the exuberance of beauty. So, If 
 Raphael is hard and dry, it is not his genius, but an accident acquired ; 
 for, how can substance and accident be predicated of the same essence ? I 
 cannot conceive. But substance gives tincture to the accident, and makes 
 it physiognomic. Aphorism 47 speaks of the heterogeneous, which all 
 extravagance is, but exuberance not.) 
 
 (Aphorism 47. _ Man has an inward sense of consequence, of aU that 
 is pertinent. This sense is the essence of humanity. This, developed 
 and determined, characterises him ; this (when) displayed in his 
 education. The more strict you are in observing what is pertinent 
 and (what is) heterogeneous in character, actions, works of art and 
 literature, the wiser, nobler, greater, the more humane, yourself) 
 
 523. 
 
 I have been too often tempted at the daily relation of new knaveries 
 to despise human nature in every individual, till on minute anatomy 
 of each trick I found that the knave was only an enthusiast, or 
 momentary fool. This discovery of momentary folly, symptoms of 
 which assail the wisest and the best, has thrown a great consolatory 
 light on my inquiries into man's moral nature. By this the theorist 
 is enabled to assign to each class and each individual their own peculiar 
 fit of vice or folly, and to contrast the ludicrous or dismal catalogue 
 with the pleasing one of sentiment and virtue more properly their own. 
 
 (Man is the ark of God. The Mercy Seat is above upon the Ark. 
 Gherubvms guard it on either side. In the midst is the Holy Law. Man 
 is either the ark of God or a phantom of the earth and of the water. If thou 
 seekeit by human policy to guide this ark,remember Uzzah,2 Samuel, chap. vi. 
 Knaveries are not human nature. Knaveries are knaveries. See No. 559. 
 This a/phorism seems to me to want discrimination.) 
 
 No. 559. He who feels himself impelled to calumniate the good 
 need not much doubt the existence of daemoniacs.) 
 
144 THE KEAL BLAKE 
 
 524. 
 
 He who is master of the fittest moment to crush his enemy, and 
 magnanimously neglects it, is bom to be a conqueror. 
 
 (This was old George the Second.) 
 
 529. 
 
 A great woman not imperious, a fair woman not vain, a woman of 
 common talents not jealous, an accomplished woman who scorns to 
 shine, are four wonders just great enough to be divided among the four 
 quarters of the globe. 
 
 (Let the men. do their duty and the women will be such wonders. The 
 female life lives from the light of the male. See a man's female dependants ; 
 you know the man.) 
 
 533. 
 
 Depend not much upon your rectitude if you are uneasy in the 
 presence of the good ; nor trust to your humility if you are mortified 
 when you are not noticed. 
 
 (Easy.) (This to the first part, underlined by Blake. To the second 
 part — Uneasy. ) 
 
 539. 
 
 He who hates the wisest and best of men hates the Father of men, 
 for where is the Father of men to be seen but in the most perfect of 
 his children ? 
 
 (This is pure worship.) (The last part underlined ; in the first part 
 the word hates in each place where it occurs is crossed out and loves 
 written over. 
 
 542. 
 
 He who adores an impersonal God has none, and without guide or 
 rudder launches on an immense abyss that first absorbs his powers and 
 next himself. 
 
 (Most superlatively beautiful, and most affectionately holy and pure. 
 Would to God that all to«to would consider it.) (Underlined all through 
 by Blake.) 
 
 544. 
 
 The enemy of art is the enemy of nature. Art is nothing but the 
 highest sagacity and exertion of himian nature ; and what nature will 
 he honour who honours not the human ? 
 
 (Human nature is the image of God.) (The last part underlined, in 
 this and the two next, by Blake.) 
 
 546. 
 
 Where is much pretension much has been borrowed. Nature never 
 pretends, 
 
LAVATEE 145 
 
 546. 
 
 Do you think him a common man who can make what is common 
 exquisite ? 
 
 549. 
 
 Whose promise may vou depend upon ? His who dares refuse what 
 he knows he cannot perform, — who promises calmly, strictly, condition- 
 ally, and never excites a hope which he may disappoint. 
 
 {Promise may you, who dares refuse, he cannot perform, and all from 
 calmly underlined by Blake.) 
 
 You promise as you speak. 
 (Underlined by Blake.) 
 
 550. 
 
 552. 
 
 Avoid him who speaks softly and writes sharply. 
 (Ah, rogue! I would be thy hangman!) (All but the first two 
 words underlined by Blake.) 
 
 556. 
 
 Neither patience nor inspiration can give wings to a snail. You 
 waste your own force, you destroy what remained of energy in the 
 indolent, by urging him to move beyond his rate of power. 
 
 (The first sentence underlined by Blake.) 
 
 563. 
 
 Your humility is equal to your desire of being unobserved in your 
 acts of virtue. 
 
 {True hwmility.) (All underlined by Blake.) 
 
 564. 
 
 There are certain light, characteristic, momentary features of man 
 which, in spite of all masks and all exterior mummery, represent him 
 as he is, and shall be. If once in an individual you have discovered 
 one ennobling feature, let him debase it, let it at times shrink from 
 him, no matter ; he will in the end prove superior to thousands of his 
 critics. 
 
 {The wise man falleth seven times in a day, and riseth again, etc.) 
 (Underlined from let it by Blake.) 
 
 The man who has and uses but one scale for everything, for himself 
 and his enemy, the past and the future, the grand and the trite, for 
 truth and error, virtue and vice, religion, superstition, infidelity ; for 
 nature, art, and works of genius and art — is truly wise, just, and great. 
 
 {This is most true, but how does it accord with 451 T) 
 
 (No. 451 in the first edition, wrongly numbered, is given here, with 
 Blake's other comment on it, as No. 441.) 
 
 L 
 
146 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 567. 
 
 The infinitely little constitutes the infinite difference in works of 
 art, and in the degrees of morale and religion. The greater the rapidity, 
 precision, acuteness with which this is observed and determined, the 
 more authentic, the greater the observer. 
 
 (Uneasy.) 
 
 570. 
 
 Range him highest among your saints who, with all acknowledged 
 powers and his own steadfast scale for everything, can, on the call of 
 judgment or advice, submit to transpose himself into another's situation 
 and adopt his point of view. 
 
 {Himself into another's situation and adopt underlined by Blake.) 
 
 512. 
 
 No communications and no gifts can exhaust genius or impoverish 
 charity. 
 
 {Most excellent.) (Underlined by Blake.) 
 
 575. 
 
 Distrust yourself if you fear the eye of the sincere, but be afraid of 
 neither God nor man if you have no reason to distrust yourself. 
 
 (The last part underlined, and all the next one, by Blaka) 
 
 576. 
 Who comes as he goes, and is present as he came and went, is sincere. 
 
 578. 
 
 He loves grandly (I speak of friendship) who is not jealous when he 
 has partners of love. 
 
 (JJneasy, but I hope to mend.) 
 
 580. 
 He knows himseK greatly who never opposes his genius. 
 {Mod excellent.) (Underlined.) 
 
 586. 
 
 " Love as you could hate, and might be hated," a maxim of detested 
 prudence in real friendship, the bane of all tenderness, the death of 
 all familiarity. Consider the fool who follows it as nothing inferior 
 (? superior) to him who at every bit of bread trembles at the thought 
 of its being poisoned. 
 
 {Excellent.) {Fool who follows, inferior to him, bit of bread trembles, 
 of its being poisoned, imderlined.) 
 
LAVATEE 147 
 
 587. 
 
 " Hate as if you could love, or should be loved." Him who follows 
 this maxim, though all the world were to declare an idiot and enthusiast, 
 I shall esteem of all men the most eminently formed for friendship. 
 
 {Better than excellent.) 
 
 590. 
 
 Distinguish with exactness if you wish to know yourself and others 
 what is so often mistaken — the singular, the original, the extraordinary, 
 the great and the sublime man. The suMime alone unites the singular, 
 original, extraordinary, and great with his own uniformity and 
 simplicity. The great with many powers and uniformity of ends is 
 destitute of that superior calmness and inward harmony which soars 
 above the atmosphere of praise. The extraordinary is distinguished 
 by copiousness and a wide range of energy. The original need not be 
 very rich (if) only that which he produces is unique, and has the 
 exclusive stamp of individuality. The singular, as such, is placed 
 between originality and whim, and often makes a trifle the medium 
 of fame. 
 
 (Prom the extraordinary, where the word first occurs, to calmness 
 underlined, and also the original need and very rich.) 
 
 591. 
 
 Forwardness nips affection in the bud. 
 
 {The more the pity.) 
 
 592. 
 
 If you mean to be loved, give more than what is asked, but not more 
 than what is wanted, and ask less than what is expected. 
 
 {The whole aphorism an oversight. This is human policy.) (The last 
 seven words crossed out.) 
 
 593. 
 
 Whom smiles and tears make equally lovely all hearts may court. 
 
 (This aphorism is altered into Whom smiles and frowns make equally 
 lovely only some hearts may or dare court.) 
 
 594. 
 
 Take here the grand secret, if not of pleasing all, yet of displeasing 
 none. Court mediocrity, avoid originality, and sacrifice to fashion. 
 
 (And go to hell.) 
 
 ^ '^ . 595. 
 
 He who pursues the glimmering steps of hope with steadfast, not 
 presumptuous eye, may pass the gloomy rock on either side of which 
 superstition and credulity spread their dark abysses. 
 
 {Superstition has been long a bugbear by reason of its being united with 
 hypocrisy. But let them be firmly separated, and then superstition will 
 be honest feeling, and God, who loves all honest men, will lead the poor 
 enthusiast in the paths of holiness.) 
 
148 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 596. 
 The public seldom forgive twice. 
 {Let us take their example.) 
 
 597. 
 
 Him who is hurried on by furies of immature impetuous wishes, 
 stern Tepentance shall drag, bound and reluctant, back to the place 
 from which he sailed. Where you hear the crackling of wishes expect 
 intolerable vapours or repining grief. 
 
 598. 
 
 He submits to be seen through a microscope who suffers himself to 
 be caught in a fit of passion. 
 
 {And such a one I dare love.) 
 
 599. 
 
 Venerate four characters — the sanguine who has checked volatility 
 and the rage for pleasure ; the choleric who has subdued passion and 
 pride ; the phlegmatic emerged from indolence ; and the melancholy 
 who has dismissed avarice, suspicion, and asperity. 
 
 {Four most holy men.) (Closely underlined from and the rage for 
 pleasure to end.) 
 
 600. 
 All great minds sympathise. 
 (Underlined.) 
 
 602. 
 
 Men carry their character not seldom in their pockets. You might 
 decide on more than half of your acqxiaintance had you the will or the 
 right to turn their pockets inside out. 
 
 {I seldom carry money in my pockets. They are generally full of paper.) 
 
 605. 
 
 Not he who forces himself on opportunity, but he who watches its 
 approach and welcomes its arrival by immediate use, is wise. 
 
 (Underlined throughout.) 
 
 606. 
 
 Love and hate are the genius of invention, the parents of virtue and 
 vice. Forbear to decide on yourself till you have had opportunities 
 for warm attachment or deep dislike. 
 
 {True experience.) (Second sentence underlined.) 
 
LAVATER 149 
 
 609. 
 
 (This is an. aphorism a page in length ; Blake only annotates the 
 last sentence.) Be assured, then, that to know yourself perfectly you have 
 only to set down a true statement of those that ever loved or hated you. 
 
 {Uneasy, because I cannot do this.) 
 
 613. 
 
 Avoid coniiecting yourself with characters whose good and bad sides 
 are unmixed, and have not been fermented together. They resemble 
 phials of vinegar and oil, or pallets set with colours. They are either 
 excellent at home and intolerable abroad, or insufferable within doors 
 and excellent in public. They are unfit for friendship merely because 
 their stamina, their ingredients of character, are too single, too much 
 apart. Let them be finely ground up with each other, and they will 
 be incomparable. 
 
 (Most excellent) (This note is written against the middle part of 
 the aphorism, insufferable within doors, etc.). 
 
 614. 
 
 The fool separates his object from all surrounding ones. All 
 abstraction is temporary folly. 
 
 (Uneasy, because I once thought otherwise, hut now I know it is truth.) 
 
 616. 
 
 Let me repeat it. He only is great who has habits of greatness ; 
 who, after performing what none in ten thousand could accomplish, 
 passes on like Samson and " tells neither father nor mother of it." 
 
 (This is excellent.) {Like Samson to end underlined notwithstand- 
 ing the italics of the text.) 
 
 620. 
 
 A god, an animal, a plant are not companions of man, nor is the 
 faultless— then jvidge with lenity of all. The coolest, wisest, best — all 
 without exception have their points, their moments of enthusiasm, 
 fanaticism, absence of mind, iaint-heartedness, stupidity. If you allow 
 not for these, your criticism on man will be a mass of accusations or 
 caricatures. 
 
 {God is in all. That is our companion and friend, for our God Him- 
 self says — " You, are My brother, and My sister, and mother "; and St. John 
 — " Whoso dwelleth in God, and God in him," and such an one cannot judge 
 of any but in love, and his feeling will be attraction or repulsion. See 
 Aphorisms 549, 554. God is in the lowest effects, as well as in the highest 
 causes, for He is become a worm, that He may nourish the weak. For let it 
 be remembered that creation is God descending according to the weakness 
 of man, for our Lord is the Word of God, and everythmg on earth is the 
 Word of God,, and in its essence is God.) 
 
 (No. 549, referred to above, and so numbered in the first edition, is 
 539 in the fuller edition, whose numbers are used here. It has been 
 printed above. Similarly what Blake cites as 554 is the 544 printed 
 above.) 
 
150 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 623. 
 
 You think to meet with some additions here to your stock of moral 
 knowledge, and not in vain, I hope. But know (that there are) a great 
 many rules (which) cannot be given by him who means not to offend, 
 and many of mine have perhaps offended already. Believe me, for 
 him who has an open eye and ear every minute teems with observa- 
 tions of precious import, yet scarcely communicable to the most fiiithful 
 friend, so incredibly weak, so vulnerable in certain points is man. 
 Forbear to meddle with these at your first setting out, and make 
 amusement the minister of reflection. Sacrifice all egotism. Sacrifice 
 ten points to one, if that one have the value of twenty. And if you 
 are happy enough to impress youi' disciple with respect for himself, 
 with probability of success in his exertions of growing better, and, 
 above all, with the idea of your disinterestedness, you may perhaps 
 succeed in making one proselyte to virtue. 
 
 {Lovely ! Those who are offended with anything in this book would be 
 offended with the innocence of a child, and for the same reason, because it 
 reproaches him with the errors of acquired folly.) 
 
 625. 
 
 Keep your heart from him who begins his acquaintance with you 
 by indirect flattery of your favourite paradox or foible. 
 
 (Unless youfmd it to be his also, previous to your acquaintance.) 
 
 626. 
 
 Receive no satisfaction for premeditated impertinence. Forget it ; 
 forgive it, but keep him inexorably at a distance who offered it. 
 
 (This is a paradox.) 
 
 Let the cold who offers the nauseous mimicry of warm affection 
 meet with what he deserves — a repulse ; but (from) that moment 
 depend upon his irreconcilable enmity. 
 
 (Uneasy, because I do not know how to do this, but I will try to do it 
 thefvrst opportunity.) 
 
 630. 
 
 The moral enthusiast who in the maze of his refinements loses or 
 despises the plain paths of honesty and duty is on the brink of crimes. 
 
 {Most true.) 
 
 At the end of the volume, on the fly-leaves, we ifind the 
 following written by Blake at the same time, and printed 
 here in italics also for the sake of not interrupting the mood 
 of the eye: — 
 
 (7 h^e no one will call what I have written ca/oilling, because he may 
 think my remarks of small consequence, for I write from the warmth of my 
 
LAVATEH l5i 
 
 heart, and cannot resist the impulse I feel to rectify what I think false in 
 a book I love so much, and approve so generally. 
 
 Man is good or bad as he unites himself with bad or good spirits. Tell 
 me with whom you go, and I will tell you what you do. 
 
 As we cannot experience pleasure but by means of others who experience 
 either pleasure or pain through us, and as all of us on earth are united in 
 thought — for it is impossible to think without images of somewhat on earth — 
 so it is impossible to know God or heavenly things without conjunction with 
 those who know God and heavenly things. Therefore all those who converse 
 in the spirit converse with spirits. 
 
 For these reasons I say that this book is written by consultation with 
 good spirits, because it is good, and that the name Lavater is the amulet of 
 those who purify the heart of man. 
 
 There is a strong objection to Lavater's principles (as I understand 
 them), and tliat is he makes everything originate in its accident. He 
 makes the vicious propensity not only a leading feature of the man, but the 
 stamina on which all his virtues grow. But as I understand Vice it is a 
 Negation. It does not signify what the laws of kings and priests have 
 called Vice, we who are philosophers ought not to call the Sta/minal Virtues 
 of Humanity by the same name tliat we call the omission of intellect spring- 
 ing from poverty. 
 
 Every man's leading propensity ought to be called his leading Virtue 
 and his good Angel. 
 
 But the Philosophy of Causes and Consequences misled Lavater, as it 
 has all his contemporaries. Each thing is its own cause and its own effect. 
 Accident is the omission of act in self, and the hindering of act in another. 
 This is Vice, but all act is Virtue. To hinder another is not an act. It 
 is the contrary. It is a restraint on action both in ourselves and in the 
 person hindered, for he who hinders another omits his own, duty at the time. 
 
 Murder is hindering another, 
 Theft is hindering another. 
 
 Backbiting, undermining, circumventing, or whatever is negative is vice. 
 But the origin of this mistake in Lavater and his contemporaries is — 
 
 they sv/ppose that Woman's Love is Sin. In consequence, all the loves and 
 
 graces, with them, are sins.) 
 
 So end Blake's notes on Lavater's Aphorisms. Have we 
 lost the long day passed in reading them ? 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 'thbl' and 'tiriel': solitude and style 
 
 Much of the origin and the meaning of many otherwise 
 inexplicable passages in the Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 
 ■which has been called " the high-water mark of Blake's in- 
 tellect " by Mr. Swinburne, will now be sufficiently clear to 
 enable our minds to enter into Blake's with some companionship 
 as we read it. " High- water mark " is perhaps an exaggera- 
 tion. The book is but prose, after all, and the compUnient 
 was paid to it partly because the critic found himself less 
 humiliated than when reading the Jerusalem by an excess 
 of unexplained symbolism. Yet the seeming ease with which 
 we understand the Marriage in its outbursts of choleric irony 
 is not a sign of any real, intimate, brotherly nearness of our 
 minds to the author's mind unless we have trodden with him 
 at least as much of the same mental road that led him to this 
 point as — without being ourselves such a man — ^we can tread. 
 Even this much is worth doing. Desdemona, without being 
 Othello, came near enough to him to love him as he told 
 " the dangers he had passed." 
 
 While Blake was preparing the plates of the Marriage 
 and printing them with his wife's assistance, and she was 
 even learning to colour copies of the Songs of Innocence, on 
 which he began to rely for a valuable help to the very dry 
 bread that was all he could earn by engraving, he wrote a 
 good deal of prophetic poetry. He was stimulated to do so 
 partly by the recoil on his own mind from the heavy stones 
 with which he had stoned Swedenborg for not having done 
 the same in his time. 
 
 So, when Blake had done deriding him, and making 
 Ezekiel say that the voice of the Lord was the voice of 
 mental enthusiasm, which cares not for consequences, he, still 
 adopting the perverted language which he had borrowed 
 from the over -mild angels of Swedenborg, promised the 
 
 152 
 
'THEL' AND 'TIEIEL' 153 
 
 Bible of Hell to the world. He had akeady written the 
 sweetest, most musical, aud mo3t reUgious of the books of 
 this terrible Bible — T/iel — in whose pages the fourteen- 
 syUabled line was first made his own. 
 
 That line, in its highest perfection, is one which the ear of 
 our educated classes, perverted by Latin verses in youth, had 
 not yet opened itself to fully accept. A man, as Blake soon 
 discovered, may be grown up in the taste that can detect the 
 savour of Horace, Virgil, and Lucretius, and yet be a con- 
 ceited and destructive baby, breaking a toy that he has not 
 wit enough to play with, when the metre of Thel is offered 
 to his cramped mind, and its music to his prejudiced ear. 
 The bad influence of Latin classics on the ear that would use 
 English is now well known. From Ben Jonson to Landor 
 men were made stiff by it all through the intermediate 
 period remembered as Dr. Johnson's time. Milton alone 
 escaped alive. We shall have to wait until the accumulated 
 prides of the men of a rising generation educated in coatempt 
 of Latin create a living taste strong eaough to eat up the 
 heavy body of tradition left us by those whose ears were 
 stuntad through the language of poets that never knew the 
 music of our tongue. Then Blake's fourteen-syllabled line 
 will be known as an enjoyment classed among the accepted 
 advantages of educxtion. Then, also, it is to be feared, will 
 corns a flood of such tepid imitations of it that the true lovers 
 will regret that a Blake Church was never founded in time, 
 so that its worshippers might revere his verse too much to 
 repeat it, while his opponents should think it too wicked and 
 blasphemous to be endured. 
 
 In the absence of that church a general suspicion of 
 Blake's sanity, caused by the general miscomprehension of his 
 work, has done literature very good service in keeping him 
 out of the hands of the educator. He is still fresh. The 
 reputation of madness has come down on him like the cinders 
 of Vesuvius on Pompeii. It kiUed many a happy hour and 
 many a lovely verse in Blake's life, as the cinders killed the 
 Pompeians; but now that the accumulation is being dug 
 away from the buried town, we at least find fruit paintings 
 and portraits of fair dames upon the walls, as fresh as they 
 were on the day when the master's brush left them. In the 
 same way, misunderstanding is being dug away from Blake, 
 and his prophetic books shine out dear and sweet for us now. 
 
 How thick is the accumulation of the ashes of super- 
 cihousness that had fallen both on his symbolism and his 
 
154 THE KEAL BLAKE 
 
 music may be eeen in a pamphlet published by Dr. Gamett, 
 of the British Museum, after the Quaritch edition of Blake's 
 works was already in his hands. Thel Dr. Garnett patronises : 
 " Could Blake have schooled himseK to have written {^sic) 
 such blank verse as he had already produced in Edward the 
 Third and Samson, Thel would have been a very fine poem. 
 As it is, its lax, rambling semi-prose is full of delicate modu- 
 lations." 
 
 Thel really is, of course, far more correct than Samson in 
 metre. Dr. Garnett adds : " In every succeeding produc- 
 tion, however, there is less of metrical beauty, and thought 
 and expression grow continually more and more amorphous." 
 
 Amorphous (would not formless have done ?) is the last 
 word which will be applied to Blake's thought by those who 
 know what its form was, and what the form of its two parents 
 — Swedenborg's visions and his own. But it is true that, as 
 Blake grew older, and was more and more worried by the 
 perpetual misunderstanding of every one — every one, think 
 what that meant to a man hungry for friendship ! — he began 
 more and more to struggle to be explanatory, and it is this 
 that ruined his poetic mood, made his song fall into asser- 
 tion, and his assertion into interpretation, more and more. 
 He tried in vain to shake this off, and claimed that when he 
 told a truth it was not to convince those who did not know 
 it, but to protect those who did. This was not always enough 
 for his heart. He wanted those whom he was so protecting 
 to know that he had put on his intellectual armour for them, 
 but if he did not explain his symbols they would never know 
 this unless expressly inspired. So he fell into a patchwork 
 style of composition, at one moment giving the best verse, 
 but at another spoiling it with an intrusion of statement and 
 comment. In the books written when Blake still thought 
 to be understood, and had not been pestered by the Dr. 
 Garnetts of his time, most is still unexplained and beautiful. 
 
 And yet, after all, he did not explain enough for doctors of 
 literature to even discover that he was trying to do so. On 
 the contrary. Dr. Garnett says that " no man ever wilfully 
 put more obstacles into the way of his success than Blake, 
 whether as artist, thinker, or poet." When will the cloEed 
 eye and the preoccupied ear of clever men cease to believe 
 that original men put obstacles into the way of their own 
 success ? The closed eye and the preoccupied ear are the 
 obstacles, and not the originality. 
 
 " This incarnate enigma among men could manifestly be 
 
'THEL' AND 'TIEIEL' 155 
 
 as transparent as crystal," Dr. G-arnett also says, " when he 
 knew exactly what he wished to say — a remark that may not 
 be useless to the student of his mystical and prophetical 
 writings." 
 
 Dr. Gamett admitted once to the present writer that he 
 was never a student of these writings. This admission was 
 made after his unfortunate pamphlet was written. In fact, 
 he read Blake as people read novels, not as he himself would 
 have read a work that he approached in the spirit of a student. 
 He therefore never knew what was the position of Blake's 
 mind with regard to his own meaning, or in what his diffi- 
 culty in expressing it consisted. 
 
 How much of thrust-in explanation may have occurred in 
 poetic works now lost to us, written by Blake in 1792, we do 
 not yet know. He probably kept it at arm's length at first, 
 though if it be true, as we suspect, that the Book of Tiriel was 
 shown to Johnson, then the passage about parents and educa- 
 tion towards the end may have been added at this time. 
 
 What more there may be of the same kind in the French 
 Revolution (a poem in seven Books), written immediately 
 after Tiriel, we cannot tell, since a copy of even the first 
 Book, published now by Johnson as a sort of experiment, 
 cannot be found. G-ilchrist says that Blake's name was not 
 on the title-page. We must suppose that when the September 
 massacres in 1792 came with a shock of horror to all Europe, 
 either Johnson or Blake, who then took off the red cap of 
 Liberty with which he had alarmed his friends, burned the 
 whole issue. If there had been any copies sold, they were burned 
 by the buyers in the same mood of horror. The six unpub- 
 lished books of the poem were perhaps never written out for 
 the press. We may conjecture Lafayette to be a trace of the 
 contents of one of them, though it must be of later date in 
 the form we find it in Blake's MS. book. There are many 
 rewritings of it there, verses changed, the order changed, and 
 a reference to " Paul, Constantino, Charlemagne, Luther," as 
 divisions of truth. We can now see that they correspond to 
 Urizen, Luvah, Tharmas, and Urthona, a quaternary which 
 also belongs to a time later than 1792 in Blake's progress, so 
 far as record enables us to conjecture. 
 
 So the fragment that survived his lost French Bevolution 
 was probably only a few lines that belonged to a chance 
 memory developed later, when the main subject had been 
 long forgotten. 
 
 That Tiriel must have been written at the same time or 
 
156 THE KEAL BLAKE 
 
 earlier is, of course, an assertion based only on inference. 
 The evidence that would date the Tiriel earlier or later than 
 1789 is the following. Thel's Motto is the name given to a 
 quatrain at the beginning of the Booh of Thel : 
 
 Does tlie eagle know wliat is in the pit, 
 
 Or wilt tnou go ask tlie mole ? 
 Can wisdom be, put in a silver rod, 
 
 Or love in a golden bowl ? 
 
 The last two lines of this seem to have been written 
 before the first two, and we find them in Tiriel, crossed out, 
 as though Blake had decided not to leave them there after 
 the lilt of line (for they are only one long line in Tiriel's 
 metre) had shown him that the proper treatment was to take 
 it out, cut it into two natural divisions, and put two lines of 
 similar metre above it. 
 
 Then, it is probable, he asked his imagination to refer him 
 to some contrast, some pair of suggestive contraries that 
 would balance those that he had now on the paper before him. 
 
 Silver is, in his system, the metal of heart's love ; Gold, of 
 mind's enthusiasm. Brass is the " spiritual hate, origin of 
 earthly love," and Iron is generative magnetic attraction, and 
 the hardness and solidity that this seems to give to Nature. 
 
 Without going further into the symbolism we see that 
 the last two lines meant — 
 
 " Can wisdom be stored in that which is packed full of 
 heart's love, or love in the part of our minds that is all 
 abstract enthusiasm ? " 
 
 The mocking reminder of the first two lines, that we 
 cannot expect expert opinion on any subject from the expert 
 to whom another subject belongs, enforces this, and the 
 whole together brings out a mistake which was first made 
 by the maiden called Thel, and afterwards by the old man 
 Tiriel, each a wanderer. Thel is the tender shyness that 
 wishes the loins to be altogether spiritual, and shrinks from 
 seeing herself — her evanescent and pearly beauty — tm'ned into 
 the exciter of fleshly passion, as actual virgias do actually 
 at times shrink from seeing their beauty arouse passion. 
 " Food of worms " must be read with " Man is a worm 
 renewed with joy," and with "Vala is a worm," and with 
 " Hyle " (also called once a worm) as " arched over the moon " 
 in Jerusalem. The moon with its silver light is the region 
 of love. Tiriel, with his senile sterility, at the same time a 
 contrast to and a bitter imitation of vii-ginity, with the jealous 
 
'THEL' AND 'TIEIEL' 157 
 
 antagonism to all joy that belongs to incapacity, is evidently 
 a personage designed to show a picture of the error of Thel, 
 seen under a mask that is its counterpart. The Book of 
 Tiriel means " Eesent not " ; that of Thel, " Censure not." 
 
 Therefore these two books, showing how these two sides 
 of one command may be disobeyed, are two aspects of one 
 subject, two enemies of " Infant Joy." But the one is kind 
 and the other malignant. Blake was never on the side of an 
 enemy of joy, for joy is beauty, beauty is life, and life is 
 holiness. Only murderers hate joy, though not all who hate 
 the babe know in what bad company they do so. 
 
 In subject, therefore, Tiriel and Thel are Unked, but this 
 does not make us certain that one grew out of the other. 
 They both sprang from the same root, the great poetic tree 
 now pushing its way from the good soil of Blake's mind. 
 Posffllbly most of Tiriel was written after Thel was composed, 
 and Thel's Motto was taken from its pages after Thel was 
 written, and during the preparation of the plates. 
 
 Then the copying out of Tiriel, perhaps, as has been already 
 suggested, first offered in vain to Mr. Mathews, was finished 
 for Johnson, and slight changes were made. There is an 
 uncouth name or two (such as " Chthyrra " and " Mahnoth ") 
 struck out from Section IV, where Ijun calls Heuxos forth. 
 They are the names of other members of Tiriel's family, are 
 never heard of again in any manuscript of Blake's that we 
 possess, and no line of poetry is attached to them. Their 
 presence merely shows, as does the conjunction with which 
 the book begins, that in what we possess of Tiriel we have a 
 copied-out segment of some longer poem. The last pages, in 
 a hand somewhat more mature and less neat than the rest, 
 were probably written out in 1801, and the line that had 
 been taken for part of the motto of the Book of Thel, from 
 the first draft, though now copied with the rest in the 
 swing of the labour, was duly crossed out. At the same 
 time the deleted lines about the king — 
 
 Is the king's son warmed without wool, or does he cry with a voice 
 
 Of thunder, or look upon the sun and laugh, or stretch 
 
 His little hands to the depths of the ocean to draw up 
 
 The deadly cunning of the flatterer and spread it to the morning ? 
 
 may have been crossed out because Blake remembered that 
 he had used them for the French Bevolution already pub- 
 lished by Johnson, and with these went perhaps two or three 
 of the Unes through which the pen was also drawn, whose 
 
158 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 style is elaborated later in the Visions of the Daughters of 
 Albion. They lead up to the reference to the silver rod and 
 golden bowl. Different kinds of men are described — the 
 lion and ox, etc. : 
 
 Some nostrils wide, breathing out blood, some close shut 
 
 In silent deceit, poisons inhaling from the morning rose. 
 
 With danger hid beneath their lips and poison in their tongue. 
 
 Or eyed with little sparks of Hell, or with infernal brands. 
 
 Flying flames of discontent and plagues of dark despair ; — 
 
 Or those whose mouths are shut, whose teeth are gates of eternal death, , 
 
 Can wisdom be put in a silver rod, or love in a golden bowl ? 
 
 Then the whole manuscript was stitched, and " MS. of Mr. 
 Blake " written on the slate-coloured cover only to identify 
 it among Johnson's other manuscripts, as it was probably to 
 have been published anonymously, like the French Bevolution. 
 
 At his private press Blake had enough to do still with the 
 Marriage of Heaven and Hell. He had learned from this 
 and from the Book of Thel even more about the laboriousness 
 of copying out a whole manuscript in reverse, every letter 
 and word written backwards, with varnish on metal, than 
 even the Songs of Innocence had taught him. The Songs of 
 Experience were already coming into existence, and he looked 
 forward to expending the same kind of labour upon them. 
 If any one would print a book for him and save hiin this 
 trouble he would be too glad. 
 
 As a matter of fact, that identical fair copy of Tiriel made 
 for Johnson was eventually printed, being unstitched for the 
 purpose ; but it was for the Aldine edition of Blake's Works, 
 published in our own time, that the lines were put in type. 
 The comforting presentiment of coming publication with 
 which Blake copied them out had not deceived him, though 
 he must at one time have thought that it had done so. 
 Later books, all those written after 1795, contain no further 
 cuttings from Tiriel, and those nearest to 1791 only a few 
 words. When writing the " generation " of the " Sons and 
 daughters of Los" in Vala (Night VIII, line 350 and 
 following), in the last years of the century, he seems not to 
 have had Tiriel to refer to, and not even to remember com- 
 pletely the persons there mentioned. From this we can only 
 suppose that the " MS. of Mr. Blake " was lost at Johnson's, 
 being perhaps lent to some one else who never returned it. 
 But it may only have been put into a box and forgotten — a 
 fate to which it succumbed during more than the last quarter 
 of the nineteenth century, for after the Aldine edition was 
 
'THEL' AND 'TIEIEL' 159 
 
 printed the publisher put it away and no one remembered 
 what had become of it, though the editor of that edition 
 tried in vain to do so. The son of the publisher discovered 
 it while looking over the boxes of his late father, and sold it 
 at Sotheby's in 1903, when it was bought by Mr. Quaritoh. 
 
 The difference in the quality of the verse between Thel 
 and Tiriel was probably an effect of the change from almost 
 complete silence to the conversation at Johnson's weekly 
 parties. To test the effect of conversational habits on Blake's 
 style at any time of his life, a page of Thel may be read 
 close to almost any page of Tiriel, and then between any of 
 the passages that occur first in Vala, and afterwards, whether 
 or not slightly altered, in Jerusalem. Sometimes the Vala 
 lines are transferred unchanged, and then they contrast with 
 the rest of the page as a bit of Thel let into a chapter of 
 Tiriel would with the rest of the text. There is more 
 assertiveness, but the fluent beauty and liquidity have gone. 
 
 The influence of Felpham arguments with Hayley was 
 what made Jerusalem different from Vala, added to the 
 constant interviews on business with all kinds of people that 
 worried Blake during his first years in South Molton Street. 
 Thel was written in the period of little talkativeness before 
 Blake met Puseli and Godwin at Johnson's parties; Vala 
 some years after them, and before the annoyances of Felpham 
 and the return to London. 
 
 So far as Tiriel had a personal father who really walked 
 this world, we must look for him in Godwin. He is the 
 incarnation of the "hypocritical self- righteousness," "the 
 moral virtues of the heathen " — everything that Blake held 
 in most horror. In Godwin's time there was a general 
 belief that all who did not attain to virtue through a respect 
 for the divine commands and a fear of the divine threats 
 of punishment were sunk in vice. We know what good 
 service he did in battling with this prejudice. But Blake was 
 not able to feel the value and courage of Godwin when he 
 insisted on teaching an unwilling world that to behave well 
 was as much a part of the natural character of man as to 
 behave badly, and would necessarily survive religion even if 
 religion were to vanish to-morrow. Blake, as he tells us, 
 held that " man is naturally altogether evil, and requires to 
 be continually turned into his direct opposite." 
 
 Besides, Nature is a " delusive goddess " who, if believed 
 in, has a disastrous effect, namely, eternal death. To Godwin 
 this was a matter of course, about which the less said the 
 
160 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 better. Blake grew to look on Godwin as summing up all 
 that is most dangerous and abominable, as being the typical 
 weak tyrant who, aided by cunning and pretended mildness, 
 destroys life and love, pretending to preach an absurd thing 
 called morality, that pleases no emotion but the vanity of 
 self-righteousness. 
 
 This morality, so far from being good, was deadly. It was 
 the wrong way to do right. Sin might, though evil, at least 
 be an indirect means of good when, meeting with forgiveness, 
 it turned into divine gratitude and love. Eighteousness was 
 not only deadly in its influence. It was as much a delusion 
 as nature. One of its strongholds was virginity. The 
 virginity that does not think lustfully is not human at all. 
 The virginity that " thinks but acts not " is anything but 
 righteous, except in that unimportant, exterior, and tem- 
 porary part of life that is furthest from imagination, and 
 therefore from the true and the eternal. This doctrine can 
 only have appeared to be raving wickedness to Godwin. He 
 probably had heard something that sounded very like it 
 from others than Blake, who had other objects in preaching it. 
 Antinomians were always various. St. Paul was an antinoinian ; 
 so is the hardest anarchist and the most slippery cynic. 
 
 Blake was a good man who insisted on his right to be a 
 wicked one, and avowed his total absence of merit if he was 
 only good in act and not in thought. There are not, as yet, 
 enough of such men in the world for moral volumes written 
 for their use only to be required in sufficiently large editions 
 to be successful. Godwin had written a successful though 
 much-abused book. 
 
 Blake always liked to draw his descriptions from what he 
 thought a typical model, one who contained a whole group in 
 himself, and there was no one whom he met in his Ufe, either 
 now or later on, so well fitted to serve him for the figure of 
 Natural Morality as Godwin. But when Natural Morality 
 was to be named he did not think Godwin important and 
 influential enough to use his name. Bacon, Newton, and 
 Locke, with their preaching of Nature as a fit object for the 
 intellect to dwell on, might be considered, if rolled into one, 
 as the real enemy. Blake rolled them into one and called it 
 Eahab. He chose a female name because female meant to 
 him matter-of-fact. The sweet beauty of nature through 
 which its erroneous convictions got their force, the other 
 aspect of those convictions, he called Vala. He said that 
 this universal enemy was therefore Eahab "in Time," but 
 
'THEL' AND 'TIEIEL' 161 
 
 Vala "in Eternity," and Eahab could be redeemed by 
 becoming Vala, and Vala by becoming "Jerusalem," which was 
 his name for the " emative portion that unites man to his 
 fellow." By character Vala, the beauty, is a dragon. Natural 
 beauty tends to devour eternal beauty, but let her get free 
 from the belief in the five senses, let her become only the 
 basis for sympathy in love, and she will be an innocent 
 shepherdess of happy flocks, and we can all delight in her, 
 and enter into brotherhood with one another while doing so 
 as much as by pitying the afflicted. 
 
 This is the symbol and this the doctrine that next occu- 
 pied Blake. He took every opportunity to rail at the 
 " hypooritic selfish righteousness of the heathen," and when- 
 ever he did so he inevitably thought of Godwin, the only 
 man who had taught him about this, and had taught his age 
 and country about it, though whether it would be more 
 correct to say that he recognised in him old Tiriel, or drew 
 Tiriel consciously from him, must remain matter of guess- 
 work. We have no sufficient certainty about the date of 
 the long-destroyed first draft of the book to decide. 
 
 M 
 
CHAPTEE XVI 
 
 LIBERTY AND VISION 
 
 We hear of Blake among the Johnson group as calling him- 
 self a true "Liberty boy" and son of the "Eevolution" 
 (before " 1792 " was become a name for massacre), and we 
 hear of him giving naturalistic reasons for this, making it 
 the result of a personal bodily peculiarity, pointing to the 
 protuberance of his own forehead over the eyes, and saying 
 that here one could see the head of a natural republican. 
 Gilchrist tells us how Blake saved Tom Paine, who had 
 now, in 1792, published the second part of the Bights of 
 Man: 
 
 A few months later county and corporation addresses against 
 " seditious publications " were got up. The Government (Pitt's) 
 answered the agreed signal by issuing a proclamation condemnatory 
 of such publications, and commenced an action for libel against the 
 author of the Rights of Man, which was to come off in September, all 
 this helping the book itself into immense circulation. The " Friends 
 of Liberty (as the society got up among some of those who met Blake 
 at Johnson's was called) held their meetings too, at which strong 
 language was used. In September a French deputation announced to 
 Paine that the Department of Calais had elected him member of the 
 National Convention. Already, as an acknowledged cosmopolitan and 
 friend of man, he had been declared a French citizen by the deceased 
 Assembly. One day in this same month Paine was giving at Johnson's 
 an idea of the inflammatory eloquence he had poured forth at a public 
 meeting of the previous night. Blake, who was present, silently 
 inferred from the tenour of his report that those in power, now eager 
 to lay hold of obnoxious persons, would certainly not let slip such an 
 opportunity. On Paine's rising to leave, Blake laid his hand on the 
 orator's shoulder, saying, " You must not go home or you are a dead 
 man ! " and hurried him off on his way to France, whither he was 
 now in any case bound, to take his seat as a French legislator. By 
 the time Paine was at Dover the officers were in his house, or, as Mr. 
 Cheetham designates it, " his lurking hole in the purlieus of London," 
 and some twenty minutes after the custom house officials at Dover had 
 turned over his slender baggage, with, as he thought, extra malice, and 
 be bad set sail for Calais, an order was received from the Home Office to 
 
 168 
 
LIBERTY AND VISION 163 
 
 detain him. England never saw Tom Paine again. New perils 
 awaited him : Eeign of Terror and near view of the guillotine, an 
 accidentally open door and a chalk mark on the wrong side of it 
 proving his salvation. But a no less serious one had been narrowly 
 escaped from the English Tories. Those were hanging days ! Blake 
 on this occasion showed greater sagacity than Paine, whom, indeed, 
 Fuseli affirmed to be more ignorant of the common affairs of life than 
 himself even. Spite of unworldliness and visionary faculty Blake 
 never wanted prudence and sagacity in ordinary matters. 
 
 It is well known as characteristic of the more imaginative 
 men of Irish blood that whether their own lives succeed or 
 fail in a worldly point of view, their practical advice to others 
 is of the best. Blake had the special advantage in coolness 
 that contemptuous courage gives. He could choose the 
 right moment. He knew exactly how much the mob would 
 stand and how much the Government. 
 
 Tom Paine was not the only oppressed person whom 
 Blake was now the means of saving from the oppressor, 
 though the other is not known to us by name. 
 
 The original edition of the Song of Libert y contains two little 
 figures of horses, capitally drawn, minute in size, wedged into 
 a space among the print. They are walking about on their 
 hind legs, pawing the air IDce circus horses. They are much 
 better drawn than seems expUcable at first, better, for 
 example, than the horses' heads scribbled on the blank leaves 
 of the Island in the Moon. Symbolically, of course, they are 
 the " horses of instruction," maddened by poetic freedom and 
 excitement, like those described in the story about " Palama- 
 bron " in the first part of the JSook of Milton. 
 
 There is an explanation of how these horses came to 
 be put here. Blake probably had his press, that press 
 for which he paid £40, in a back room at 28 Poland 
 Street. The windows at this side looked out upon the 
 premises of Mr. Astley, the original proprietor of the well- 
 known circus that did not change its name for a century. 
 Here Blake used to amuse himself by watching the grooming 
 and exercising of the animals. One day he saw something 
 else. There was a boy limping up and down, dragging pain- 
 fully at every step a heavy block, to which he was chained 
 by the foot. Blake called his wife to come and look, and 
 asked her what she thought could be the meaning of this. 
 It does not appear to have occurred to either of them that the 
 meaning was that the boy was a mischievous and lying 
 young rascal who deserved a whipping that Mr. Astley was 
 too good-natured to give him, or had already given without 
 
164 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 doing any good by it. Mrs. Blake suggested that the log 
 was a hobble, used to prevent the circus horses straying too 
 far when they were turned out to gTaze on a common during 
 the summer trips of the circus, and that the boy was fastened 
 to it now as a degrading punishment. 
 
 Blake took fire at once, and in a minute was out of his 
 house and down among the circus people, giving them his 
 ideas on liberty with an outburst of eloquence, and appeahng 
 cleverly to their sentiment of patriotism by asking them if this 
 was treatment that an English boy ought to suffer when it 
 would be humihating to a slave. He carried his point, and 
 the boy was let loose. Mr. Astley was out at the time, and 
 when he returned and learned what had happened he flew 
 into a rage and came round at once to Blake's house to give 
 him eloquence for eloquence, and indignation for indignation. 
 His strong point, of course, was the hatefulness of busy bodies 
 who interfered in the affairs of other people. 
 
 The interview was rather heated at first, and poor Mrs. 
 Blake, who expected it to come to blows, trembled as she 
 heard the loud voices of the men. But Blake remembered 
 in time that he had a purpose to serve. His object was the 
 protection of a helpless boy, and this could hardly be achieved 
 by putting the boy's master into a towering rage. He set 
 himself to appeal to this master's better feelings, and 
 succeeded so well that before Mr. Astley went back to his 
 circus he was completely won over to Blake's views, and 
 the two men parted civilly, with feelings of cordial respect 
 for one another. 
 
 But Blake never forgot the sight of that chain, and we 
 who have seen it so often in the Book of Urizen and the 
 designs to Young's Night Thoughts can never forget it either. 
 It is enough to make memorable in Blake's life the short 
 period of five years between 1788 and 1793 during which he 
 lived in Poland Street. 
 
 These two deliveries, that of Tom Paine from the Govern- 
 ment and that of the circus bo\' from his master's chain, are the 
 only two incidents that we know of for certain in which Blake 
 is seen as an active defender of liberty, but they are not hkely 
 to have stood alone, and they increase our suspicion that he 
 was, quite willingly, something more than a mere spectator 
 of the fall of Newgate in 1780. When, after the September 
 massacres in Paris of 1792, Blake threw off his revolutionary 
 badge, he had another reason for ceasing to appear in public 
 with a red cap on, which had nothing to do with the crimes 
 
LIBERTY AND VlSIOlf 165 
 
 of either rulers or rebels. In the first week of this month of 
 September his mother died. She was buried on the 9th 
 in Bunhill Fields, a few days after the massacres ceased. 
 
 Blake would have respected her death, though she seems 
 never to have been important to him since early childhood. 
 The punishment she was induced to inflict on him for seeing 
 the vision of Ezekiel seems to have been a permanent source of 
 estrangement. Blake's friends in later life did not remember 
 having heard him speak of her, though he often referred to 
 his favourite brother Eobert. Her funeral oration is found, 
 however, in the song To Tirsah among those of Hxperience. 
 
 The Visions of the Daughters of Albion were probably 
 now written, and were the first result of the break-up of the 
 "Friends of Liberty" and Blake's return to solitude. "I 
 must be shut up within myself, or reduced to nothing," he 
 said when he knew himself better. 
 
 There are here some passages so closely akin to two s truck- 
 out lines in the latter pages of Tiriel, that it is even 
 possible that before the copied-out MS. of this book was 
 prepared and, as we have supposed, handed to Johnson, the 
 Visions were already begun. They seem to have absorbed 
 Blake as soon as Tiriel was out of his sight. It is exceed- 
 ingly probable that passages from the unprinted books of the 
 French Revolution are used here, as Blake issued parts of 
 Vala afterwards in Jerusalem and Milton. 
 
 If we take up this book, remembering the Thel and 
 Tiriel, and read it through quickly, reading America next 
 after it, we shall need no commentator to tell us that here 
 we have a pair of utterances that are related to each other 
 very much as Thel and Tiriel are related. 
 
 In the Visions of the Daughters of Albion innocent and 
 sweet exuberance of life that hardly yet knows itself to be 
 desire, flowing from the spiritual into the corporeal by what 
 Swedenborg calls "influx," becomes passion, and suffers 
 reproach from jealousy. It cries out now for its own life, 
 denies that its corporeal consequences have permanently 
 stained it, and says that in spiritual realms it still flows 
 straight towards brotherhood, as joy must, and, like each joy, 
 is willing to serve unity by changing into another joy. In 
 the symbols this is related under poetic form, but readers will 
 remember that Blake knew of a happy time, known to mystic 
 tradition, before the three obstructive powers Flesh, Morality, 
 Eeason — the Head, Heart, Loins of that portion of the 
 Creator that fixed the limit called " Adam "—so influenced or 
 
166 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 "darkened" Tharmas, or liquid, overflowing sympathy, as 
 to make him evil. In his luminous condition Tharmas 
 had once vegetated so spiritually that desire developed into 
 friendship, and this into the eternal Unity, without any 
 check from duty, jealousy, or pride (again a Head-Heart- 
 Loins group), but now this once innocent "Angel," or 
 chief propensity of the tongue, ceased to be an impulse 
 that leads us all outwards every way, and became his own 
 spectre — eternal death. He ceased to propagate eternal 
 sympathy, and became matter-of-fact in language and in 
 feeling, mere fleshly desire, the evil desire that seeks only its 
 own gratification — mortal generation — the worm's family 
 — and not its own development towards brotherhood by 
 progress. The greatness of the evil of this descent is 
 because the form of life called "Tharmas" is incalculably 
 good, and is as necessary to man as roots are to trees. Only, 
 roots must not be " brandished in the heavens, and fruits in 
 the earth beneath." 
 
 The symbol of Tharmas is therefore in the West, in Water 
 — the region where the sun darkens — the element by which all 
 vegetation is enabled to grow. Theotormon, the hero of the 
 Visions of the Daughters of Albion, represents the sorrow in 
 particular that jealousy brings to the vegetable — the fleshly 
 organs — which in their turn bring it to the spirit. In the 
 passage. 
 
 How can I be defiled when I behold thy image piu-e ? 
 
 Blake means to say, how can even sin in the flesh defile the 
 spiritual part of the craving that began it, so long as this be 
 not altered into a selfish nature, but sees in the sorrowful 
 " West " and " Water " the tendency to " arise from genera- 
 tion free," and go " outwards every way," that alone leads to 
 brotherhood in the risen Christ. 
 
 It was what has been called "pantheism" in Blake to 
 believe that the moods, before they enter the flesh, or before 
 we, in the flesh, enter them, are Beings, each an Identity, 
 struggling as we do each for its destiny and the uses of its 
 life, so that he had a poetic right to call them by fancy 
 names. Oothoon is the virgin that Thel is not — the active 
 virgin. Her virginity consists in being, like Thel, as yet 
 unmingled (unmarried) with any portion of Ufe that 
 belongs to a more external (lower) order. Thel, the passive, 
 in right of her beauty is worthy to be the food (the stimula- 
 tion) of the most passive and infantile or unintellectual 
 
LIBEETY AND VISION 167 
 
 form of corporeal passion (the worm). Oothoon, active, 
 stimulates with the desire of her conquest the violent, the 
 earthly thunder and fire, and, mingling with it, becomes, to 
 her surprise, outcast from the privileges of mingling her 
 active joy with the sympathetic principle, now turned into 
 her own opposite, passive sorrow, spiritual doubt and melan- 
 choly, uncertainty, and jealousy. 
 
 A consideration of this wiU go further than most forms of 
 meditation about Blake towards enabling us to understand 
 the connection between the discovery of what the Spectre of 
 Tharmas is and the Closing of Albion's Western Gate, when 
 the two ideas are brought together in FaZa,Night 1, 211 or 219. 
 
 Oothoon's doctrine, as put forth in this poem, in its com- 
 monest social manifestation might be illustrated by money 
 and the history of money, though Blake would not have 
 liked the illustration. 
 
 " If the fool would persist in his folly he would become 
 wise," Blake says, and in society we see how the golden river 
 runs itself pure, and how persons originally given to servility 
 and snobbishness on attaining power through acquired 
 wealth bear children who, first relieved of the necessity to 
 struggle for existence, presently lose most of the servility, 
 selfishness, and cruelty belonging to such struggle, and 
 achieve a pure and sweet aristocracy, like that which springs 
 from noblemen whose remote ancestors were brigands. The 
 only disadvantage of this commerce-born aristocracy is that it 
 has not vindicated its courage in the past. We see, however, 
 that this does not matter. Our list of those who wear the 
 Victoria Cross shows that a man may fight well and yet be 
 the first of his family to fight at all. But the propitiative- 
 ness needed to win customers in the shop and to negotiate 
 bargains " on the Kialto " survives in the kindness of the 
 educated classes that wins them friends. The keen eye that 
 in earlier generations selected merchandise now educates the 
 taste that turns to art. At first much boasting and foolish- 
 ness is seen, but the exuberance of self-love in fooHsh luxury 
 goes past, and a better and sweeter tradition to mould all 
 life remains. The abstract impersonality of gold, its river- 
 like habit of always flowing, has purified family after family 
 in a few generations, " as the clear stream muddied by the 
 feet of beasts grows pure and smiles." 
 
 Blake said that heauty, or the holiness of life, would do all 
 this. The evil side of the passions of the flesh that are not 
 mere covetousness would vanish from every single bosom if 
 
168 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 people would but keep the faith in ultimate good, and not 
 try to promote by a negative thing called morality a 
 positive thing called virtue. They would then enter into 
 spiritual life. Jealousy has no power beyond bodily life. 
 Bodily life has no power over spiritual life, except through 
 the sad spirit of uncertainty that suspects always the 
 authenticity of joy and the soul, and fears lest sorrow or the 
 body be the ultimate truth. This melancholy vacillation is 
 symboHsed in the ever-moving wave, and is here called by its 
 secondary name, not " Tharmas," but " Theotormon," whose 
 highest good is the poor chastity of restraint when he is 
 deprived of Oothoon. Night is not darker than the day- 
 time of common sense, "single vision or Newton's sleep," 
 whose sun in the heavens is " a black shadow like an eye." 
 Eestraint means here not only the law of ordinary social 
 morality. It is prohibition that is used by Reason's jealousy 
 against the iinaginativc' or visionary life. This meaning in 
 Blake's writing is not surprising. The first naughtiness for 
 which he was whipped as a child was the sin of having 
 visions. He now cries out that so far is this from being a 
 sin, that even the wickedness of so far believing in the 
 non-visionary eye as to allow it to couple the soul in spiritual 
 marriage with a sunset by lying on a bank and gazing, should 
 be forgiven. 
 
 In view of this exalted doctrine, the puritanical morality 
 of Mrs. Blake's decent and modest girlhood must have 
 seemed a poor thing in her married — her ardently married — 
 home. She struggled for it a long time, though. There is 
 more than the experience of symbolism only in that allusion 
 in Jerusalem (page 36, line 45) to the "judgment" which 
 forbids delight so severely that "a man dare hardly to 
 embrace his own wife for the terrors of chastity that they 
 call by the name of morality." 
 
 The Visions of the Daughters of Albion was composed as 
 part of the education of Mrs. Blake as well as that of posterity, 
 and as such its interpretation on the side that concerned her 
 has its place here. It was first made for her, and then for us, 
 though essentially part of Blake's great task of one process — 
 that of " opening the eyes of man inward into the world of 
 thought, into eternity." 
 
 One line in it — or rather less than a line of this poem — 
 might be written over a temple dedicated to Blake. It is all 
 his doctrine in a symbol — 
 
 The village dog barks at the breaking day. 
 
LIBEETY AND VISION 169 
 
 With the poetry rubbed away, the flesh of beauty torn 
 from its bones, and the hard skeleton of unchangeable 
 prose meaning left permanent, if hideous, in the wind, it 
 reads : 
 
 Appetite heralds Inspiration. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 ENGLAND AND AMEKICA 
 
 In the promised Bible of Hell or Book of Desire which was 
 to be thrust 'upon the world, America was probably the next 
 part. Yet both in the text and in the drawings it is so 
 unlike the Visions that this indicates that there was some 
 complete separation between the one effort and the other, 
 some important change, some bustling and worry outside^the 
 studio, with a return afterwards to the region of art and 
 poetry by a new self-concentration. 
 
 The title-page records this in the one word " Lambeth," 
 printed above the signature. In fact, between engraving 
 the Visions and America Blake had left Poland Street 
 and crossed the river to Hercules Buildings, No. 13. The 
 change of address and the number of the house both show 
 that he was growing poorer, and must economise. A house 
 numbered 13 is likely to be less popular than those numbered 
 12 and 14, therefore to be cheaper. The staircase in this 
 particular house will always be remembered as the place where 
 Blake saw the vision of the Ancient of Days that he drew with 
 so much dignity and style that it became one of his favourite 
 pictures, and repetitions of it were called for till the last 
 working day of his Ufe. It occurs in the beginning of 
 Europe, and is so fascinating that even an artist may be 
 forgiven for not breaking out into fury at the effrontery of 
 its impossible and ill-joined limbs. In the Europe of the 
 British Museum we see this design as a figure kneeling and 
 reaching down one arm. It has no other arm, and though 
 in some replicas Blake added another, it could not rise, and 
 if it did, large portions of its form would be found to have 
 been cut out to make the kneeling position possible. It was 
 sometimes less incorrectly drawn than in this version, but 
 never more impressively. 
 
 Here also Blake saw a ghost, as he chanced to look 
 
 170 
 
ENGLAND AND AMERICA 171 
 
 upwards while standing near his garden door. " It was," he 
 himself said, " a horrible figure, scaly, speckled, very awful." 
 He saw it actually coming down the stairs towards him, 
 and was so frightened that he took to his heels. 
 
 He was not experienced in ghosts, and admitted that he 
 never saw one before or after, although one of his more 
 grotesque designs is popularly known as the Ghost of a 
 Flea. In the poem of America the last lines explain the 
 whole. The fires of passion have melted the hinges of the 
 gates of the five senses. Blake still believed this to be a 
 natural result of unrestricted fleshly pleasure. In fact, he 
 held this creed to the end. Indulgence, he thought, would 
 instantly so arouse every energy of man that the spiritual 
 energies, which were (of course) the stronger, would im- 
 mediately put down the five senses, and the liberty of 
 imagination on a spiritual plane from the bondage of what 
 is commonly called " reaUty " would follow at once. Eternity 
 would open for us now, as it will eventually after death, 
 when we shall " go into Mind," as he phrases it in his letter 
 written in old age about the death of Flaxman. Yet, to be 
 able to devote more time to the service of God, he admitted 
 a use in the prohibition of bodily lust, as he will write 
 presently in Jerusalem, page 77, preface to chap. iv. The 
 opening and closing of gates, the cleansing or obscuring, was 
 all through Blake's Ufe one of his favourite figures of speech. 
 Already in the Marriage of Heaven and Hdl he had said, 
 " If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would 
 appear to man, as it is, infinite." In his last book, Milton, 
 he says, on the last line of page 42, " To cleanse the Face of my 
 Spirit by self-examination," and the cleansing is explained 
 at length on the following page. 
 
 " Every natural event has a spiritual cause " was one of 
 his chief tenets. 
 
 The solidity of Nature had a spiritual cause, namely, the 
 state of mind in which man cannot, in ordinary waking life, 
 be clairvoyant enough to see through it, and consequently 
 is equally incapable of seeing through the natural meaning 
 of the words of Scripture, whose literal sense is a cloud 
 (Luvah's robes of blood), and a tomb (Albion's), and a Eock 
 (that " of Ages "), and on giving this state of mind a Scriptural 
 name Blake called it Og. He is king of the closed heart that 
 wiU not open its brass gates to let love illuminate nature, 
 and he misreads Scripture and nature into a narrow sense, 
 literal and hateful, suited to his moods. His is the 
 
172 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 opposite Gate to the American, and his name as a personage 
 in Blake's Myth has been well known to general readers 
 since the first protest was entered against the silent sup- 
 pression of an allusion to it at the end of a long quotation 
 from Milton in Gilchrist. But Gilchrist did not know what 
 Og meant, or, desiring the public only to enjoy the passage 
 of poetry that led up to this name, quietly dropped it. Mr. 
 Swinburne, though he was indignant, did not teU us 
 what the name meant any more than Gilchrist did, 
 though both perhaps found out by reading a little Swedenborg 
 to prepare their minds for the task, and then reading the 
 closing pages of Vala, Night I (this was seen in MS. by 
 both), and Jerusalem, page 13, line 57 ; page 48, line 63 ; 
 page 49, lines 3, 56 ; page 73, line 16 ; page 79, line 13 ; and 
 page 89, line 47 ; and Milton, page 18, lines 33, 35, 37 ; page 
 30, line 33 ; page 31, line 49 ; page 37, lines 22, 50, and 51. 
 
 In simple eighteenth-century argument, alternatives were 
 credited with convincing power. Mind and matter were 
 alternatives. If we are not in Matter (under which heading 
 Blake included the " corporeal understanding," as those who 
 are technically but not popularly called materialists do), we 
 must be in Mind. We must be in something. "We are 
 in nothing else but Mind after death, and had better be in as 
 little else as possible even now. 
 
 America is, of course, a mere symbol for aU that in 
 Blake's system of divisions he grouped under the West. 
 The idea of dividing the human character under points of 
 the compass he developed from Swedenborg's reading of the 
 use made symbolically of those points in the Bible. In the 
 Visions we have already the expression — 
 
 Thy soft American plains are mine. 
 
 All the references to Washington, and so forth, are merely 
 intended to refer to states of the mind in elementary rebellion. 
 The names are given as " representative." But to what detail 
 of art, imagination, or passion each name of an American hero 
 refers we shall never accurately know, unless by clairvoyant 
 reading of his thoughts in Blake's " Univers il Mind." 
 
 Among the Ideas of Good and Evil Gilchrist published a 
 couple of verses called Thames and Ohio, from which he 
 gathered that Blake at one time entertained the idea of 
 emigration. The poem, however, does not justify this 
 inference at all. It is practically certain that Blake never 
 entertained the idea for an instant. 
 
ENGLAND AND AMERICA 173 
 
 This erroneous and non-symbolic way of reading Blake 
 leads further than to the conclusion that he intended to go 
 out of the country. The only honest inference from it is 
 that he went out of his mind. Just such a natural mistake 
 as this is made by Dr. Garnett in his plausible but altogether 
 misconceived monograph. He says (page 57) : 
 
 It is a more serious matter that the descriptions (he is speaking of 
 Blake's accounts of his designs in the Descriptive Gatalogue) are crammed 
 with statements, far more significant than Blake's visions, of a condition 
 of mental disorder, such as that the Greek marbles are copies of the 
 works of the Asiatic patriarchs ; that no one painted in oil except by 
 accident before Vandyke ; that ancient British heroes dwell to this day 
 on Snowdon " in naked simplicity " — a species of Welsh Mahatmas, as it 
 would appear. It would have been a judicious emendation if any one 
 had suggested the substitution of " lying spirits " when the artist spoke 
 of himself as molested by " blotting and blurring demons." 
 
 Dr. Garnett, who has died since this work (The Meal 
 Blake) was written, still has power, on account of his wide 
 and well-deserved reputation, to injure the memory of Blake. 
 Therefore this paragraph deserves notice. Blake had many 
 qualities that resembled those of the insane. His visionary 
 imagination, his sporadic anger, his outrageous pride, were 
 lilce theirs ; and his poetic life, lived zealously in a generation 
 that did not share his zeal and with a wife who for long did 
 not sufficiently approve of his over-abundant bodily powers, 
 would have led a weaker and less kindly and lovable man to 
 insanity. His heart, helped by his genius, saved him, while 
 those who did not understand either condemned him. Of 
 these, Dr. Garnett is still one of the most dangerous. It is 
 difficult for any one to realise, while reading his well-balanced 
 pages, that he wrote them without any real knowledge or 
 any attempt to obtain real knowledge of his subject. He 
 writes with an air of scholastic responsibility and moderation, 
 yet was not aware that serious comprehension was here 
 required, thinking that a tone of educated indulgence and 
 mild superiority towards an ill-taught, half-witted enthusiast 
 was all that could be required of him. 
 
 With regard to the " Welsh Mahatmas," Snowdon was a 
 name substituted for reasons that may be conjectured for 
 " Mount Gilead " in Vala at Blake's second reading of that 
 MS. (Canaan is to Albion as soul to body, it will be 
 remembered). Gilead or Snowdon is essentially a Western 
 or American symbol, the sense without which poetry cannot 
 he. In Vala, in Night I, line 110, Imagination hovers over 
 
174 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 it, and " creates man morning by morning." The universal 
 tent is said a little later to be drawn up above it when 
 man wanders from inspiration. Eden is within (or above). 
 Gilead is on the limit of contraction, Night VIII, line 3, and 
 is, in fact, the ear — the false ear — and the North between 
 West and East. 
 
 Snowdon is mentioned in Jerusalem, page 4, line 29, where 
 the man of the non-mystic and entirely individual mind — 
 as is Albion with his " western gate " closed and his emana- 
 tion hidden in jealousy — desires to keep his "mountains" to 
 himself. Snowdon is the last of a set of five names which 
 are evidently intended to correspond with our " five senses." 
 
 It is also referred to on page 66, line 59, as trembling 
 when it learns that if man insists on living the purely 
 individual Ufe, and refusing to be commingled by love, he 
 will be adjoined by hate. 
 
 In the Bible, as will be remembered, Zelophahad's last 
 daughter (he had five, and no sons) was " Tirzah," called by 
 Blake " the mother of our mortal part " — the feminine 
 spiritual cause of generation. The feminine spirits, the parts 
 of the human mind (or "Daughters" of "Albion") that 
 " control our vegetative powers," are the sub-conscious powers 
 that are opposed to imagination as much as the conscious 
 reasoning powers are (the " Sons " of " Albion "). They are 
 united into Tirzah and her sisters on Mount Gilead {Jeru- 
 salem, page 5, line 40). On page 36, line 12, page 48, 
 line 64, page 68, line 8, page 79, Unes 12, 13, Snowdon or 
 Gilead is mentioned, from which we learn that Gilead is a 
 sense that ought to aid vision and the brotherhood which 
 forms the magic circle of visionaries, but under the influence 
 of physical moods and the power of the sub-conscious to 
 draw us down to the mortal limits of our individual bodies 
 it joins with Og — the selfish centre, the man of scales — the 
 mood that defends a belief in "the hard substance of things," 
 while in the ideal Snowdon's powers still keep a place of 
 meeting for bards in naked simplicity, not clothed in futUe 
 arguments. 
 
 These few references should not have been beyond the 
 capacity of Dr. Garnett, but his crowning wonder is to be 
 found in the fact that he refers to Swedenborg on the same 
 page as that from which the above quotation is taken. The 
 man who has turned the pages of both Swedenborg and Blake 
 and yet writes as Dr. Garnett wrote, has a gift of mental 
 isolation from all that belongs to Blake that is quite his own. 
 
ENGLAND AND AMEEICA 175 
 
 Our minds being now at rest about those " Welsh Mahat- 
 mas," we may perhaps spare a moment to look sufficiently 
 closely at a few passages of Blake's work in order to see in 
 what sense it is to be gathered that we may conclude from 
 the little poem of two stanzas, Thames and Ohio, that Blake 
 really had " at one moment a passing project of emigrating 
 to America," as Gilchrist supposed; see vol. i. of his Life 
 and Works of Blake, page 373, second edition. Here is the 
 poem: « ,,.,«-•.— 
 
 Why should^ I care for tlie^men of the Thames 
 
 And tlie cheating waters o'f chartered streams, 
 
 Or shrink at the little blasts of fear 
 
 That the hireling blows into mine ear ? 
 
 Though born on the cheating banks of Thames, 
 Though his waters bathed my infant limbs, 
 The Ohio shall wash his stains from me ; 
 I was born a slave, but I go to be free. 
 
 In going to America bodily it is evident that we go by a 
 western port from England. Therefore anything that Blake 
 has to say about the Western gate may be appropriately 
 consulted now. 
 
 We first hear of it vaguely, in the rejected preface to Hurope, 
 as a gate by which man could " pass out," if he would — 
 
 But he will not, 
 For stolen fruit is sweet, and bread eaten in secret pleasant. 
 
 To " pass out " means to go out from the limitations of 
 egotism into brotherhood, and also from those of the flesh into 
 that spiritual world where all are brothers and commingle 
 completely when we embrace. The nearest approach to any- 
 thing like such commingling that may be enjoyed in the 
 body is when marriage makes two persons " one flesh," to use 
 the Biblical expression. Blake does not consider that form 
 of unity at aU equal to spiritual embracements, " which are 
 comminglings, and not a pompous high priest entering at a 
 secret place " (^Jerusalem, page 69, hue 44). 
 
 " Stolen fruit " is called " stolen " because abstracted from 
 the " all things in common" that is the rule respecting mental 
 joys in eternity, and " bread eaten in secret " means eaten 
 behind the veil, the flesh, that "curtain on the bed of our 
 desire," as we are told in the Book of Thel. 
 
 Blake, of course, like all other thinkers, was obhged to 
 philosophise from his own experiences, and to read those of 
 other people by their light, and he did not always remember 
 
176 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 how peculiar his experience as a visionary was. He declared to 
 Crabb Kobinson that all men might have it. He knew that 
 these visions of his, that other people said were invisible, 
 actually taught him thoughts, partly by their appearance, as 
 masqueraders teach, and partly by their words, when they 
 spoke their dream-speeches like dream-actors. He knew that 
 in certain conditions of mind they vanished from him, and 
 that his capacity for either art or poetry was apt to vanish 
 with them, and that doubt and despair tended to cause this 
 vanishing. He found also that arguments, scientific formulae, 
 and the assumption made by thinkers of his day that no 
 one can experience correctly who experiences abnormally, 
 drove his instructive visions away. This setting up of the 
 average as the standard is done in no part of mental life 
 except the philosophic. It may be called the Great Eational- 
 istic Assumption, for it is no more than an assumption, 
 and, being quite unsupported, a push will topple it over. 
 When it falls, half of most men's Eationalism will fall with 
 it — the negative half. Blake's mind was really entirely 
 rationalistic. But his mental experience led him to believe 
 that he was at times able to get out of the body. By this he 
 meant out of the part of his mind that he recognised to be a 
 direct product of the five senses. He then entered into a 
 state that we cannot always distinguish from trance — the 
 " celestial mind," as Swedenborg calls it — in which he was able 
 to communicate with some small portion of other minds 
 than his own, by something Uke what we know as " thought 
 transference." Yet others were shut from him when in their 
 ordinary work-a-day individual state, and twice shut when 
 he himself was in this state. Their " western gates " were 
 closed. They were " Men of the Thames." " Why," Blake 
 asks himself in his verse, " should he care for them ?" He had 
 only to leave off attending to any one in this common-sense 
 state of mind, and he was free of the disadvantages of it. He 
 would be like one of those spirits of sympathy and rebellion 
 from egotism that he called symbolically " Americans." And 
 to go to America meant to him to go to sympathy, to vision, to 
 communism of the mind, to freedom of the imagination from 
 aU prohibitions. This was the sense in which Blake " con- 
 templated emigration," not only "at one time," but habitually. 
 No one has ever suggested that he intended to encourage 
 the emigration of a large number of Welshmen; this 
 exhortation- 
 Plane the tribes of Llewellyn in America for a hiding-place, 
 
ENGLAND AND AMEEICA 177 
 
 which is in Jerusalem, page 83, line 58, fortunately having 
 escaped Mr. W. M. Eossetti's eye, or else being looked on 
 as mere raving. 
 
 Enitharmon's long speech in Jerusalem, page 82, lines 22 
 to 44, gives the key to America and to many other names. 
 " America " is the secret ark here, and as such a place of 
 hiding. When Albion's " western gate was closed " he 
 wrongly made an "altar of victims offered to sin and 
 repentance," as told in Vala, Night III, line 105. 
 
 America, North and South, are Los's "baths of living 
 waters " we have been told in page 58, line 43, of Jerusalem, 
 and above that it was shut out by the oaks (of weeping) of 
 Albion's " western shore," when the wheels of the four regions 
 of humanity, clouded and raging, rose up against Albion 
 poisonously. It was at the time referred to on page 59 when 
 the Zoas fell. 
 
 We know elsewhere of what an " ark and curtain " is the 
 symbol, and what is the " place of forgiveness of sins " that 
 ought not to be made that of permanent repentance. Even 
 without, the prophetic book of America, the symbolic use of 
 thq.t name in %11 its four aspects is obvious. 
 
 In 1793, the date of this Prophecy, America, there is little 
 to set against Blake's name in the catalogue of his works com- 
 piled by Grilchrist. That art and imagination were the most 
 powerful means of acquiring and spreading sympathy, the 
 only salvation of man, may be looked on as a permanent 
 doctrine of his, though he had not yet called attention to the 
 necessary inference from this, that Imagination was the 
 Saviour, and that Jesus of Nazareth was a representative 
 figure through whom we are to learn about It. 
 
 Since 1785, when Blake felt his new importance in the 
 family after his father's death, and drew his Joseph's Brethren 
 howirhg down before Mm and other subjects from the same 
 story, till now we have only mentioned by Gilchrist the three 
 pictures already noticed here as belonging to 1790, the Flight 
 into Egypt, and Christ Messing Little Children, with a design 
 (apparently misdescribed) from the Marriage of Heaven and 
 Hell. For 1793 we have Los looking at Ore, bound, repre- 
 senting the movable means of prophecy in mind ("vehicular ") 
 regretting his own attempt to defend man from the blind- 
 ness of lust by mere self-control (this is only one of the 
 four meanings of that composition), and the design for the 
 frontispiece of the Visions of the Daughters of Albion, and 
 the tailpiece to the Marriage of Heaven and Hell, which, as 
 
 N 
 
178 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 early plates show, was not engraved with the rest of the 
 hook. 
 
 1794 gives Linnell's drawing of the title-page to Ewope, 
 with a figure omitted from this when engraved, and a 
 separate example in Linnell's possession of the group of Los, 
 Ore, and Enitharmon at the forge in Urizen, described by 
 Grilchrist as belonging to Europe, but not in the " Museum " 
 copy of that book. There is also a picture of the last design 
 in Europe. 
 
 In the following year, 1795, the Songs of Experience are 
 engraved and their title-page dated. We must suppose that 
 they and the books Ewope, America, etc., took up much of 
 Blake's time during 1793, 1794. His mind was running 
 almost entirely on art as a means of creating sympathetic 
 imagination. Art that did so only in an elementary degree, 
 being unimaginative — that is, portrait art and drawing-room 
 art — he was not much in sympathy with, and for all his 
 life was furious with Sir Joshua Eeynolds, who encouraged 
 borrowed imagination. Eeynolds had died, of course, in 1792, 
 and Blake's copy of his Discourses is full of indignant pencil 
 notes. Art students will, if imaginative and in love with 
 Eaphael and Michael Angelo, read these notes with delight. 
 Others will be angry. But, except considered in relation to 
 Blake's poetic preferences, they are quite incomprehensible. 
 Gilchrist relates that Blake used to tell how he had once 
 had an interview with Eeynolds, whom he found very 
 pleasant, and who blandly remarked to him, "Well, Mr. 
 Blake, I hear you despise our art of oil painting." "No, Sir 
 Joshua," said Blake, " but I like fresco better." 
 
 Blake, in fact, made a sort of fresco for himself, priming 
 his ground with a mixture containing plaster, and using 
 carpenter's' glue to give it elasticity and to varnish the sur- 
 face. He did not " despise " all oil painting, but he objected 
 to it because he held that oil was a body that tended to 
 diminish, by the universality of its own tone, the fresh 
 delicacy and sharpness of the difference between one and 
 another of the tints in which it could only be correctly given 
 when free from this common property. He learned later that 
 carpenter's glue, which he used in his own frescoes, had 
 even more of the same disadvantage. 
 
 This diffusion of a tone that in itself means nothing, and 
 that prevents each of the tones which it disguises into semi- 
 uniformity from meaning what they ought to mean, was 
 much liked by connoisseurs in Blake's time, and thought to be 
 
ENGLAND AND AMERICA 119 
 
 artistic because characteristic of the pictures of " Old Masters," 
 notably of Eembrandt. Blake, though himself an in- 
 harmonious colourist, spotty, feeble, and incoherent, antici- 
 pated the modern schools in their use of pure blue and 
 purple, though their green was practically unknown to him. 
 His pale yellows admitted no treacly brown. He was always 
 strongly opposed to the idea that this " generalising " tone 
 was " artistic." He mixed it up with all other generalising, 
 with the vague drapery lines and dreamy trees of Sir Joshua's 
 portraits, and with the vague benevolence of philosophers 
 who do not attempt to give a real mouthful of bread to any- 
 body. In his prophetic books he attributed to " reason " the 
 faculty of reducing the mind to a " generalising state," and 
 the " minute particulars " in which a man must do good if he 
 would do it at all mean with him accurately divided tints, 
 moods symbolised to his sculpturesque mind by correct and 
 distinguishing treatment of forms, by anatomy with the 
 joints of toes and fingers precisely drawn. He was never tired 
 of maintaining that what Kipling derides as " mess," and as 
 "doing things rather more or less," was fatal to art, to 
 imagination, and to all the intercommunication of precise 
 ideas without which our brotherhood is the brotherhood of 
 "idiots," and its intercourse "slobbering." "Grandeur of 
 ideas," he says, " is based on precision of ideas." 
 
 It is said that Sir Joshua once suggested that he should 
 draw better. Blake believed that he " copied perfectly from 
 Imagination," as we know, and he never forgave Sir Joshua. 
 He not only considered the suggestion as unnecessary, but, 
 beheving that it meant that he should blur over with sug- 
 gestive and sketchy touch the finger joints and eyelids, he 
 looked upon it as wicked. Since such suggestive treatment 
 sacrificed his dearly-loved " minute particulars," he of course 
 saw in it the natural contrary of creation, and the gods of the 
 moods that produced it must be enemies of the Creator. 
 This is the meaning of such phrases as " bondage to general- 
 ising gods." The gods of Asia are the names Blake chose 
 for almost all the mental attributes that he most disliked. 
 Of course, he did not see that when he mingled Rubens and 
 Rembrandt (as he often did) in one condemnation, and saw 
 no difference between them, he was generalising in criticism 
 without the purpose that Sir Joshua had when doing so in 
 art, namely, to give a true impression of such parts of a scene 
 as we see but do not look at. Blake made the mistake of 
 looking at each part of a picture, and not at the picture. 
 
1-80 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 Graceful attitude we see precisely in Eeynolds, who was 
 precise in the balance and pose of his figures. When we are 
 looking at a real person's face we see the hands beneath it and 
 the trees behind without their " minute particulars." Blake 
 generalised in art (though he did not know this) by a method 
 of his own, namely, by thrusting his minute particulars in 
 generally wherever he happened to know enough about them 
 to insert them. His drapery — especially in the floating folds 
 of an angel's garments — is so generalised as not to be drapery 
 at all. It is to be regretted that he did not spare a little 
 mercy for the virtues of the brush from that large amount that 
 he was always ready to demand for the sins of the flesh. 
 
 Urizen and Ewroj)e are both dated 1794, but this is the 
 date of their putting on metal. Urizen is an isolated work 
 that may have been written at any time since 1790. 
 
 His next " prophetic book " was probably Uurope. In all 
 his poetry we continually find Europe and Asia used as 
 meaning the two great opposites. They stood as Peleg and 
 Joktan, Esau and Jacob, Saul and David — in fact, as internal 
 and external meaning of Scripture, and as the two styles of 
 Scripture — Law and Prophets. But though Asia is used ia 
 a good sense, the gods of Asia are to be understood in a bad 
 sense, as Canaan is the heavenly land, while its inhabitants are 
 not at all heavenly, but had to be cast out when Israel came. 
 
 He scourged the mercliaiit Canaanite 
 From out the Temple of his mind, 
 
 Blake says of Christ in the poem called The Everlasting Gospel. 
 On the other hand, the fairies and others who come at the 
 call of Enitharmon in the poem called Europe have many 
 humble purposes of beauty of their own, and if they do but 
 assist in the "sports of night" (emotions of the corporeal 
 understanding, not necessarily of " Eternity "), they may be 
 good and lovable apprentices, and examples to us of the beauties 
 of the half-way house that is given us to rest in on our road. 
 
 Now comes 1795, the year of the Song of Los, the Songs of 
 Experience, and (as copper -plates began to run short and 
 money to be scarce) the minutely engraved Ahania and the 
 Book of Los. The list of dated works for this year is long : The 
 Lazar Souse, from Milton ; Elohim creating Adam, Lamech 
 and his two Wives, Good and Evil Angels struggling for Posses- 
 sion of a Child, Elijah in the Fiery Chariot, Newton. 
 
 These drawings are for Butts, and it is probable that many 
 of the undated works, also made for Butts, really belong to the 
 
ENGLAND AND AMEEICA 181 
 
 years immediately before. That he was chiefly engaged with 
 uncommiissioned work is shown by this leaflet, printed by 
 himself and dated — 
 
 Oadber 10, 1793. 
 To THE Public 
 
 The labours of tlie Artist, the Poet, and the Musician have been 
 proverbially attended by poverty and obscurity ; this was never the 
 fault of the public, but was owing to a neglect of means to propagate 
 such works as have wholly absorbed the Man of Genius. Even Milton 
 and Shakespeare could not publish their own works. 
 
 This difficulty has been obviated by the Author of the following 
 productions now presented to the Public ; who has invented a method 
 of Printing both Letterpress and Engraving in a style more ornamental, 
 uniform, and grand than any before discovered, while it produces works 
 at less than one-fourth of the expense. 
 
 If a method of Printing which combines the Painter and the Poet is 
 a phenomenon worthy of public attention, provided that it exceeds in 
 elegance aU former methods, the author is sure of his reward. 
 
 Mr. Blake's powers of invention very early engaged the attention of 
 many persons of eminence and fortune ; by whose means he has been 
 regularly enabled to bring before the public works (he is not afraid to 
 say) of equal magnitude and consequence with the productions of any 
 age or country ; among which are two highly finished engravings (and 
 two more are nearly ready) which will commence a Series of subjects 
 from the Bible, and another from the History of England. 
 
 The following are the subjects of the several Works now published 
 and on Sale at Mr. Blake's, No. 13 Hercules Buildings, Lambeth : 
 
 1. Job, a Historical Engraving. Size, 1 ft. 1\ in. by 1 ft. 2 in. 
 Price 12s. 
 
 2. Edward and Elinor, a Historical Engraving. Size, 1 ft. 6^ in. 
 by 1 ft. Price 10s. 6d. 
 
 3. America, a Prophecy, in Illuminated Printing. Folio, with 18 
 designs. Price 10s. 6a. 
 
 4. Visions of the Daughters of Albion, in Illuminated Printing, with 
 8 designs. Price 7s. Bd. 
 
 5. The Book of Thel, a Poem, in Illuminated Printing. Quarto, with 
 6 designa Price 3s. 
 
 6. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, in Illuminated Printing. 
 Quarto, with 14 designs. Price 7s. 6d. 
 
 7. Songs of Innocence, in Illuminated Printing. Octavo, with 25 
 designs. Price 5s. 
 
 8. Songs of Experience, in Illuminated Printing. Octavo, with 25 
 designs. Price 5s. 
 
 9. The History of England, a small book of Engravings. Price 3s. 
 10. The Gates of Paradise, a small book of Engravings. Price 3s. 
 
 The illuminated books are printed in colours, and on the most 
 beautiful wove paper that could be procured. 
 
 No subscriptions for the beautiful engraved works now in hand are 
 asked, for none are wanted; but the Author will produce his works and 
 offer them to sale at a fair price. 
 
182 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 This leaflet has not been seen in the original by the 
 present writer. He quotes it from Gilchrist, but believes it 
 to be produced there with remarkable accuracy. The way 
 in which a semi-colon or a colon is dropped in without any 
 sufficient cause here and there, sometimes doing duty for a 
 full stop, and sometimes for a comma, or for an even slighter 
 pause, is entirely in the manner of Blake. He adopted it 
 probably from Lavater's translator, whose punctuation is of 
 this description, and can only be wondered at. It defies 
 explanation. 
 
 Blake seems to have been almost entirely without com- 
 missioned employment as an engraver at this time. Outlines 
 to the Odyssey were published in 1793 from plates engraved 
 by him after Flaxman's designs, and Gilchrist has no know- 
 ledge of other work so produced. Blake made fourteen 
 plates for Stedman's Surinam, published by Johnson in 
 1796. £5 was his payment for Flaxman's plates. The 
 prices of the others were probably in proportion. 
 
 In 1797 he is noticed as engraving " for Johnson " — 
 
 Alfred in the Neatherd's Cottage, 
 
 King John absolved. 
 
 Queen Elizabeth and Essex ; 
 
 also 
 
 The Death of Lucretia, 
 Death of Cleopatra, 
 Caius Marius, 
 Mars and Rhea Silvia. 
 
 This is the year of the engraving of many of his designs 
 to Young's Night I'houghts. The designing of the whole 
 five hundred and seventy-two and the writing of the poem 
 Vala make it a most memorable year in Blake's life and in 
 the history of literature. The number of hours during which 
 he worked remains as much a wonder as the quality of the 
 work and the price at which it was paid. He had £1 each 
 for the plates to Young's Night Thoughts. 
 
 In 1798 we know very little of his work. Some of that 
 attributed to 1797 must necessarily have run on into the 
 following year. Undated works may also belong here. 
 
 For 1799 are noted religious pictures for Butts : a Last 
 Supper, a Charity, a Rachel giving Joseph the Coat of Many 
 Cblov/rs, Adoration of the Kings, The Sons of God and 
 
^2v: 
 
 Tm ml.fj Hjilc: a, I, CUT i,,lc of iciins 
 Till.- i:km1 iiijL^Kiim's lIlmiM lluiu |n>u]- |ijle ]iiofC 
 Ol oiiuji.! iMi-lh— m tUiikii>-,si «-|Kit a < liaiigc 
 Fi-oiii ^\ fslL'nI.i^- ' ili\- (Kiiliiii^i luipi.' i,r, near, 
 
 Long-iah ■<! pi I,!.-, () liiiw iiinlmiin, lliisli'd 
 
 TIi/bI"« i.iK- 'I'l'lI I amI.ili.iM, Iriily j;.i...l. 
 
 Of lirlll.Mls'piJIbf Clcalll's Slllltk- SLXll M-illiiii, 
 
 .Sl>', ti-caclur.nis mtiKr I workiii!; in llu' liirl,, 
 Snlilal .It ill)' «xll-ciinLi.|1cJ M-lKiiio, and btck.in'd 
 The norm lo i ii,t un llijt nmo so lod. 
 Unlhdi-d CIO It Itll— onu mramnl's |)itv I 
 Man's loic'siglrt IS conditionalU wise; 
 LollEszo ' w isdoni into Jiillf turns 
 Ol't, tlic first insl.iijl lis idea lair 
 To lal/nng tlioiir lit is l„„ n : lio«- dun oiir eye I 
 * Tile present nionieni terminates our sif,du; 
 Clouds, lliK k as those on dooni.sdae, ihown the next : 
 \\'c penetr.ite, we piopliesy in \ain' 
 
 Tunc 1 
 
 Ju 
 
 ill o 
 
 tin pai, 
 
 e)e 
 
 s , a 
 
 d ea 
 
 h. 
 
 
 Ere nil 
 
 Igle 
 
 d w 
 
 h Ihe sli 
 
 
 mp s 
 
 ands 
 
 of 
 
 hit, 
 
 B^- fate 
 
 s 1 
 
 Ulok 
 
 hie oath 
 
 s s 
 
 V orn 
 
 
 
 
 Deep s 
 
 leii 
 
 
 where el 
 
 ern 
 
 l_v h 
 
 gins 
 
 
 
 By 
 
 natni-e's 
 
 lali-, wh 
 
 t n 
 
 ay I) 
 
 e, in 
 
 y 
 
 ,0 n„«' , 
 
 There's 
 
 no 
 
 pi-cr 
 
 agati\-e n 
 
 hn 
 
 nan 
 
 Kinis 
 
 
 
 In liuinan 
 
 earls 
 
 what boldei 
 
 thoi 
 
 ght c 
 
 in 
 
 rise. 
 
 Than II 
 
 an' 
 
 pre 
 
 iiniption 
 
 on 
 
 i-m. 
 
 ITOIV 
 
 
 l.iwn > 
 
 Where 
 
 es 
 
 
 11 ow '— 
 
 n .1 
 
 inthe 
 
 r wo 
 
 -IJ 
 
 1 
 
 For nil 
 
 nhe 
 
 rs th 
 
 s IS cert. 
 
 n ; 
 
 the 
 
 ■e\ ei 
 
 se 
 
 
 Is sure 
 
 lo 
 
 tone 
 
 and vet 
 
 on 
 
 thrs 
 
 .crhii 
 
 'S 
 
 
 This|e 
 
 id 
 
 Llltl 
 
 e— mill 
 
 on 
 
 1 1 
 
 
 
 
 'v^^- 
 
 f 
 
 FitOlI YoUNu's "XlllUI- TllUUGHT.^ 
 
Not on Ur c tLirns ua time, heavens ■ILaiigci, soril 
 Oji lii-i impjLtant embassy to man 
 
 ^ Loni:\/oi no en the long-destincd houi, 
 r oni cicilastni^ it^cs growing rirjc, 
 ] I Lt mcmn lit hdii of wondions lin-lh. 
 W 1 n thi DRL \D SIRE, on cnunannn Lent, 
 
 ''* \i I li, »nh nimie iismsm his niij;hl, 
 Call J loilh t.ealitn In thon linm was bum, 
 B\ „o l!n nl bti e 1 1 ni, ihroiigh a thoiisaiul evoi kl.s . 
 N t on ill sL tLim h im tlio great ii.iy. ol heaecn, 
 Fion IJ 1 1 1 HI •.tenons Ol b, 
 \\ I I III t n ill ist kncaih the »l.ies , 
 II I II 1 ii Imn in his iicn- ahnihi. 
 
 Mil III I I 1 1)V reioKing spheres ; 
 
 Tl thoul Li ma I I I Jiunc- 
 Hiirs dais ml mmis, and years, his .hikliin jila 
 
 LlLnnmeui m s round h is he llies . 
 
 Ol lalh s II |nil |lnmcs lliev slia|,e 
 
 Hsam]li| IS „ It as dane'd name. 
 
 I s I m h , I I inih his am lent rest. 
 And I ai iti I tl h» sire; 
 
 II iiitil I III, 
 
 ^\hns. ill ll I eoum his eiieles non, nnliiii,i;ed. 
 Fat the III ,1 I s an .ding. Iicadhmg i nsh 
 r I mill s n hi id ilaos, nheiire ihei mse 
 
 fl hi ] II ilies|n I > 11 In mill leiiiies 
 
 Ntii 1 nt thi shut I irtd.ij's I jpid lliehi -■ 
 
 K 1 u St Ih II I I I r 1 1 
 
 all ll 1 1 1 H I I 
 
 -/ 
 
 jwSjwtjKWrww^ 
 
 \k 
 
 ^^fftPWSS-^.f.^VPOTWKfo^' ' 
 
 Fia:Q[ Young's "Night Thoughts." 
 
- ■'■<;!, 
 
 4-1 
 On lliib mJc (lentil , and poinls ihcm uu( to men ■ 
 A lecture hilent, IjLit of sovt-rL-if^ii power ' 
 To \i(.c, conliiiioii . line] to vjr-liiL>, peace 
 
 Whatever fjrre itie "boa-stful hero ]ilaji, 
 A'lrtiic ;il()ne lias maji'^ty iii death ; 
 And ffi cater still, the more the tjiaiit lrij\\ns ; 
 PhilasdehI he- sewroly frown'd on ihc-c . 
 " No iViiriung gn'eii — itnceremoiiioiis Tulc- ' 
 " A sudden i ii^li J'l om ]iil.-'h niendian joys ' 
 " A u-jenth frtun all wc lu\'e — fiom all we are I 
 " A jestlebs bed of pain ' a plnnge opaque 
 " ]3e_)ond conjecture' IL-cble nature's dread ' 
 " Slrojig reasoji'^! shudder at the dark. imkno^\"n ' 
 " A sun extingiiibh'd ! a just opening gra\e ! 
 " And oh ! the last— last — M-liat '■' can words express ? 
 " Thought reach ? the la^I, last — iilciico of a friend !" 
 AVhore are those liorrors, that a[nj(:enicnt where. 
 This, hideous gi'cmp of ills, ■^^'hlch singlj hhock ? 
 Demand from man — I thought him mari till now. 
 
 Thiough nature's wreck, through \anciinsh'd agonies, 
 Like the stars struggling through this midnight gloom. 
 What gleams of joy ' what more than human peace I 
 Where, the frail mortal ? the poor abject worm ? 
 No, not III death, the moital to be found. 
 His conduct IS a legacy for a\\. 
 Richer than Mammon's for his single heir: 
 His comforters he comforts; great in nun. 
 With iinreluctant grandeur gi^cs, not yields 
 His soul subhme ; and closes with his fate 
 
 v.:3 
 
 '--". .A 
 
 
 ^ _\«!i»K^u;^lr^«2- 
 
 J. 
 
 Fkhm Yousg's '-Nicht Ti 
 
y 
 
 -J 
 
 His wralli inHjiiio<! - Ids tcndc-rncss uii fiie ; 
 
 Like boft. siiioDlh oil, outblaziii^; "iliur fiiv.-. "' 
 
 Ciiti j>i'a_yoi, can piaisc avert it? — THOU ' \\\y rjll, 
 
 My ihenie, my iiispij-ation, and iiij cro\Mi ! 
 
 Mj .strcrigdi in ;ige, my nsc ui tow cstiite ! 
 
 My soul's ambitjon, plc;isurc. wt-alth ' — m\ worM I 
 
 My light in (liirkiiess, and my life \w ck'jlh ' 
 
 My boast throKgh tmie ! bliss tiiroit^li otcriiity — 
 
 Ktcriiity, too sliort to speak tliy praise ' 
 
 Or fdlhom thy proluimd of love to man — 
 
 Til man of niLii tlie intanest, even lo mc ' 
 
 M> saciifii-f ' my GOD ! what ibings are tlicse ' 
 
 " W I It Ihc-n art THOU r by \vhat^lame s,hall I call TI 
 
 K T the name devout arcliaiij;eU use, 
 
 D t arcbarifi^els sboiiid the name enjoy 
 
 By unii\n]]'<l ; thpiis!U)cl.s nioie siibbme. 
 
 No e 1 air so dear as that, which, though unsfmkc 
 
 St 11 ^lows at heart : O how oninijioleiicc 
 
 * Is lost in love ! thou great PHILANTHROPIST ' 
 
 Fall of angels I but the friend of man ' 
 
 I kc J cob, fondest of the yonntjcr bnini ! 
 
 1 IlOU ! who clidst iHve bmi, snatch the smokuiL; brand 
 
 r o it the flames, and quench it in thy blood . 
 
 Ho V art thou pleased by bounty to distress ' 
 
 T ake lis groan beneath our gratitude, 
 
 T 1 f, for birth ' to (avonr and conlbiind ; 
 
 To halleiigc, and to (listance all return ' 
 
 La I of lo\e, stupendous liciiihis i s >ti 
 \ d leave praise panting in tiic disi mi \ ik ' 
 
 TI ht too great defrauds '1 H I I i tin due 
 
 ■■>,■-: -^ 
 
 I 
 si 
 
 <'.. 
 
 '~A 
 
 FiiOM Young's "Night Tiioughts. " 
 
England and AMEfelcA 183 
 
 Daughters of Men, four separate pictures, The Evangelists, 
 Christ taught to read hy the Virgin, a fresco of A Spirit 
 vaulting from a Cloud to tv/rn and wind a Fiery Pegasus, 
 afterwards in Blake's own exhibition, unfinished. 
 
 This closes the century. The uncoloured drawings are 
 not referred to here. 
 
 The Hst is not given now for purposes of reference. 
 Gilchrist's catalogue must be left holding its own for the 
 historical student. But we require to cast our eyes along 
 its columns to form an idea of how hard Blake was now 
 working, what amazing genius and courage he was showing 
 under neglect and discouragement, and with what miserable 
 starvation prices he kept body and soul together. 
 
 The engravings to Young's Night Thoughts seem to have 
 been intended by Blake as faint outlines to be coloured by 
 hand. One copy of the work so treated was in the first 
 Blake Exhibition at the Carfax Gallery. This would account 
 for their lack of shading, and for the small sum paid for 
 them. 
 
 Most of the more significant of the original water-colour 
 sketches were suppressed, only about a quarter of them being 
 put on copper. Among those not engraved were many showing 
 the allegoric or mythic figures as " children of my thoughts," 
 — to use Blake's own expression, — " walking within my blood- 
 vessels." Young cannot be made responsible for this idea, 
 or for the subjects of the drawings which really belong to 
 Jerusalem and Vala. (They belong to Vala's year, 1797.) 
 
 In some of the plates of Jerusalem, and in the coloured 
 picture of The Bard from Gray, blood-vessels are seen 
 enmeshing and winding about the figures that move among 
 them. 
 
CHAPTEE XVIIl 
 
 HELPING AND BEING HELPED 
 
 At all times, however, the Blakes lived with remarkable 
 frugality. 
 
 We eat little, we drink less. 
 
 This world makes not our happiness, 
 
 might be said of them from first to last, as truly as "by 
 incessant labour we have enough." 
 
 After Blake's removal to No. 13 Hercules Buildings he 
 had a period which Mrs. Blake in old age used to look 
 backward to as one of prosperity. She actually kept a 
 servant. 
 
 The house was not unpleasant. There was a garden, and 
 in the garden was a vine-tree which Blake sat under, and 
 would never allow to be trimmed. The grapes became 
 smaller and smaller, and the plant ran all to leaves and long 
 stems and stalks, but at least it was not educated. To this 
 house, Tatham says, came pupils of rank, and Blake would 
 also go to their houses and stay hour after hour delighting 
 them with the sweet dignity of his manner and the poetry 
 of his conversation. Such good interest was made for him 
 in high places that he was even offered the post of drawing- 
 master to the Eoyal Family. Had he accepted this he might 
 have become permanently prosperous. But he refused, for 
 he feared that his art would languish in the Court atmo- 
 sphere, and the offer almost ruined him, for in order not to 
 seem insulting to the Sovereign he gave up aU his pupils at 
 once, a very serious sacrifice. 
 
 Mrs. Blake's one servant had vanished already, for she 
 was too good a housewife to endure the perfunctory ways of 
 the "general," and she had dismissed her. Blake and his 
 wife were now in the very prime of their health and strength. 
 The long walks in which they used to delight were begun 
 
 184 
 
HELPING AND BEING HELPED 185 
 
 again, extending sometimes twenty and thirty miles out — it is 
 said even farther. One day when they had left their house 
 empty from morning till night, thieves broke in and stole, 
 says Tatham, sixty pounds' worth of plate. Either this is a 
 mistake for plates, meaning engraved plates for printing that 
 were worth sixty pounds, or the pupils of rank who nearly 
 made Blake a Eoyal drawing-master must have given him 
 very handsome presents. Blake, who gave forty pounds for 
 his printing press, is not likely to have given sixty for his 
 spoons and forks. He had no dinner-parties. 
 
 He had his extravagances, however. He gave away a 
 lump sum of forty pounds with his wife's knowledge, and 
 how much more that she never knew of, and so could not 
 tell Tatham about after his death, we cannot conjecture. 
 This forty pounds was given to an unfortunate young fellow 
 who had written a book containing free-thinking views. It 
 is to be feared that he had ordered it to be printed at his 
 own expense. Tatham does not teU us his name. During 
 Blake's lifetime no one was ever told about the gift. The 
 forty pounds did not all go to the printer. The free-thinking 
 youth had married a pretty little woman, and a considerable 
 part of the sum was spent in a handsome dress for her, in 
 which she then went and called on Mrs. Blake, who was prob- 
 ably found in an apron with her sleeves rolled up. Painters 
 of historic situations please note. What Mrs. Blake said to 
 her visitor is not recorded. 
 
 Blake was not cured of open-handedness by this. He 
 noticed a pale-faced young man with a portfolio under his 
 arm, who passed his house every day. This was enough. 
 Blake came out and made his acquaintance. He was a poor 
 art student on his way to death, but struggling to the last. 
 Blake visited him frequently, taught him, nursed him, and 
 evidently to the last fed him, but Mrs. Blake, who probably 
 cooked for him, told Tatham nothing about this. It is a con- 
 tinual and delightful shock to find that Blake, so confident 
 about his visions and rashly boastful in his art criticism, was 
 absolutely silent when he had something to brag about. 
 Had not his wife survived him and in her grief told of his kind- 
 nesses to Tatham, and had Tatham not written these things 
 down in his copy of Jerusalem, we should never have known 
 of any such good deeds. Of Mrs. Blake's own wonderful, 
 patient, luminous life we get no glimpses from her. She 
 seems to have been as silent as -she was tender and strong. 
 
 There is a note belonging to this period in Blake's MS. 
 
186 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 book : " I say I shan't live five years, and if I live one it 
 will be a wonder. June 1793." There are no initials after 
 it. We can hardly suppose that Blake wrote it of himself 
 between the fifty-mile walks. Perhaps it was a remembrance 
 of some words of the unfortunate youth, jotted down to see 
 if they would come true. If so, they were justified. Yet 
 Blake was subject to very black moments, and he may have 
 been so imaginatively seized with the feeling of life's short- 
 ness when this boy was dying that it is possible he said 
 it of himself, and wrote it as a warning to himself against 
 the deceptiveness of the sad mood. It is to this period of 
 Blake's life that is usually attributed the story that he wished 
 to add a concubine to his establishment, after the manner of 
 Scriptural patriarchs, but that his wife wept, and that then 
 he gave up the project. It is of suspicious authenticity, and 
 seems rather to belong to the William Bond time and style, 
 just after the Poetical Sketches were published. The shock to 
 Mrs. Blake there recorded, which may have occurred then, and 
 which would at least account for her subsequent barrenness, 
 was its probable origin. At this moment it seems out of 
 keeping with the thirty- to fifty-mile walks in which she 
 went with him, which in their turn may have continued the 
 childlessness of the couple. 
 
 Many other guesses are open to the reader, who may 
 perhaps even be inclined to suspect that Blake, who had a 
 continual love of the exaggerated and hyperbolic, which is, 
 of course, a characteristic of all men who are both men of 
 geniality and of genius, suggested, when that one unfortunate 
 servant was dismissed, and Mrs. Blake had found the work 
 irksome to resume along with those interminable walks, that 
 Abraham had known a secret for keeping a household servant 
 and attaching her to the family that might be worth con- 
 sideration under the circumstances. If this incident arose 
 from such a piece of Irish sly humour, Blake must have been 
 very much shocked when Mrs. Blake replied to his solemn 
 jest with tears. 
 
 An engraving of the Accusers of Theft, Adultery, and 
 Mv/rder was done at this time — not a likely subject if Blake, 
 after suffering from theft, had contemplated adultery. It 
 has this line from the Prologue to Edward III, which is 
 among the Poetical Sketches, " When the senses are shaken, 
 and the soul is driven to madness " (Who can stand ?), p. 53 
 (sic). It occurs on p. 56 of the Sketches in Quaritch's facsimile. 
 A drawing also exists with the words, " The Bible of Hell in 
 
HELPING AND BEING HELPED 187 
 
 Nocturnal Visions collected." Blake does not seem to have 
 engraved this. Perhaps the collection was only projected. 
 Whether or not America and the other " Prophecies " belonged 
 to it we can only conjecture. He also wrote here a Gates of 
 Hell, for Children, probably in short lines like the Gates of 
 Paradise, for Children. He lived ki Hercules Buildings till 
 1800. 
 
 Now the century was fuU. Flaxman, seeing that Blake 
 very much needed a sympathetic patron, and particularly 
 indignant at the small price he received for the plates to 
 Young's Mght Thoughts, introduced him in the early part of 
 this year to Hayley. The first mention of Blake's name that 
 is at present known is in a letter from Flaxman to Hayley, 
 which begins: — 
 
 Deae and Kind Friend — I have delivered the drawing of Demo- 
 sthenes to Mr. Blake 
 
 This is dated January 29, 1800. The drawing was by 
 Hayley's son, and was to illustrate a book by Hayley on 
 sculpture, in the form of letters to Flaxman, with whom the boy 
 was working as an articled pupil. This year, therefore, begins 
 with the Hayley episode of Blake's life that lasted five years. 
 The head of Demosthenes was to have been engraved for 
 Hayley by Blake on Flaxman's recommendation. On March 
 26, 1800, he writes : 
 
 Perhaps you are not acquainted with Mr. Blake's direction. It is 
 No. 13 Hercules Buildings, near the Asylum, Surrey side of Westminster 
 Bridge. 
 
 In this letter, too, Flaxman announces his own appoint- 
 ment as sculptor to the King : 
 
 His Majesty has been pleased to appoint me to be his sculptor, but 
 you will understand that this is a mere title. 
 
 By the middle of the year it is decided that Blake shall 
 leave London and go to Felpham, where Hayley has a large 
 country house, and is the " great man " of the neighbourhood. 
 Blake must have given notice to his landlord at midsummer. 
 On August 18 Flaxman writes to Hayley : 
 
 You may naturally suppose that I am highly pleased at the exten- 
 sion of your usual benevolence in favour of my friend Blake, and as 
 such an occasion oflfers you will perhaps be more satisfied in having the 
 portraits engraved under your own eye than at a distance. Indeed, I 
 nope that Blake's residence at Felpham wiU be a mutual comfort to 
 yoti and him, and I see no reason why he should not make as good a 
 
188 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 livelihood there as in London, if he engraves and teaches drawing, by 
 which he may gain considerably, as also by making neat drawings of 
 different kind.s ; but if he places any dependence on painting large 
 pictures, for which he is not qualified either by habit or study, he wiU 
 be miserably deceived. 
 
 Even at that date it is seen that Flaxman was among 
 those who felt it necessary to keep Blake in his place. 
 
 Hayley was an exceedingly fluent, well-meaning, shallow, 
 and sentimental amateur author, whose character, talents, and 
 taste have a faint and anticipating suggestion of Leigh Hunt 
 about them. He was apparently the very man for Blake. He 
 was well off, and positively anxious to patronise somebody. 
 Unfortunately, he lacked one thing, and in lacking it was 
 absolutely unfitted to enter into Blake's mind, as, though he 
 had no tendencies of his own towards art or literature, he 
 seems to have had no knowledge of Swedenborgianism. He 
 showed absolutely none of the sort of comprehension of Blake 
 that any one who knew anything of Swedenborg must almost 
 necessarily have showed. It is therefore almost certain that 
 he knew nothing. He was a typical eighteenth -century 
 man in matters of religion. Though capable of talking 
 sentiment about angels and heaven, he frankly disliked 
 the Bible. Swedenborg must have been simply intolerable 
 to him. Blake's writings soon became equally abhorrent. 
 Blake wrote to Butts after three years' intimate knowledge 
 of Hayley : 
 
 Of this work 1 take care to say little to Mr. H., since he is as much 
 averse to my poetry as he is to a chapter in the Bible. 
 
 In all the correspondence about Blake, from the first intro- 
 duction to the final difference and estrangement, Flaxman's 
 character stands out as that of a kind and indulgent friend, 
 who bore much petulance from Blake and tried to do him 
 much good. But he also shows himself as a cautious and 
 discreet man, who, while exceedingly anxious to be kind, at 
 the same time makes a hobby of being wise. He is ignorant 
 that tepidity is a detestable quality of character. His own 
 character is like that of some cooks who cook potatoes 
 without salt and leave them in their hot water till sodden, 
 ignorant that this is a detestable method of cookery. Flax- 
 man does not seem to have made any attempt to use his 
 position as King's sculptor to catch Hayley's attention for 
 symbolic art. Yet he could have used it for just this purpose 
 had he possessed zeal and tact. His tasteless and sodden 
 
HELPING AND BEING HELPED 189 
 
 Swedenborgianism probably did not dare to venture into 
 dayKght. If Hayley ever heard of it he only had to put 
 up his eyebrows. Flaxman would have been quite certain 
 never to renew the subject. Not having been born a gentle- 
 man, he was always peculiarly at the mercy of a superior 
 look from any one above him in position. 
 
 Yet he was more in the secret of Blake's mind than any 
 Uving man, and he ought to have known better than to 
 introduce Blake to Hayley without preparing Hayley for 
 him by a little bit of education. It was unfriendly not to 
 do so, and the troubles, misunderstanding, and disappoint- 
 ment, both for Blake and Hayley, that followed his introduc- 
 tion are in great measure to be laid at Flaxman's door. 
 
 We are glad to suppose that Flaxman did not prepare 
 Hayley for Blake for the same reason that Blake did not 
 prepare his own Poetical Sketches for the press — namely, 
 because he could not. Here was touch of Nemesis. In this 
 way did the secret justice that sometimes reveals itself behind 
 our affairs punish Blake, when he was behaving best, for his 
 scornful treatment of good Mr. Mathews many years before. 
 
 It was in March of this year, while the introduction was 
 still fresh, that Hayley's son, who was Flaxman's pupil, dying, 
 Blake wrote the letter referred to at the beginning of Chapter 
 XII. It is probable that Hayley received it, skimmed it, 
 thought it well-meaning but inflated, and dropped it. He 
 seems not to have gathered from it any of the warning about 
 Blake's nature, character, and mind that Flaxman had not, 
 though a Swedenborgian himself, had the courage or skill to 
 give. Hayley is not, however, the only man who in the 
 long nineteenth century has skimmed Blake, patronised him, 
 and dropped him. 
 
 In the next chapter should have been inserted the bit 
 of autobiography addressed " To my Dearest Friend John 
 Flaxman," which is quoted in the preface. But this work 
 was put in type in 1904, and the author first saw those Unes 
 in a book that was published in 1905. 
 
CHAPTEE XIX 
 
 FELPHAM 
 
 Just at the same time, separated only by a week, occurred 
 not only the death of Hayley's illegitimate son, but that of 
 his friend Cowper, the poet. Cow per died April 25, Hayley's 
 boy. May 2, 1800. 
 
 Hayley now began to write a life of Cowper, and it was 
 arranged that Blake should make engravings for this, and 
 should go to live near Hayley, at Felpham on the Surrey 
 coast, in order that the work might be carried on under the 
 eye of the author. Hayley had not only a certain position 
 in the London bookselling world at that time ; he was, hke 
 Mr. Mathews of Eathbone Place, an encourager of talent, a 
 man who took a pleasure in befriending the strugglers of art 
 and literature. He was able to do this better than Mr. 
 Mathews, because he was better off. He was the great man 
 of his corner of the country, and his house at Felpham was 
 the great house. 
 
 Flaxman deserves credit for bringing Blake to him, how- 
 ever ineffectually he prepared him for the introduction. He 
 did not bear malice for the failure of the Mathews patronage, 
 nor for the money that he had spent in vain in partnership 
 with Mr. Mathews over the Poetical Sketches. Blake was 
 still to him his youthful friend and his pet genius. He gave 
 him Hayley as a second mount, hoping that this time he 
 would ride safely to fame and prosperity. 
 
 Hayley was in the mood to be an ideal patron. He 
 always liked to see himself as part of an artistic composition. 
 At this moment the tableau of which he was the chief figure 
 was pathetic and attractive. He stood up under the bereave- 
 ment of his son's death as a good man struggling with sorrow, 
 and in becoming the biographer of his friend Cowper he was, 
 at the same time, a faithful treasurer of the nation's property 
 in the memory of a great man whom he had known, and who 
 
 190 
 
FELPHAM 191 
 
 was lost at the same time. In patronising Blake he now 
 showed himself also as a pioneer in things of taste, an 
 encourager of the future as well as a preserver of the past. 
 
 Blake also seems to have grasped with delight the 
 pioturesqueness of the whole situation, and to have been 
 ready to play the hired genius in the spirit of an Italian 
 Old Master at the castle of a prince in the generous Eenais- 
 sance days. Felpham was hardly even a village. It was a 
 handful of cottages, an inn (The Fox), a farm or two, and 
 a good country-house. Blake was in no danger of rivalry 
 here, or of obscurity. He writes to his friends in absolute 
 glee about all that he sees on arrival. His letters contain 
 not only all the expressions of gratitude and friendship that 
 the occasioa called for, but overflowings of joy in phrases 
 about " the swallows fleeting past the window at the moment," 
 the " voices of the winds, trees, and birds, and the odours of 
 the happy ground," the "roller and harrow that he before 
 the window," " the plough that was met out walking the first 
 morning," and the words of mystic and prophetic significance 
 he heard as " the ploughboy called out to the ploughman : 
 ' Father, the gate is open ! ' " 
 
 There were exuberant outbursts of rhyme also, never 
 equalled by him again. The cottage, too, was a marvel, 
 " more beautiful than I thought, and more convenient," he 
 writes. " It is a perfect model for cottages, and, I think, for 
 palaces of magnificence, only enlarging and not altering its 
 proportions, and adding ornaments, not principles." He also 
 tells how " Mr. Hayley received us with brotherly affection," 
 and in substantial things he could soon add, " Mr. Hayley acts 
 like a prince ; we want for nothing." 
 
 Here, too, were other advantages. " Felpham is a sweet 
 place for study, because it is more spiritual than London. 
 Heaven opens here on all sides her golden gates; her 
 windows are not obstructed by vapours; voices of celestial 
 inhabitants are more distinctly heard, and their forms more 
 distinctly seen," and — ^words worth all the rest — "I have 
 begun to work." 
 
 The journey had been a serious one. Seven different 
 chaises were used at once, and sixteen heavy boxes and 
 portfolios full of prints were in the luggage. The trip took 
 twelve hours, some shifting of weight from chaise to chaise 
 having been necessary on the way. 
 
 Blake's sister came with Mrs. Blake, who looked forward 
 to so much pleasure from the change that she worked herself 
 
192 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 into an illness of fatigue in the enthusiasm of the prepara- 
 tions, and Blake tells of it in a letter in these words, " My dear 
 and too careful and overjoyous woman has exhausted her 
 strength. . . . Eartham will be my first temple and altar; 
 my wife is like a flame of many colours of precious jewels 
 whenever she hears it named." 
 
 Eartham was the name of Hayley's house. Flaxman not 
 having warned Hayley about Blake's style of language, he 
 seems to have taken these gorgeous expressions as quite a 
 matter of course. 
 
 So Blake went, believing Hayley would accept him as a 
 prophet under the title " man of genius," and Hayley, after 
 once taking a liking to him, resolved to cure the poor fellow 
 both of poverty and of all such nonsense. 
 
 The result, for Blake, was, as he said later, that if he could 
 have turned round and gone back to London the month after 
 his arrival he would have done so. The rest of the three years 
 was all painful and laborious endurance, and but for a drunken 
 soldier, who came, like the " god out of the machine," at the 
 end and set things right again between Blake and Hayley, the 
 Felpham period would have ended, as other periods of Blake's 
 life had, in quarrel and estrangement. It came to this a little 
 later ; and the quarrel, when it at last arrived, was all the more 
 bitter for delay, and the estrangement more contemptuous. 
 
 The record of Blake's work for 1800-1804 is this : 
 
 For Butts — The Crucifixion ; A Miniature of Mr. Butts, 
 Senior, in Artillery Uniform (painted chiefly from memory) ; 
 Adam naming the Animals ; live naming the Birds ; Portrait 
 of the Bev. John Johnson (miniature) ; The Biposo ; St. Paid 
 preaching at Athens ; Three Maries, with Angel at. Sepulchre ; 
 Death of Virgin ; Death of St. Joseph ; Sacrifice of Jephthah's 
 Daughter ; " I was Naked " ; " Unto Adam and his Wife did 
 the Lord make Goats of Skins." 
 
 These two last quotations are the two mottoes, or the title, 
 of one picture ; 1802 is its date. 
 
 This recalls to the mind an often-repeated bit of semi- 
 indecent gossip which has survived while important recollec- 
 tions of Blake have been allowed to drop. Vol. i, page 112, 
 of Gilchrist gives it in this way : — 
 
 Mr. Butts was no believer in Blake's " madness." Strangers to the 
 man, and they alone, believed in that. Yet he could give piquant 
 account (sic) of his proUgi's extravagances. One story in particular he 
 was fond of telling, which has since been pretty extensively retailed 
 about town, and though Mr. LinneU, the friend of Blake's later years 
 
FELPHAM 193 
 
 regards it with incredulity, Mr. Butts's authority in all that relates to 
 the eaily and middle period of Blake's life must be regarded as unim- 
 peachable. At the end of the little garden in Hercules Buildings was 
 a summer-house. Mr. Butts, calling one day, found Mr. and Mrs. Blake 
 sitting in this summer-house, freed from those " troublesome disguises " 
 which have prevailed since the FaU. " Come in," said Blake, " it's 
 only Adam and Eve, you know." Husband and wife had been reciting 
 passages from Paradise Lost in character, and the garden of Hercules 
 Buildings had to represent the Garden of Eden. 
 
 This is a fair specimen of Gilchrist's grammar, and of his 
 method of treating the duties of a biographer. He hints 
 much and tells little. He suggests that Blake and his wife 
 were stark naked in public, and would even invite a friend 
 to see them so together. But there are several things that 
 he does not tell us. 
 
 The first is whether he received this story as he gives it 
 from Mr. Butts, or from people who " retailed it about town." 
 
 The second is that he does not say whether Butts walked 
 up to the entrance of the summer-house uninvited and saw 
 Mr. and Mrs. Blake lefore Blake spoke to him, though, from 
 the usual nature of summer-houses, we are able to conjecture 
 this, while Blake's speech seems not to have been an invita- 
 tion but merely made to cover the embarrassment shown by 
 his indiscreet and intrusive friend. 
 
 The third thing that we are not told is whether Blake and 
 his wife had gone naked all down to that summer-house from 
 their own door — it was at the end of the garden — or had 
 disrobed there, a thing which it is clear that they had a 
 perfect right to do. 
 
 The fourth is that we are not told whether the couple 
 were naked at all, a question which the title of this picture. 
 Unto Adam and his Wife did the Lord make Goats of Skin, 
 leaves at least open. 
 
 The fifth is that, . though this story was extensively 
 retailed for years before Linnell knew Blake, and though 
 when Linnell did know him he disbelieved it, we are not 
 told whether Linnell's disbelief was due to the very natural 
 cause that he had asked Blake whether it was true, and that 
 Blake had said, " Of course not." 
 
 As for the part of the story which attributes the reciting 
 to one another of passages from Paradise Lost by Mr. and 
 Mrs. Blake, whether " in character " or not, the absurdity of 
 this will be so clear to any one who has read and understood 
 Blake's works that it may be dismissed at once ; it is only 
 of interest as suggesting to us that GUehrist's version came 
 
 
 
194 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 from general gossip, unless Captain Butts was himself a 
 deliberate improver of incidents when he came to relate 
 them. 
 
 What follows from the whole story as given by Gilchrist 
 is that since, if it was true, it only proves that Blake politely 
 tried to cover the embarrassment of a friend and patron 
 who had intruded on his privacy, and that this friend was 
 at heart, with all his affectionate indulgence and generous 
 helpfulness, such a coarse and selfish -minded person that 
 he did not see that he ought to have made, out of a veil of 
 impenetrable silence, the door for that summer-house that 
 it lacked. 
 
 He remains the only person really disgraced by it. 
 G-ilchrist is but lightly smirched in comparison. After all, 
 Blake and his wife were married. And there is still the 
 question of the " coats of skin made by the Lord." 
 
 There remains also the possibility that the story has no basis 
 of truth at all. It is not unlikely that it arose out of one of 
 Blake's wild speeches about what he should be perfectly justi- 
 fied in doing if he chose. He used to speak in an indiscreet 
 and even boastful manner about his own theories of right and 
 wrong. " Do you think," he said once, " if I came home and 
 discovered my wife to be unfaithful I should be so foolish as 
 to take it ill ? " (Gilchrist, vol. i, p. 374, second edition). 
 
 Crabb Eobinson relates that Blake said to him, " There 
 is no use in education. I hold it wrong ; it is the great sin; 
 it is eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. That 
 was the fault of Plato. He knew of nothing but the virtues 
 and vices. There is nothing in aU that. Everything is 
 good in God's eyes." 
 
 Crabb Eobinson asked him if there was nothing absolutely 
 evil in what man does. "I am no judge of that," said 
 Blake ; " perhaps not, in God's eyes." Asked if Dante was 
 " pure " in writing his Vision, — " Pure ! " said Blake. " Is 
 there any purity in God's eyes? No. He chargeth His 
 angels with folly." 
 
 He also said, " What are called the vices in the natural 
 world are the highest sublimities in the spiritual world." 
 When asked, if he were a father, would he not grieve if his 
 son became vicious or a great criminal, he said, "When I 
 am endeavouring to think rightly I must not regard my own 
 any more than other people's weaknesses." 
 
 Perhaps he remembered his " brother John, the evil one," 
 at that moment, 
 
FELPHAM 195 
 
 What we get from all this is only what Blake himself 
 knew sometimes, namely, that his Antinomian theory was 
 more than he could apply in this world, that there is a 
 Druidical error of forgiveness as of sacrifice. There was 
 evidently much that was creditable in Blake that he would 
 have theoretically repudiated and considered as " weakness." 
 
 In Heaven the only art of living 
 Is forgetting and forgiving, 
 But if on earth you do forgive, 
 You shall not find where to live, 
 
 as he printed backwards on some clouds in the picture that 
 decorates page 81 of Jerusalem, adding after the first couplet 
 of the quatrain, " especially to the female." 
 
 What we do not find in any of the many letters to Butts 
 published by Gilchrist, and in all the civil messages from Mrs. 
 Blake that are put into them, is the smallest trace of such 
 familiarity as must necessarily have sprung from that scene 
 in the summer-house at Hercules Buildings if there had been 
 anything in it, such as Gilchrist implies, of the nature of a 
 sjdcjf secret. This argument is the chief one for discrediting 
 the whole story, and siding not with Butts but with Linnell, 
 as has already been suggested in the memoir prefixed to the 
 Quaritch edition. 
 
 Keturning to the list of work done in the Felpham period 
 for Butts, it goes on — Huth, and ends — Moses striking the 
 Bock, Fire, Plague, Pestilence (Death of the Firstborn), Famine, 
 The Whirlwind, Samson bursting his Ponds, Samson sub- 
 dued, Noah and the Bainbow, The Four and Twenty Elders 
 casting down their Crowns, Wise and Foolish Virgins, King 
 of Babylon, God judging Adam, Christ appearing. War, 
 1805. The rest of Butts' drawings are dated 1805, or later. 
 
 Blake also executed at Felpham, Eighteen Heads of the 
 Poets, nearly life size, apparently for Hayley's library, as 
 Hay ley is among them, and in Gilchrist's list comes next 
 after Voltaire. No attempt at sarcasm seems intended. 
 Blake also did twice a Satan calling up His Legions and a 
 Portrait of Tom Hayley, the boy that died ; a Los and His 
 Spectre for Jerusalem, page 6, and a picture afterwards en- 
 graved as page 51 of Jerusalem. These two are dated 1804, 
 the year in which he returned to South Molton Street. 
 They do not in themselves lend any support to Gilchrist's 
 theory that Jerusalem was written at Felpham. 
 
 Of engraving done during this period, the Portrait of 
 
196 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 Lavater, for Johnson, dated 1800, was probably finished before 
 the removal to Felpham, and the Michelangelo for FuseFs 
 lectures. Six plates for Hayley's Triumphs of Temper were 
 engraved after drawings by Maria Flaxman for Hayley, 1803, 
 and a Portrait of Cowper and of Sis Mother for Hayley's Life 
 of Cowper. It is probable that Blake also did something 
 before his return to London for two engravings, a Death o/ 
 Queen Katherine and a Romeo and the Apothecary, both after 
 Fuseli, published in 1804 by Eivington. 
 
 Blake also illustrated ballads for Hayley — Little Tom 
 the Sailor, and others. Hayley also read Klopstock to Blake, 
 who, with his well-known faculty of being a bad listener, 
 became rather indignant at the high praise given to both 
 Homer and the German. His constant habit of reading the 
 Bible, and of reading it as poetry and with enjoyment, had 
 given him a standard by which no Greek and no German 
 could stand without being hopelessly belittled. There was 
 a deficiency in them of " allegory addressed to the intellectual 
 powers while it is altogether hidden from the corporeal under- 
 standing." 
 
 Blake did all he could to be nice to Hayley, and Hayley 
 was so entirely deceived by his simple and propitiative Irish 
 maniier that he thought they were getting on very well, 
 and that he had at last got a prot6g6 worth patronising. 
 He calls him " our good Blake," " excellent Blake," and 
 " indefatigable Blake," " my gentle, visionary Blake," and so 
 forth, tm Blake (in a fury) wrote the first version of the 
 poem that he afterwards called the Everlasting Gospel, to 
 relieve his mind. Blake kept admirably the dreadful secret 
 that " the only man he ever knew who did not almost make 
 him spue was FuseH," though that expression dropped into 
 his notebook after a few years of habitual Hayley. No one 
 would have suspected the corrosive contempt, concealed now 
 from Hayley as formerly from Mr. Mathews — a merely 
 intellectual contempt, not extending necessarily to the person 
 — that lay behind Blake's pleasant smile, which nevertheless 
 expressed no hypocritical deference, but only his naturally 
 good heart, his yearning for brotherhood, and his desire to 
 treat even publicans and sinners no worse than Christ did. 
 " In the sweetness of his countenance and the gentility- of 
 his manner he added an indescribable grace to his conversa- 
 tion," said Crabb Eobinson later. Those who remember the 
 late W. G. Wills, who wrote plays for Sir Henry Irving, 
 have seen something of this Hibernian distinction of style. 
 
PELPHAM 197 
 
 It is a mingling of the dignified and the affectionate which is 
 due to a deep-seated yearning to win a friend in whoever is 
 addressed. The scornful temperament, when found in a man 
 of an intensely social disposition, makes him so sensitive that 
 he cannot bear not to be loved and admired. When, however, 
 the desire to make a friend or to win a good opinion falls 
 away, a savage animosity and a reckless contempt break 
 out suddenly, to the bewilderment of those whose affections 
 had been caught by the propitiativeness. Yet this propiti- 
 ativeness was real. The anger meant " How dare you not 
 be worthy of my love and deference I" As a rule, Blake only 
 confided his savage side to his notebook, where it has already 
 given his Anglo-Saxon readers enough bewilderment. 
 
 Hayley, pleased with his pet, " introduced Blake to Lord 
 Egremont of Pentworth, Lord Bathurst of Lavant, and Mrs. 
 Poole, and obtained for him commissions for miniatures " 
 (Gilchrist, vol. i, p. 161). 
 
 He really acted, as Blake wrote to Elaxman and Butts, 
 "with brotherly affection," and "like a Prince." In one 
 letter, pleased with the country and with the fact that he 
 has a whole house of his own in it (though only a cottage), 
 Blake writes to Butts : 
 
 Let me entreat you to give me orders to furnish every accommoda- 
 tion in my power to you and Mrs. Butts. I know my cottage is too 
 narrow for your ease and comfort. We liave one room in which we 
 could make a bed to lodge you both, and if this is sufficient it is at 
 your service. But as beds and rooms and accommodations are easily 
 procured by one on the spot, permit me to oflfer my service in either 
 way, either in my cottage or in a lodging in the village, as is most 
 agreeable to you, if you and Mrs. Butts should think Bognor a pleasant 
 relief from business in the summer. It will give me the utmost delight 
 to do my best. Sussex is certainly a happy place, and Felpham in 
 particular is the sweetest spot on earth, at least it is so to me and my 
 good wife, who desires her kindest love to Mrs. Butts and yourself. 
 Accept mine also, and believe me to remain, your devoted 
 
 William Blake. 
 
 And the man to whom Blake wrote this was at that very 
 moment raising an after-dinner laugh by telling with a leer 
 and a chuckle the preposterous story about Adam and Eve 
 in the garden of Hercules Buildings. 
 
 He did not come to Felpham. 
 
 In another letter Blake attempts to give a popular 
 description of one of his mental states, which seem to 
 have been real trances, in which he left " the body," going 
 inwards -. 
 
198 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 September 1801. 
 
 Time flies faster (as it seems to me here) than in London. I labour 
 incessantly. I accomplish not one half of what I intend, because my 
 abstract folly hurries me often away while I am at work, carrying me 
 over mountains and valleys which are not real into a land of abstraction 
 where spectres of the dead wander. This I endeavour to prevent. I 
 with my whole might chain my feet to the world of duty and reality. 
 But in vain. The faster I bind the better is the ballast ; and I, so far 
 from being bound down, take the world with me in my flights, and 
 often it seems lighter than a ball of wool roUed by the wind. 
 
 He apologises in this way for being so slow in sending 
 Butts some drawings, and adds — 
 
 " I should have sent them by my sister, but as the coach 
 goes three times a week to London, they will arrive as safe 
 as with her." 
 
 From which it appears that Blake's sister had stayed 
 with him at Felpham from September 20, 1800, when he 
 went there, till nearly September 11, 1801, the date of this 
 letter, and that she travelled in a post-chaise on her return, 
 as she did when she came with Blake in one of his six 
 chaises. 
 
 The phrase in this letter, "hurries me . . . into a land 
 where spectres of the dead wander," when read with the 
 ninth Une of the third page of Book of Milton, first page of 
 the poem itself, which tells how the Source of all inspiration 
 planted a paradise in the poet's brain, 
 
 And in it caused the spectres of the dead to take sweet form 
 In likeness of himself, 
 
 is another indication that Milton was begun towards the 
 close of 1801 at Felpham. 
 
 That Blake was a good deal in Hayley's library at this 
 time, and did not do all the decorative poets' heads for 
 it outside without at least fixing them there himself, is 
 suggested by a sentence farther down, "And now I must 
 express my wishes to see you at Felpham, and to show you 
 Mr. Hayley's library, which is not finished, but is in a 
 finishing way, and looks well." 
 
 In November of this year he witnesses a death that he 
 must|have remembered when drawing one of the designs for 
 Blair's Grave a few years later, as his brother Eobert's last 
 moments probably inspired another of them. 
 
 Hayley writes to Johnson, Cowper's nephew, from " Mrs." 
 Poole's house, " I will transcribe for you, even in the bustle 
 
FELPHAM 199 
 
 of this morning, a recent epitaph on your humhle old friend 
 my good William " (a servant ?), " who closed his height of 
 cheerful and affectionate existence (near eighty) this day 
 fortnight, in the great house of Eartham, where Blake and I 
 had the mournful gratification of attending him (by accident) 
 in the last few hours of his life." 
 
 Among the pleasant memories connected with Felpham 
 was that Miss Blake stayed with " Mrs." Poole during part 
 of the year 1801, and that "Mrs." Poole lent Blake a 
 house called " Bruno," of which he grew fond. He mentions 
 it with affection after his return to London. " Mrs." is als6 
 called " Miss " Poole. 
 
 January 1802 begins to show the beginning of the end. 
 The damp cottage had taken all health and spirits from poor 
 Mrs. Blake, only fifteen months before referred to by Blake 
 in a letter as his " over-joyous woman," while Hayley's per- 
 sistent incapacity to understand Blake's religion, and the 
 place in it held by art, was beginning to wear away his 
 patience. Of Mrs. Blake he now writes (to Butts, January 
 10, 1802) :— 
 
 " The ague and rheumatism have been her constant 
 enemies which she has combated almost ever since she has 
 been here, and her sickness is always my sorrow, of course." 
 Then referring to the fact that Butts has complained of 
 failing sight and health : " Let me entreat you to take good 
 care of both. It is part of our duty to God and man to take 
 good care of His gifts, and though we ought not to think 
 more highly of ourselves, yet we ought to think as highly of 
 ourselves as immortals ought to think." 
 
 This sentence is undoubtedly the most difficult to under- 
 stand that has come down to us of all Blake's writing. Its 
 relation to his doctrine of self-annihilation can only be 
 exactly known if we exactly know (and measure) what he 
 meant by lines 32 to 36 of the 42nd page of Milton, which 
 must evidently be read with it. 
 
 Passing on to news of the hour, the letter continues (the 
 italics are ours, put to suggest where reading between the 
 lines is necessary) : 
 
 When I came down here I was more sanguine than I am at present ; 
 but it was because I was ignorant of many things that have since occurred, 
 and chiefly of the unhealthiness of the place. Yet I do not repent com- 
 ing on a thousand accounts, and Mr. H., I have no doubt, will do ulti- 
 mately all that both he and I wish, that is, to lift me out of difficulty. 
 
 But this is no easy matter to one who, having spiritual enemies of 
 such magnitude, cannot expect to want natural hidden ones. 
 
200 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 " Such magnitude " indicates that Blake, who detaches 
 his pen from the MS. of Milton to write these letters, has 
 forgotten for a moment, as many absent-minded authors do, 
 that his friends cannot be expected to have miraculous know- 
 ledge of his unpublished MS., and of his struggles there 
 recorded in the wrestUng of Los and Urizen with Milton. 
 
 This reminds one of how it is told of Balzac that after 
 enduring the gossiping chat of his friends for an hour or 
 two in the evening he would suddenly say, " And now let us 
 talk of reality," and continue by telling about the imaginary 
 Paris that he had invented himself, from whose inhabitants 
 he took so many of the characters in his forty-volume 
 Gomidie Humaine. 
 
 Blake continues this letter : 
 
 Your approbation of my pictures is a multitude to me, and I doubt 
 not that all your kind wishes in my behalf sbaU in due time be fulfilled. 
 Your kind offer of pecuniary assistance I can only thank you for at 
 present, because I have enough to serve my present piu^ose here. Our 
 expenses are small, and our income, from oiu- incessant labour, fully 
 adequate to these at present. 
 
 Then after an account of his hackwork of engraving he 
 goes on (all here printed in parenthesis is of course ours, not 
 Blake's) : 
 
 One thing of real consequence I have accomplished by coming into 
 the country which is to me consolation enough, namely, I have re-colleoted 
 all my scattered thoughts on art, and resumed my primitive and 
 original ways of execution in both painting and engraving, which, ia 
 the confusion of London, I had very much lost and obliterated fi*om 
 my mind. . . . 
 
 But you have so generously and openly desired that I should share my 
 griefs with you, that I cannot hide what it has now become my duty 
 to explain. My unhappiness has arisen from a source which, if 
 explained too narrowly, would hurt my pecuniary circumstances, as 
 my dependence is on engraving at present, and particularly on the 
 engraving I have in hand for Mr. H., and I find on aU hands great 
 objections to my doing anything but the mere drudgery of business, 
 and intimations that if I do not confine myself to this I shall not live. 
 This has always pursued me. This from Johnson and FuseU brought 
 me down here, and this from Mr. H. wiU bring me back again. (Yet 
 Blake endured it for more than a year longer. What suflfering it was 
 let those only attempt to measure who have suffered from what Balzac 
 calls la makidie du pouvoir perdu.) For that I cannot live without 
 doing my duty to lay up treasures in heaven is certain and determined, 
 and to this I have long made up my mind. And why this is made an 
 objection to me while drunkenness, lewdness, gluttony, and even idle- 
 ness itself do not hurt other men let Satan himself explain. (This 
 sentence shows that Hayley's kind introductions into good county 
 society had not been wasted, and that the good people had had " a chiel 
 amang them takin' notes." The doctrine of the Christian Church that 
 
FELPHAM 201 
 
 includes idleness among the seven deadly sins is also brought to mind 
 by the 'words we have italicised here.) The thing I have most at 
 heart — more than life itself, or all that seems to make life com- 
 fortable without — ^is the interest of true religion and science. And 
 whenever anything affects that interest (especially when I omit any 
 duty to my station as a soldier of Christ) it gives me the greatest of 
 torments. (" Soldier of Christ " means struggler for improvement in 
 imaginative art, of course.) I am not ashamed or averse to tell you 
 what ought to be told, that I am under the direction of messengers 
 from Heaven daily and nightly. But the nature of such things is not, 
 as some suppose, without trouble or care. Temptations are on the right 
 hand and on the left. Behind the Sea of Time and Space roars and 
 follows swiftly. He who keeps not right onwards is lost ; and if our 
 footsteps slide in clay how can we do otherwise than fear and tremble. 
 But I should not have troubled you with this account of my spiritual 
 state unless it had been necessary in explaining the actual cause of my 
 uneasiness into which you are so kind as to inquire ; for I never 
 obtrude such things on others unless questioned, and then I never 
 disguise the truth. But if we fear to do the dictates of our angels 
 (our " leading propensities or virtues," see last note to Lavater) and 
 tremble at the tasks set before us ; if we refuse to do spiritual acts 
 because of natural fears or natural desires, who can describe the dismal 
 torments of such a state ? I too well remember the threats I heard ! — 
 " If you who are organised by Divine Providence for spiritual com- 
 munion refuse, and bury your talent in the earth, even though you 
 should want natural bread, — sorrow and desperation pursue you 
 through life, and after death, shame and confusion of face to eternity. 
 Every one in eternity will leave you aghast at the man who was 
 crowned with glory by his brethren and betrayed their cause to his 
 enemies. You will be called the base Judas who betrayed his friend." 
 Such words would make any stout man tremble, and how can I be at 
 ease ? But I am now no longer in that state, and now go on again 
 with my task, fearless, though my task is difficult. I have no fear of 
 stumbling while I keep it. 
 
 My wife desires her kindest love to Mrs. Butts, and I have per- 
 mitted her to send it to you also. We often wish that we could unite 
 again in society, and hope that the time is not far distant when we 
 shall do so, being determined not to remain another winter here, but 
 to return to London. 
 
 I hear a voice you cannot hear that says I cannot stay, 
 I see a Hand you cannot see that beckons me away. 
 
 Naked we came here — ^naked of natural things — and naked we shall 
 return ; but while clothed with the Divine mercy, we are richly 
 clothed in spiritual, and suffer all the rest gladly. Pray give my love 
 to Mrs. Butts and your family. — I am, yours sincerely, 
 
 Wi-LLIAM Blake. 
 
 The letter concludes with a P.S. thanking Butts for pro- 
 posing to exhibit two of Blake's pictures. 
 
 In connection with the old story about the recitation of 
 Paradise Lost in a state of nature the unconsciousness of the 
 use of the word " naked " as a mere figure of speech is almost 
 incredible. But in truth it is really time that this ancient 
 
202 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 tale was buried. It has been long enough above ground 
 since Linnell killed it more than a century ago. 
 
 To read this letter in any intimate sense we must now go 
 back to the pages of the poem called Milton. 
 
 Even at the first moment our eye is caught by one of 
 those little similarities of term that would run from Blake's 
 pen into letters or notes when they were running in his 
 head, on account of their place in a description belonging to 
 some important poem — 
 
 Urizen beheld the immortal Man, 
 And he also darkened his brows, freezing dark rocks between 
 The footsteps, and infixing deep the feet in marble beds, 
 That Milton laboured in his journey and his feet bled sore 
 Upon the clay now changed to marble. 
 
 This is found iu the early part of the seventeenth page of 
 Milton, after all the long story about Palamabron and Satan. 
 It is probable, however, that several pages of Milton were 
 composed at first very much as we find it now, so far as the early 
 part was concerned, and at such a pace that the first seven- 
 teen may have been written even before September 1801, 
 including all the myth of Palamabron. It was done, as 
 a later letter says, " twelve, twenty, or thirty lines at a time, 
 without premeditation, and even against my wiU. The time 
 it has taken in writing was thus rendered non-existent, and an 
 immense poem exists which seems to be the labour of a long 
 life." He says also that it is " similar to Homer's Miad and 
 Milton's Paradise Lost." This "poem" has not really reached 
 us at all. The ten destroyed books of Milton must have 
 belonged to it, and we do not know how much of them 
 reappears in the existing Milton, and how much in Jerusalem. 
 Of course the poem that we have now is not the poem 
 that lay before Blake in MS. when he wrote those words, 
 as wUl be understood when Blake reaches South Molton 
 Street. 
 
 At Felpham Blake not only saw frequently in broad day- 
 light, generally as luminous grey shadows taller than men are 
 usually, any person of whom he thought profoundly, as we 
 see in dreams, and so very naturally concluded that they 
 came from some mental source acting within himself (called 
 Providence), who " planted them in his brain " and " caused 
 them to take shape," but he even heard as one hears words 
 in a dream the very speech of some of these, though this 
 was rarer, and he writes of it with a pleased surprise — 
 
FELPHAM 203 
 
 So Ololon uttered in words distinct the anxious thought. 
 Mild was the voice, but more distinct than any earthly, 
 That Milton's shadow heard. 
 
 Blake's "corporeal understanding " was "Milton's shadow," 
 it must be remembered. In the days of the Marriage of 
 Heaven and Hell Isaiah says, " I saw no God, nor heard 
 any in a finite organical perception." 
 
 This letter, in its turn, is dated January 1802, three 
 months later than that (September 1801) from which we 
 have taken words that show that the preface to Milton was 
 then being conceived of and written, for Blake never lost 
 time between conception and production. 
 
 Twenty-four days later (February 3) a passage from a 
 letter of Hayley to Johnson tells us, " Here is a title-page 
 for thee " (for the new edition of Cowper's Poems), " and a 
 Greek motto which I and Blake, who is just become a Grecian, 
 and literally learning the language, consider a happy hit." 
 
 The " re-collecting " of all his older ideas of art, mentioned 
 by Blake in this letter, along with the fact that at this time 
 he was learning Greek and choosing Greek mottoes, shows us 
 another thing of interest, now that we know enough to take 
 his poetry seriously, though Gilchrist does not tell it to us. 
 It was now that he read over the MS. of Vala, written in 
 1797, and brought here in one of his sixteen boxes, and 
 inserted into it the Greek motto we find at the beginning of 
 the MS., very much to our surprise, as how it could have 
 got there in 1797 must have been mysterious in a high 
 degree. The first page or two of the MS. are tortured 
 almost out of all meaning by Blake's alterations, and among 
 these we find some of the lines that are caught like rams by 
 the horns in a thicket in the pages of Milton. We have in 
 Vala, Night I, line 46, 
 
 Why wilt thou number every little fibre of my soul 
 Spreading them out before the sun like stalks of flax to dry ? 
 The infant Joy is beautiful, but his anatomy 
 Horrible, ghast, and deadly. Nought shalt thou find in it 
 But dark despair and ever-brooding melancholy. 
 
 The passage occurs also in Jerusalem, page 22, lines 20-24. 
 Blake, in South Molton Street, had both the MS. of Vala 
 and that of Milton before him when making up Jerusalem. 
 In Milton we have on page 17, lines 46-49, 
 
 Come, bring with thee Xerusalem, — with songs on the Grecian lyre ! 
 
 . . . Tirzah numbers her, 
 She numbers with her fingers every fibre e'er it grow, 
 
204 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 which also recalls the earlier poem called the Mental 
 Traveller — 
 
 Her fingers number every nerve, 
 
 Just as a miser counts his gold, — 
 She lives upon his shrieks and cries, 
 
 And she grows young as he grows old. 
 
 All of which has to do with Blake's annoyance at the 
 insistence by Hayley on the beauties of scansion in Greek 
 poetry, and the lack of it in portions of Blake's own. Blake, 
 who could alter but could not correct, felt his inspiration 
 withered up. 
 
 The " shrieks and cries " of the Mental Traveller are heard 
 again in Jerusalem, page 67, line 61. 
 
 The " human form " of Imagination is being " bound down '' 
 there, just as Hayley wanted to bind it down, by tying 
 Blake to drudgery in art and " numbering every fibre " by 
 scansion in poetry, but Blake would not be bound. Hayley 
 also rebelled against his BibUcal phraseology and preferred 
 Greek gods and goddesses. 
 
 In the world at large Blake traced the "corporeal" war of 
 the "silly Greek and Latin slaves of the sword" to the 
 " reasoning " mathematical form, and all else that goes to the 
 "memory" and that ends, at its highest, in "Vala," that 
 aspect of Nature " built by the reasoning power in Man," 
 through whom came war on earth. War, called "Luvah's 
 winepress," is further defined in Vala as "energy en- 
 slaved." War is argument in the head, slaughter in the 
 heart, and sexual love without imagination in the loins, in 
 one plane, but if you pass " earth's central joint " you see all 
 this in reverse order. 
 
 This theory is comprehensible when we remember that 
 " everything has a spiritual cause and not a natural cause," 
 and that whether Blake be right about Greek art or not (" the 
 Isles of Grecia lovely "), certainly war will end when mankind 
 are able to divide their emotions between the contemplation 
 of poetic beauty and the forgiveness of sins. 
 
 From November 1801 to February 1802 Blake was 
 reading Greek with Hayley. They began because Hayley in 
 writing the Life of Cowper wished to form some opinion of 
 his translations of Homer, and Blake's company helped him 
 in the weary task of reading these over and, as Hayley's 
 letters teU us, "comparing them with the original." This 
 led to the picking up by Blake of some smattering of Greek, 
 
FELPHAM 205 
 
 and to his falling into a state of rebellion against Hayley's 
 attempt to fasten Greek rules of art upon him. He had 
 already strongly resented being asked to admire Klopstock 
 when German was the favourite language with Hayley. 
 
 The first of the scraps of doggerel printed among the 
 " Eesentments " (see Chatto and Windus's edition of Blake's 
 Poems) and the isolated prose page on Homer and Virgil, called 
 a " Sibylline leaf" by Gilchrist, show the state of irritation to 
 which Hayley now reduced him. The latter utterances show 
 that Hayley was a particular nuisance in exclaiming about 
 the unity of Homer. " Of course," says Blake, " every poem 
 is a perfect unity, but why Homer's is peculiarly so, I cannot 
 tell." 
 
 At first Blake works off his wrath in these " Sibylline 
 leaves," but presently he feels that more is needed. He 
 remains uneasy. He attempts to convert Hayley. But 
 Hayley is obstinate, and Blake betrays this naively by 
 writing a year later to Butts, " I do not wish to imitate by 
 being obstinate." Then he sees that much of the wickedness 
 which he found in Sir Joshua Eeynolds (artistic wickedness), 
 and that he rebuked in his notes to the Discourses, which we 
 shall presently read, and in his myth of Palamabron in Vala, 
 is repeated with emphasis in Hayley's poetic position. He 
 writes Milton in consequence. He sees much poetry in the 
 classics, but detects — as we all are prepared now to admit — 
 that myth of an older time is found in a much altered state 
 in their poems, as traditions of human proportion belonging 
 to an older art are in their sculpture. But Blake discovered 
 this for himself. So he begins his Milton, and the preface 
 contains what he said in vain (because too urbanely) to self- 
 satisfied Hayley. 
 
 Gilchrist makes a mistake about this subject through 
 thinking that Jerusalem, and not Milton was written at 
 Felpham. 
 
 In times but recently passed Blake had been of different 
 attitude towards Greek art. A letter to Mr. Cumberland, 
 which is here given in full because it has not yet been 
 published, shows his feeling in 1800, just before he came to 
 Felpham. 
 
 " Greece" is mentioned even in the prophetic books in two 
 totally different tones. It is within the intellectual temple 
 built by Urizen that is the reasoned theory of Nature that 
 has done so much harm to our imagination's elastic and vital 
 powers, but, like Asia, which is also within, it is " ornamented 
 
206 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 with exquisite art" {Jerusalem, page 58, line 37), and in 
 page 60, line 13, we hear that "the Isles of Grecia lovely" 
 once all belonged to the brotherhood of art (Jerusalem) 
 in days of innocence. This was written after Blake had 
 recovered from the pestering of Hayley, but at the time of 
 the following letter the pestering had not begun. The date 
 of the journey to Eelpham is September 20 ; this is therefore 
 more than two months earlier. 
 
 It was probably written to " G. Cumberland of Bristol," 
 the only man of this name mentioned by Gilchrist as knowing 
 Blake at all. He does not refer to him until the year 1813, 
 when he says, " Among present friends may be mentioned 
 Mr. George Cumberland of Bristol." But Blake must have 
 been on friendly terms with him for at least thirteen years 
 by that time, as the familiar opening of the letter shows. 
 He was presumably met at the house of one of the pupils 
 during the prosperous Hercules Buildings period, and per- 
 haps procured at Windsor the unfortunate offer of employ- 
 ment in the Eoyal Family. Blake's encouragement of our 
 National Gallery before its birth is not sufficiently well 
 known. 
 
 2nd July 1800. 
 Mr. Cumberland, 
 Bishopsgate, Windsor Great Park. 
 
 Dear Cumbeeland — I am to congratulate you on your plan for a 
 National Gallery being put into execution. All your wishes shall in 
 due time be fulfilled. The immense flood of Grecian light and glory 
 which is coming into Europe will more than realise our warmest wishes. 
 Your honours will be unbounded when your plan shall be carried into 
 Execution, as it must be if England continues a Nation. I hear that 
 it is now in the hands of the Minister, that the King shows it great 
 countenance and encouragement, that it will soon be up before Parlia- 
 ment, and that it rrmst be extended and enlarged to take in originals, 
 both of Painting and Sculpture, by considering every valuable Original 
 that is brought into England or can be Purchased Abroad as its Objects 
 of acquisition. Such is the Plan, as I am told, and such must be the 
 plan if England is to continue at all worth notice, as you have yoiu«elf 
 observed, only now we must possess Originals as well as France, or be 
 nothing. 
 
 Excuse, I entreat you, my not returning Thanks at the proper 
 moment for your kind present. No persuasion could make my stupid 
 head believe that it was proper for me to trouble you with a letter of 
 mere Compliment and expression of Thanks. I begin to emerge from a 
 deep pit of Melancholy, Melancholy without any real reason for it, a 
 disease which God keep you from, and all good men. Our artists of aU 
 ranks praise your outlines and wish for more. Flaxman is very warm 
 in your commendation, and more and more of a Grecian. Mr. Hayley 
 has lately mentioned your book on outline in Notes to an essay on 
 
FELPHAM 207 
 
 sculpture, in six epistles, to John Flaxman. I have been too little 
 among friends, -which I fear they will not Excuse, and I know not how 
 to apologise for. Poor Fuseli, sore from the lash of envious tongues, 
 praises you and dispraises with the same breath ; he is not naturally 
 good-natured, and is artificially very ill-natured, yet even from him I 
 leam the Estimation you are held in among artists and connoisseurs. 
 
 I am still employed in making Designs and little Pictures, with now 
 and then an engraving, and find that in future to live wiU not be so 
 difficult as it has been. It is very extraordinary that London, in so few 
 years, from a city of mere Necessaries, or at least a commerce of the 
 lowest order of luxuries, has become a city of Elegance in some degree, 
 and that its once stupid inhabitants should enter into an emulation of 
 Grecian manners. There are now, I believe, as many Booksellers as 
 there are Butchers, and as many Print-shops as of any other trade. We 
 remember when a print-shop was a rare bird in London, and I myself 
 remember when I thought my pursuit of Art a kind of Criminal 
 Dissipation and neglect of the main chance, which I hid my face for not 
 being able to abandon as a passion which is forbidden by Law and 
 Eeligion. But now it appears to be Law and Gospel too, at least I hear 
 so from the few friends I have dared to visit in my Stupid Melancholy. 
 Excuse this communication of sentiments which I feel necessary to my 
 repose at this time. I feel very strongly that I neglect my duty to 
 my Friends, but it is not want of Gratitude, or Friendship either, but 
 perhaps an Excess of both. 
 
 Let me hear of your welfare. Remember my, and my wife's respect- 
 ful compliments to Mrs. Cumberland and family, and believe me to be 
 for ever yours, William Blake. 
 
 13 Hercules Buildings, Lambeth, 1800. 
 
 It was from this " stupid melancholy," caused chiefly by 
 being kept by the force of circumstances to ill-paid hack- 
 work, that Blake had bounded up into wild joy and hope 
 when " the gate was open " at Felpham. But the generous 
 and appreciative patron that he hoped Flaxman had found 
 for him turned out to be as convinced that he should be 
 kept to merely technical tasks as any one in London, and 
 the open gate slammed-to again. 
 
 Blake continued to keep his temper and to "bear all" 
 Hayley's dreadful patronage at Felpham till 1803, and Hayley 
 continued to be delighted with him and to write of him as 
 " our excellent," our " good," " the kind Blake," and when in 
 May both Blake and his wife had fever he wrote of them 
 with delight when they recovered, calling them " our good 
 Blakes." He really seems to have considered them as a 
 pair of ingenious and amiable savages who showed much 
 intelligence, considering, and were quite part of the live stock 
 of his plantation. 
 
CHAPTEE XX 
 
 FOE EBADERS WHO STUDY BLAKE 
 
 Blake's dealings with his MS. of Vala in 1802 at the 
 period of re-collecting were not confined to the choosing of 
 a Greek motto. It must have been now that he also 
 adopted the name " Albion " for Man. While he was going 
 over his earlier prints in the many portfolios that fiUed his 
 sixteen boxes, and discussing within himself his style of 
 drawing on copper, he must, since he says that he returned 
 to his earliest method, have considered the engravings that 
 were mentioned in the opening chapters here, representing 
 Jocund Day and Joseph of Arimathea among the Bocks of 
 Albion. It will be noticed by any student of the art of 
 engraving that both these, Jocund Day in particular, are more 
 in his later manner than anything done during his drudgery 
 years preceding the present re-collecting. It is to be 
 suspected that it was now that he added the words about 
 Albion to the plate, and that we are bewildering ourselves in 
 vain if we try to believe that this nickname for Man — it does 
 not seem more to us at the present day — was picked up by 
 Blake in his days of apprenticeship, dropped again when he 
 wrote Vala, and resumed when he read over the MS. 
 
 It is a point on which we have no certain information, 
 but if indeed it really was so chosen, forgotten, and re- 
 adopted, a tolerable conjecture may be offered, namely, that 
 the word "Albion" was heard, but not seized upon, as a 
 symbol at the time when it first began to come over to us 
 from France. In the book of America we have it merely 
 as meaning England, England being itself a symbol, of 
 course, but not one of such universal meaning as the " Albion " 
 of the revised Vala and of Jerusalem. Man, shut out from 
 brotherhood in the land of vision, is a darkened being not 
 yet^oalled " Albion " in the first draft of Vala, though this 
 was begun after America was engraved. It would appear 
 
 208 
 
FOE EEADEES WHO STUDY BLAKE 209 
 
 that a sort of revelation of the relation between his symbols 
 flashed on Blake. Of course Albion with America shut out 
 by its War of Independence had, in fact, his western gate 
 closed, and was the obvious symbol for Man in the condition 
 called in Milton "delivered over to selfhood," page 12, 
 line 24 
 
 This " closed western gate " was also the symbol of decency, 
 in the sense in which we consider decency to mean not the 
 shutting out of allusion to vile meanness and black selfish- 
 ness, but merely absence of frank language about the sexual 
 passions. Such frankness, however, seemed to Blake to be 
 " honesty," and his complaint that he might not always say 
 what relation all his mythic personages held to the sexual as 
 well as to other portions of the anatomy was part of the 
 blame attaching to " Nature," by whom our " narrowed per- 
 ceptions " have so perverted us, that " deep dissimulation is 
 the only defence an honest man has left " (Jerusalem, page 
 49, line 23). Hvery gate is fov/rfold, and it will be noticed 
 that those " whose western gates were open " were " weeping 
 round Albion " (Jerusalem, page 45, line 34), in which incident 
 much may be seen about those " intellectual things " tears, 
 and of the meaning of the Western symbols (West^water ; 
 Tharmas — good tears of pity and brotherhood, bad tears of dis- 
 couragement and groves of the " oak of weeping "). The whole 
 passage begins practically at Jerusalem, page 42, line 77, that 
 ends here — a new part of the narrative opening page 45, line 
 37, while the Albion storyre-appears and vanishes into explana- 
 tion, emerging again, page after page, at irregular intervals. 
 That the explanation of Blake's own symbols did not always 
 occur to him at once, and that the visions were not a mere 
 lot of deliberate allegories mechanically arranged in every 
 case to fit his own analysis of human character is known, and 
 is shown by the motto on the first page of the Visions of the 
 Daughters of Albion, "The eye sees more than the heart 
 knows," which does not mean that Blake did not know Ms 
 own meaning, as the Garnett school maintain, but that the 
 meaning of his visions grew on him, as it will grow on the 
 reader. Vala, Night III, line 105, has a word also about 
 the " western gate." 
 
 In Milton, page 42, lines 2 and 3, we find him knowing only 
 " remotely " some of the acts and words of his own visions. 
 
 This would account for his going backwards in the 
 evolution of the nominality (if we may coin a word) of his 
 myth -making imagination and writing "Man," "Fallen 
 
 P 
 
210 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 One," etc., in Vala at first, only correcting it to " Albion," 
 when, by reconsideration, he had seen at Felpham that this 
 was a better term, and that he had wisely used it when writing 
 the Visions of the Daughters of Albion in 1793, four years 
 before Vala was begun, and nine years before it (in con- 
 junction with his earlier work) was reconsidered. It is just 
 possible that the name was " found " by him on hjs early 
 engraving when unpacking at Felpham, and was not added 
 at this time. As a biographical point it must remain un- 
 decided. As a point of symbolic interpretation the date of 
 the first use of the word in its later meaning is of no con- 
 sequence whatever. 
 
 There is a note of surprise in Jerusalem, p. 27, in the 
 prose part of the preface to chap. ii. Blake seems to have 
 only just read what the " learned have explored," and to be 
 pleased to find in it a fresh conviction of the truth of what he 
 had already discovered by vision about Albion, even the 
 visions being partly new and seen at Felpham. He had been 
 too busy to read much during the first months at Felpham, 
 and he may have borrowed books from Hayley during his 
 feverish attack of illness in May 1802. It wQl be remem- 
 bered that Blake's letter to Butts about the " re-collecting 
 of scattered thoughts on art " is dated January of this year. 
 A letter of November in. the same year shows, by an argument 
 quoted from Mr. Gilpin and by allusion to " all Sir Joshua 
 Eeynolds's discourses," that the process of re-collecting ideas 
 was still going on. 
 
 Hayley was now arguing about Greek art, and thus driving 
 Blake to gather together his own artistic ideas in opposition. 
 To impress Blake, Hayley probably urged in support of his 
 view that the classic standard of excellence was accepted by 
 important persons in high positions, at court, in the army, 
 or at the universities. If so, not only the " Sibylline leaves " 
 but the preface to Milton must have been written now, for 
 here, it is said, " We have hirelings in the camp, the court, 
 and the university who would, if they could, for ever depress 
 mental and prolong corporeal war," and the little fragments 
 of poor verse about Sir Joshua in the MS. book which, from 
 their position in the disorderly pages, were evidently written 
 before the Public Address and other matter belonging to the 
 years following the Felpham period, are found crammed in 
 edgeways on blanks that were not intended to be covered 
 when these " epigrams " were written in the book. One of 
 them refers to the discourse in which Keynolds desires that 
 
FOE EEADEES WHO STUDY BLAKE 211 
 
 the name of Michael Angelo should be his last utterance on 
 Art. This epigram is called A Pitiful Case. 
 
 " The villain at the gaUows tree " 
 
 When he is doomed to die, 
 To assuage his misery 
 
 In virtue's praise does cry. 
 
 So Reynolds when he came to die, 
 
 To assuage his bitter woe. 
 Thus aloud did howl and cry — 
 
 Michel Angelo ! Michel Angelo ! 
 
 There are also several allusions to "hiring" belonging to 
 1802-10. And there is the " hired villain," to whom we have 
 not yet come, but who was long before 1820. Therefore, 
 though one line is certainly to be found in the notes on the 
 Discourses, that seems to imply that they were written 
 when Blake was "aged sixty-three," that is in 1820, as 
 Gilchrist maintains, we must remember that we have no 
 reason to suppose that Blake parted with his Discourses, and 
 we know that he was in the habit of retouching his own 
 remarks from time to time to enforce their matter or to 
 improve their symbolism, though not to correct their style. 
 The lines are, of course, 
 
 When Nations grow old. 
 The arts grow cold, 
 
 And Science settles on every tree ; 
 And the poor and the old 
 Can live upon gold, 
 
 For aU are bom poor. — Aged sixty-three. 
 
 We must regret that Blake did not at this period write 
 a concise history of the human race. It would have been 
 something like this in matter, as we see by Jerusalem, 
 page 27 : 
 
 "Notwithstanding what is true about Brutus being the 
 ancestor of Britain (hence the name), and about the British 
 being descendants of the Trojans, as I sang in my youth, 
 and about their having brought here wisdom, art, and science 
 from Asia, when Asia, given over to war and egotism, no 
 longer deserved such possessions, a descent from good to 
 evil of an even earlier date had taken place here, for 
 we find Druids performing human sacrifice in a manner 
 that shows them to have been literal misreaders of a 
 highly ancient and poetic rehgious Idecree. The voice that 
 uttered that decree must have been that of a man whose 
 mind was so diffusible in its higher parts that it rode far 
 
212 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 out beyond his visible outline, and did not serve as the 
 darkened minds of men do now (though acting along juat 
 such a subtle atmosphere in doing so), only to move their 
 arms and legs. His mind reached to the stars, which also 
 means that it reached the remotest truths that were in his 
 limbs, as we call the exteriors of mind, and he embraced in 
 his intuitions all the reasonings and ideas that have since 
 got cut loose from him, and have shrunk up right and left 
 into separations, as we men shrink from one another into 
 mortal egotisms when we forget brotherhood. This atmo- 
 sphere is now ours in so limited a degree that we cannot 
 generally even see through a brick wall to behold another 
 brick wall, nor allow our imaginations to be visible when our 
 eyes are full of daylight. There was a special part of this 
 ancestral mind most suited to going forth that usually went 
 out on its diffused atmosphere. It exists and can be seen now. 
 It grew to be called 'Jerusalem,' after a city built and 
 destroyed by man in Syria, this deed being permitted in 
 order to be a symbol of man's emanation when hterature 
 could not properly describe this because a shyness and 
 modesty had put clothing on man and woman, dulness on 
 their visions, and egotism on their hearts, and matter-of- 
 factness on their poetry. But all things begau in ' Albion.' " 
 Many facts that are now familiar to us all about " thought 
 transference," " pre-natal memory," and about the effects on 
 which much of magic is based, and that are produced by 
 unmated love in the spiritual region, where it acts in an 
 unnatural manner, being diverted from its proper function 
 in the reproduction of species, — these Blake attempted single- 
 handed to understand and control. He saw in them regions 
 of eternity, while in the peculiarly distracting and belittling 
 effect on all prophetic powers wrought by competition, jealousy, 
 argument, and egotism he saw regions of death. There is 
 reason to fear that, just as he was not suspicious enough of 
 rebellion in his apprentice days, so he was not suspicious 
 enough of imagination at a later period, and that the deadly 
 part of mental hfe is often much more imaginative and con- 
 tains much more brotherhood than he was willing to believe. 
 But unless Blake's meaning along this central line of idea is 
 properly judged by us, we are only trifling when we pretend 
 that we have a right to deny that he was a madman. It is 
 true that more than this is required if we are to justify our 
 assertion that Blake was sane in the face of all the apparent 
 incoherence of his writings, and the real coherence of the 
 
FOE EEADEES WHO STUDY BLAKE 213 
 
 myth of the Four Zoas must be read in its scattered morsels — 
 a thing that Gilchrist, the Eossettis, and even Mr. Swinburne 
 omitted to do, and that Dr. Garnett could not understand 
 when it had been done for him. Mr. WilHam Michael Eossetti, 
 while unfortunate enough not to understand Blake's myth, was 
 man enough to say that he did not thiak him sane, for which 
 some respect must always be paid to him, notwithstanding the 
 unjustifiable concealments of his editorial treatment oi Broken 
 Love and the Everlasting Gospel, and the mistake that he made 
 about the "hired villain" epigram, to which we shall soon 
 come. 
 
 In the sketch here given of Blake's historical idea there is 
 no reference to the Atonement, but that has been treated and 
 explained by him fully, chiefly in the last pages of Jerusalem 
 and in Milton. For those who wish to find the " real " 
 Blake in his views about this in particular, the following 
 references may be of use. They are given here, however, 
 with the warning that the sentences in which the words 
 referred to occur are not only insufficient, but absolutely 
 misleading to those who do not weigh others that seem to 
 have nothing to do with them, particularly those that dwell 
 on the symbolic difference between the horizontal (length 
 and breadth, east and west) and the perpendicular (height 
 and depth, north and south) which have to be traced all 
 through the poems, for every line in every page must be read 
 either in relation to the horizontal or to the perpendicular 
 symbol, and that relation is not always one of immovable 
 position, but is frequently one of transference. 
 
 Eedeem, Eedeemed, or Eedemption are words found in 
 Milton — page 5, line 3 ; page 6, line 25 ; page 9, lines 19, 22, 
 23 ; page 11, lines 30, 32 ; page 18, line 11 ; page 20, line 44 ; 
 page 22, line 52 ; page 23, line 27 ; page 25, line 36 ; and 
 page 37, lines 11 and 12. 
 
 Eedemption, a word unfortunately absent from the 
 Eussell and Maclagan sketched index in their edition of 
 Jerusalem, occurs in that poem on page 36, line 41 ; page 
 48, line 63 ; page 59, line 9 ; page 92, line 20. 
 
 That the first 36 pages do not contain the word shows 
 them to have been written in a separate meditative mood. 
 In Vala we find it in Night VIII, lines 194, 354, first above 
 that declaration against separatism — 
 
 Now we know that life eternal 
 Depends alone upon the Universal hand, and not in ns 
 Is aught but death in individual weakness, sorrow, and pain. 
 
214 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 The idea is again seen to be that which Comte intended to 
 express by his worship of Humanity. Comte was, of course, 
 an unconscious poet. The story of the temporary triumph 
 of the Body, of Time and Space, and of this world in general 
 is told, and the spiritual causes of it are given mythic names 
 in the close of the first book of Milton. 
 
 Page 27 of Jerusalem may very probably have been first 
 written, not on copper, when the name of Man in Vala was 
 altered to Albion, and many of the passages of that poem 
 were cut out for insertion, slightly and significantly enriched 
 by names, but injured horribly in metre. 
 
 In the long poem " to the Jews " on this page we catch 
 first a verbal echo of the short poem of the same style at the 
 beginning of Milton, the word huilded applied to Jerusalem 
 in one, to the pillar in the other, and the symbol, being used 
 in the same manner in both, uniting them. Then as the 
 ballad goes on, after a description of the world's innocence 
 comes the question about golden builders near Paddington 
 (South labouring in West, Urizen in the region of Tharmas). 
 
 In page 12, lines 25, 27, 28, we have the same question. 
 The builders (for Urizen is good and Prince of Light in the 
 world's innocence) build hope in the region of sorrow and 
 uncertainty; they give Enion to Tharmas, and Enion is 
 seen to have Jerusalem's attributes in Jerusalem's absence, 
 and is an aspect of fourfold " Golgonooza," which is a 
 symbol for the Intellect of Art and Vision. The whole 
 paragraph explains the verse, and the " dark satanic wheels " 
 at the end unite it with the " dark satanic mills " in the 
 Milton ballad, and so assure our minds that one conception 
 is ahve under all — one sap in the whole tree, whether seen 
 as branch, leaf, or flower. 
 
 Albion's Spectre now withers up the human form. But 
 first he fell. In Jerusalem, page 33, line 17 and following, he 
 is described. He is Satan " worshipped as God by the mighty 
 ones of the earth." He is the devouring power, the Polypus, 
 in fact, though not so called on this page. Through the 
 succeeding passages, up to page 34, line 40, the reasons why 
 Spectre, Selfhood, Vala, Eahab, Mystery, Morality, Satan, 
 Nature, Polypus, and Negation are so closely related that 
 they almost merge into each other is next made clear, although 
 some of this list of names are not found in this particular 
 utterance. It may almost be said that the student who can 
 read these paragraphs can read all Blake. In page 60, line 2, 
 is further illumination that will expand if it be followed 
 
FOE EEADEES WHO STUDY BLAKE 215 
 
 through every place where the word Luvah or the word Ore 
 is found, particularly in page 62, line 20, and page 63, line 5. 
 
 The previous verse is already to be found in Vala, Night 
 II, lines 33 and 34, and now the following verse may be 
 discovered in line 40, a little farther on. 
 
 The next stanza — twelfth — the Ehine red with human 
 blood, reveals a connection of ideas with the Erythrean or 
 Eed Sea, in the 44th line of the 49th page. 
 
 The next but one, or thirteenth, is found explained as 
 reserve, severely called dissimulation in that same page 49 
 of Jerusalem, line 23. If the whole 49th page be read, it 
 will shed a light on the whole ballad. Line 68 of it will be 
 found again in Vala, Night VIII, line 376, in 'a connection 
 of ideas that helps to make it plain. Its 75th line, 
 
 This is the only means to the forgiveness of enemies, 
 
 where the word this is understood, is perhaps the one that 
 more completely explains why Blake wrote at aU, and what 
 he hoped to achieve in aid of our "eternal salvation," than 
 all the rest of his works and correspondence. 
 
 The mingling of the MS. of Vala with that of Jerusalem 
 begins very early. Headers of Jerusalem will not pass the 
 seventh page without recognising in lines 30 to 37, lines 70 
 to 77 of Vala, Night II. Line 34 of this 7th page of 
 Jerusalem is found again in Vala, Night VIII, line 136. 
 Then the quotation breaks off. Blake does not seem to have 
 cared to print the long and beautiful passage that follows 
 the lament of Luvah in the furnaces. Jerusalem, naturally, 
 being written seven years later, is less friendly to Luvah than 
 Vala, in which a tenderness for him underlies hostility. 
 
 Urizen is hardly more sympathetically treated. His temple 
 of twelve halls that correspond to the hours of the day and 
 to the signs of Zodiac is in Night II of Vala quite different 
 from what he builds in Jerusalem, page 58 or page 66. 
 Blake grew more hostile to natural intellect as well as to 
 natural passion with the passage of years. The Mundane 
 Shell, most complex of all his symbols, is here built with 
 Urizen's power, II, 248. But in Milton, page 34, line 32, 
 Los is said to have built it. Of course he did so in Urizen's 
 power. This Mundane Shell is alluded to and explained 
 copiously in Jerusalem. 
 
 But it is worth while to continue turning over the pages 
 of Vala, as Blake was doing now at Felpham to re-collect his 
 scattered thoughts on art. As we go along we find many 
 
216 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 other fragments to identify with those now to be written or 
 already engraved in other poems. We were at Night II; 
 towards the end of it line 383 refers to a Song of Experience, 
 the Poison Tree. Lines 384 and 385, when we know that 
 serpent and dog are symbols of various forms of illusion of 
 Nature produced by fleshly passion, help to explain a passage 
 near the top of page o of the Visions of the Daughters of 
 Albion, where the same words occur, while line 360 of this 
 same Night was both in the close of the Visions and in that 
 of the Song of Liberty ; and a long way farther on in Vala, 
 Night VIII, we shaU find another phrase from the last 
 page of the Visions. Passing to Night III, we do not pass 
 the 45 th line before finding a passage of considerable length, 
 going to line 101, that takes in from line 33 to line 80 of 
 Jerusalem, page 29, where it appears almost in the same 
 words. The setting of it, and an alteration or two, are 
 valuable to the serious student, and help to show Blake's 
 mind. Going on to line 125 we find ourselves in Jerusalem, 
 page 34, line 12,. and the word or name "Vala" acquires 
 further interpretation, especially if we remember that she 
 was mingled with Luvah, of the Eobes of Blood, whose robes 
 are those of Ololon in the last paragraphs of Milton. The 
 symbols will read one another. 
 
 Passing on to Night IV, in line 33, 
 
 Los answered in his furious pride, sparks issuing from Ms hair, 
 
 — another connection between Los and Blake besides the merg- 
 ing of the two in Milton, page 20, Hne 12, and page 36, line 21, 
 and the recognisable portrait of him in the Los upon page 6 
 of Jerusalem, for it is said that when Blake was excited his 
 hair stood up (more than ever) and sparks issued from it. 
 Line 41, 
 
 I know I was Urthona, keeper of the gates of Heaven, 
 
 is the same, but for the verb, as Jerusalem, page 82, line 79, 
 but aU the context is different. In line 85 we hear again 
 of the "raven of dawn," who had disappeared from the 
 symbolism since the chorus to the Song of Liberty. In Hne 
 95 we have the globe of Blood that we saw in the Book of 
 Urizen, and the " horrible, dreamful slumber " of that book is 
 heard of again in line 170 ; the " binding of Urizen by Los " 
 is gradually introduced now, and goes on almost in the 
 words both of the Booh of Urizen and of the extra page to 
 Milton in a manner refreshing to the student who compares 
 
FOE EEADEES WHO STUDY BLAKE 217 
 
 the three. Line 252 is the same as Jerusalem, page 50, line 
 11, with one word altered. In line 264, still Night IV, we 
 have the beginning of a short passage repeated, with slight 
 changes, in Milton, page 14, line 38. Line 285 is from the 
 Book of Urizen again. In Night V, line 43, we find a 
 repetition from Night I, line 477. This repetition is probably 
 due to a repetition in Blake's personal experience either of 
 the moods and their visionary equivalents, or to his forgetting 
 that he had used reference in the same words (or nearly so) 
 to the same thing before. Night I contains a few lines in the 
 much-overwritten early pages (they come on page 2), which, 
 as may be dimly seen in the reduced facsimile, done only for 
 tfee^sake of the drawing, and almost illegible, of the Quaritch 
 edition, were later than the first writing, and later than the fair 
 copying of the MS. They are certainly earlier than the date 
 of Jerusalem, and are found there in page 22, rearranged 
 and expanded, and may be understood when compared with 
 Jerusalem, page 68, lines 58, 59. Later on in the first Night 
 hnes will be recognised, and sometimes passages from 
 Jerusalem, that come in there much farther on than the 
 passage from the seventh page in Night II. Of these we 
 note the similarity of the repelling of Enion here, and of the 
 youth of Los and Enitharmon with Jerusalem, end of page 
 86. Line 187 of Night I describes Eno drawing out a 
 moment of time as in Jerusalem, page 48, line 31, where] the 
 passage following enlarges on the Vala account, while the 
 opening lines of the same page of Jerusalem describe what is 
 told in and near line 395 of this Night of Vala. The num- 
 bers of the lines here, as in other Nights of Vala, differ in the 
 Quaritch edition and in that of Chatto and Windus, because 
 lines mistakenly omitted in the earlier edition were found in 
 time for insertion in the later, a cause of difference often to 
 be noticed. The part about the " pale limbs of eternal indi- 
 viduality " is all later than the first draft of Vala. 
 
 Eeturning to the process of running through that MS. 
 as Blake did before writing Jerusalem, and taking it up again 
 at Night V, we find chap, vii of the Book of Urizen in the 
 story of the girdle, lines 83 and following. The woes of Urizen 
 shut up in dens of Urthona are (necessarily) (lines 190 and 
 following) very like to those of Albion when fallen on the 
 ground at night, with his children exiled feom his breast, 
 page 19 of Jerusalem, where the verse is so much more poetic 
 than the more explanatory and symbolic pages near it. 
 Urizen explores his dens here throughi many pages. That 
 
218 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 he did so we also knew from the Book of Urizen, but here 
 in Night VI the story is expanded. Lines 281 and 282 are 
 from Milton and Jerusalem also, placing the Zoas. 
 
 Line 285 recalls the first lines of Jerusalem, page 44, and 
 to line 18 of that page, showing a state of mind produced by 
 opposition unlike that in which Blake wrote the note about 
 the will on the blank leaf of a volume of Swedenborg, and 
 passes us on to the allusion to Africa in page 45, lines 
 19 to 26. In line 115 of Night VII we find the beginning 
 of a passage in Jerusalem, page 30, line 30. Line 306 con- 
 tains an expression from Jerusalem, page 17, line 13. The 
 line 379 of this Night recalls the apparent contradiction of 
 it found in line 35 of Jerusalem, page 42, easily understood 
 as a significant example of the variation of visions of Time 
 and Space, page 98, line 36. Going on to the passage follow- 
 ing line 610 of this long Night VII we come upon the preface 
 to America, and in line 650 and what follows we have the 
 passage beginning on page 65, Une 6, of Jerusalem, with an 
 illumination for line 695 where it ends. Near the close of 
 the Night we have in line 781 a repetition from Milton, page 
 34, line 1. 
 
 In Night VIII the preface or Preludium to America 
 reappears again in line 78, and on 136 we have line 74 of 
 Night II, which is Jerusalem, page 7, line 34, also. In [hne 
 253 is a suggestion that Vala is much the same as America's 
 " shadowy female," while her practical identity with Tirzah 
 as well as with Eahab is shown by comparing the knife of 
 flint in Hne 231 here with that in Jerusalem, page 67, line 
 24, as well, whose lines 44 and following are given here in 
 line 293 and following. Line 376 recalls Jerusalem, page 
 49, line 68. After 380 comes all the myth of Palamabron 
 and Satan, and of the Seven Eyes of God from Milton ; line 
 454, since Luvah is Ore, refers to the subject of Jerusalem, 
 page 21, Une 31. The eagle of line 513 is seen in a fuU-page 
 picture to Milton, that barely touches the subject that might 
 be drawn from the full description. 
 
 In Night IX we have in line 99 the passage in Jerusalem 
 that begins page 19. In line 230 we recognise the close of 
 the part called Asia in the Song of Los. In line 450 we 
 have the subject of the picture on page 7 of America. The 
 bones that rattled in Asia (and in several other places in the 
 MS.) rattle for the last time. The passage from line 633 
 onwards is seen to be the 96th page of Jerusalem in embryo ; 
 line 665 and following recall the 6th page of America. In 
 
FOE READEES WHO STUDY BLAKE 219 
 
 699 the lion and little girl of the Song of Experience, A Little 
 Girl Lost, reappear. In 723 and following the winepress of 
 Luvah from Milton, page 24, is shown, and the VcUa ends. 
 
 There is seen to be a sort of " exchange and mart " between 
 Blake's poems of lines appropriate to any mood. They, as 
 has been seen, all thus help the interpretation. For example, 
 in the first writing of Vala, Night II, towards the end in 
 Enitharmon's song we have found the phrase "everything 
 that lives is holy" that first appeared at the close of the 
 Song of Liberty after the Marriage of Heaven and Hell, and 
 that was the termination of Oothoon's long wail on the last 
 page of the Visions of the Daughters of Albion, reappearing 
 and explained at last. 
 
 For the Source of Life 
 Descends to be a weeping babe. 
 
 As we consider this we catch the meaning of the " Devil's 
 account" of the Incarnation in page 516 of the Marriage of 
 Heaven and Hell, namely, that " Messiah fell and formed a 
 heaven of what he stole from the Abyss," which we know 
 from other passages to be " the Abyss of the five senses " or 
 apparent Nature, the "war of death," the "void outside 
 existence," which, " when entered into " (by Imagination, 
 which is existence), "becomes a womb," Milton, pages 43, 
 44 ; the empty " argument of the reason " that is " from the 
 loins," Vala, Night II, line 108, in which " Cathedron's 
 looms" weave literal Christianity (or death), from jealousy, 
 afterwards known as "jealousy of Theotormon," asserting 
 self-righteousness against the Universal Saviour. Nature is, 
 among other things, we know, the " literal expression of the 
 Scriptures," which, Hke the art and poetry of the Greeks, is 
 dipped in war, in blood, and is, in fact, Luvah's robe that 
 the Saviour put on {Milton, page 44, line 14). "War is 
 energy enslaved," Vala, Night IX, line 151. 
 
 Glancing over these things and other suggestive passages, 
 we have a knowledge of what was arranging and sorting 
 itself in Blake's mind during this period, and we can perceive 
 what he meant by calling this arranging and re-collecting of 
 the scattered thoughts on art (he cared for no other subject) 
 " the grand reason " of his being brought to Felpham. We 
 also find reasons for considering that Milton and not, as 
 Gilchrist says, Jerusalevi was the great poem he was especially 
 destined to write there. Two of these reasons may be noted. 
 Among the first of the characters mentioned in the early 
 
220 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 pages of Jerusalem's hundred leaves, " Scofield " is one. The 
 name is taken from a man who was only known to Blake in 
 the month of August 1803, while the letter was written in 
 April that contains the words, "But none can know the 
 spiritual acts of my three years' slumber on the banks of the 
 ocean unless he has seen them in the spirit, or unless he reads 
 my long poem descriptive of these acts," ..." the grand 
 reason of my being brought down here." It is to this that 
 Gilchrist puts as footnote the one word Jerusalem ; and yet 
 Gilchrist had read Milton, and had even criticised Blake's 
 rough sketch of his cottage on page 36, without, it would 
 seem, noticing the following words written above it : 
 
 He set me down in Felpham's vale and prepared a beautiful cottage 
 for me, that in three years I might write all these visions, 
 
 while in Jerusalem, page 38, line 42, "I write in South 
 Molton Street," where Blake went after leaving Felpham, and 
 where he even saw some of the visions, page 74, line 55, " I see 
 in South Molton Street," page 38, line 57. 
 
 Yet the conjecture that he put into Jerusalem much that 
 he originally intended for Milton, as weU as some portion 
 that we see that he actually engraved there and some that 
 he took, with slight alterations, from Vala, is justified by the 
 line preceding the words " I write in South Molton Street," 
 which says : 
 
 In Felpliam I heard and saw the Visions of Albion. 
 
 One phrase from Jerusalem, that in line 40 of page 83, 
 recalls a letter from Felpham, it is true, but there is nothing 
 in the " ball of wool " in that letter to oblige us to think that 
 this about " the fluctuating earth " was written at the same 
 time. 
 
 In the Public Address he speaks in 1809 of a " poem " 
 which he intends soon to publish, in which a "nest of 
 villains " is " rooted out " whose misdeeds, not of a new kind, 
 were " never before made so good an occasion of poetic 
 imagery." 
 
 This poem was probably neither Milton nor Jerusalem, 
 though Jerusalem seems not to have been finally pro- 
 duced as a completed book tUl long after its title-page was 
 engraved (in 1804), for it was new in 1820, when Wainewright 
 spoke of it. 
 
 The present writer must take the blame now of having 
 written in the Memoir to the Quaritch edition that " Gilchrist 
 
FOE EEADEES WHO STUDY BLAKE 221 
 
 was probably right '' in considering that the " grand poem " 
 mentioned in Blake's letter was Jerusalem. The fact 
 evidently is that Blake had not the same poem in his mind 
 in 1802 and in 1809. In 1802 he referred to Milton, still in 
 MS. In 1809, in the MS. notes for his PuUic Address, 
 he referred to neither, though his boastful claim to " poetic " 
 imagery long deceived the present writer. He must have 
 written both the 1809 poem and its praise in his unpoetic and 
 resentful state of mind, and the " poem " must have been a long 
 piece of doggerel, of which only the " Screwmuch " hnes have 
 come down to us. Neither Jerusalem nor Milton roots out 
 any nest of villains, and both were partly on metal several 
 years before he knew about the " nest " to which he refers. 
 
 Yet that " the nature of visionary fancy is not, as some 
 suppose, without trouble " is shown not only in Blake's fall- 
 ing down on his own garden path at Felpham when over- 
 wrought by it, to the great alarm of his wife, as related in 
 lines 25-28 of page 44 of Milton : 
 
 Terror-struck in the vale I stood at that immortal sound, 
 
 My bones trembled, I fell outstretched tipon the path 
 
 A moment, and my soul returned into its mortal state, 
 
 To Resurrection and Judgment in the Vegetable Body, 
 
 And my Sweet Shadow of Delight stood trembling by my side. 
 
 Sometimes he was assailed with temptations to cease to 
 believe vision, notwithstanding what Eve says in his first 
 book — the Ghost of Abel. 
 
 It was probably while engraving at Felpham the plates 
 for Hayley'sZi/'eo/ Cowper that " Cowper came to Blake and 
 said, — as he notes apropos of a passage in a book read later, 
 — ' that I were insane always ! I will never rest tiU I am 
 so. that in the bosom of God I was hid ! You retain 
 health and yet are as mad as any of us all — over us all — mad 
 as a refuge from Bacon, Newton, and Locke.' " 
 
 This is so far interesting to those — who are by no means 
 all dead yet — some of them are still unborn, probably — who 
 hold Blake to be mad, that they can claim the vision of 
 Cowper as' agreeing with them. We who hold another 
 opinion may make them a present of their ally. That Blake 
 held such madness to be the bosom of God may be, in its 
 turn, presented to followers of Whitefield and Wesley, and all 
 who seek religion from the clergy of whatever church. If 
 they can treat the suggestion with contempt they are happy 
 men, and if they can see something worth considering in it. 
 
222 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 they are ten times happier. Blake writes (at the end of 
 his November letter of 1802) : 
 
 And now let me finisli by assuring you that though I have been 
 very unhappy I am so no longer. I am again emerged into the light 
 of day. I still, and shall to Eternity, embrace Christianity and adore 
 Him who is the express Image of God, but I have travelled through 
 perils and darkness not unlike a champion. I have conquered, and 
 shall go on conquering. Nothing can withstand the fury of my course 
 among the stars of God and in the Abysses of the Accuser. My 
 enthusiasm is still what it was, only enlarged and confirmed. 
 
 The thing he has conquered was, of course, the painful 
 state of doubt, usually called " sanity " by persons who walk 
 and talk more than they think, and playfully so called by 
 Blake himself, perhaps — at least, that is the inference from 
 his use above of the word madness. 
 
 " The Visions were angry with me at Felpham," he would 
 afterwards say, as we learn from Gilchrist, and the letter 
 about adoring the image of God suggests that it was here 
 and now that he acted as he afterwards required the reminder 
 of his wife to recall. This was brought to light when Mr. 
 Eichmond asked him what he did when the visions deserted 
 him, which he had admitted they had done for weeks at a 
 time. "What do we do then, Kate?" "We kneel down 
 and pray, Mr. Blake." 
 
 In April 1803 — the Felpham period is drawing to a close 
 — he writes to Butts (the italics are ours, as before) : 
 
 And now, my dear sir, congratulate me on my return to London with 
 the full approbation of Mr. Hay ley and with promise. But, alas ! now I 
 may say to you what perhaps I should not dare to say to any one else — 
 that I can alone carry on my visionary studies in London unannoyed, 
 and that I may converse with my friends in Eternity, see visions, dream 
 dreams, prophesy, and speak parables unobserved and free from doubts 
 of other mortals — ^perhaps doubts proceeding from kindness, but doubts 
 are always pernicious, especially when we doubt our friends. Christ is 
 very decided upon this point. " He who is not with Me is against Me " ; 
 there is no medium or middle state, and if a man is the enemy of my 
 spiritual life while he pretends to be the friend of my corporeal, he is a 
 real enemy ; but the man may be the friend of my spiritual life while 
 he seems the enemy of my corporeal, but not vice versa. 
 
 Then comes the passage already referred to about the 
 " grand " poem that he " has written." 
 
 Then on July 6 — three months later — he again refers 
 to this after repeating that " Mr. Hayley is quite agreeable 
 to our return" and that he has promise of a considerable 
 amount of engraving for an elegant work to contain all 
 
FOE EEADEES WHO STUDY BLAKE 223 
 
 Milton's poems, with Cowper's notes and Cowper's transla- 
 tions of the Latin and Italian poems. 
 
 The designers of the plates were to be Flaxman and 
 Eomney, with whom Blake was to be associated also as a 
 designer as well as in his capacity as an engraver. 
 
 The profits of the work are intended to be appropriated to erect a 
 monument to the memory of Cowper in St. Paul's or Westminster Abbey. 
 Such is the project ; and Mr. Aldington and Mr. Pitt are both among 
 the subscribers, which are already numerous and of the first rank. 
 Thus I hope that all our trouble ends in good luck at last, and may be 
 forgot by my affections (this means " by my emotions," the term affection 
 being Swedenborgian) and only remembered by my understanding to 
 be a memento in time to come and to speak to future generations by a 
 sublime allegory which is now perfectly completed into a grand poem. 
 (Again we note that the poem is already written, and that Scholfield is 
 not yet known to Blake.) I may praise it, since I dare not pretend to 
 be any other than the secretary. The authors are in eternity. I con- 
 sider it as the grandest poem that this world contains. Allegory, 
 addressed to the intellectual powers while it is altogether hidden from 
 the corporeal understanding, is my definition of the most sublime Poetry. 
 It is also somewhat in the same manner defined by Plato. This poem 
 shall with Divine Assistance be progressively printed, ornamented with 
 prints, and given to the Public. But of this work I take care to say 
 little to Mr. H., since he is as much averse to my poetry as he is to a 
 chapter in the Bible. He knows that I have writ it, for I have shown 
 it to him, and he has read part by his own desire, and has looked with 
 sufficient contempt to enhance my opinion of it. But I do not wish to 
 imitate by seeming too obstinate in poetic pursuits. But if all the 
 world should set their faces against this I have orders to set my face 
 like a flint (Ezekiel iii. 8) against their faces, and my forehead against 
 their foreheads. As for Mr. H., I feel at liberty to say as follows upon 
 this ticklish subject. I regard feshion in poetry as little as I do in 
 paiating, so if both poets and painters should alternately dislike (but 
 I know the majority of them wiU not) I am not to regard it at all. 
 But Mr. H. approves of my designs as little as he does of my poems, 
 and I have been forced to insist on his leaving me in both to my own 
 self-will. I know myself both poet and painter, and it is not his affected 
 contempt that can move to anything but a more assiduous pursuit of 
 both arts. Indeed by my firmness I have brought down his affected 
 loftiness, and he begins to think that I have some genius, as though 
 genius and assurance were the same thing ! But his imbecile attempts 
 to depress me only deserve laughter. I say this much to you knowing 
 that you will not make a bad use of it. But it is a fact too true that if 
 I had only depended on mortal things both myself and my wife must 
 have been lost. I shaU leave every one in this country astonished at 
 my patience and forbearance of injuries upon injuries ; and I do assure 
 you that if I could have returned to London a month after my arrival 
 here I should have done so. But I was commanded by my spiritual 
 friends to bear aU and be silent, and to go through all without mur- 
 muring, and, in fine (to) hope till my three years should be almost 
 accomplished, at which time 1 was set at liberty to remonstrate against 
 former conduct and to demand justice and truth, which I have done in 
 
224 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 so effectual a maimer that I have compelled what should have been of 
 freedom, my just rights as an artist and a man. And if any attempt 
 to refuse me this be made, I am inflexible, and will relinquish any 
 engagement of designing at all unless left to my own judgment, as you, 
 my dear friend, have always left me, for which I shall never cease to 
 honour and respect you. When we meet I will perfectly describe to 
 you my conduct and the conduct of others towards me, and you will see 
 that I have laboured hard indeed and have been borne on angels' 
 wings. 
 
 After this letter Gilchrist closes a chapter by repeating 
 that Jerusalem was written at Felpham, and " very grandly 
 designed, if very mistily written," which was all that Blake 
 got for trying too hard to make himself clear. The Songs of 
 Innocence and Experienxie still pass as comparatively easy to 
 understand, though half of them are incomprehensible till 
 Jerusalem is explained. 
 
CHAPTEE XXI 
 
 SCHOLFIELD 
 
 The next letter to Butts describes the adventure with 
 Scholfield which disturbed Blake's last months at Felpham. 
 It runs as follows, and the beginning has this much of un- 
 expected interest. We learn from it that Blake wrote out his 
 letters from a rough draft, and did not improvise them in 
 the careless manner of modern correspondents. 
 
 It; is dated Felpham, August 16, 1805, and after a few 
 words about seven drawings forwarded, that " about balances 
 our account" — Butts has been advancing him money at 
 last, after Blake's repeated refusals to accept it — the letter 
 continues : 
 
 Our return to London draws on apace. Our expectation of meeting 
 again with you ia one of our greatest pleasures. Pray tell me how your 
 eyes do. I never sit down to work but I think of you and feel anxious 
 for the sight of that friend whose eyes have done me so much good. I 
 omitted, very unaccountably, to copy out in my last letter that passage 
 from my rough sketch which related to your kindness in offering to 
 exhibit my two last pictures in the Gallery in Berners Street. It was 
 in these words : " I sincerely thank you for your kind offer of exhibiting 
 my two pictures. The trouble you take on my account I trust will 
 be recompensed to you by Him who seeth in secret. If you should 
 find it convenient to do so, it will be gratefully remembered by me 
 among the other kindnesses that I owe to you." 
 
 I go on with the remaining subjects which you gave me commission 
 to execute for you, but I shall not be able to send any more before my 
 return, though perhaps I may bring some with me finished., I am 
 at present in a bustle to defend myself against a very unwarrantable 
 warrant from a Justice of the Peace in Chichester, which was taken out 
 against me by a private iii Captain Seathes' troop of 1st or Eoyal 
 Dragoons for an assault and seditious words. The wretched man has 
 terribly perjured himself, as has his comrade, for as to sedition, not one 
 word relating to the King or Government was spoken either by him or 
 me. His enmity arises from my having turned Mm out of my garden, 
 into which he was invited as an assistant by a gardener at work therein 
 without my knowledge that he was so invited. I desired him as 
 politely as possible to go out of the garden ; he made me an impertinent 
 
 235 Q 
 
226 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 answer. I insisted on his leaving the garden. He refused. I still 
 persisted in desiring his departure. He then threatened to knock my 
 eyes out, with many abominable imprecations, and with some con- 
 tempt for my person. It affronted my foolish pride. I therefore took 
 him by the elbows and pushed him before me till I had got him out. 
 There I intended to have left him, but he, turning about, put himself in a 
 posture of defiance, threatening and swearing at me. I, perhaps foolishly 
 and perhaps not, stepped out at the gate, and, putting aside his blows, 
 took him again hj the elbows, and, keeping his back to me, pushed him 
 forward down the road about fifty yards, he all the while endeavouring 
 to turn round and strike me, and raging and cursing, which drew out 
 several neighbours. At length when I had got him to where he was 
 quartered, which was very quickly done, we were met at the gate by the 
 master of the house — the Fox Inn (who is the proprietor of my cottage) 
 — and his wife and daughter, and the man's comrade, and several other 
 people. My landlord compelled the soldiers to go indoors, after many 
 abusive threats against me and my wife from the two soldiers ; but not 
 one word of threat on account of sedition was uttered at that time. 
 This method of revenge was planned between them after they had 
 got together into the stable. This is the whole outhne. I have for 
 witnesses the gardener, who is ostler at the Fox, and who evidences that, 
 to his knowledge, no word of the remotest tendency to Government or 
 sedition was uttered ; our next-door neighbour, a miller's wife (who saw 
 me turn him before me down the road, and saw and heard all that 
 happened at the gate of the inn), who evidences that no expression of 
 threatening on account of sedition was uttered in the heat of their fury 
 by either dragoon. This was the woman's own remark, and it does 
 high honour to her good sense, as she observes that whenever a quarrel 
 happens the offence is always repeated. The landlord of the inn and 
 his wife wiU evidence the same, and will evidently prove the comrade 
 perjured who swore that he heard me while at the gate utter seditious 
 
 words, and d the K , without which perjury I could not have 
 
 been committed, and I had no witnesses with me before the Justices 
 who could combat his assertion, as the gardener remained in the garden 
 all the while, and he was the only person I thought necessary to take 
 with me. I have been before a Bench of Justices this morning, but 
 they, as the lawyer who wrote down the accusation told me in private, 
 are compelled by the military to suffer a prosecution to be entered into, 
 although they must know, and it is manifest, that the whole is a 
 fa,bricated perjury. I have been forced to find bail. Mr. Hayley was 
 kind enough to come forward, and Mr. Seagrave, a printer in 
 Chichester, Mr. H. in £100, and Mr. S. in £50, and myself am bound in 
 £100formyappearance attheQuarter Sessions, which is after Michaelmas. 
 So I shall have the satisfaction to see my friends in town before this 
 contemptible business comes on. I say contemptible, for it must be 
 manifest to every one that the whole accusation is a wilful perjury. 
 Thus you see, my dear friend, that I cannot leave this place without 
 some adventure. It has struck a consternation through aU the villages 
 rouiid. Every man is now afraid of speaking to or looking at a 
 soldier, for the peaceable villagers have always been forward in 
 expressing their kindness for us, and they express their sorrow at our 
 departure as soon as they hear of it. Every one here is my evidence 
 for peace and good neighbourhood, and yet such is the present state of 
 things this foolish accusation must be tried in public, Well, I am 
 
SCHOLFIELD 227 
 
 content, I miirmiTr not, and doubt not that I shall receive justice, and 
 am only sorry for the trouble and expense. I have heard that my 
 accuser is a disgraced sergeant. His name is John Scholfield. Perhaps 
 it will be in your power to hear something about the man. I am 
 very ignorant of what I am requesting of you ; I only suggest what I 
 know you will be kind enough to excuse if you can learn nothing 
 about him, and what, I as weU know, if it is possible you will be 
 kind enough to do in this matter. 
 
 Dear sir, this perhaps was suffered to clear up some doubts, and to 
 give opportunity to those I doubted to clear themselves of all im- 
 putation. If a man offends me ignorantly and not designedly, surely I 
 ought to regard him with favour and affection. Perhaps the simplicity 
 of myself is the origin of all offences committed against me. If I have 
 found this I shall have learned a most valuable thing well worth three 
 years' perseverance. I have found it. It is certain that a too passive 
 manner, inconsistent with my active physiognomy, has done me much 
 mischief. I must now express to you my conviction that all is come 
 from the spiritual world for good and not for evil. 
 
 Give me your advice in my perilous adventure. Burn what I have 
 peevishly written about any friend. I have been very much degraded 
 and injuriously treated, but if it all arise from my own fault, I ought 
 to blame myself 
 
 why was I born with a difl'erent face ? 
 "Why was I not born like the rest of my race ? 
 "When I look, each one starts ; when I speak, I offend, 
 Then I'm silent and passive and lose every friend. 
 
 Then my verse I dishonour, my pictures despise, 
 
 My person degrade, and my temper chastise ; 
 
 And the pen is my terror, the pencil my shame ; 
 
 All my talents I bury, and dead is my fame. 
 I am either too low, or too highly prised, 
 "When elate, I'm envied ; when meek, I'm despised. 
 
 This is but too just a picture of my present state. I pray God to keep 
 you and all men from it, and to deliver me in His own good time. 
 Pray write to me and tell me how you and your family enjoy health. 
 My much terrified wife joins me in love to you and Mrs. Butts and all 
 your femily. I again take the liberty to beg of you to cause the 
 enclosed letter to be delivered to my brother, and remain sincerely and 
 affectionately yours, "William Blake. 
 
 This description of Blake's two manners— the " elate " and 
 the " meek " — though its truthfulness goes back to his early 
 days with Basire or at Eathbone Place, only applies to him 
 when questiSns of art were brought forward in the conversa- 
 tion. Then the old story of his conversation with Moser, 
 keeper at the Eoyal Academy when he was a student, would 
 always repeat itself. People would say things contrary to 
 Blake's profoundly religious, artistic opinions. At first he 
 would "inwardly rage," then he would "speak his mind," 
 and, it may be added, this speaking would be with no note of 
 
228 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 acrimony or personal discourtesy, and yet with a startling 
 abruptness, as though a near clap of thunder broke the blue 
 silence of a summer sky. 
 
 The present writer has had the privilege of seeing an Irish 
 poet who reproduces these and other characteristics of Blake, 
 including the colour of his hair, as the late W. G. Wills 
 reproduced his stately everyday courtesy. He will, it is to 
 be hoped, pardon the use here made of him. It is some- 
 thing to sit as a model for a portrait of Blake, Counting 
 on his pardon, the sketch shall be made, but not named. 
 This poet (he is a most musical and beautiful writer) has a 
 way of remaining silent in company during general conver- 
 sation, yet wearing an expression of alertness and intelh- 
 gence, showing him to be fuUy in sympathy with what is 
 being said, and absolutely ready to reply, to contest, or to 
 accept. Yet a silence as absolute as that of a fish will 
 wrap him up. Suddenly his eye, always brilliant and beau- 
 tiful (lUce Blake's), wiU absolutely flash (like Blake's), his 
 golden hair, always rather rebellious and wavy, will seem 
 like, flames rising from _ his head (Mke Blake's), and he 
 will thunder out a dictum (as Blake would) in a moving 
 voice for which there is no harmonising or suitable tone 
 belonging to the conver.sation actually in progress, so that 
 the good-natured among those who are talking are apt to 
 smile and the irritable to rage. Like Blake, again, this 
 enthusiast has combined lyric talent with poetic religious 
 convictions (in his case these are about Shakespeare) quite 
 unrecognised by orthodoxy, and professing to supersede the 
 usual faith, outdoing it on its own ground (as Blake did); 
 lastly, he writes poetry on his pet kind of worship which is 
 sometimes of unsurpassed sweetness, pathos, dignity, and 
 beauty (as Blake did), and he is not discouraged to find 
 it unknown, as happened with Blake's revelation. In his 
 presence the present writer has sometimes even felt an amused 
 and regretful consciousness of seeming to resemble Hayley 
 in his "polite disapprobation," though trying to avoid his 
 " affected scorn." He admits being, like Hayley, a sincere 
 admirer of the unnamed model now sitting for Blake, though, 
 unlike Hayley, he has never been of the smallest use to 
 him, nor " earned a place in the story." 
 
 One thing more the present writer has learned from him, 
 and from others of those who live beyond the Bristol Channel, 
 and who (among them) have enabled him to make sketches 
 that build up for him recognisable portraits of Blake's 
 
SCHOLFIELD 229 
 
 features, habits, tones, and actions. It is — must have been — 
 exceedingly true of Blake, as Crabb Eobinson said, that " in 
 the sweetness and gentility of his manner he added an in- 
 describable grace to his conversation." The word to be 
 emphasised is indescribable. Those who know this manner, 
 even in a diluted or educated form, will recognise it. The 
 manners of an Englishman, formed in crowds at schools, is 
 more constant and cheerful but less impressive, is quite 
 different and more modern. 
 
 But if we are to do Blake full justice while considering 
 this moment of his life at Felpham when he is doing penance 
 himself, and desiring that what he has "peevishly written 
 about a friend " should be burned, we must also not be unjust 
 bo Hayley. That Hayley was the "Satan" that accused 
 Palamabron, and Puritanism was the " Urizen " that opposed 
 the poetry in Milton, while " Los " opposed his Puritanism, is 
 evident enough, for Blake must have heard them speak in 
 Hayley. Allegories always live in actual persons. Each of us 
 is inhabited by a good many. But, whether or not the epigram 
 about " H.'s " father and mother be addressed to him, Hayley 
 had feminine qualities, as Blake attempts to explain in the 
 passage in Milton, at the beginning of page 35, about " war and 
 hunting," which Swedenborg has told us mean argument and 
 persuasion in the Bible, because where natural objects are sup- 
 posed to be real, these are frozen into destroying terrors : 
 
 The Two Fountains of tlie River of Life 
 Are become Fountains of Bitter death and Corroding Hell 
 Till brotherhood is changed into a curse and a flattery 
 By Differences between Ideas, till Ideas themselves (which are 
 The Divine Members) may be slain in offerings for sin. 
 dreadful Loom of Death ! O piteous Female forms compelled 
 To weave the Woof of Death ! 
 
 That woof is the mood of common sense that leads to 
 common death, and had to be combated with in the " severe 
 contentions of friendship " through which " he who would see 
 Divinity must see him," as explained in Jerusalem, page 91. 
 The chi^f thing for Blake, in fact, all through life was, as 
 we have seen, friendship. Even Art itself was, in its exterior 
 portions at least, mainly of meaning and value because it 
 could raise friendship, as nothing else could raise it, into 
 regions above all that was exterior. We have seen in Friend- 
 ship Blake's only political idea and his main religious idea. 
 It was the end of this world's best laws and purposes. It 
 was the beginning of the laws and purposes of the next. It 
 
230 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 was the ante-chamber of the eternal Father's House of Many 
 Mansions, the great " I in you, and you in Me," which was 
 Heaven itself, the kingdom of God, of which we are divinely 
 forbidden to say " Lo here," or " Lo there," seeing that it is 
 within us, and its King rules from a temple " not made with 
 hands." Blake's Resentments constantly show that his human 
 duties were all for his friends, none for his foes, as in morality 
 we are taught that the duties of a man to a woman are all 
 for Sarah and none for Hagar. The notes to Lavater show 
 how troubled Blake was if any suspicion entered his mind 
 that in the smallest degree he had such qualities as make a 
 man " unfit for friendship." This is Lavater 's Great Con- 
 demnation also, seldom uttered. It was the "Major Excom- 
 munication " pronounced by the sinner on himself, recorded 
 with sorrow by those who would help him, but could not. 
 
 Hayley knew perfectly well that, in a suave manner, 
 with an appearance of kindness, he was continually inflicting 
 on Blake pangs of humiliation. How deep those pangs were, 
 and how long they ached, and how the weakness and lame- 
 ness of mind that followed the aching made the conscience 
 of the sufferer continually ask him whether he might not be 
 acting against his duty as a " soldier of Christ " (of the 
 Human Imagination) in permitting himself to be so injured 
 in his talent by diverting his energies into the hard labour 
 required to keep his patience, Hayley could not conceive. He 
 had looked on himself as doing a good deed by trying to 
 Iring Blake to his senses. He did it for love. He tried to do 
 it in kindness. He saw that he had here to deal with a most 
 original and self- glorifying mind, and he tried to raise it 
 above its petty conceit at first by education only. He read 
 Homer and Klopstock, and even gave Blake his own poetry, 
 which he trusted was both elevating and beaiitifuL Blake 
 swallowed Homer and Klopstock, criticised the one, derided 
 the other, and did not fall into any but polite and grateful 
 rapture over the elevating and leautiful verses of Hayley. 
 It was then that " pride met pride," and Hayley began to see 
 that Blake needed a lesson. He gave it in the generous form 
 of overwhelming him with commissions in engraving. Pro- 
 jects like the decoration of his library, which had been begun 
 on a scale worthy of a Pope dealing with a Eaphael, were 
 quietly dropped. What was done was done. The eighteen 
 heads of poets should remain, but the whole house was not 
 to be a gallery of absurd, sprawling figures with big heads, or 
 big hands, or big eyes. As for Blake's poetry, Hayley really 
 
SCHOLFIELD 231 
 
 would have borne it if he could, but, except Mr. Swinburne, 
 Gilchrist, and the Eossettis, no one who could not understand 
 it ever pretended to like it, until these generous enthusiasts 
 taught the public that it was meritorious to do so. 
 
 But all the time Hay ley was really fond of Blake, rejoicing 
 in his industry and sorrowing over his illness, and when 
 Blake broke out and poured over him a flood of indignant 
 self-assertion he was not roused to indignant and con- 
 temptuous reply. He put his pride in his pocket now, and 
 allowed himself to be " silenced completely." In that silence, 
 as we know, he thought, with regret and kindness, what much 
 deeper pain than he had supposed he had given to this 
 strangely religious man who had taken up the sad and 
 ridiculous idea that eccentric designs and delicious verse 
 were essentials to the service of God, and were a portion of 
 the Christian religion. 
 
 Being, as Hayley was, a man of a great — it has been called 
 a " fatal " — facility in words, this complete silence of his after 
 Blake's outburst must stand to his credit, and wherever his 
 name is remembered must remain as its highest title to fame. 
 Mr. Swinburne, in his Essay on Blake, not only treats 
 Hayley, as Gilchrist treated him, in a contemptuous and 
 sneering manner, but quotes the following epigram from 
 Blake's notebook, saying that Hayley will go further " with 
 this hook in his nose " towards posterity than he could have 
 hoped to go without its help. But Mr. Swinburne did not 
 altogether discover what the meaning of " this hook " reaUy 
 was: 
 
 ToH . 
 
 Of H 's birtli this was the happy lot, 
 
 His mother on his father him begot. 
 
 It is one of the rare cases in which Blake's mystic order of 
 speech breaks through in mere epigram. It means that the 
 material, matter - of - fact part of his mind, the " corporeal 
 understanding," the faculty in each of us which is " feminine," 
 hke the region of Bacon, Newton, and Locke, and from which 
 Blake claims that his own poetry is " altogether hid," had a 
 
 larger and more dominant share in the building of " H 's " 
 
 mind than the " intellectual powers," or, as we should say, 
 the spiritually sympathetic and symbolic powers that Blake 
 considered to be essentially masculine. 
 
 Even in Blake's private notebook he did not put the full 
 name to H , and there is still some reason to question 
 
232 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 whether it referred to Hay ley at all, or to a miniature painter 
 named Haynes, a temporary rival to Blake in the general 
 struggle for employment. To him it would have been 
 equally applicable. He was one of those non-symbolic 
 artists who did not work in what Blake believed to be the 
 right or Eaphaelesque style, and who had in the period of 
 Blake's South Molton Street warfare attracted a spark from 
 the electric batteries of his wrath. After the verbal outburst 
 that was received with such a magnanimous silence by Hayley, 
 came Blake's arrest through Scholfield's false information. 
 
 Delighted at being able to play the prince again and not 
 the schoolmaster as well, Hayley was in arms for his protigi 
 the moment he found that Blake — become Ms Blake once 
 more — was in danger. He " came forward " with a hundred 
 pounds bail, and took up the cudgels at once. 
 
 Blake, whose greatest weakness of character lay always in 
 the difficulty he felt in forgiving an affront, found with 
 astonishment that Hayley had absolutely no resentment at 
 all after the fearful scolding that had "silenced" him. 
 Hayley, therefore, had shown a divine attribute — forgiveness. 
 
 In an amazement of self-inflicted discipline Blake took as 
 large a measure as possible of the fault of his words upon him- 
 self. Though the fault was a true complaint, that Hayley 
 had injured him by obstructing his artistic powers (a talent 
 that he was under divine order to make the best of), by 
 doubts insinuated, by drudgery insisted on, and by sympathy 
 withheld, and politeness offered instead — the polished stone 
 given where the bread of life was craved — yet Blake now 
 began to blame himself for having allowed Hayley to commit 
 these faults ignorantly, and he recognised that ignorance 
 was an excuse. He could not blame Hayley for want of 
 goodness, so far at least as that want of goodness came from 
 a want of knowledge, for which he who gave such blame 
 must himself be blamed. His " too passive manner," Blake 
 now discovered, was in fault, the Irish propitiativeness that 
 conceals as long as possible a conflict between a man and his 
 friend, even when they are divided by the deeper qualities 
 of character. This manner is kept up by a vain hope that 
 other people will understand, and that the pain of explana- 
 tion may be saved by the pain of patience. But it fails at 
 last. There is an old proverb about a silk purse. If " the 
 Human Imagination," that real, eternal, composite personage 
 to whom Blake prayed under the name of Jesus, does not 
 come to our help from the eternal region (the Universal 
 
SCHOLFIELD 233 
 
 Mind) in which he dwells, we cannot, however poetic we 
 may ourselves be, raise a commonplace mind to our level, 
 however patient with it, however indulgent and long-suffer- 
 ing we may be. This Blake had at last discovered. He 
 writes in Jerusalem, page 45, the larger form of this old, 
 sad truth. He could not even attain eternal life himself 
 by goodness : 
 
 however loving 
 
 And merciful the individuality, however high 
 
 Our palaces and cities, however fruitful are our fields, — 
 
 In selfhood we are nothing, but fade away in morning's breath. 
 
 Our mildness is nothing ; the greatest mildness we can use 
 
 Is incapable and nothing. None but the Lamb of God can heal 
 
 This dread disease. 
 
 The disease is, as shown in the context, the closing of 
 Albion's Western Gate — the gate of brotherhood, by which 
 man should go " outwards every way." 
 
 Blake's time at Felpham was now over. He returned to 
 town, and left Hayley, who had engaged Mr. Samuel Eose 
 (a name known to those who have read Cowper's corre- 
 spondence) as his counsel. He was now thirty, and Blake's 
 case was one of the last, if not the last, that he was to plead 
 in his short Ufe. Blake's journey was in October. He had 
 no sooner established himself in No. 17 South Molton Street, 
 where he was to spend nearly seventeen years, than he began 
 rushing about and doing errands for Hayley in London. A 
 number of carefully-written and good-natured letters of this 
 period showing how hard Blake worked at this unpaid labour, 
 are given by Gilchrist. We find him in them constantly visit- 
 ing different people, seeing Mr. Edwards and Mr. Saunders, 
 owner of several of Eomney's pictures, — for Hayley was now 
 doing a Life of Romney to follow his Life of Gowper, — and 
 calling on Flaxman, but not finding him in town, though he 
 found Mr. Evans, who was trying, not very successfully, to 
 sell the broadsheet ballads written by Hayley, for which he 
 had made small engravings. He learns that although a 
 pubhsher not in the running cannot always secure the sale 
 of a work, " no chance is left to one out of the trade." He 
 tells how he has got some fresh engraving work to do after 
 Fuseli of designs made " for a little Shakespeare." On this 
 subject Blake now sees Mr. Johnson, the bookseller, where 
 he used to meet Godwin. This is not Hayley's friend Johnson, 
 Cowper's nephew, the " bard " for whose sake Oxford, where 
 he Uved, is said to bring leaves of the tree of life to Albion 
 {Jerusalem, page 45, hne 8). This pubhsher Johnson assures 
 
234 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 him that there is no want of work. Blake had been in 
 difficulties during his last months at Hercules Buildings 
 when receiving £1 each for illustrations to Young's Night 
 Thoughts, and naturally feared to have trouble in earning 
 his bread on returning to London. He recalls Hayley's own 
 last encouraging words, "Do not fear that you can want 
 employment," and assures him that he is not neglecting 
 the head of Eomney that he is engraving for him. It is, 
 of course, for his Life of Romney. The letter ends with 
 Blake's fresh impressions of London : 
 
 "God send better times. Everybody complains, but aU 
 go on cheerfully and with spirit. The shops in London 
 improve; everything is clean and neat. The streets are 
 widened where they were narrow. Even Snow HUl is 
 become almost level, and is a very handsome street, and the 
 narrow part of the Strand near St. Clement's is widened and 
 become very elegant." 
 
 The date of this is not 1903, as one might suppose, but 
 1803. Blake should come back now and see the Strand 
 again, if only by moonlight, as Hamlet's father saw Elsinore. 
 
 A month or two later, after the turn of the year, Blake 
 went back to Sussex and surrendered to his bail to be tried 
 for insulting the King. 
 
 In looking backwards over his life we find Blake's name as 
 only seven or eight times connected with Royalty. The first 
 time is in the passage about " the King " of a derisive though 
 dignified nature that he has written in Tiriel. He strikes 
 this passage out. The second is the symbolic use of the 
 King in America. The third is when he sacrificed all his 
 pupils and reduced himself to embarrassment in order not to 
 be discourteous to the Sovereign by teaching other humbler 
 subjects of the Crown after refusing to be drawing-master to 
 the Royal Family. The fourth time is when some of his 
 designs were shown to George III, who (probably detecting 
 that they were " Sunday pictures ") would not look at them. 
 The fifth is this trial for treason. The sixth, if we do not 
 count a kind word for " old George II " in a note on Lavater, 
 is the dedication of Blair's Grave to the Queen. The seventh 
 is the following note, made not for publication, and in con- 
 nection with we do not know what public event, but the 
 date must be about 1809 : — 
 
 Princes appear to me to be fools ; Houses of Commons and Houses of 
 Lords appear to me to be fools. They seem to be something else besides 
 human life. I am really sorry to see my countrymen trouble them- 
 
SCHOLFIELD 235 
 
 selves about Politics. If men were wise, Princes, the most arbitrary, 
 could not hurt them. If they are not wise, the freest Government is 
 compelled to be a tyranny. 
 
 To these may be added a constant suspicion of the Govern- 
 ment that it is said Blake had. He supposed it to have 
 engaged the soldier Scholfield to try to entrap him into 
 treasonable utterances, as the agents provocateurs do in 
 France. 
 
 If this be counted as an eighth, however, then the ninth 
 and last connection of Blake's name with Eoyalty occurred 
 after his death. We seem to have reached the ninth " Night " 
 of Vala. 
 
 Mr. Kirkup relates (as recorded in a note to pages 81-83 
 of the first edition of Swinburne's Essay) that a gift of £100 
 was sent to Blake's widow by the Princess Sophia. Consider- 
 ing what loyalty to Eoyalty had cost the Blakes, Mrs. Blake 
 might have looked on this as a poor and partial restitution, but 
 she was able to subsist on the sale — carefully spun out — of 
 Blake's drawings and engraved books, and did not expect to 
 need to subsist at all for very long. " She sent back the 
 money with all due thanks, not liking to take or keep what, 
 as it seemed to her, she could dispense with, while many 
 to whom no chance or choice was given might have been kept 
 alive by the gift." 
 
 If ever a Blake Church is formed, its priests will not have 
 far to go for the first saint of its calendar. 
 
 Gilchrist's account of what now happened at the trial for 
 treason need not be improved, and is adopted here, the 
 present writer having nothing of importance to add to it or 
 to correct in it : 
 
 The trial came off at Chichester on 11th January 1804, at the 
 Quarter Sessions, the Duke of Richmond (the radical, not the corn law 
 duke) being the presiding magistrate. The Sessions were held in those 
 days in the Guildhall, which is the shell of a Gothic building, having 
 been formerly the chancel of an early English date to the old church 
 of the Grey Friars convent. The fragmentary chancel and the Friary 
 grounds are still extant, just within what used to be the city walls, 
 at the north-east corner of the cheerful old cathedral town. 
 
 A few days before the impending trial Hayley met with an accident 
 which very nearly prevented his attending to give evidence in his 
 prot^g^'s favour. It was of a kind, however, to which he was pretty 
 well accustomed. A persevering and fearless rider, he was in the eccentric 
 habit of using an umbrella on horseback to shade his eyes, the abrupt 
 unfurling of which commonly followed, naturally enough, by the 
 rider's being forthwith pitched on his head. He had on this occasion 
 lighted on a flint with more than usual violence, owing his life indeed 
 
236 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 to the opportune shield of a strong new hat. " Living or dying, how- 
 ever," he declares to his doctors, he "must make a public appearance 
 within a few days at the trial of oiu' friend Blake." Ana on the 
 appointed day he did appear in court to speak to the character and 
 habits of the accused. 
 
 The local report follows, that was looked up, it would 
 appear, by D. G. Eossetti in the Sussex Advertiser for 
 January 16, 1804. It says : 
 
 William Blake, an engraver at Felpham, was tried on a charge 
 exhibited against him by two soldiers for having uttered seditious 
 
 and treasonable expressions, such as d n the King ; d n all his 
 
 subjects ; d n his soldiers ; they are all slaves. When Bonaparte 
 
 comes it will be cut-throat for cut-throat, and the weakest must go 
 to the wall, — I will help him, etc. 
 
 Something curiously like the sentiments of some of 
 Blake's less poetic fellow-countrymen will be noticed here by 
 those who remember what used to be said in the early days 
 of the Boer War. 
 
 Gilchrist's account goes on : 
 
 Mrs. Blake used afterwards to tell how, in the middle of the trial, 
 when the soldier invented something to support his case, her husband 
 called out " False ! " with characteristic vehemence, and in a tone 
 which electrified the whole court, and carried conviction with it. 
 Rose greatly exerted himself for the defence. In his cross-examination 
 of the accuser, " he most happily exposed," says Hayley, " the falsehood 
 and malignity of the charge, and also spoke very eloquently for his 
 client," though in the midst of his speech seized with illness, and con- 
 cluding it with difficulty. Blake's neighboiuB joined with Hayley in 
 giving him the same character of habitual gentleness and peaceableness, 
 which must have a little astonished the soldier after his peculiar ex- 
 perience of those qualities. A good deal of the two soldiers' evidence 
 being plainly false, the whole was received with suspicion. It became 
 clear that whatever the woixis uttered, they were extorted in the 
 irritation of the moment by the soldiers' oflfensive conduct. 
 
 "After a very long and patient hearing," the Sitssex Advertiser con- 
 tinues, " he was by the jury acquitted, which so gratified the auditory 
 that the court was, in defiance of all decency, thrown into an uproar 
 by their noisy exultations. The business of the aforegoing Sessions," 
 it is added, "owing to the great length of time taken up by the 
 above trials " (Blake's and others), " was extended to a late hour on the 
 second day, a circumstance that but rarely happens in the western 
 division of the country. The Duke of Eichmond sat the first day 
 from ten in the morning till eight at night without quitting the court 
 or taking any refreshment." 
 
 An old man at Chichester, lately dead, who was present as a stripling 
 at the trial, attracted thither by his desire to see Hayley, " the great 
 man" of the neighbourhood, said, when questioned, that the only 
 thing he remembered of it was Blake's flashing eye. Great was 
 Hayley's satisfaction. 
 
CHAPTEE XXII 
 
 GRATITUDE TO HAYLEY 
 
 After the trial, Eartham being too far off, a congratulatory 
 supper was held at Lavant, at the house of "Mrs." Poole, 
 who lived only ten minutes' drive from Chichester. It was 
 she who had invited Blake's sister, and had lent him the 
 horse called "Bruno." Blake, in his letter of no date, 
 printed by GUohrist between that of November 22, 
 1801, and January 25, 1803, gives the long flight of 
 rhymed verse, printed in his collected works under 
 the title Los the Terrible, remarking . that they were " com- 
 posed above a twelvemonth ago while walking to Lavant to 
 meet my sister." The supper after the trial seems to have 
 been a delightful meal. Blake, after his return to town, 
 mentions Mrs. Poole constantly with expressions of affectionate 
 gratitude. There is nothing to show that Mrs. Blake was 
 either at the trial or at the supper. She was still suffering 
 from the rheumatism caught in the damp cottage, and 
 travelling was hard work in those days. 
 
 Blake returned by coach, apparently on the day after the 
 conclusion of the trial, which seems to have lasted to the 
 evening of January 11th or 12th. The next knowledge we 
 have of him is from the letter to Hayley dated "London, 
 January 14, 1804, which he says that he writes immediately 
 on his arrival." It seems that the horse that threw Hayley 
 had come from some cavalry stables. 
 
 Blake has learned during his journey by coach from an 
 old soldier, his fellow-passenger, that 
 
 No one, not even tlie most expert horseman, ought ever to mount 
 a trooper's horse. They are taught so many tricks, such as stopping 
 short, falling down on their knees, running sideways, and in various 
 and innumerable ways endeavouring to throw the rider, that it is a 
 miracle if a stranger escape with his life. All this I heard with 
 some alarm, and heard also what the soldier said confirmed by another 
 person in the coach. I therefore, it is my duty, beg and entreat you 
 
 237 
 
238 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 never to mount that wretched horse again, nor again to trust to one 
 who has been so educated. God our Saviour watch over you and 
 preserve you. 
 
 The letter goes on to stow how buoyant Blake's hopes were 
 at this moment, while it explains why Mrs. Blake was not at 
 his trial, and what provision he had made for her during his 
 absence : 
 
 I have seen Flaxman already, as I took to him early this morning 
 your present to his scholars. He and his are all well and in high 
 spirits, and welcomed me with kind affection and generous exultation 
 in my escape from the arrows of darkness. I intend to see Mr. Lambert 
 and Mr. Johnson, the bookseller, this afternoon. My poor wife has 
 been near the gate of death, as was supposed by our kind and attentive 
 fellow-inhabitant (Blake had not the whole of 17 South Molton Street) 
 the young and very amiable Mrs. Enoch (a kind-hearted little Jewess, no 
 doubt), who gave to my wife all the attention that a daughter could 
 pay to a mother, but my arrival has dispelled the formidable malady, 
 and my dear and good woman begins to resume her health and 
 strength. Pray, my dear sir, favour me with a line concerning your 
 health, how you have escaped the double blow, both from the wretched 
 horse, and from your innocent humble servant, whose heart and soul are 
 more and more drawn out towards you, Felpham, and its kind inhabitants. 
 I feel anxious, and therefore pray to my God and Father for the health 
 of Miss Poole, and hope that the pang of affection and gratitude is the 
 gift of God for good. I am thankful that I feel it. It draws the soul 
 toward eternal life and conjunction with spirits of just men made 
 perfect by love and gratitude, the two angels who stand at the gate of 
 heaven, ever open, ever inviting guests to the marriaga foolish 
 philosophy ! Gratitude is heaven itself. There could be no heaven 
 without gratitude. I feel it, and I know it. I thank God and man 
 for it, and above all you, my dear friend and benefactor in the Lord. 
 Pray give my and my wife's duties to Miss Poole, and accept them 
 yourself! 
 
 As " Miss Poole " is sometimes called " Mrs. Poole," she 
 was perhaps an elderly maiden lady. 
 
 Blake is now at South Molton Street again, and this is the 
 first of the portfolio of letters he writes from there. He 
 begins to rejoice in his freedom, and prepares his two title- 
 pages and prints them off, one to Jerusalem, and the other to 
 Milton. He does not foresee how he is to be harassed by run- 
 ning errands for exacting Hayley. His delight in being able 
 to " prophesy and dream dreams " unmolested could not better 
 be shown than by this bold commencement of his two greatest 
 books in one year. The title-page of the Milton, a Poem in 
 12 Books, is the one that does him, perhaps, the most credit, 
 in view of the fact that he only printed two, for when we 
 remember the immense change in his feeling toward Hayley 
 since the day — only a few months ago — when he " wrote 
 
GEATITUDE TO HATLEY 239 
 
 peevishly " about him after " completely silencing " him and 
 calling him "my antagonist," we cannot doubt that the 
 reason for the suppression of those ten books is to be found 
 in this change. He probably saw that they treated Hayley 
 as an enemy (of his spiritual life) who pretended to be the 
 friend (of his corporeal). But the real affection and 
 enthusiasm Hayley had lately shown had carried Blake into 
 " heaven itself " — into gratitude. Can a man be an enemy 
 of one's spiritual life who does this ? He was presently to 
 lay it down as a general truth that " corporeal friends are 
 spiritual enemies," but this passage was engraved after 
 he had been bothered by correspondence with his corporeal 
 friend a little longer. Just at first he was in a reaction. 
 There is a line in Milton, page 11, line 31, which seems to 
 have been part of a passage added in South Molton Street — 
 
 Astonished at the transgressor, in him beholding the Saviour. 
 
 The passage occurs in a place and connection which makes 
 its meaning subtle and not to be explained in two words, but 
 what the state of the plate and the separateness of the 
 paragraph show is that it was a later insertion and not part 
 of the original MSS. written at Felpham. Unpacking these 
 now, Blake did with many pages of them what he had 
 urged Butts to do with his letters. He burned what he had 
 'peevishly written about a friend, reserving only what he felt 
 could never be brought home to Hayley in a way that could 
 hurt his feelings, but would remain hidden as to its meaning 
 under the poetic style of the symbohsm. After all, Hayley 
 himself, like all individuals, was not eternal as' the moods 
 are, or the spiritual acts of a man's mental Ufe. 
 
 That Blake destroyed any of his MS. now is, of course, 
 not actually recorded. No one saw him do it but his wife, 
 and she would not have told. To do so would be to bring up 
 the Hayley troubles in a very complete manner. But the 
 silent evidence found in the sudden reduction of Milton from 
 the twelve books mentioned in its frontispiece to the two 
 that were actually engraved, shows that there was a great 
 destruction made for some motive or other very soon after 
 Blake unpacked his papers in South Molton Street. We 
 have the fact of his self-chastisement and of his buoyant and 
 indulgent gratitude to Hayley at that moment in his letters, 
 and the inference is not to be avoided. We can feel as 
 certain as though we had been present that this is the motive 
 that reduced Milton by ten-twelfths, and that the reduction 
 
240 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 was decided on as soon as he read over that very long manu- 
 script after engraving its frontispiece in the first rush of 
 energy as soon as he set up his press in his new lodgings. 
 He often destroyed MSS. of his own later in life when he 
 had no time or money to engrave them, and this was probably 
 the first time that he did so. Crabb Eobinson tells us of 
 his doing this. Blake said to him once : 
 
 When I am commanded by spirits, then I write, and the moment 
 I have written I see the words fly about the room in all directions. 
 It is then published. The spirits can read, and my MS. is of no 
 further use. 
 
 This was on the occasion when he said, truly we need not 
 doubt — 
 
 I have written more than Eousseau or Voltaire — six or seven epic 
 poems as long as Homer's, and twenty tragedies as long as Macbeth. 
 
 But probably most of these were left unfinished, to be burned 
 rather than continued when the mood failed. 
 
 Whatever was unreal about Blake (if anything was), 
 certainly his gratitude to Hay ley was real at this time. How 
 many poets have sacrificed a MS. to a friend ? A poet of 
 our own day, who had buried his poems with his wife in 
 his first grief, had her poor remains dragged from the earth 
 afterwards that he might get them back and send them to 
 the printer. 
 
 Blake changed his view about Hayley soon for the last 
 time, and the shock must have been almost maddening. 
 
 For a year or two, however, he continued rushing about 
 doing Hayley's messages in town and engraving for his books 
 whenever he could induce himself to put down the plates of 
 Milton and Jerusalem. 
 
 On January 27 he writes a long letter, though he is only 
 just free from so " violent " a cold that it had kept him in 
 bed for three days, and in his room for a week. He has been 
 to see Mr. Walker, to show him, as desired, the portrait of 
 Eomney. Mr. Walker is at Birmingham. He has been to 
 Mr. Saunders. He has sent off money to Kendal, West- 
 moreland, as requested. He has carried presents (for Hayley) 
 to Mr. Eose. He has shown a letter (for Hayley) to Flaxman. 
 He has been asking about Sir Allan Chambre (for Hayley). 
 He has twice called on Mr. Edwards for Lady Hamilton's 
 address (for Hayley). He writes all this and its result, and 
 ends with more expressions of enthusiasm for Hayley and for 
 " our good Lady Paulina of Lavant," 
 
GEATITUDE TO HAYLEY 241 
 
 Hardly a week later (Feb. 23) he has more errands to 
 report. He has called on Mr. Brathwaite (for Hayley), and 
 is inducing Mr. Brathwaite to speak to Mr. Eeed about 
 Eomney (for Hayley). He has called again on Mr. Eose, 
 but can give no " pleasant account of him." Eose died soon 
 after. He has called on Mr. "Wallace, and found him from 
 home, and will call again. He encloses a present of twenty- 
 two numbers of FuseU's Shakespeare and the book of Italian 
 letters from Mrs. Flaxman. He encloses also the Academical 
 correspondence of Mr. Hoare. All this means care, thought, 
 worry, business, waste of time. Blake is Hayley's right hand 
 in London when he needs both hands for himself as much 
 as — ^perhaps more than — he ever did in his life. 
 
 The people to whom he goes on all this business see his 
 enthusiasm, and they know how Hayley took trouble for him 
 at his trial, and Hayley was a man of wealth and position. 
 His Life of Gowper had been a great success. Of course, when 
 they understood that Blake was doing his errands they said all 
 kinds of civil things to him about Hayley, and must have been 
 amused to see Blake's eyes flash and to hear how delighted he 
 was with this. On April 7 (still 1804) Blake writes : — 
 
 Dear Sir — ^You can have no idea, unless you were in London as I am, 
 how much your name is loved and respected. ... 
 
 Mr. Philips thinks of starting a Eeview. He is prepared 
 to spend £2000 a year over it. Hayley is to be connected 
 with it. Blake takes up the scheme warmly, gets terms in 
 writing from Philips offering four times as much to Hayley 
 as to any other contributor. Blake is on fire with enthu- 
 siasm. The magazine 
 
 . . . may be called a Defence of Literature against those pests of the 
 press [reviewers] and a bulwark for genius which shall, with your 
 assistance, disperse those rebellious spirits of Envy and Malignity. . . . 
 Literature is your child. She calls for your assistance. . . . 
 
 and so forth. 
 
 On April 27 he sees Mr. Hoare, who is helping in the 
 founding of the Eeview, "after having repeatedly called 
 upon him every day and not finding him." A long letter 
 results, in the course of which he says, "I have seen our 
 excellent Flaxman lately. He is well in health." Gilchrist 
 has printed in full all the interminable letters here reduced 
 to the smallest dimensions by compression. As he says, 
 they are "valuable as showing Blake's perfect sanity and 
 prudence in the conduct of practical affairs." 
 
242 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 On October 23 Blake writes again. He has received the 
 money he asked for and worked for, so at least he has bread 
 to eat. But something else excites him now, and he pours 
 out his heart to Hayley. He has seen a few good pictures 
 known as the " Truchsessian Gallery," of which we have no 
 list, but which, it seemed, contained examples by the best 
 masters which, while they could still be bought cheaply, were 
 allowed, of course, to escape us. The National Gallery was 
 not there then, jealously watching for chances. 
 
 After saying how pleased he is to hear that Miss Poole is 
 well, and telling how electrical treatment has cured his wife's 
 rheumatism entirely, including the stiffness and swelled knees, 
 he goes on in one of his red-hot fits — he is " elate," — 
 
 For now, glory ! O delight ! I have entirely reduced that spectrouB 
 fiend to his station [no spectrous fiend has been ijientioned in the 
 letter; evidently another scrap of rough draft has gone astray, as 
 on a former occasion, when the fair copy was being made] whose 
 annoyance has been the ruin of my labours during the last past 
 twenty years of my life. He is the enemy of conjugal love, and is the 
 Jupiter of the Greeks, an iron-headed tyrant, and the ruiner of ancient 
 Greece. I speak with perfect confidence and certainty of the fact which 
 has passed upon me. Nebuchadnezzar had seven times passed over him. 
 I have had twenty. Thank God, I was not altogether a beast as he 
 was, but I was a slave bound in a mill amongst beasts and devils. 
 These beasts and these devils are now, together with myself, become 
 children of light and liberty, and my feet and my wife's feet are free 
 from fetters. 
 
 This letter was probably written after all the earlier pages 
 of Jerusalem. 
 
 lovely Felpham, parent of immortal friendship, to thee I am 
 eternally indebted for my three years' rest from perturbation, and the 
 strength I now enjoy. 
 
 Here we have the contrast again, already noted, with the 
 mood in which he went through troubles at Felpham, " not 
 unlike a champion," and in which had he and his wife " de- 
 pended only on mortal things " they " must have been lost." 
 He is in a wild state of " all's well that ends well." 
 
 Suddenly on the day after visiting the Truchsessian Gallery of 
 pictures I was again enlightened with the light I enjoyed in my youth, 
 which has for exactly twenty years been closed from me as by a door 
 and by window-shutters. Consequently I can with confidence promise 
 you ocular demonstration of my altered state in the plates I am now 
 engraving after Romney, whose spiritual aid has not a little conduced 
 to my restoration to the light of Art. Oh the distress I have under- 
 gone, and my wife with me, incessantly labouring, and incessantly 
 
GEATITUDE TO HAYLEY 243 
 
 spoiling what I had done well. Every one of my friends was astonished 
 at my faults, and could not assign a reason. They [these are spiritual 
 friends of course] knew of my industry and abstinence from every pleasure 
 for the sake of study, and yet, and yet, and yet these wanted the proofs 
 of industry in my works. I thank God with entire confidence that it 
 shall be so no longer. He is become my servant who domineered over 
 me. He is even as a brother who was my enemy. Dear sir, excuse 
 my enthusiasm, or rather madness, for I am really drunk with 
 intellectual vision whenever I take a pencil or graver into my hand, 
 even as I used to be in my youth ; but as I have not been for twenty 
 dark, but very profitable years, I thank God that I courageously 
 pursued my course through darkness. In a short time I shall make 
 good my assertion that I am become as I was at first by producing the 
 Head of Romney and The Shipwreck — quite another thing from what 
 you or I ever expected them to be. In short, I am now satisfied and 
 proud of my work, which I have not been for the above long period. 
 
 In this letter we see the joy of an artist who is trying to 
 reach beyond the taste of his day, and who is like a musician 
 who would write music for the violin when he had only heard 
 a bad viola played once or twice by a blind beggar when he 
 was a boy. Blake had seen engravings of the early Italian 
 masters, and had drawn from casts of the antique ; that also 
 was long ago. In trying to make a better use of this when 
 composing and when arranging a style for himself so as to 
 be able to see his own compositions as though treated by 
 that style, before each drawing began to go upon paper, he 
 was out of sympathy with the art of his day because its aims, 
 though not absolutely all bad, were bad for his purposes to 
 so large a degree that he fell into a state of hostility to all. 
 
 But though the higher parts of the mind may supply a 
 man with unlimited vision or imagination, and many who 
 are not artists at all are inclined mistakenly to cry out, 
 " Anch' io pittore ! " (" I, too, am a painter ! ") because theirs 
 are rich in this, yet, as all practical picture-makers know, the 
 conception of treatment requires a prevision or pre-sensation 
 of the hand as well as of the mind. In the same way an 
 actor when imagining his part as he reads it will bring his 
 throat into the attitude of speech, and even a sleeping dog 
 who dreams of hunting will twitch his legs. It is this 
 nervous part of imagination that is the rarest and (as in the 
 case of Eembrandt and some others) is enough to make a man 
 a genius if he possesses it largely, even though he may be 
 without more than a humble portion of the rest of inspira- 
 tion. It was this nervous part of his artistic mind that 
 .constantly wore very thin in Blake, as it will in aU men 
 who draw too much " out of their own heads." The wearing 
 
244 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 thin becomes very marked it' they look too much at their own 
 work, and not enough at that of other people. Their own 
 feeblest parts have a power of so affecting their minds through 
 their own pictures as to hypnotise them into exaggeration of 
 error. They then become "mannered," to use the technical 
 term. This, of course, is one of the worst forms of that 
 " generalisation " against which Blake thought he had fought 
 successfully, because his work contained, too often, a harassing 
 want of sequence in its scheme of light, and trusted only to 
 that " real effect " which is the " making out of parts." Yet 
 he would have been the first to know that real impressive- 
 ness in poetry, the literary correlative of real effect in art, 
 depends more on the making out of sequences of emphasis. 
 
 Eecently at Telpham he had tried to rub up his nerves 
 into vitality by going over all his old drawings, and by look- 
 ing at the prints after the old masters that he had bought 
 when a boy. It did him some good, because he was able to 
 go into the subject with a fresh zest. "Another covering 
 of earth is removed" was the way in which he spoke of 
 the liberation of some of the forces of his mind that had 
 been fretted away by the struggles and distractions of 
 London. 
 
 At that time, as the effects of his consideration of such 
 artistic material as he possessed ripened within him, he wrote 
 a long artistic letter to Butts on Nov. 22, 1802. It has 
 been here only passingly referred to. It is chiefly about 
 artistic technicalities and full of self-praise. Blake has 
 stupefied himself into an incapacity to see beyond his own 
 portfolios. With the letter about the Truchsessian Gallery 
 before us it is a shock to go back and read in this one : " There 
 is nothing in the art which our painters do that I can confess 
 myself ignorant of" This is nothing less than an Irish bull. 
 The making such a confession could only be possible after it 
 had ceased to be true. He goes on : "I also know and under- 
 stand, and can assuredly affirm, that the works I have done 
 for you are equal to the Caracci or Eaphael, and I am now 
 some years older than Eaphael was when he died." 
 
 Considering how intensely eager Blake was to learn from 
 any one from whom he could take anything without faUing 
 into subjection, and considering the Truchsessian letter itself, 
 this is too sad to be amusing. The staggerings of a half- 
 starved man who is too hungry to walk straight are not a 
 joke. Blake's artistic sympathies were starving. His violent 
 scorn when rebuked or when asked to revise his prosody is 
 
GRATITUDE TO HAYLEY 245 
 
 so well known that it tends to hide from us his remarkable 
 teachability in art. 
 
 Yet this never ceased to be evident all through his life, 
 from the days when he became so warm a partisan of Basire 
 and so staunch an upholder of the despised beauties of Gothic 
 sculpture — supposed then to be only a fit subject of con- 
 sideration for antiquaries, and not for artists — through the 
 time when he gave " copy for ever " as his prescription for 
 learning art, and (against Sir Joshua himself) said that 
 " slavish " copying is the only kind that has true merit, to 
 the present moment when we find in May 4, 1804, in the 
 letter of that date (only referred to as yet in the terrible list 
 of Blake's errands for Hayley) : " I sincerely thank you for 
 Falconer, an admirable poet, and the admirable prints to it 
 by Fettler. Whether you intended it or not, they have 
 given me some excellent hints in engraving ; his manner of 
 working is what I shall endeavour to adopt in many points." 
 
 Blake had become worried by the contest between his 
 visions and his pursuits at Felpham. He did some small 
 portraits there, of which we have no knowledge, as well as 
 Hayley's work. He says in his letter of July 6, 1807, to 
 Butts : " I am become a likeness-taker, and succeed admirably 
 well, but this is not to be achieved without the original sitting 
 before you for every touch." 
 
 This sentence is of value in helping to distinguish Blake 
 from another artist of the same name whose strong point 
 was pictorial memory, who used to paint portraits from a 
 vision of his sitters sitting in the empty chair in which they 
 had sat during the first day's sketch only, so powerful was 
 his faculty of calling up by association the features of any 
 one who had once been seen in a particular place with 
 particular surroundings. He overworked this faculty, and is 
 said to have died in an asylum, where he spent many years. 
 The popular press has reprinted allusions to this man from 
 time to time under the idea that he was William Blake, of 
 the Prophetic Poems. This error must be the less blamed 
 that even the catalogue of the Print Room in the British 
 Museimi does not appear to have discovered the difference 
 between our Blake and another namesake who was connected 
 with a well-known benevolent institution. 
 
 The feeling of "glory" that Blake felt after seeing the 
 Truchsessian collection was due to the fact that elation seems 
 like power to any one who feels it, particularly to an artist. 
 It produces a kind of concentration mingled with impulse. 
 
24& THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 and concentration and impulse together are, of course, the 
 two parents of the child that we call Art, Imagination being 
 its soul — not born of either. Each particular and detailed 
 feeling of artistic sympathy — it is diificult to remember with 
 sufficient persistence and care — arouses a particular elation, 
 and brings a particular concentration to the artistic mind, 
 just as, if we may illustrate the circumstances or " laws " of 
 increased by the pathology of destroyed power, the illness 
 called " scrivener's palsy " kills the writing power of a man's 
 fingers when their power of holding or lifting any other 
 article than a pen may be undiminished. 
 
 In the new excitement caused by seeing better pictures 
 than he had ever been able to study before, Blake felt that 
 some "fibre " of his strength was invigorated which had aU 
 along been weak. Industry, he had hoped, would have 
 strengthened it. Of course industry only helps concentration 
 by gradually weeding out, through the automatic impulses 
 acquired by habit, the results of distraction from habits of 
 imagination caused by consciously directed efforts to improve. 
 
 Blake, who had less power to analyse, while he had a great 
 deal more analysable material in him than most men, was 
 naturally enough continually falling into surprises about 
 himself. He alternated these with childish misstatements 
 of a self-critical character. That this should be the case with 
 so great a genius and so hasty a judge was inevitable. It 
 need not delay us by any necessity for heart-searching when 
 we find ourselves obliged to disagree with him on some 
 points. 
 
 The passages about the " friends " who were surprised at 
 his labours not having improved him refers evidently to friends 
 " in eternity " (in imagination, that is). 
 
CHAPTEH XXIIl 
 
 CEOMEK 
 
 In December 1804, still feeling the ground to be firm under 
 his feet, and his position with Hayley that of a friend, Blake 
 writes for more money. We gather that Hayley has 
 succeeded in representing the taking from him, which now 
 occurred, of the prospect of engraving ten more plates for 
 the Life of Bomney, as due to the fact that he evidently has 
 not the time to undertake so much work before the book 
 should be in the binder's hands. AU references to other sub- 
 jects but the portrait and The Shipwreck have vanished, but 
 a cordial tone has not vanished. Blake is, of course, secretly 
 conscious of giving some of his time to Jerusalem, whose 
 plates are progressing. He dares not say a word about this 
 to Hayley. There would be a quarrel at once. Meantime he 
 lives as frugally as he can. "We notice that the last time he 
 has had money from Hayley is in October. It is acknowledged 
 on October 23 : "I have received your kind letter, with the 
 note to Mr. Payne, and havfe had the cash from him." This 
 was the time when Blake's household expenses were reduced 
 (as Cromek will tell soon) to ten shillings a week, and when 
 in the verses " I rose up at the dawn of day " Blake protests 
 with his visions for not letting him pray for riches. The 
 allusion to his visionary companions here is under the title 
 " mental friends." They were not the hallucinatory presences 
 that deceive a madman. 
 
 The present letter (December 18, 1804) begins by speak- 
 ing of proofs enclosed and of Flaxman's approval of them, 
 and of his advice, " which he gives with aU the warmth of 
 friendship both to you and me." Blake adds : " The labour I 
 have used on these two plates has left me without any resource 
 but that of applying to you. I am again in want of ten 
 pounds ; hope that the size and neatness of my plate of The 
 Shipwreck will plead for me the excuse for troubling you 
 
 247 
 
^48 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 before it can be properly finished, though Flaxman has 
 already pronounced it so." 
 
 To show Hayley that he is not being overcharged, Blake 
 presently adds : " The price Mr. Johnson gives for the plates of 
 Fuseli's Shakespeare, the concluding numbers of ■which I now 
 send, is twenty-five guineas eacL On comparing them with 
 mine of The Shipwreck you will perceive that I have done my 
 duty and put forth my whole strength." 
 
 He then speaks of other books sent by Hayley, or promised, 
 and winds up : 
 
 My wife joins me in wishing you a merry Christmas. Eemember- 
 ing our happy Christmas at lovely Felpham, our spirits still seem to 
 hover round our beautiful cottage and round the lovely Forest. I say 
 seem, but am persuaded that distance is nothing but a phantasy. We 
 are often sitting by our cottage fire, and often we think we hear your 
 voice calling at the gate. Surely these things are real and eternal in 
 our eternal minds, and can never pass away. My wife continues well, 
 thanks to Mr. Birch's Electrical Magic, which she has discontinued 
 these three months. — I remain, your much robbed 
 
 We see in Mrs. Blake's treatment another source of 
 spending besides the copper-plates for Jerusalem and Milton. 
 It must have been exceedingly true now that, as Blake 
 said, " we eat little, — we drink less." 
 
 Mr. Eose, the barrister who had defended Blake, died at 
 this time, or " got before me into the Celestial City," as Blake 
 wrote, adding : " I also have but a few more mountains to 
 pass ere I hear the bells ring and the trumpets sound to 
 welcome my arrival." As a piece of Blake's consistency, if 
 no more, it is nice to find that, after writing like this when in 
 health, he died in the same mood — about twenty years later 
 — rejoicing and singing aloud. 
 
 Blake's next letters are about the futile publication of 
 Hayley's ballads that were written to give him something to 
 illustrate, and presented to him. He has done most of the 
 plates now. The price, to be paid by Philips, who is publish- 
 ing the book, is to be twenty guineas each for the engravings. 
 Blake asks him what the verses are worth, but Phihps, with 
 many polite messages to Hayley, will not put a price on them. 
 He says that the value of the copyright must be estimated 
 when they see what the sale of the work is. As a matter of 
 fact, it turned out a commercial failure. One of the plates, the 
 horse, was afterwards lost by Blake, and then found. In a 
 letter dated June 4, 1805, he rejoices at the finding because 
 he is in need of money again, and if the plate had remained 
 
CEOMEK 249 
 
 lost it would have "cut oif ten guineas" from his next 
 demand on Philips ; from which it seems that the plates were 
 paid at twice, as art work often was — ''half on order and 
 half on delivery," as the expression used to run. 
 
 Blake could have written the ballads much better, of 
 course, for himself, and was rather bothered by having to 
 thank Hay ley for them. His " Mental Friend " Los told him 
 (as he says in Milton) — 
 
 Let each his own station keep 
 
 Nor in pity false, nor in officious brotherhood where 
 
 None needs be active. 
 
 The sentence is broken. There is no grammar in it, but the 
 meaning is obvious. 
 
 We possess one more letter of this series, though June 4, 
 1805, is the date of the last that is given by Gilohrist, who 
 follows it up by four quotations from Milton and from the 
 MS. book. They are not appropriate. Three of them belong 
 to an earlier date, and one to a later period, when Blake 
 began to suspect Flaxman of being seriously in the Cromek 
 interest against him. 
 
 Just after the Memoir to the Quaritch edition was in type, 
 and too late to place it in its proper position, Mr. Daniell, of 
 Mortimer Street, London, obligingly and generously placed this 
 letter in the present writer's hands for biographical use. It 
 is the latest known of those written to Hayley, and is written, 
 as will be seen, in a softened mood of Christmas kindness after 
 Blake had buried all old resentments and complaints, and 
 when he looked back with exaggerated tenderness from the 
 worries of London, " the city of assassinations," on the quiet 
 fields of Felpham, and saw that Hayley had been, after all, 
 more of a spiritual friend than he had intended or appeared 
 to be. The whole friendship turned into suspicion and enmity 
 through Cromek before another Christmas had gone : 
 
 To WUliam Hayley, Esq., 
 
 Felpham, near Chichester, 
 Sussex. 
 Dear Sir — I cannot omit to return you my Sincere and Grateful 
 Acknowledgments for the kind Reception you have given to my New 
 Projected Work. It bids fair to set me above the difficulties I have 
 hitherto encountered. [Was this Bkir's Grave ?] But my fate has been 
 so uncommon that I expect Nothing. I was alive and in health with 
 the same Talents I now have all the time of Brydells, Macklins, 
 Bowyers, and Other Great Works. I was known to them and looked 
 on them as incapable of Employment in those works. It may turn out 
 so again, notwimstanding appearances ; I am prepared for it, but at the 
 same time sincerely grateful to those whose kindness and good opinion 
 
250 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 has supported me through all, hitherto. You, my dear sir, are out! 
 who has my Particular Gratitude, having conducted me through Three 
 that would have been the Darkest years that ever Mortal suffered, 
 which were rendered through your means a Mild and Pleasant Slumber. 
 I speak of Spiritual Things, not of Natural, of things known only to 
 myself and the Spirits Good and Evil, but Not known to Men on 
 Earth. It is the passage through these Three Years that has brought 
 me to my Present State, and I Icnow that if I had not been with you 
 I must have Perished. Those Dangers are now passed and I can see 
 them beneath my feet. It will not be long before I shall be able to 
 present the full history of my spiritual sufferings to dwellers upon 
 Earth and of the Spiritual Victories obtained for me by my Friends. 
 Excuse this Effusion of the Spirit from One who cares little for this 
 World which passes away, whose happiness is Secure in Jesus our Lord, 
 and who looks for suffering until the time of complete deliverance. In 
 the meanwhile I am kept Happy as I used to be because I throw Myself 
 and all that I have on our Saviour's Divine Providence. what 
 Wonders are the Children of Men ! Would to God that they would 
 consider it — that they would consider their Spiritual Life regardless of 
 that faint Shadow called Natural Life, and that they would Promote 
 Each other's Spiritual labours. Each according to his Rank, and that 
 they would know that Eeceiving a Prophet as a Prophet is a Duty 
 which, if omitted, is more Severely Avenged than Every Sin and 
 Wickedness beside. It is the Greatest of Crimes to Depress True Art 
 and Science. I know that those who are dead from the Earth, and 
 who mocked at and Despised the Meekness of True Art (and such 
 I find have been the situation of our Beautiful and Affectionate 
 Ballads), I know that such Mockers are Most Severely Punished in 
 Eternity. I know it, for I see it and dare not help. 'The Mocker of 
 Art is the Mocker of Jesus. Let us go on, my Dear Sir, following His 
 Cross. Let us take it up daily. Persisting in Spirit Labours and 
 the Use of that Talent which it is Death to Bury, and of that Spirit 
 to which we are called. 
 
 Pray Present my sincerest thanks to our Good Paulina, whose Kind- 
 ness to Me shall receive recompense in the presence of Jesus. Present 
 also my thanks to the generous Seagrave, in whose debt I have been 
 too long, but perceive that I shall be able to settle with him soon what 
 is between us. I have delivered to Mr. Saunders the 3 works of 
 Romney, as Mrs. Lambert (said) to me you wished to have them. A 
 very few touches will finish the Shipwreck. Those few I have added 
 upon a Proof before I parted with the Picture. It is a Print that 
 I feel proud of on a New inspection. Wishing you and all friends 
 in Surrey a Merry and Happy Christmas. — I remain. Ever Your 
 Affectionate 
 
 Will Blake and his Wife Catherine Blake. 
 
 South Molton Street, 
 
 December 11th, 1805. 
 
 This closes the Hayley and the Flaxman friendship. 
 Blake, with a burst of fury, decided that they were not 
 friends at all, since they had been, while pretending to 
 patronise him, quietly conspiring to reduce his prices, when 
 he was looking twice at each mouthful of bread that he ate. 
 
CROMEK: 251 
 
 Until we have understood this, the story of Jerusalem must 
 wait, though Gilchrist takes it at this point, and produces an 
 unfortunate chapter, beginning with a repetition of the old 
 error that Jerusalem was written at Felpham, and going on 
 to treat of Milton, giving extracts among which are included 
 the Mnes which tell us that Blake was especially given his 
 cottage at Felpham that he might write this poem there. 
 Gilchrist also quietly describes Milton as a poem in two books. 
 Perhaps he never saw the title-page of the copy now in 
 the British Museum where Blake has engraved in Arabic 
 numerals the number twelve — " 12 books." The numerals 
 are half-an-inch in height, and cannot be mistaken. 
 
 The trouble that led to the division between Hayley and 
 Flaxman and Blake had its sources in what was said and done 
 as far back as the year of Blake's first coming to Felpham. 
 Flaxman, who introduced him, was also consulted by Hayley 
 about patronising Caroline Watson. He wrote to Hayley 
 about this on June 18, 1800 ; he is cautious, and not at all 
 desirous to seem to be a go-between where a woman is con- 
 cerned — Hayley being a man of gallantry. It might be 
 unpleasant afterwards. Flaxman is Greek enough to 
 remember Pandarus. 
 
 Dbak and Kind Feibnd — Notwithstanding your apparent deter- 
 mination and reasons given for having the drawing engraved by the 
 lady you have mentioned, I cannot communicate the commission until 
 I have given my reasons for delay. I, like you, delight in paying a 
 large portion of preference and respect to female talent. But if I am 
 to execute a commission for a friend it ought to be done faithfully, with 
 a view to his satisfaction and advantage, — at least not to his hurt, and 
 really I have seen two children's heads, with the above lady's name, 
 lately copied from a picture by Sir William Beechey, but so miserably 
 executed that a similar engraving instead of being a decoration would 
 he a blemish to your book. I am very sure that the fault could not be 
 in the pictures, for the painter is a man of great merit. If after this 
 information you still continue in the same resolution as at first I will 
 deliver your commission, but there my interference must cease, and all 
 further communication must be between the engraver and yourself, 
 because I foresee that the conclusion of such an engagement must be 
 unsatisfactory to all parties concerned. 
 
 From which we see again how habitually Hayley was 
 not only ready to be useful to his friends, but to make them 
 useful also, and that Flaxman knew his way of sending 
 people on errands. Hayley, however, is determined to 
 employ Caroline Watson, and does so. But it is not until 
 April 25, 1805, that Blake seems to know about it. He then 
 learns that she is to do a head of Cowper that he has aheady 
 
252 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 done, and bakes this affront quite impersonally, without 
 resentment, looking at it altogether in the artistic spirit, — 
 for he then writes : 
 
 The idea of seeing an engraving of Cowper by Caroline Wafson is, I 
 assure you, a pleasing one to me. It will be highly gratifjjing to see 
 another copy by another hand, and not only gratifying but improving, 
 which is much better. 
 
 Two more sentences from this letter may be added — one to 
 show Blake's austere renunciation of popular amusements at 
 this busy time, and his resistance of fashionable enthusiasm, 
 the other to indicate how high FuseH and Flaxman stood 
 then in the world of art : 
 
 The town is mad. Young Rosoius (Master Betty), like all prodigies, 
 is the talk of everybody. I have not seen him, and perhaps never 
 may. I have no curiosity to see him, as I well know what is within 
 the compass of a boy of fourteen ; and as to real acting, it is, like 
 historical painting, no boy's work. 
 
 Fuseli is made Master of the Royal Academy. Banks the sculptor 
 is gone to his eternal home. I have heard that Flaxman means to 
 give a lecture on sculpture at the Royal Academy on the occasion of 
 Banks's death. He died at the age of seventy-five of a paralytic 
 stroke, and I conceive that Flaxman stands without a competitor in 
 sculpture. 
 
 Flaxman had already introduced to Hayley a man who 
 was to be one of Blake's bitterest aversions. This was 
 Oromek, who had been educated as an engraver, but who had 
 become a publisher. He is now very well known through 
 Blake, though he once boasted that Blake was hardly known 
 at all except through him. He was, as Gilchrist tells us, a 
 native of Hull, had been a pupil of Bartolozzi, and had 
 engraved many plates for books after Stothard. He found 
 that engraving did not suit his health, and, with little or no 
 capital, he decided to begin publishing. He knew Blake, it 
 may be inferred, through Stothard, to whom Blake had been 
 introduced many years before, in his apprentice days, by 
 Trotter, to whom he had given lessons. Trotter was an 
 engraver who used to draw patterns for calico-printers. He 
 had also engraved a plate or two after Stothard. It is 
 Stothard from whom we learn that the engraving made 
 of the " Portrait of Queen Philippa from her Monument," 
 which he spoke highly of long afterwards when hearing of 
 Blake's death, was really Blake's, though it bears beneath it 
 the signature of Blake's master, Basire. 
 
 Cromek, knowing of the success of the Young's Night 
 
ir. ishi'.c u'l. 
 
 L. Sdiiavoi.cUi, sculij. 
 
 Death's Door. 
 From Blait's Grave. 
 
 'Tis but a Tii.^ht, a long ami mooiilfss night,, 
 Wt make the grave our bed, an*! then are gone 1 
 
CEOMEK 253 
 
 Thoughts, and probably also knowing what a very small sum 
 Blake had received for the drawings he made and engraved 
 for this, decided to risk a few pounds in buying fro^i him 
 some designs to Blair's Chave, on the understanding that 
 Blake should also be commissioned to engrave them. In 
 order to make quite sure of being at no loss, he issued a 
 prospectus, from which it appears that Blake was to do the en- 
 graving, but from which it does not appear that it was precisely 
 on account of this that only twenty guineas was paid for the 
 twelve original drawings. The prospectus contains a good 
 many important names of people who guarantee that sub- 
 scribers will find the illustrations to be of high quality. 
 Fuseli is one, Malkin is another ; there were nearly a dozen 
 Academicians, including the President. 
 
 Safe under the protection of these, Cromek threw over 
 Blake and gave the engraving of the work to Schiavonetti, 
 who could handle the human figure, as he had shown by his 
 plate of the picture whose draughtsmanship divides modern 
 from mediaeval art, Michael Angelo's Cartoon of Pisa, the 
 subject of which, as is well known, was the sudden call to 
 arms of a detachment engaged in bathing. The nude forms 
 of the young men scrambling to shore were the first since 
 classic days to be done gracefully, strongly, and naturally, 
 and remain the standard of masculine beauty. The original 
 cartoon, as will be remembered, was destroyed, probably 
 through Florentine jealousy, during Michael Angelo's life- 
 time. 
 
 Schiavonetti could therefore do justice — it is said that he 
 did the least little bit more than justice — to Blake. It is very 
 difficult, as the present writer knows, having produced the 
 lithographs for the Quaritch edition, to copy Blake without 
 improving him the least bit in the world. He is so fine 
 where he is good, and his odd little errors are so easy to 
 remove, that it requires Indian fortitude to refrain from 
 abolishing them as the hand reaches first one and then 
 another. 
 
 Blake, however, felt himself cheated. Cromek pleaded that 
 he had worked hard for Blake's reputation, had introduced 
 him to more patrons than he could have reached otherwise, and, 
 admitting that the drawings might " now " (he writes this in 
 May 1807) be worth sixty guineas, he offers to return them 
 if Blake can obtain that sum for them. Cromek is to 
 collect the £60 so promised, and will take from it the £20 
 he has already paid for the drawings, handing over the £40 
 
254 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 to Blake. The offer was, if not a generous one, by no means 
 unhandsome. Cromek had worked to obtain recognition for 
 Blake — though it is true that he had been obliged to do so, that 
 he might not fail in his own venture. Blake is now to work 
 to use that recognition so as to get more money for himself 
 since that is what he demands, and Cromek, as a reward for 
 allowing him to get double pay in the end, namely, £40 
 instead of £20, is to deduct the £20 he has already given 
 from the gross £60, and so have the use of the draw- 
 ings for nothing. He does not even propose any safeguard 
 to prevent Blake re-engraving them himself and so cutting 
 out his Schiavonetti plates from public favour. He also was 
 a poor man, and what makes this offer the more creditable 
 to him is that Blake had written him a most insulting letter, 
 charging him with imposition and demanding four guineas 
 for a vignette which was to go with his verses of dedication 
 to the Queen. 
 
 Cromek good-naturedly replies to this demand about the 
 vignette, that so far as the honour of the dedication is 
 concerned, it is Blake himself who will profit by it, and that 
 as a drawing the sketch is not worth the money, and he 
 returns it. "With regard to the charge of imposition, he 
 replies in the same half-bantering and quite friendly vein in 
 a way that shows that Blake has been bragging to him, as he 
 used to brag to Mr. Butts, about his equality to the old 
 masters, and with most creditable moderation he refrains 
 from turning back the charge of imposition upon Blake on 
 the strength of this. The letter is very long, but that part, 
 for Cromek's sake, is worth quoting : 
 
 You charge me with imposing on you. Upon my honour, I have no 
 recollection of anything of the kind. If the world and I were to settle 
 accounts to-morrow, I do assure you the balance would be considerably 
 in my favour. In this respect I am more sinned against than sinning, 
 but if I cannot recollect any instances wherein I have imposed on you, 
 several present themselves in which I have imposed on myself. Take 
 two or three that press upon me. 
 
 When first I called on you I found you without reputation; I 
 imposed on myself the labour — and an herculean one it has been — to 
 create and establish a reputation for you. I say the labour was 
 herculean because I had not only [? the public] to contend with, but I 
 had to battle with a man who had pre-determined not to be saved. 
 What public reputation you • have — the reputation of eccentricity 
 excepted — I have acquired for you ; and I can honestly and conscien- 
 tiously assert that if you had laboured through life for yourself as 
 zealously and as earnestly as I have done for you, your reputation as 
 an artist would not only have been enviable, but it would have put it 
 out of the power of an individual so obscure as myself either to add to 
 
CEOMEK 255 
 
 or take from it. / also imposed on myself when I believed, wliat you 
 have so often told me, that your works were equal, nay, superior, to a 
 Raphael or to a Michael Angelo. Unfortunately for me, as a publisher, 
 the public awoke me from this state of stupor, this mental delusion. 
 That public is willing to give you credit for what real talent is to 
 be found in your productions, but for no more. 
 
 Just as a little North Country shrewdness is perhaps to be 
 found in the bargain that he suggests about the sale of the 
 drawings by Blake after the book is published — not an 
 unfair shrewdness at all — so a httle North Country pride 
 may be detected in his good-nature — a well-justified pride 
 — that peeps through this easy-going style of commercial- 
 room banter. It would not have been difficult to put the 
 same facts in an offensive manner ; Blake himself, when not 
 affectionately polite, was ferociously offensive. The sincerity 
 of aU this passage is further vouched for by the accidental 
 absence of some such words as the public from one of the 
 sentences, a deficiency which, as will be noticed, leaves it 
 broken. 
 
 But Blake, after posing as a money -hater (we must 
 remember that he himself told Crabb Eobinson, later, that he 
 used to turn pale when money was offered him), has suddenly 
 begun to wrangle abusively for more pay. 
 
 Cromek's smiling reproof to him goes on (the italics 
 are his) : 
 
 I have imposed on myself yet more grossly in believing you to be 
 one altogether abstracted from this world, holding converse with the 
 world of spirits ! simple, unoffending, a combination of the serpent and 
 the dove. I really blush when I reflect how I have been cheated in 
 this respect. The most effectual way of benefiting a designer whose 
 aim is general patronage is to bring his designs before the public 
 through the medium of engraving. Your drawings have had the 
 good fortune to be engraved by one of the first artists in Europe, and 
 the specimens already shown have produced you orders that, I verily 
 believe, you would not otherwise have received. [Here he probably 
 refers to the engravings done for Dr. Malkin in a book published the 
 following year.] Herein I have been gratified, for I was determined 
 to bring you food as well as reputation, though from your late 
 conduct I have some reason to embrace your wild opinion, that to 
 manage genius and to oblige it to produce good things it is absolutely 
 necessary to starve it. [This is an error. It was not Blake's opinion 
 at all. He has written and supported a contrary view. But he may 
 have said in some torrent of words that people, judging by their 
 conduct, seem to think many things about art, that this is necessary among 
 them, and that there may have been such a rush of eloquence between 
 the seem to think and this part of their mistakes that Cromek may have 
 taken it for a " wild opinion " of Blake's own. Nothing here in the 
 letter suggests either d/isingenuousness or sarcasm.] Indeed (my con- 
 
256 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 fidence that I may adopt) this opinion is considerably heightened by 
 the recollection that your best work — the illustrations of The Grave — 
 was produced when you and Mrs. Blake were reduced so low as to live 
 on half-a-guinea a week. 
 
 [Blake had lately been reduced to one of his fits of deep melancholy 
 at this time, as he was just before he left Hercules Buildings for Felpham, 
 by seeing how his narrow circumstances crippled his artistic production 
 and laid him open not only to the distraction of drudgery, but to 
 annoyance, supercilious treatment, and even hunger. We find four 
 months before the date of this letter of Cromek'.s — at the cold period of 
 the year to which it referred, when poetry is least felt and poverty 
 most — the following note in Blake's book, placed there by himself, it 
 would seem, in memory of five hours of a winter afternoon, in which 
 daylight and hope failed liim together : — " Tuesday, Jan. 7, 1807. — 
 Between two and seven in the evening : Despair."] 
 
 Before I conclude this letter it will be neceasary to remark (that) 
 when I gave you the order for the drawings from the poem of The 
 Grave, I paid you for them more than I could afford ; more in pro- 
 portion than you were in the habit of receiving, and what you were 
 perfectly satisfied with, though I must do you the justice to confess, 
 much less than I think is their real value. 
 
 Once more the oversight of leaving out a few words, here 
 restored in parentheses, shows an attempt at self-control, and 
 a genuine feeling on the part of the writer, most of whose sen- 
 tences are of the elaborately balanced and well-chosen kind that 
 was not yet considered too good for ordinary correspondence. 
 
 The way in which Cromek twice goes out of his way to 
 acknowledge Blake's talent in this letter, advising him to 
 show a little more commercial faculty in making it worth 
 money if he wishes to be independent, cannot be considered 
 as at all a customary and natural way of answering a letter 
 in which a charge of imposition has been brought. How 
 many business men would do as much now, or make so good 
 an offer as that with which the letter proceeds ? 
 
 At the close, after the offer, as already described, the letter 
 refers to a picture of the Canterbury Pilgrims. This has a 
 story of its own, which must be told first. But, knowing 
 Blake, we can hardly expect him to have received this letter 
 in the spirit in which it was written. Even Gilchrist, who 
 was not personally concerned at all, falls into so Blakean a 
 wrath over it that he says : " It is one thing to read such a 
 letter fifty years after it was written, though one can hardly 
 do so without indignation ; another to have had to receive 
 and digest its low affronts." 
 
 He also rakes up against Cromek a bit of mere suspicion, 
 and practically charges him with having at another time 
 stolen an autograph from Sir Walter Scott. It has been 
 
TiiF, Descent of Man into the Vale of Deaih. 
 
 From Blair's Grace. 
 
 'Tis Iiure all meet." 
 
CEOMEK 257 
 
 necessary to put the case from Cromek's side a little, because 
 Gilchrist, when relating it, ill-treats Cromek all through, 
 contradicting Allan Cunningham also, who gives testimony 
 that the price Cromek gave for the drawings, " though small, 
 was more," as he admits, "than Blake was accustomed to 
 receive." It was more than he received for coloured drawings 
 for Young's Night Thoughts. This was the last important 
 work for which he had made designs at all. Cromek rightly 
 looks on the fact that he became Blake's commercial traveller 
 as being part payment. With regard to Blake's prices, we 
 possess this list. It is part of a biU or account addressed 
 to Mr. Butts, May 12, 1805 : 
 
 Twelve drawings, viz. : — 1. Famine. 2. War. 3. Moses striking 
 the Eoek. 4. Ezekiel's Wheels. 5. Christ girding Himself with 
 Strength. 6. Four-and-twenty Elders. 7. Christ baptizing. 8. Samson 
 breaking his bonds. 9. Samson subdued. 10. Noah and Rainbow 
 11. Wise and Foolish Virgins. 12. " Hell beneath is moved for thee." 
 — £12 : 12s. 
 
 These are not inferior, whether as inventions or as 
 pieces of art -labour, taken altogether, to the Blair's Grave 
 drawings. Some would seem to be more mannered, but 
 some are more startling and effective, and, with regard 
 to the feeble nervous fault called " manner," this was removed 
 by Schiavonetti to a considerable extent in the Grave drawings 
 before they came to our sight. 
 
 Gilchrist was therefore wrong and Cromek right in the 
 actual statement. Gilchrist also says that Cromek "jockeyed 
 Blake out of his copyright." 
 
 But " hungry Cromek," as he calls him — and the name, an 
 apology in itself, is worth considering — was, " with little or no 
 capital," making a first venture at publication, and saw, just 
 in time, that if he allowed Blake to engrave his own work, 
 the venture would be a failure. He had already paid more 
 for the drawings than Butt used to pay at the time for un- 
 coloured work, and to save himself from failure, and Blake 
 from self-destruction, he personally told Blake by word of 
 mouth that on second thoughts he could not carry out the 
 original intention of letting him engrave his own work. He 
 did not do this in secrecy or behind his back, and he gave 
 his reasons for it. Nothing else can be read in that sentence 
 of his letter which describes him as doing battle with a man 
 who was pre-determined not to be served. The copyright he 
 simply left to Blake, and when the drawings were resold 
 they could have been re-engraved, 
 
 s 
 
258 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 The upshot of the transaction is therefore all in Cromek's 
 favour, and posterity owes him some reparation for the treat- 
 ment which he has received at the hands of Gilchrist. 
 
 But if we follow Blake's mind — and it is ourpresent business 
 to do so — we not only rage against Cromek, but we discover 
 that what he was doing was very hke what Hayley did over 
 the Cowper portrait frontispiece, and that his boasting of 
 his obtaining patronage for the designer was of a piece with 
 Hayley's salve to his own conscience, the presenting to him 
 what turned out to be the worthless copyright of some 
 "insipid" ballads, which he no longer felt compelled by 
 gratitude to call "beautiful and affectionate." The exclamation 
 on p. 30 of Milton, " How wide and impassable the gulf between 
 simplicity and insipidity ! " is not part of its original MS., 
 and evidently refers to them. Flaxman was guilty also of 
 treachery — so it seemed now to Blake, because of both Caroline 
 Watson and Cromek; and in the midst of his labours and 
 hunger, just when he was in the " heaven of gratitude and 
 affection," he suddenly found aU his friends turned to enemies. 
 Had there been the slightest taint of insane tendency in Blake, 
 his mind might really have given way. 
 
 It is not probable that he ever had the comfort of seeing 
 the letter from Flaxman (here printed for the first time) 
 urging Hayley to hesitate about giving the engraving that 
 had been promised to him to Caroline Watson. He probably 
 only learned that Flaxman had (as his letter promises to do 
 if it be insisted on) "communicated the commission." He 
 certainly must have learned that Flaxman consulted Cromek 
 on the subject. Cromek was not in the least likely to have 
 concealed the honour that was done him. Flaxman was a 
 man in high position. The quotation given above from his 
 letter to Hayley, of June 18, 1800 (see above, page 251), 
 stopped at the close of a paragraph that ended with the words, 
 " unsatisfactory to all parties concerned." The letter goes on 
 from this point : 
 
 The engraver mentioned in my last as having been casually con- 
 sulted is Mr. Cromak {dc), with whom, I believe, you have no acquaint- 
 ance. He has engraved several pictures and drawings of Stomard's, 
 which in beauty exceed any other prints from that artist's works ; and 
 I am very sure that he would engrave in strokes the man on horseback 
 saving the people in the shipwreck, or any other coloured picture for 
 your book, in very great perfection. In sketches, outlines, or etchings 
 others might succeed as well as him. I have sent you a specimen of 
 his work, by no means one of his best, but it was one of the few he had 
 done that would go into the compass of a letter, Mr, Cromak (sic) says 
 
CROMEK 259 
 
 he could get the drawing you sent engraved by a friend as well as it 
 could he done for 25 guineas. Pray do me the justice to believe that 
 what I have mentioned on this subject has no other object than the 
 interest of your publication. Mr. Cromak (sic) is a man of independent 
 spirit, and is very handsomely employed, as he well deserves. [Clearly 
 Hayley has hinted to Flaxman that he has foisted Blake on him as a 
 recommendable engraver when he was a hopeless and annoying genius, 
 lovable at first, intolerable afterwards, who could only be employed, if 
 at aU, as an act of charity.] One of the heads painted by Eomney in 
 Rome of a man with a flattened nose, a beard, and black hair, is a 
 portrait of a dwarf called "Baiooco" from begging for Baioccs or 
 half-pence. I remember his person perfectly well. His whole height 
 was about 3 ft. or 3 ft. 2 ins. 
 
 I know, on the whole, little of our valued friend Eomney, but what 
 I know I will cheerfully communicate, with a few remarks on the 
 powers and qualities which I valued so much in him both as an artist 
 and a friend. 
 
 Nancy unites with me in warmest wishes for the happiness and 
 prosperity of our Dear Bard, and I have the honour to remain, your much 
 obliged and affectionate, J. Flaxman. 
 
 ■/me 18, 1804, Buckingham Street. 
 
 Hayley is employing his friends as usual. Even staid 
 Flaxman has to go out and " consult casually " other people 
 about his engravings, as well as to write him long weary 
 letters about his biography of Eomney. After this Hayley 
 seems to have used against Flaxman, in defence of Caroline 
 Watson, some expressions in Blake's letter of May 24, which 
 has been already passingly referred to. The thread of Blake's 
 attempts to negotiate for Hayley the direction of the proposed 
 magazine, as well as the double scale of payment for contri- 
 butions, has not been followed here all through. It came to 
 nothing, but the disiaterested labour for it that Blake gave 
 was considerable. But for the fact that, as Gilchrist mentions, 
 Hayley never again caught the attention of the public after 
 his Life of Cowper, there might have been some tangible 
 result which would have left him under considerable financial 
 obligations to Blake. 
 
 It was long ago, when he was urging Hayley to have his 
 work printed in Chichester, that Blake said at the close of 
 this letter'(of May 23, 1804) : 
 
 I venture to give it as my settled opinion that if you suffer yourself 
 to be printed in London you will be cheated in every way ; but, how- 
 ever, as some little excuse (for Johnson who, by implication, is one of 
 the cheats), I must say that in London every calumny and falsehood 
 uttered against another of the same trade is thought fair play. 
 Engravers, painters, statuaries, printers, poets, we are not in a field of 
 battle but in a City of Assassinations, 
 
260 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 In Jerusalem, page 91, line 11 : 
 
 He wlio envies or calumniates, which is murdei' and cruelty, 
 MurdeiB the Holy One. 
 
 The whole context of the ninety-first page should be read 
 with this. In Milton also, in the extra page 32, we read : 
 
 The idiot reasoner laughs at the Man of Imagination 
 
 And from laughter proceeds to murder by undervaluing calumny. 
 
 Flaxman's view of such expressions is found in a letter 
 dated August 2, 1804, to Hayley, which begins about a 
 Cupid and Psyche by Romney and goes on, evidently to 
 remove from Hayley's mind a possible suspicion that Cromek 
 was not recommended to him as a good engraver, but in order 
 to shift a charitable burden from Flaxman's own shoulders, 
 or perhaps that he was going to have a commission for doing 
 so, and was therefore nothing less than a paid tout : 
 
 . . . And, above all, I beg you will remember that I had no motive 
 of interest in the mention of Mr. Cromek, for he is abundantly employed 
 and soxight after, and unless you think such engraving as (that of) the 
 specimens he sent will be creditable to your book, you will do wi-ong to 
 employ him. 
 
 Concerning Caroline Watson's engraving, I should have acted more 
 judiciously if I had desired you to see her last works for the education 
 of your own judgement, rather than have sent any opinion of my own. 
 I confess my own want of taste in (dc) Richardson's portrait, for though 
 it is delicately engraved it don't come up to my idea of Highmore's 
 portraits. Notwithstanding (this) if you are inclined to have a plate 
 engraved by this artist, the only sentiment I can feel on the occasion 
 will be satisfaction at seeing an ingenious lady engaged in a respectable 
 employment. This is the only kind of "atonement" which seems 
 reqtiisite for aii opinion delivered upon works publicly exhibited. 
 
 It is here, of course, that we gather that Hayley has 
 evidently been taking up arms for CaroKne Watson in a 
 knight-errant spirit, and hacking at Flaxman with swords 
 taken from Blake's armoury, for the letter goes on : 
 
 With respect to Blake's remark upon " assassinations," I suppose he 
 may have been acquainted with wretches capable of such practices, but 
 I desire it may be understood that I am not one of them, and though I 
 do not deal in "barbarous stilettoes" myself (Hayley has been im- 
 proving on Blake while quoting him), I am willing to acknowledge the 
 benevolence and soundness of Blake's general observations, as well as 
 the point and keenness with which it was applied : but this was only 
 a poetic jev, d' esprit which neither did, nor intended to do, harm. 
 
 So Flaxman puts aside Hayley's foolish gallantry and 
 petulant attempt to sow mischief between him and Blake. 
 
CROMEK 261 
 
 But it must have rankled. The letter goes on with Olympian 
 calm: 
 
 Now to serious business. I must shortly go once or twice to 
 Winchester and Cambridge. Where I shall go, how long I shall stay, 
 or when return I do not know, but in case you should have reason to 
 consult Mr. Cromak {dc) in the meantime, who is gone to Yorkshire 
 for six weeks or a month, I have sent you his address, No. 37 Charles 
 Street, opposite the New river head, Tottenham Court Eoad. 
 
 Nancy unites with me in kindest wishes, and I have the honour to 
 remain, your much obliged and affectionate, John Flaxman. 
 
 It is clear that if we are to use the French maxim, 
 Cherchez la femme, when trying to understand the estrange- 
 ment that ended Blake's affection for Hayley, we must seek 
 her in Caroline Watson — not, as Mr. W. M. Eossetti main- 
 tained, in Mrs. Blake. Hayley's attempt to "murder the 
 Holy One " in Blake, " by undervaluing calumny," is to be 
 traced from Caroline, through Flaxman (of whose objection 
 to her, of course, no one ever dreamed of telling Blake) 
 and through Cromek (whom Flaxman brought on the scene 
 as her rival, not Blake's) to Leigh Hunt and the " Examiners," 
 and it unites all these together at last, as we shall presently 
 see. 
 
 Of course, Blake did not find any one to buy his drawings 
 for £60. He was always the worst of bargainers.. It was a 
 serious professional loss to him to have to make a bargain at 
 all, for the nervousness into which he fell when his pride was 
 sufi'ering tmder any attempt to do business would make him 
 utterly incapable of artistic work, for this (as the public 
 never realises) must be done with the nerves as certainly as 
 the music of a piano is produced by its wires. If these are 
 jangled, the best tuners may tune and the best pianist may 
 finger as much in vain as the best intellectual portion of 
 a man's genius may give directions and suggest subjects 
 to his artistic portion, which is no longer able to give them 
 forth as works of art. Blake was not bragging but telling 
 the plainest truth when he said, as we learn from Allan 
 Cunningham, "Were I to love money, I should lose all power 
 of thought. Desire of gain deadens the genius of man. My 
 business is not to gather gold, but to make glorious shapes, 
 expressing God-like sentiments." 
 
 To this period of Blake's life, though, it is to be feared, not 
 to this period only, may be referred the well-known anecdote 
 that tells how Mrs. Blake found him so irritable when she men- 
 tioned that there was no more money, — exclaiming, "Damn the 
 
262 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 money! It's always the money!" that she would silently 
 place on the table all the food there was in the cupboard 
 until only empty dishes could be served up. 
 
 Then Blake would leave the poetry that we all cherish 
 now, and go back to the engraved plates of other people's 
 designs that, but for the name that his poetry has left, would 
 now be waste-paper. Bread earned by labour that is not 
 "above payment" is always paid in fairy's gold, of which 
 tradition says that, however bright and authentic it may look 
 to-day, it will be a heap of dead leaves to-morrow. 
 
CHAPTEE XXIV 
 
 "JOSTLING IN THE STREET" 
 
 Blake's next affliction, and the cause of an anger that kept 
 him in a more or less constant state of wrath for years, was 
 in connection with a drawing representing Chaucer's Ganter- 
 lury Pilgrims, which he seems to have made at Felpham, where 
 he could see and ride horses, as his grateful message to Miss 
 Poole about " Bruno " shows, though he never learned to draw 
 a horse even decently. In Pelpham also he could, and did, read 
 and meditate upon Chaucer. Cromek saw this sketch in South 
 Molton Street, and Kked it. He saw business in it, and 
 (Gilchrist says) " wanted to secure a finished drawing from 
 it for the purpose of having it engraved, without employing 
 Blake to do so, just as he had served him over the designs to 
 the Orave, as I learn from other sources on sifting the 
 matter." We now know how touchy Blake was in his 
 dealings with Cromek, and what good cause Cromek had to 
 approach him cautiously if he would escape the accusation of 
 imposture. Gilchrist continues, "but Blake was not to be 
 taken in a second time," without adding that Cromek was not 
 to be caught promising the work of engraving to a man whom 
 he now knew not to be able to obtain a sale for his prints, as 
 the Hayley Ballads had shown him. 
 
 "But as Blake understood the matter, he received a 
 commission, tacit or express, from Cromek to execute the 
 design." The words are Gilchrist's. The italics are ours. 
 One can guess the conversation : " An admirable drawing you 
 have there, Mr. Blake ! Could I not persuade you to carry it 
 a httle further ? I should like to see an engraving of that. I 
 think it would pay." 
 
 While speaking aloud he was wondering to himself who 
 would be the best man to use for engraving such a subject. 
 That Blake had a sole and exclusive right to make designs 
 from Chaucer, and that it was Cromek's duty to keep secret 
 
 263 
 
264 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 a drawing that Blake left about loose where any one in the 
 world might see it and talk of it, would be the last ideas to 
 recommend themselves to a tradesman, though Cromek 
 has been called many hard names for not acting as though 
 it were incumbent upon him to understand the difference 
 between a studio and a shop. 
 
 Does a man, by making a sketch on a theme that has been 
 before his country for several hundred years, earn a right to 
 complain if any other man uses the same subject ? Does 
 such a sketch, hung on a wall or left on his table or in his 
 open portfolio, become a confidential document that no one is 
 to speak of lest the artist should lose some possible advantage 
 which might be obtained from it, but which he is taking no 
 steps to obtain ? An injured man, or any man who lets 
 opportunity slip, will have his own view, but evidently there 
 is a good deal to be said on both sides, and the Blake view of 
 this, as of any subject that touched either himself or any 
 friend of his personally, was not in the least likely to be an im- 
 partial view. Infected with Blake's wrath, the world has been 
 very hard on Cromek and on Stothard. It was to Stothard 
 that Cromek seems to have spoken next of the subject ; not 
 as violating a confidence. There seems no reason to suppose 
 that Blake himself was at all likely to have kept the sketch 
 secret from Stothard. In the end, Stothard painted the 
 picture now in our National Gallery, and more than one 
 engraver laboured on a plate which gave an admirable and 
 even a slightly flattered rendering of it. Blake woxild have 
 been altogether incapable of doing anything of the kind. 
 
 But he attacked the subject with enthusiasm, believing it 
 to be his own, and not thinking that Cromek was likely to 
 speak about it to any one else. In fact, it did not occur to 
 him that Cromek had any interest in doing so. He thought 
 himself supreme in every department of art. 
 
 Even when Blake knew that Stothard was painting a 
 Canterbury Pilgrims, he did not at once take alarm, or see 
 any direct rivalry in this. He called on Stothard, saw him 
 at work, and spoke with his usual urbanity, politely praising 
 anything that he could praise in the work. This afterwards 
 made him look Hke a hypocrite. Stothard does not seem to 
 have mentioned that he was painting for Cromek. This after- 
 wards made Stothard look hke a false friend. Two artists 
 chatting over the technique of a picture are the last men 
 in the world to turn aside the thread of their conversation 
 to bring in the name of the business man who is to see to 
 
"JOSTLING IN THE STEEET" 265 
 
 the selUug of the work when conaplete. Neither should have 
 accused the other of treacherous reticence. 
 
 Stothard may possibly have known that a paper or pro- 
 spectus was already being circulated by Blake's friends to 
 obtain him subscriptions for an engraving of Chaucer's 
 Ganterhv/ry Pilgrims, but he would probably not have 
 mentioned it, even if he knew of it. Blake had engraved 
 his own designs to Young's Night Thoughts in 1797. Stothard 
 had been commissioned to illustrate the same poem, and his 
 work had been produced in 1802, while Blake was at Eelpham. 
 No quarrel had occurred. No one had complained. The same 
 kind of thing might be about to happen again. 
 
 But Blake was in a different mood now, and did not seem to 
 himself a Michael Angelo with a Medici behind him. He 
 wanted every penny for the production of his own prophetic 
 books. He starved for them, and would not allow any one to 
 take away his chances of obtaining money to spend over them 
 by cutting the ground from under his feet when he was 
 attempting to fight for popularity with the kind of picture 
 that artists call a " pot-boiler." 
 
 In May 1807 Stothard's Canterlury Pilgrims was 
 exhibited, and it must have been then that Blake made 
 against Cromek the virulent accusation of imposture to 
 which we have read Cromek's reply. The letter was not 
 quoted to the end. Blake has been writing to him in the 
 very words of the subsequently published Descriptive 
 Catalogue about Stothard's picture. After the offer about 
 the Grave drawings and their possible sale by Blake for sixty 
 guineas, the letter concludes (the italics are Cromek's) : 
 
 I will not detain you more than one minute. Why did you 
 furiously rage at the success of the little picture of The Pilgrimage ? 
 Three thousand people have now seen U and have approved of it. 
 Believe me yours is the voice of one cryi/ng in the wilderness. 
 
 You may say the subject is low, and contemptihly treated. For his 
 excellent mode of treating the subject the poet has been admired for 
 the last 400 years ; the poor painter has not yet the advantage of 
 antiquity on his side, therefore with some people an apology may be 
 necessary for him. The conclusion of one of Squire Simkin's letters 
 to his mother in the Bath Guide will afford one. He speaks greatly 
 to the purpose — 
 
 I very well know, 
 , Both my subject and verse is (sic) exceedingly low ; 
 But if any great critic finds fault with my letter, 
 He has nothing to do but to send you a better. 
 
 With much respect for your Talents, I remain, Sir, your real friend 
 and well-wisher, R. H. Cromek. 
 
266 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 This is what Gilchrist calls the letter of " low affronts. 
 Cromek would have been very much surprised had he known 
 that posterity would expect him to treat Blake with defer- 
 ence and veneration. He treated him (under much provoca- 
 tion) with respect and good nature and substantial fairness, 
 and even his last hint — that Blake's best retort could be 
 made with the pencil — he veils under a playful quotation 
 rather than seem to be betrayed into acrimony by making 
 the suggestion as from himself. So, on the whole, Cromek 
 comes out of the business not such an unmitigated villain. 
 
 But it would be as unfair to Blake as Gilchrist is to 
 Cromek if we expected Blake to be aware that he was not ill- 
 treated. His pride was, as we remember, " terrific " when he 
 was " exalted," and envy was his besetting weakness. Hastily 
 desirous to injure no one, he was hastily ready to conclude 
 that others were ready to injure him. His doctrine, that we 
 owe all things to a friend and nothing at all but hard 
 knocks to an enemy, was inherited from generations of Irish 
 faction fighters, and we cannot expect hun to see beyond it, 
 any more than we can expect a cat to understand that a 
 singing-bird is of value in a garden except for sport or 
 food. But the result was very sad, and, however interest- 
 ing Blake's Descriptive Catalogue may be, so far as it is 
 descriptive of Blake himself, it tends to teach us, of aU 
 lessons, the one that he himself never learned his whole life 
 long — indulgence. 
 
 In his present trouble his trading brother James, who had 
 never left the hosier's shop, but who had been helpful from 
 time to time, while Blake was at Felpham, seeing to the 
 sending of things and writing to pacify Butts when he felt 
 himself neglected, now came forward in a still more useful 
 and efficient manner. He lent his house for Blake to make 
 a little exhibition of pictures there, as on his first fioor in 
 South Molton Street he was not able to clear space enough 
 for himself to do so. There, in May 1809 — the year in which, 
 as Gilchrist tells us, Hayley's admiration for the female sex 
 caused him to contract a second marriage, " more ill-advised 
 than the first " — Blake collected sixteen pictures, of which 
 his own description shall be given. 
 
 He was now thoroughly at enmity with both Stothard 
 and Cromek. After he had made his picture of the Canter- 
 bur]/ Pilgrims — so well known to the public now, with its 
 wooden horses, from the reduced outline given by Gilchrist — 
 he happened to be taking down that first sketch which had 
 
"JOSTLING IN THE STEEET" 267 
 
 caused so much trouble, from where it had hung above his 
 door, with no covering, and he found that dust and smoke — 
 for London smoke existed even in those days — had so be- 
 dimmed the whiteness of the paper that the pencil strokes 
 hardly showed on it. Gilchrist says that he attributed this 
 vanishing of his drawing to a malign speU effected by Stothard. 
 If so, Cosway (" of Egypt's lake "), a friend given to occultism, 
 must have been preaching magic to his credulous and Hibernian 
 mind. Flaxman is said to have smilingly asked him what 
 else he could expect if he left his drawing hung up exposed 
 for so long a time, which shows that he was not yet in a 
 state of open rupture with Elaxman. There are one or two 
 incidents which suggest a cordial state of intercourse between 
 them since the Bomney's Life period and up to the time of 
 this exhibition. On August 12, 1805, Flaxman is found to 
 be earnestly trying to get further opportunities for Blake 
 to show his capacities. A project is on foot to get out 
 a little book for the benefit of Mrs. Eose, the widow of 
 Blake's legal defender. Flaxman offers to give five drawings 
 of his own,, gratis, to be engraved for this, and (evidently 
 against some opposition on the part of Hayley) he adds : 
 
 I have seen two or three noble sketches by Blake which might be 
 drawn in outline by him, in a manner highly creditable to your book, 
 and I would overlook them so far as to see that they should be suitable 
 to the other designs. 
 
 The italics are ours. The words that follow them are also 
 evidently put from motives of kindness lest any one seeing 
 the letter should say, " Blake's drawings are no good unless 
 Flaxman looks over them and puts them right." He 
 adds: 
 
 The day after I received your last letter Blake brought a present of 
 two copies of the Songs. It is a beautiful work. Nancy and I are 
 equally thankful for the present, and equally delighted with your 
 bounty to the Poet Artist. God's blessing will attend; your good 
 deeds. 
 
 It is probable that the hospitality shown to Blake's 
 exhibition in his brother's house was a sort of return visit in 
 acknowledgment of the long year that their sister — who 
 naturally lived generally in the elder brother's home — had 
 spent with Blake and his wife when they first went to 
 Felpham. 
 
 But while Blake was preparing for his exhibition, and 
 executing his painting of the life-sized Ancient Britons for 
 it, he had other work. Dr. Malkin, the headmaster of Bury 
 
268 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 Grammar School, heard of him, through Gromek we may 
 suppose, as he afterwards knew the names of some of the 
 other persons of taste who "approved and patronised" the 
 designs to Blair's Grave when that work was in preparation. 
 
 Dr. Malkin had for son an unfortunate little boy who was 
 one of those prodigies whose minds make an average person 
 feel quite sick. He was a genius in the nursery. He wrote 
 good prose and fairly good verse at from four to six years 
 old. His paragraphs read like those of an unusually clever 
 but quite uneducated youth of seventeen. Yet there was 
 nothing like " possession " or inspiration about him ; what he 
 invents is always his own, and always child-like in its way. 
 But he had an imagination to which there seemed no limit. 
 He invented a whole dream-land the size of an English 
 county. He called it Allestone, and had names more or less 
 English in sound for a hundred villages, towns, and rivers in 
 it, all nicely written on the map. He learned languages, was 
 good-natured, drew little landscapes in the Claude style with 
 trees and castles in them — citadels and vegetation of the king- 
 dom of Allestone — and died before he was seven. The book 
 of his Memoirs, by his father, has a decorative design of Blake's 
 on it. If that boy had lived, and had passed through a phase 
 of Swedenborgianism, we feel as we read that Blake would 
 have been completely out-Blaked. His Jerusalem, would 
 have been child's play to this child, hard reading as it is to 
 most of us. It is doubtful whether a more literary, artistic, 
 and inventive mind ever existed. 
 
 Blake approved particularly of the " firm and determinate 
 outline " of little Malkin's fancy landscapes, and when the 
 boy drew copies of heads by Eaphael, Banks — Flaxman's only 
 serious rival in sculpture of that day — said that he would one 
 day rank as a distinguished artist. 
 
 Dr. Malkin was so much touched by Blake's appreciation 
 of his son, that he has introduced into his pamphlet of Memoirs 
 a short account of Blake himself, from which several of the 
 facts about his early life are taken in all the succeeding 
 biographies. 
 
 Gilchrist says that the decorative design for the frontis- 
 piece of Dr. Malkin's book, designed and originally engraved 
 by Blake, was erased and re-engraved by Cromek. It is very 
 well done, and truthfully Blakean in drawing. 
 
 The fact that at this time (1806) Philips was editor of 
 the Monthly Magazine, gave Blake a chance to obtain a hear- 
 ing in his pages, and he used it at once in support of Fuseli. 
 
"JOSTLING IN THE STEEET " 269 
 
 He was able now to do better than only bespeak the indul- 
 gence of Cumberland for him if he iailed to show himself as 
 good-natured as could be wished when criticising his book on 
 outhne, by pleading that he was "ill-natured artificially," 
 because " sore from the lash of envious tongues." The critics 
 had been sarcastic about his picture of UgoHno of Pisa, who 
 was starved with his children in prison, as our own Chaucer's 
 verses remind us. Blake does not at all reflect that he is 
 going to need the good opinion of the critics for himself He 
 at once sets lance in rest and spurs forth, full to the brim of 
 knight-errantry, to do battle for his friend. 
 
 G-ilchrist tells us that Mr. Swinburne was the fortunate 
 discoverer of this letter in the Monthly Beview for July 1806. 
 He prints it as follows : 
 
 To the Editor of tlie Monthly Magamne (different title). 
 
 SiK — My indignation was exceedingly moved at reading a criticism 
 in Bell's Weekly Messenger (25tli May) on the picture of Gount UgoUno 
 by Mr. Fuseli in the Eoyal Academy Exhibition, and your magazine 
 being as extensive in circulation as that paper, as it also must, from 
 its nature, be more permanent, I take the advantageous opportunity 
 to counteract the widely diflfused malice which has for many years, under 
 the pretence of admiration of the arts, been assiduously sown and planted 
 among the English public against true art such as it existed in the days 
 of Michelangelo and Eaphael. Under the pretence of fair criticism and 
 candour the most wretched taste ever produced has been upheld for 
 many, very many years ; but now, I say, its end has come. Such an 
 artist as Fuseli is invulnerable. He needs not my defence ; but I should 
 be ashamed not to set my hand and shoulder, and whole strength, 
 against those critics who, under pretence of criticism, use the dagger 
 and the poison. 
 
 My criticism on this picture is as follows. Mr. Fuseli's Count 
 Ugolino is the father of sons of feeling and dignity, who would not sit 
 looking in their parent's face in the moments of his agony, but would 
 rather retire and die in secret, while they suffer him to indulge his 
 passionate and innocent grief, his innocent and venerable madness and 
 insanity and fury, and whatever paltry, cold-hearted critics cannot, 
 because they dare not, look upon. Fuseli's Count Ugolino is a man of 
 wonder and admiration, of resentment against man and devil, and of 
 humiliation before God ; prayer and parental affection all fill the 
 figure from head to foot. The child in his arms, whether boy or girl 
 signifies not (but the critic must be a fool who has not read Dante, 
 and does not know a boy from a girl), I say the child is as beautifully 
 drawn as it is coloured, in both inimitable, and the effect of the whole 
 is truly sublime on account of that very colouring which our critic calls 
 black and heavy. The German-flute colour which was used by the 
 Flemings (they call it burnt bone) has (so) possessed the eye of certain 
 connoisseurs that they cannot see appropriate colouring, and are blind 
 to the gloom of a real terror. 
 
 The taste of English amateurs has been too much formed upon 
 
270 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 pictures imported from Flanders and Holland, consequently our country- 
 men are easily browbeat on the subject of painting ; and hence it is so 
 common to hear a man say, "I am no judge of pictures." But, 
 Englishmen ! know that every man ought to be a judge of pictures, and 
 every man is so who has not been connoisseured out of his senses. 
 
 A gentleman who visited me the other day said, " I am very much 
 surprised at the dislike which some connoisseurs show on viewing the 
 pictures of Mr. Fuseli, but the truth is he is a hundred years beyond 
 the present generation." Though I am startled at such an assertion, I 
 hope the contemporary taste will shorten the hundred years into as many 
 hours ; for I am sure that any person consulting his own reputation, 
 and the reputation of his country, will refrain from disgracing either by 
 such ill-judged criticisms in future. — ^ Yours, Wm. Blake. 
 
 Who shall describe to us the feehngs of Fuseli's critic 
 as he read this ? A headmaster of Eton who should find him- 
 self suddenly seized by an unusually strong boy, stripped and 
 birched before the school and visitors, might be able to imagiae 
 what he suffered. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that he was rash enough to reply 
 at once. He was dealing with an artist — his natural prey 
 — and his day would come. It did ; and by that time the 
 artist had so totally forgotten the provocation that he had 
 given, as to construct a most elaborate theory of hiring 
 and treachery to account for the stab in the back that he 
 presently received. 
 
 Of course, when Blake's exhibition was opened it was a 
 failure. A Blake exhibition to-day is a brUliant success, but 
 that is because his name is now sufficiently well known to give 
 people something recognisable to talk about when they have 
 been to look at his things. Of real appreciation no one who 
 has spent an hour or two mingling with the public in a room 
 filled with his work will think that there is much in the 
 general mind, even yet. The truth is, that Blake's art cannot 
 be really enjoyed except by long contemplation in silence. 
 When his obvious and harassing faults gradually sink below 
 the surface of our observation, an influence begins to come forth 
 from his works which hides itself until then. It is, in fact, 
 the emanation called " Jerusalem," in his book of that name. 
 It cannot hve under the hailstorm of pattering little 
 exclamations and comments of conversation, nor can people 
 in general, who absolutely make the ridiculous attempt of 
 going two or three at a time to see Blake's pictures, ever 
 hope to come away with any real perception of what was 
 in them. 
 
 Seymour Kirkup, well known as the discoverer of Dante's 
 portrait among the heads that crowd a fresco by Giotto, going 
 
li 
 
 -^^ff-^m 
 
 P: 
 
 
 
 
 i*"fl i. I /J'v 
 
 
 'V- ; 
 
 ^i 
 
 / 
 
 
 
 
 IW 
 
 
 
 
 ,.-^ 
 
 The Last Judgment. 
 
 From Blake's iieneil sketch. This ilesigii, ahout ei,i,'])tLeu inches high, was 
 aCterwai'ds iiindiHeil ami developetl. 
 
"JOSTLING IN THE STEEET" 271 
 
 to see Blake's little collection at Broad Street, was there, 
 however, and so was Mr. Crabb Eobinson, who bought four 
 copies of the Descriptive Catalogue. These were sold at half- 
 a-crown apiece, and their possession was the ticket of admis- 
 sion to the exhibition. Crabb Eobinson bought them to give 
 to his friends, and he asked James Blake whether he might 
 himself come again to the exhibition and be admitted free. 
 " Oh yes, free as long as you Uve," said James. 
 
 Among those to whom Crabb Eobinson gave a copy 
 was Charles Lamb. In his Eeminiscenees he says : 
 
 When, in 1810, I gave Lamb a copy of the Catalogue of the paint- 
 ings exhibited in Carnaby Street (Gilchrist says, and Blake's own 
 prospectus to his engraving of the Canterbury Pilgrims says. Broad 
 Street), he was delighted, especially with the description of a painting 
 afterwards engraved, and connected with which there was a circum- 
 stance which, unexplained, might reflect discredit on a most excellent 
 and amiable man. It was after the friends of Blake had circulated 
 a subscription paper for an engraving of his Ganterbury Pilgrims, that 
 Stothard was made a party to an engraving of a painting of the same 
 subject, by himself But Flaxman considered this as not done wilfully. 
 Stothard's work is well known ; Blake's is known by very few. Lamb 
 preferred the latter greatly, and declared that Blake's description was 
 the finest criticism he had ever read of Chaucer's poem. 
 
 It was like Lamb, of course, to base an artistic criticism 
 upon a literary enjoyment. Crabb Eobinson says also of 
 this exhibition : " There were about thirty oil paintings, 
 the colouring excessively dark and high, and the veins 
 black. The hue of the primitive men was very like that 
 of the Eed Indians. Many of his designs were unconscious 
 imitations." 
 
 ■The "thirty oil paintings" is an evident error. With 
 regard to the "imitations," it will hardly be believed by those 
 who have never had occasion to discover how untrustworthy 
 is the eye even of clever men, who have not trained it, that 
 in the Blake exhibition at the Carfax Gallery this year 
 (1904), a gentleman of considerable ability standing with the 
 present writer (to whom he was a stranger) before a pencil 
 sketch of Blake's Last Judgment, here reproduced, asked if it 
 was not true that Blake had taken many of his ideas — notably 
 the figures in this design — from Michael Angelo; and when, in 
 reply, a commencement was made for him of a sketch, from 
 memory, of Michael Angelo's Last Judgment, he was amazed, 
 and, saying hastily, "Oh, I see you know something about it," 
 withdrew the imputation against Blake. So feeble is pictorial 
 memory in most of us, when put to the test, that the present 
 
272 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 writer has found that hardly any one knows the attitude of any 
 of Michael Angelo's figures, yet none are easier to remember ; 
 and on one occasion an artist, who professed to know them 
 qwite well, on having a pencil put into his hand to sketch — 
 however roughly — the Expulsion from the series in the roof 
 of the Sistine Chapel, threw it down after a few strokes, in 
 despair and mortification. He did not even remember that 
 the expelling angel has the sword, which has no guard, in 
 his left hand ! 
 
 Mr. Crabb Eobinson records further, speaking of the 
 illustrations to the Night Thoughts, " that he had showed them 
 to William Hazlitt, who ' saw no merit ' in them, but when I 
 read him some of Blake's poems he was much struck, and 
 expressed himself with his usual strength and singularity. 
 ' They are beautiful,' he said, ' only too deep for the vulgar. 
 As to God, a worm is as worthy as any other object — all alike 
 being indifferent — so to Blake the chimney-sweeper, etc. He 
 (Blake) is ruined by vain struggles to get rid of what presses 
 upon his brain. He attempts impossibilities.'" I added, 
 " He is like a man who lifts a burden too heavy for him. He 
 bears it an instant, and then it falls and crushes him." 
 
 This is so happy a description, not of Blake under the burden 
 of his imagination, but of Blake-criticism under the burden 
 of Blake, and Crabb Eobinson himseK was crushed so very flat 
 by it — as many other men of great ability who did not know 
 how to use their own strength — that, however ridiculous his 
 words are in their place, they deserve to be remembered. 
 
 Gilchrist mentions as being " now " (that is, in 1810) in the 
 possession of Mr. Alex. C. Weston, a printed programme (not 
 Descriptive Catalogue) of this exhibition, containing one 
 page of print, preceded by an elaborate title-page. It is from 
 this we learn that the picture of the Ancient Britons had 
 the figures " full as large as life." 
 
 In a sort of prose-verse like that of Jerusalem it has 
 these lines : 
 
 In the last battle tliat Arthur fought the most beautiful was one 
 That returned, and the most strong another. With them also returned 
 The most ugly, and no other beside returned from the bloody field. 
 The most beautiful the Roman warriors trembled before and wor- 
 shipped. 
 The most strong they melted before and dissolved in his presenca 
 The most ugly they fled with outcries and contortions of their limbs. 
 
 Mr. Kirkup, trained in the examination of Italian frescoes of 
 the best period, thought this the finest of Blake's works, 
 
"JOSTLING IN THE STREET" 273 
 
 remembering in his old age " the fury and splendour of energy 
 there, contrasted with the serene ardour of simply beautiful 
 courage." He remembered, too, "the violent life of the design," 
 .and its "fierce distance of fluctuating battle." It is Mr. 
 Swinburne who reports, and one suspects his vocabulary of 
 supplying the word " fluctuating," if nothing more. 
 
 The verse -sound of the rambling lines quoted showing 
 that the conception of the design was affiliated in Blake's 
 mind with the allusions to " Arthur " in Jerusalem, it is 
 natural to turn to that poem to see whether nothing further 
 can be gathered with regard to his ideas about the name. 
 
 One suspects, of course, that it will turn out, like Elijah 
 aud Eahab, to be the name of a " state." It is only men- 
 tioned in four places, and all are given, for once, in the 
 sketch of an index at the end of A. H. Bullen's well-printed 
 Jerusalem, edited by Messrs. Eussell and Maclagan. The 
 word occurs on page 54, line 25, page 64, line 15, page 75, 
 line 2, and page 88, line 18. It will be noticed that even 
 its earliest appearance is in the latter half of the poem. 
 
 When Arthur appears first, it is as a name for a being, 
 " the hard, cold, constructive spectre " who is also called our 
 Eational Power, under which description and as a nameless 
 " Spectre " he has haunted the pages of Jerusalem from the 
 beginning. The inference is that Blake was in this part of the 
 book when he began the design, probably in 1806. " Arthur " 
 makes an appeal against imagination, and forgiveness of sin, 
 in fact against Blake's whole idea of Christianity, and chides 
 those who would build a world of phantasy upon his great abyss. 
 He bids them " come from the desert and turn these stones 
 to bread." We know of what Blake was thinking when he 
 wrote that — of James, of Cromek, of Hayley, of all who gave 
 him good advice, though the only two names mentioned in 
 connection with Arthur are "his wings," Voltaire and 
 Eousseau. It is clear that he is Albion's Angel — a form of 
 Urizen in the North. In page 64, line 15, he is mockingly 
 told to "go assume papal dignity," and called a "male 
 harlot." We recognise him now as the winged pope on page 
 9 of Europe. It is Los to whom the speech is really 
 addressed, and Vala is the scolding speaker. " Arthur " is 
 merely a term of abuse. Line 20 gives another definition 
 that enlightens : 
 
 All Quarrels arise from Eeasoning, the Secret Murder, and 
 The violent Manslaughter. These are the Spectre's double Cave, 
 The Sexual Death living on accusation of Sin and Judgment. 
 
 T 
 
274 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 Page 75, line 2, by placing Arthur as the third of three 
 names (Merlin, Bladud, and Arthur), indicates, as we should 
 expect, that his symbolic region is in the loins. 
 
 In page 88, line 18, he is mentioned as the mascuUne 
 name for one of the places that Enitharmon will create to 
 increase the power of Nature over Mind, till the Incarnation 
 of Divine Imagination is the only salvation, after God has 
 submitted to death, " become subservient to the female," that 
 is, Imagination subservient to materialistic habits of thought. 
 
 A Descriptive Catalogue of Pictures, poetical and historical inventions, 
 painted by Wimam Blake in water colours, being the ancient 
 method of fresco painting restored, and drawings for public 
 inspection, and for sale by private contract. London : Printed by 
 D. N. Shury, 7 Berwick Street, Golden Square. 1809. 
 
 CONDITIONS OF SALE 
 
 I. One third of the Price to he paid at the time of purchase arid the 
 
 remainder on Delivery. 
 
 II. The Pictures and Drawings to remain in the Exhibition till its close, 
 which will he on the %9th September 1809. And the Picture of the 
 Canterbury Pilgrims, which is to be engraved, will be sold only on 
 condition of its remaining in the artists hands twelve months, when 
 it will be delivered to the Buyer. 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 The eye that can prefer the colouring of Titian and Rubens to that of 
 Michael Angelo and Rafael oiight to be modest and to doubt its own 
 powers. Connoisseurs talk as if Rafael and Michael Angelo had never 
 seen the colouring of Titian or Correggio. They ought to know that 
 Correggio was bom two years before Michael Angelo, and Titian but 
 four years after. Both Rafael and Michael Angelo knew the Venetians 
 and contemned and rejected all he did with the utmost disdain, as 
 that which is fabricated with the purpose to destroy art 
 
 Mr. B. appeals to the public from the judgments of those narrow 
 blinking eyes that have too long governed art in a daxk comer. The 
 eyes of stupid cunning never will be pleased with the work, any more 
 than with the look, of self-devoting genius. The quarrel of the 
 Florentine with the Venetian is not iDecause he does not understand 
 Drawing, but because he does not understand Colouring. How should 
 he who does not know how to draw a hand or a foot know how to 
 colour it. 
 
 Colouring does not depend on where the colours are put, but on 
 where the lights and darks are put, and aU depends on Form or Outline 
 — on where that is put Where that is wrong, colouririg can never be 
 right, and it is always wrong in Titian and Correggio, Rubens and 
 Rembrandt Till we get rid of Titian and Correggio, Rubens and 
 Rembrandt, we shall never equal Rafael, and Albert Durer, Michael 
 Angelo, and Julio Romano. 
 
JOSTLING IN THE STREET" 275 
 
 No. I 
 
 The spiritual form 0/ Nelson guiding Leviathan, in whose vireathings are 
 enfolded the nations of the Earth. 
 
 Clearness and precision have been the chief objects in painting these 
 pictures. Clear colours, unmudded by oil, and firm, determinate 
 lineaments, unbroken by shadows, which ought to display, and not 
 to hide form, as is the practice of the latter schools of Italy and 
 Flanders. 
 
 No. II 
 
 Its Companion 
 
 The spiritual form of Pitt guiding Behemoth. He is that Angel who, 
 pleased to perform the Almighty's orders, rides on the whirlwind, 
 directing the storms of war. He is ordering the reaper to reap the 
 vine of the Earth, and the ploughman to plough up the Cities and 
 Towers. 
 
 This picture is also a proof of the power of colours unsullied with oil 
 or with any cloggy vehicle. Oil has falsely been supposed to give 
 strength to colours. But a little consideration must show the falsity of 
 this opinion. Oil will not drink or absorb colour enough to stand the 
 test of very little time and of the air. It deadens every colour it is 
 mixed with at its first mixture, and in a little time becomes a yellow 
 mask over all that it touches. Let the works of modern artists since 
 Eubens' time witness the villainy of some one of that time who first 
 brought oil painting into general opinion and practice ; since which we 
 have never had a picture painted which could show itself by the side of 
 an earlier production. Whether Rubens or Vandyke, or both, were 
 guilty of this villainy is to be inquired in another work on painting, 
 and who first forged the siUy story and known falsehood about John of 
 Bruges inventing oil colours ; in the meantime let it be observed that 
 before Vandyke's time and in his time, all the genuine pictures are on 
 plaster or whiting grounds, and none since. 
 
 The two pictures of Nelson and Pitt are compositions of a mytho- 
 logical cast, similar to those Apotheoses of Persian, Hindoo, and 
 Egyptian antiquity which are stiU preserved on rude monuments, 
 being copies from some stupendous originals now lost, or perhaps buried 
 till some happier age. The artist having been taken in vision into the 
 ancient republics, monarchies, and patriarchates of Asia has seen those 
 wonderful originals, called in the sacred scriptures the Cherubim, 
 which were sculptured and painted on walls of Temples, Towers, Cities, 
 Palaces, and erected in the highly cultivated states of Egypt, Moab, 
 Edom, Aram, among the Rivers of Paradise — being the originals from 
 which the Greeks and Hetruvians copied Hercules Famese, Venus 
 of Medicis, ApoUo Belvedere, and all the grand works of ancient art. 
 They were executed in a very superior style to those justly admired 
 copies, being, with their accompaniments, terrific and grand in the 
 highest degree. The artist has endeavoured to emulate the grandeur 
 of those seen in his vision, and to apply it to modern Heroes on a 
 smaller scale. 
 
 No man can believe that either Homer's Mythology or Ovid's was 
 
276 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 the production of Greece or Latiuni ; neither will any one believe that 
 the Greek statues, as they are called, were the invention of Greek 
 Artists : perhaps the Torso is the only original work remaining ; all 
 the rest being evidently copies, though fine ones, from the greater works 
 of the Asiatic Patriarchs. The Greek Muses are daughters of 
 Mnemosyne, or Memory, and not of Inspiration or Imagination, there- 
 fore not authors of such sublime conceptions. Those wonderful originals 
 seen in my visions were, some of them, one hundred feet in height : 
 some were painted as pictures and some canned as basso-relievos and 
 some as groups of statues, all containing mythological and recondite 
 meaning, when more is meant than meets the eye. The artist wishes it 
 was now the fashion to make such monuments, and then he should not 
 doubt of having a national commission to execute these two Pictures 
 on a scale that is suitable to the grandeur of the nation who is the 
 parent of his heroes, in high-finished fresco, where the colours would be 
 as pure and as permanent as precious stones, though the figures were 
 one hundred feet in height. 
 
 All frescoes are as high-finished as miniatures or enamels, and they 
 are known to be imchangeable ; but oU, being a body itself, will drink, 
 or absorb, very little colour, and changing yellow, and at length brown, 
 destroys every colour it is mixed with, especially every delicate coloux. 
 It turns every permanent white to a yellow and brown putty, and has 
 compelled the use of that destroyer of colour, white lead, which, when 
 its protecting oil is evaporated, will become lead again. This is an 
 awful thing to say to oil painters : they may call it madness, but it is 
 true. All genuine old little pictures, called cabinet pictures, are in 
 fresco and not in oil. Oil was not used, except by blundering ignorance, 
 till after Vandyke's time ; but the art of fresco painting being lost^ 
 oil became a fetter to genius and a dungeon to art. But one convincing 
 proof among many others that these assertions are true is that real gold 
 and silver cannot be vised with oil as they are in all the old pictures 
 and in Mr. B.'s frescoes. 
 
 No. Ill 
 
 Sir Jeffrey Chaucer and the nine-and-twenty pilyrims on their journey to 
 Canterbury. 
 
 The time chosen is early morning, before sunrise, when the jolly 
 company are leaving the Tabarde Inn. The Knight and Squire with 
 the Squire's Yeoman lead the Procession ; next follow the youthful 
 Abbess, her nun, and three priests ; her greyhounds attend her — 
 
 Of small hounds had she, that she feed 
 With roast flesh, milk, and wastel bread. 
 
 Next follow the Friar and Monk, and then the Tapiser, the Pardoner, 
 and the Sompnour and Manciple. After this "Our Host," who 
 occupies the centre of the cavalcade, and directs them to the Knight, 
 as the person who would be likely to commence their task of each 
 telling a tale in their order. After the Host follows the Shipman, the 
 Haberdasher, the Dyer, the Franklin, the Physician, the Ploughman, 
 the Lawyer, the Poor Parson, the Merchant, the Wife of Bath, the Miller, 
 the Cook, the Oxford Scholar, Chaucer himself; and the Eeeve comes 
 as Chaucer has described : — 
 
 And ever he rode hindermost of the rout. 
 
"JOSTLING IN THE STREET" 277 
 
 These last are issuing from the gateway of the Inn ; the Cook and 
 th6 Wife of Bath are both taking their morning's draft of comfort. 
 Spectators stand at the gateway of the Inn, and are composed of an old 
 Man, a Woman, and a Child. 
 
 The landscape is an eastward view of the country from the Tabarde 
 Inn, in Southwark, as it may be supposed to have appeared in Chaucer's 
 time : interspersed with cottages and villages. The first beams of the 
 sun are seen above the horizon ; some buildings and spires indicate the 
 position of the Great City. The Inn is a Gothic building which 
 Thynne in his glossary says was the lodging of the Abbot of Hyde by 
 Winchester. On the Inn is inscribed its title, and a proper advantage 
 is taken of this circumstance to describe the subject of the Picture. 
 The words written over the gateway of the Inn are as foUows :^" The 
 Tabarde Inn, by Henry Baillie, the lodgynge house for Pilgrims who 
 journey to St. Thomas' Shrine at Canterbury." 
 
 The characters of Chaucer's Pilgrims are the characters which com- 
 pose all ages and nations. As one age falls another rises different to 
 mortal sight, but to immortals only the same ; for we see the same 
 characters repeated again and again, in animals, vegetables, minerals, 
 and in men. Nothing new occurs in identical existence ; accident ever 
 varies. Substance can never suffer change or decay. 
 
 Of Chaucer's characters as described in his Ganterbury Tales some of 
 the names or titles are altered by time, but the characters themselves 
 ever remain unaltered ; and consequently they are the physiognomies, 
 or lineaments of universal human life beyond which Nature never 
 steps. Names alter; things never alter. I have known multitudes of 
 those who would have been monks in the age of monkery, and who 
 in this deistical age are deists. As Newton numbered the stars and as 
 Linneus has numbered tlie plants, so Chaucer numbered the classes 
 of men. 
 
 The Painter has consequently varied the heads and forms of his 
 personages into all Nature's varieties. The horses he has also varied 
 to accord to their Eiders ; the costume is correct according to authentic 
 monuments. 
 
 The Knight and the Squire and the Squire's Yeoman lead the 
 procession as Chaucer has also placed them first in his Prologue. The 
 Knight is a true Hero, a good, great, and wise man ; his, whole length 
 portrait on horseback as written by Chaucer cannot be surpassed. He 
 has spent his life in the field, has ever been a conqueror, and is that 
 species of character which in every age stands as the guardian of man 
 against the oppressor. His son is like him with the germ of perhaps 
 greater perfection still as he blends literature and the arts with his 
 warlike studies. Their dress and their horses are of the first rate, 
 without ostentation, and with all the true grandeur that unaffected 
 simplicity when in high rank always displays. The Squire's Yeoman 
 is also a great character, a man perfectly knowing in his profession : 
 
 And in his hand he bore a mighty bow. 
 
 Chaucer describes here a mighty man ; one who, in war, is the worthy 
 attendant on noble heroes. 
 
 The Prioress foUows these with her female chaplain : 
 
 Another Nonne also with her had she, 
 Tliat was her Chapelaiiie, and Priestes three. 
 
278 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 This lady is described also as of the first rank, rich and honoured. She 
 has certain peculiarities and little delicate affectations, not unbecoming 
 in her, being accompanied with what is truly grand and really polite : 
 her person and face Chaucer has described with minuteness ; it is very 
 elegant and was the beauty of our ancestors until after Elizabeths 
 time, when voluptuousness and folly began to be accounted beautiful 
 
 Her companion and her three priests were no doubt all perfectly 
 delineated in those parts of Chaucer's work which are now lost ; we 
 ought to suppose them suitable attendants on rank and fashion. 
 
 The Monk follows these with the Friar. The Painter has also 
 grouped with these the Pardoner and the Sompnour, and the Manciple, 
 and has here also introduced one of the rich citizens of; London : 
 characters likely to ride in company, all being above the common rank 
 of life, or attendants on those who were so. 
 
 For the Monk is described by Chaucer as a man of the first rank in 
 society, noble, rich, and expensively attended ; he is a leader of the age, 
 with certain humorous accompaniments in his character that do not 
 degrade but render him an object of dignified mirth, — but also with 
 other accompaniments not so respectable. 
 
 The Friar is a character of a mixed kind : 
 
 A friar there was, a wanton and a merry ; 
 
 but in his office he is said to be a " full solemn man " ; eloquent, 
 amorous, witty, and satirical ; young, handsome, and rich ; he is a 
 complete rogue, with constitutional gaiety enough to make him a 
 master of all the pleasures in the world. ' 
 
 His neck was white as the flour-de-lis, 
 Thereto was he strong as a champioim. 
 
 It is necessary here to speak of Chaucer's own character that I may 
 set certain mistaken critics right in their conception of the humour 
 and fun that occur on the journey. Chaucer himself is the great poetic 
 observer of men who in every age is born to record and eternise its acts. 
 This he does as a master, as a father, and superior, who looks down on 
 their little foUies, from the Emperor to the Miller, sometimes with 
 severity, oftener with joke and sport. 
 
 Accordingly, Chaucer has made his Monk a great tragedian, one who 
 studied poetical art. So much so that the generous Knight is, in the 
 compassionate dictates of his soul, compelled to cry out : 
 
 " Ho," quoth the Knyght, — " good sir, no more of this ; 
 That ye have said is right ynongh I wis. 
 And mokell more ; for little heaviness 
 Is right enough for much folk, as I guesse. 
 I say, for me, it is a great disease. 
 Whereas men have been in wealth and ease 
 To heare of their sudden fall, — alas ! 
 And the contrary is joy, and solas." 
 
 The Monk's definition of tragedy in the proem to his tale is worth 
 repeating : 
 
 Tragedie is to tell a certain story, 
 
 As old books us maken memory, 
 
 Of hem that stood in great prosperity, 
 
 And (who) be fallen out of high degi-ee 
 
 To miserie, and ended wretchedly. 
 
"JOSTLING IN THE STEEET" 279 
 
 Though a man of luxury, pride, and pleasure, he is a master of art and 
 learning, though affecting to despise it. Those who think that the 
 proud Huntsman and Noble Housekeeper, Chaucer's Monk, is intended 
 for a buflfoon or a burlesque character, know little of Chaucer. 
 
 For the Host who follows this group, and holds the centre of the 
 cavalcade, is a first-rate character, and his jokes are no trifles ; they are 
 always, — though uttered with audacity, equally free with the Lord and 
 the Peasant, — they are always substantially and weightily expressive of 
 knowledge and experience ; Henry BaiLlie, the keeper of the greatest 
 Inn of the greatest City, — for stich was the Tabarde Inn in Southwark, 
 near London, — our Host was also a leader of the age. 
 
 By way of illustration I instance Shakespeare's Witches in Macbeth. 
 Those who dress them for the stage consider them as wretched old 
 women, and not, as Shakespeare intended, the Goddesses of Destiny. 
 This shows how Chaucer has been misunderstood in his sublime work. 
 Shakespeare's Fairies, also, are the rulers of the vegetable world, and so 
 are Chaucer's. Let them be so imderstood and then the poet will be 
 understood, and not else. 
 
 But I have omitted to speak of a very prominent character, the 
 Pardoner, the Age's Knave, who always commands and domineers over 
 the high and low vulgar. This man is sent in every age for a rod and 
 scourge, and for a blight, for a trial of men, to divide the classes of men. 
 He is in the most holy sanctuary, and he is suffered by Providence, for 
 wise ends, and has also his great use and his grand leading destiny. 
 
 His companion, the Sompnour, is also a Devil of the first magnitude, 
 grand, terrific, rich ; and honoured in the rank of which he holds the 
 destiny. The uses to Society are perhaps equal of the Devil and the 
 AngeL Their sublimity, who can dispute. 
 
 In danger had he at hia owns gise, 
 The youngs girles of his diocese, 
 And he knew well their counsel, etc. 
 
 The principal figure in the next group is the Good Parson ; an 
 Apostle, a real Messenger of Heaven, sent in every age for its light 
 and its warmth. The man is beloved and venerated by all and neglected 
 by alL He serves aU and is served by none. He is, according to Christ's 
 definition, the greatest of his age, yet he is a Poor Parson of a town. 
 Eead Chaucer's description of the Good Parson, and bow the head and 
 knee to IJim, who in every age sends us such a burning and a shining 
 light. Search, ye rich and powerful, for these men, and obey their 
 counsel ; then shall the golden age return. But alas ! you will not 
 easily distinguish him from the Friar, or the Pardoner. They, also, 
 are " full solemn men," and their counsel you will continue to follow. 
 
 I have placed by his side the Sergeant at La we, who appears delighted 
 to ride in his company, and between him and his brother the Plough- 
 man, as I wish men of law would always ride with them, and take 
 their counsel, especially in all diflScult points. Chaucer's Lawyer is a 
 character of great venerableness, a Judge, a real master of the juris- 
 prudence of his age. 
 
 The Doctor of Physic is in this group, and the Franklin the volup- 
 tuous country gentleman, contrasted with the Physician, and on his other 
 hand, with two Citizens of London. Chaucer's characters live age after 
 age. Every age is a Canterbury Pilgrimage. We all pass on, each 
 sustaining one or other of these characters, nor can a child be bom who 
 
280 I'Hfi tlEAL BLAKE 
 
 is not one or other of these characters of Chaucer. The Doctor of thysic 
 is described as the first of his profession : perfect, learned, completely 
 Master and Doctor in his art. Thus the reader wiU observe that 
 Chaucer makes every one of his characters perfect in his kind. Every 
 one is an Antique Statue, the image of a class, not of an imperfect 
 individual 
 
 This group also would furnish substantial matter on which volumes 
 might be written. The Franklin is one who keeps open table, who is 
 the genius of eating and drinking, like Bacchus. As the Doctor of 
 Physic is the .^sculapius, the Host is the Silenus, the Squire is the 
 Apollo, the MiUer is the Hercules, etc. Chaucer's characters are a 
 description of the eternal Principles that exist in all ages. The Franklin 
 is voluptuousness itself, most nobly portrayed : 
 
 It snewed in his house of meat and drink. 
 
 The Ploughman is simplicity itself with wisdom and strength for its 
 stamina. Chaucer has divided the ancient character of Hercules between 
 his Miller and his Ploughman. Benevolence is the Ploughman's great 
 characteristic. He is thin with excessive labour, and not with old age, 
 as some have supposed : 
 
 He would threash, and thereto dike and delve, 
 For Christe's sake, for every poure wight, 
 Withouten hire, if it lay in his might. 
 
 Visions of these eternal principles or characters of human life appear 
 to poets in all ages. The Grecian gods were the ancient Cherubim of 
 Phoenicia, but the Greeks, and since them, the Moderns, have neglected 
 to subdue the gods of Priam. These gods are visions of the eternal 
 attributes or divine names, which, when erected into gods, become 
 destructive to humanity. They ought to be the servants and not the 
 masters of man or of society. They ought to be made to sacrifice to 
 Man, and not man compelled to sacrifice to them ; for when separated 
 from man, or humanity, who is Jesus, the Saviour, the vine of eternity ? 
 They are thieves and rebels ; they are destroyers. 
 
 The Ploughman of Chaucer is Hercules in his supreme eternal state, 
 divided from his speotrous shadow, which is the Miller, a terrible fellow, 
 such as exists in all times and places for the trial of men, to astonish 
 every neighbourhood with brutal strength and courage, to get rich 
 and powerful, and to curb the pride of Man. ' 
 
 The Reeve and the Manciple are two characters of consummate 
 worldly wisdom. The Shipman or Sailor is a similar genius of 
 Ulyssean art, but with the highest courage superadded. 
 
 The Citizens and their cook are each leaders of a class. Chaucer 
 has been somehow made to number four citizens, which would make 
 his whole company, himself included, thirty -one. But he says there 
 were but nine-and-twenty in his company : 
 
 Full nine-and-twenty in a company. 
 
 The Webbe, or Weaver, and the Tapiser, or Tapestry Weaver, appear 
 to me to be the same person, but this is only an opinion, for " fuU nine- 
 and-twenty " may signify one more or less. But I daresay that Chaucer 
 wrote " A webbe dyer," that is, a Cloth dyer : 
 
 A Webbe Dyer, and a Tapiser. 
 
"JOSTLING m THE STEEET" 281 
 
 The Merchant cannot be one of the Three Citizens, as his dress is 
 different and his character is more marked, whereas Chaucer says of 
 his rich citizen : 
 
 All were y-clothed in o liverie. 
 
 The characters of Women, Chaucer has divided into two classes : the 
 Lady Prioress, and the Wife of Bath. Are not these leaders of the ages 
 of men ? The Lady Prioress in some ages predominates, and in some 
 the Wife of Bath, in whose character Chaucer has been equally minute 
 and exact, because she is also a scoujge and a blight. I shall say no 
 more of her, nor expose what Chaucer has left hidden. Let the young 
 reader study what he has said of her. It is useful as a scarecrow. 
 There are such characters born, — too many for the peace of the world. 
 
 I come at length to the Clerk of Oxenford. This character varies 
 from that of Chaucer as the contemplative philosopher varies from the 
 poetical genius. There are always these two classes of learned sages, 
 the poetical and the philosophical The painter has put them side by 
 side as if the youthful clerk had put himself under the tuition of the 
 mature poet. Let the Philosopher always be the servant and scholar 
 of inspiration and all will be happy. 
 
 Such are the characters that compose this pictui'e which was painted 
 in self-defence against the insolent and envious imputation of unfitness 
 for finished and scientific art, — and this imputation most artfully and 
 industriously endeavoured to be propagated among, the public by ignorant 
 hirelings. The painter courts comparison with his competitors, who, 
 having received fourteen hundred guineas and more, from the profits of 
 his designs in that well-known work Designs for Blair's Grave, have 
 left him to shift for himself, while others, more obedient to an employer's 
 opinions and directions, are employed at great expense to produce works 
 in succession to his, by which they acquired public patronage. This 
 has hitherto been his lot, to get patronage for others and then to be 
 left and neglected, and his work, which gained that patronage, cried 
 down as eccentricity and madness, — as unfinished and neglected by the 
 artist's violent temper. He is sure the works now exhibited will give 
 the lie to such aspersions. 
 
 Those who say that men are led by interest are knaves. A knavish 
 
 character will often say, " Of what interest is it to me to do so and 
 
 so ? " 1 answer, " Of none at all, but the contrary, as you well know. 
 It is of malice and envy that you have done this, therefore I am aware 
 of you, because I know that you act, not from interest, but from malice, 
 even to your own destruction." It is therefore become a duty which 
 Mr. B. owes to the public, who have always recognised him, and 
 patronised him, however hidden by artifices, that he should not suffer 
 such things to be done, or be hindered from the public exhibition of 
 his finished production by any calumnies in future. 
 
 The character and expression in this picture could never have been 
 produced with Rubens' light and shadow, or with Rembrandt's, or any- 
 thing Venetian or Flemish. The Venetian and Flemish practice is 
 broken lines, broken masses, and broken colours : Mr. B.'s practice is 
 unbroken lines, unbroken masses, and unbroken colours. Their art 
 is to lose form. His art is to find form and keep it. His arts are 
 opposite to theirs in aU things. 
 
 As there is a class of men whose sole delight is the destruction of, so 
 there is a class of artist whose sole art and science is fabricated for the 
 
282 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 purpose of destroying Art. Who these are is well known. " By their 
 works ye shall know them." AH who endeavour to raise up a style 
 against" Kaphael, Michael Angelo, and the Antique, those who separate 
 Painting from Drawing, who look if a picture is well drawn, and, if 
 it is, immediately cry out that it cannot be well coloured, — those are 
 the men. 
 
 But to show the stupidity of this class of men nothing need be done 
 but to examine my rival's prospectus. 
 
 The five fixst characters in Chaucer, the Knight and the Squire, he 
 has put among his rabble, and indeed his prospectus calls the Squire 
 the "fop of Chaucer's age." Now hear Chaucer : 
 
 Of his stature he was of even length. 
 And wonderly deliver, and of great strength 
 And he had been some time in chivaueliy. 
 In Flanders, in Artois, and in Piooardy, 
 And borne him well, as of so litele space. 
 
 Was this a fop ? 
 
 Well could he sit a horse, and faire ride. 
 
 He could songs make, eke well indite 
 
 Joust, and eke dance, portray, and well write. 
 
 Was this a fop ? 
 
 Curteis he was, and meek and servicable, 
 And kerft before Ms fader at the table. 
 
 Was this a fop 1 
 
 It is the same with all his characters. He had done aU by chance, 
 or perhaps his fortune, — money, money ! According to his prospectus 
 he has three monks. These he cannot find in Chaucer, who has only 
 one Monk, and that no vulgar character, as he has endeavoured to 
 make him. When men cannot read they should not pretend to paint. 
 To be sure Chaucer is a little difficult to him who has only blundered 
 over novels, and catch-penny trifles of booksellers, yet a little pains 
 ought, to be taken even by the ignorant and weak. He has put the 
 Eeeve, a vulgar fellow, between his Knight and Squire, as if he was 
 resolved to go contrary to everything in Chaucer, who says of the 
 Eeeve : 
 
 And ever he rode hindermost of the rout. 
 
 In this manner he has jumbled his dumb dollies together and is praised 
 by his equals for it, for both himself and his friend are equally masters 
 of Chaucer's language. They both think that the Wife of Bath is a 
 
 yoimg, beautiful, blooming damsel, and H says, that she is the 
 
 " Fair Wife of Bath," and that " the Spring appears in her cheeks." 
 Now hear what Chaucer has made her say of herself, — who is no 
 modest one : 
 
 But Lord(e) (Christ) when (that) it remembreth me 
 
 Upon my youth and on my joleity 
 
 It tickleth me about the hearte-root. 
 
 Unto this day it doth my hearte boot 
 
 That I have had my world as in my time, 
 
 But age, alas, that all will envenime 
 
"JOSTLING IN THE STREET" 283 
 
 Hath me breft my beauty and my pith, 
 Let go ! Farewell ! The Devil go therewith, 
 The flour is gone ; there is no more to tell 
 The bran, as best I can, I now mote sell. 
 And yet to be right merry I will fond, — 
 Now forth, to tell about my fourth husband. 
 
 Slie has had four husbands ; a fit subject for this painter. Yet 
 
 the painter ought to be very much offended with his friend H , 
 
 who has called his "a common scene," and "very ordinary forms," 
 which is the truest part of aU, for it is so, and very wretchedly so 
 indeed. What merit can there be in a picture of which such words are 
 spoken with truth ? 
 
 But the prospectus says that the painter has represented Chaucer 
 himself as a knave who thrusts himself amone honest people to make 
 game of and laugh at them ; though I must do justice to the painter 
 and say that he has made him look more like a fool than a knave. 
 But it appears in all the writings of Chancer, and particularly in his 
 Canterbury Tales, that he was very devout, and paid respect to true 
 enthusiastic superstition. He has laughed at his knaves and fools, as 
 I do now, but he has respected his True Pilgrims, who are a majority 
 of his company, and are not thrown together in the random manner 
 
 that Mr. S has done. Chaucer has nowhere called the Ploughman 
 
 old, worn out with " age and labour " as the prospectus has represented 
 him, and says that the picture has done so too. He is worn down with 
 labour, but not with age. How spots of brown and yellow, smeared 
 about at random, can be either young or old I cannot see. It may be 
 an old man ; it may be a young man ; it may be anything that a 
 prospectus pleases. But I know that where there are no lineaments 
 there can be no character. And what connoisseurs call touch, I know 
 by experience must be the destruction of all character and expression 
 and o± every lineament. 
 
 The scene of Mr. S 's picture is by Dulwich HiUs, which was not 
 
 the way to Canterbury, but perhaps the painter thought he would give 
 them a ride round about because they were a burlesque set of scarecrows 
 not worth any man's respect or care. 
 
 But the painter's thoughts being always upon gold, he has intro- 
 duced a character that Chaucer has not, namely, a goldsmith, for so the 
 prospectus tells us. Why he introduced a goldsmith, and what is the 
 wit, the prospectus does not explain. But it takes care to mention the 
 reserve and modesty of the painter. This makes a good epigram 
 enough : 
 
 The fox, the mole, the beetle, and the bat 
 By sweet reserve and modesty grow fat. 
 
 But the prospectus teUs u.s that the painter has introduced a " Sea- 
 Captain." «Chaucer has a ship-man, a sailor, a trading master of a 
 vessel, called by courtesy Captain, as every master of a boat is ; but this 
 does not make him a Sea-Captain. Chaucer has purposely omitted 
 such a personage, as it only exists in certain periods : it is the soldier 
 by sea. He who would be a soldier in inland nations is a sea-captain 
 in commercial nations. 
 
 All is misconceived, and its mis-execution is equal to its misconcep- 
 tion. I have no objection to Rubens and Rembrandt being employed, 
 or even to their living in a palace. But it shall not be at the expense 
 
284 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 of Raphael and Michael Angelo living in a cottage, and in contempt 
 and derision. I have been scorned long enough by those fellows who 
 owe me all that they have. It shall be so no longer ; 
 
 I found them blind : I taught them how to see ; 
 And now they know neither themselves nor me. 
 
 No. IV 
 
 THE BARD, FROM GRAY 
 
 On a, rock whose haughty brow 
 Frown'd o'er old Conway's foaming flood 
 Robed in sable garb of woe 
 With haggard eyes the Poet stood : 
 Loose his beard, and hoary hair, 
 Streamed like a meteor to the troubled air. 
 
 Weave the warp and weave the woof 
 The winding sheet of Edward's race. 
 
 AVeaving the winding sheet of Edward's race by means of sounds of 
 spiritual music, and its accompanying expressions of spiritual speech, is 
 a bold, and daring, and most masterly conception that the public have 
 embraced and approved with avidity. Poetry consists in these concep- 
 tions, and shall painting be confined to the sordid drudgery of facsimile 
 representations of merely mortal and perishing substances and not be as 
 painting and music are, elevated to its own proper sphere of invention 
 and visionary conception ? No : it shall not be so ! Painting, as well 
 as poetry and music, exists and exults in immortal thoughts. If Mr. 
 B.'s Canterbury Pilgrims had been done by any other power than 
 that of the poetic visionary it would have been just as dull as his 
 adversary's. 
 
 The Spirits of the murdered bards assist in weaving the deadly woof : 
 
 With me in dreadful harmony they join 
 
 And weave with bloody hands the tissue of thy line. 
 
 The connoisseurs and artists who have made objections to Mr. B.'s 
 mode of representing spirits with real bodies would do well to consider 
 that the Venus, the Minerva, the Jupiter, the Apollo, which they 
 admire in Greek statues are all of them representations of spiritual 
 existences, — of God's immortal, — to the ordinary perishing organ of 
 sight ; and yet they are embodied and oi'ganised in solid marble. Mr. 
 B. requires the same latitude, and all is well The Prophets describe 
 what they saw in vision as real and existing men, whom they saw with 
 their imaginative and immortal organs ; the Apostles the same ; the 
 clearer the organ the more distinct the object. A spirit and a vision 
 are not, as the modern philosophy supposes, a cloudy vapour, or a 
 nothing. They are organised and minutely articulated beyond all that 
 the mortal and perishing nature can produce. He who does not imagine 
 in stronger and better lineaments and in stronger and better light than 
 his perishing and mortal eye can see, does not imagine at all The 
 painter of this work asserts that all his imaginations appear to him 
 infinitely more perfect and more minutely organised than anything 
 
"JOSTLING IN THE STEEET" 285 
 
 seen by his mortal eye. Spirits are organised men. Moderns wisli to 
 draw figures without lines and with great and heavy shadows. Are not 
 shadows more unmeaning than lines and more heavy ? Oh who can 
 doubt this ? 
 
 King Edward and his Queen Eleanor are prostrated, with their 
 horses at the foot of a rock on which the Bard stands ; prostrated by 
 the terrors of his harp, on the margin of the river Conway, whose waves 
 bear up a corpse of a slaughtered bard at the foot of the rock. The 
 armies of Edward are seen winding among the mountains. 
 
 He wound with toilsome march his long array. 
 
 Mortimer and Gloucester lie spell-bound behind their king. 
 The execution of this picture is also. in water colours, or fresco. 
 
 No. V 
 
 THE ANCIENT BRITONS 
 
 In the last Battle of King Arthur, only three Britons escaped ; these were 
 the Strongest Man, the Beautifullest Man, and the Ugliest Man. 
 These three marched through the field, unsubdued, as gods, and the sun 
 of Britain set, but shall rise again with tenfold splendour when 
 Arthur shall awake from sleep and resume his dominion over earth 
 and ocean. 
 
 The three general classes of men who are represented by the most 
 Beautiful, the most Strong, and the most Ugly, could not be represented 
 by any historical facts but those of our own country, — the ancient 
 Britons, — without violating costume. The Britons (say historians) 
 were naked civilised men, learned, studious, abstruse in thought and 
 contemplation ; naked, simple, plain in their acts and manners ; wiser 
 than atter-ages. They were overwhelmed by brutal arms, all but a 
 small remnant. Strength, Beauty, and Ugliness escaped the wreck, and 
 remain for ever unsubdued, age after age. 
 
 The British Antiquities are now in the Artist's hands, — all his 
 visionary contemplations relating to his own country and its ancient 
 glory, when it was, as it shall be again, the source of learning and 
 inspiration. Arthur was a name for the constellation Areturus, or 
 Bootes, the keeper of the North Pole ; and all the fables of Arthur and 
 his Eound Table, of the warlike naked Britons, of Merlin, of Arthur's 
 conquest of the whole world, of his death, or sleep, and promise to 
 return again, of the Druid monuments or temples, of the pavement of 
 Watling Street, of London stone, of the caverns of Cornwall, Wales, 
 Derbyshire, and Scotland, of the giants of Ireland and Britain, of the 
 elemental beings called by us by the general name of Fairies, and of 
 these those who escaped, namely Beauty, Strength, and Ugliness, Mr. 
 B. has in his hands poems of the highest antiquity. Adam was a 
 Druid, and Noah ; also Abraham was called to succeed the Druidical 
 age, which began to turn allegoric and mental signification into corporeal 
 command, whereby human sacrifice would have depopulated the earth. 
 All these things are written in Eden. The artist is an inhabitant of 
 that happy country, and if everything goes on as it has begun, the world 
 of vegetation and generation may expect to be opened again to Heaven, 
 through Eden, as it was in the beginning. 
 
286 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 The Strong Man represents the human sublime, the Beautiful Man 
 represents the human pathetic, the Ugly Man represents the human 
 reason. They were originally one man who was fourfold. He was 
 self-divided and his real humanity slain on the stems of generation, 
 and the form of the fourth was like the Son of God. How he became 
 divided is a subject of great sublimity and pathos. The artist has 
 written it under inspiration, and will, if God please, publish it. It is 
 voluminous and contains the ancient history of Britain, and the world 
 of Satan and Adam. 
 
 In the meantime he has painted this picture, which supposes that 
 in the reign of that British Prince who lived in the fifth century there 
 were remains of those naked heroes in the Welch Mountains. They 
 are there now. Gray saw them in the person of his Bard on Snowdon. 
 There they dwell in naked simplicity. Happy is he who can see and 
 converse with them above the shadows of generation and death. The 
 Giant Albion was Patriarch of the Atlantic. He is the Atlas of the 
 Greeks : one of those the Greeks called Titans. The stories of Arthur 
 are the acts of Albion, applied to a Prince of the fifth century who 
 conquered Europe, and held the Empire of the world (in the dark age), 
 which the Eomans never again recovered. In this picture, believing 
 with Milton the ancient British History, Mr. B. has done as all the 
 ancients did, and all the moderns who are worthy of fame, — ^given the 
 historical fact in its poetic vigour, so as it always happens, and not in 
 that dull way that some historians pretend, who, being weakly organised 
 themselves, cannot see either miracle or prodi^r. All is, to them, a 
 dull round of probabilities and possibilities. But the history of all 
 times and places is nothing else but improbabilities and impossibilities, 
 — what we should say was impossible if we did not see it always before 
 our eyes. 
 
 The antiquities of every nation under Heaven are no less sacred than 
 those of the Jews. They are the same thing, as Jacob Bryant and aU 
 antiquarians have proved. How other antiquities came to be neglected 
 and disbelieved, while those of the Jews are collected and arranged, is 
 an inquiry worthy both of the Antiquarian and Divine. All had 
 originally one language and one religion : this was the religion of Jesus, 
 the Everlasting Gospel. Antiquity preaches the Gospel of Jesus. The 
 reasoning historian, turner and twister of causes and consequences, such 
 as Hume, Gibbon, and Voltaire, — cannot with all his artifice turn and 
 twist one fact or disarrange self-evident action and reality. Reasons 
 and opinions concerning acts are not history. Acts themselves alone 
 are history, and these are not the exclusive property of either Hume, 
 Gibbon, or Voltaire, Echard, Rapin, Plutarch, or Herodotus. TeU me 
 the acts, historian, and leave me to reason upon them as I please. 
 Away with your reasoning and your rubbish ! All that is not action 
 is not worth reading. Tell me the What : I do not want you to tell 
 me the Why, and the How. I can find that out myself as well as you 
 can, and I will not be fooled by opinions that you please to impose, to 
 disbelieve what you think improbable or impossible. His opinion who 
 does not see spiritual agency is not worth any man's reading. He who 
 rejects a fact because it is improbable must reject all history and retain 
 doubts only. 
 
 It has been said to the Artist : " Take the Apollo for the model of 
 your Beautiful Man, and the Hercules for your Strong Maji, and the 
 Dancing Faun for yoiu- Ugly Man." Now he comes to his trial He 
 
"JOSTLING m THE STEEET" 287 
 
 knows that what he does is not inferior to the grandest Antiques. 
 Superior it cannot be, for human power cannot go beyond either what 
 he does or what they have done ; it is the gift of God : it is inspiration 
 and vision. He had resolved to emulate those previous remains of 
 antiquity. He has done so, and the result you behold. His ideas of 
 strength and beauty have not been greatly different. Poetry as it 
 exists now on earth in the various remains of ancient authors, Music 
 as it exists in old tunes or melodies, Painting and Sculpture as they 
 exist in the remains of Antiquity and in the works of more modem 
 genius, — each is inspiration, and cannot be surpassed : it is perfect, and 
 eternal Milton, Shakespeare, Michael Angelo, Raphael, the finest 
 specimens of Ancient Sculpture and Painting and Architecture, Gothic, 
 Grecian, Hindoo, and Egyptian, are the extent of the human mind. 
 The human mind cannot go before the gift of God, — the Holy Ghost. 
 To suppose that Art can go beyond the finest specimens of Art now in 
 the world is not knowing what Art is. It is being blind to the gifts of 
 the Spirit. 
 
 It wiU be necessary for the painter to say something concerning his 
 ideas of beauty, strength, and ugliness. 
 
 The Beauty that is annexed and appended to foUy is a lamentable 
 accident and error of the mortal and perishing life. It does but 
 seldom happen. But with this unnatural mixture the sublime Artist 
 can have nothing to do. It is fit for the burlesque. The Beauty 
 proper for sublime art is lineaments, or forms and features that are 
 capable of being the receptacles of intellect. Accordingly the painter 
 has given, in his Beautiful Man, his own idea of intellectual Beauty. 
 The face and limbs that deviate or alter least from infancy to old age 
 are the face and limbs of the greatest Beauty and perfection. 
 
 The Ugly, likewise, when accompanied and annexed to imbecility 
 and disease is a subject for burlesque, and not for historical grandeur. 
 The Artist has imagined his Ugly Man one approaching to the beast in 
 features and form ; his forehead small, without frontals, his jaws large, 
 his nose high on the ridge, and narrow, his chest, and the stamina of 
 his make, comparatively little, and his joints and his extremities 
 large, his eyes, with scarce any whites, narrow and cunning, and every- 
 thing tending toward what is truly Ugly, the incapability of intellect. 
 
 The Artist has considered his Strong Man as a receptacle of Wisdom, 
 a sublime energiser. His features and limbs do not spindle out into 
 length without strength, nor are they too large and unwieldy for his 
 brain and bosom. Strength consists in accumulation of power to the 
 principal seat, and from thence a regular gradation and subordination. 
 Strength is compactness, not extent nor bulk. 
 
 The Strong Man acte from conscious superiority, and marches on 
 in fearless dependence on the divine decrees, raging with the inspira- 
 tions of a prophetic mind. The Beautiful Man acts from duty, and 
 anxious solicitude for the fate of those for whom he combats. The 
 Ugly Man acts from love of carnage, and delight in the savage 
 barbarities of war, rushing with sportive precipitation into the very 
 jaws of the affrighted enemy. 
 
 The Eoman soldiers, rolled together in a heap before them, " like 
 the rolling thing before the whirlwind," show each a different 
 character and a different expression of fear, or revenge, or envy, or 
 blank horror and amazement, or devout wonder and unresisting 
 awe. 
 
288 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 The dead and the dying — Britons naked mingled with armed 
 Eomans — strew the field beneath. Among these the last of the Bards 
 who was capable of attending warlike deeds is seen falling, out- 
 stretched among the dead and dying, singing to his harp in the pains 
 of death. 
 
 Distant among the mountains are Druid Temples similar to Stone- 
 henge. The sun sets behind the mountains, bloody with the day of 
 battle. 
 
 The flush of health in flesh exposed to the open air, nourished by 
 the spirits of forests and floods, in that ancient happy period which 
 history has recorded, cannot be like the sickly daubs of Titian or 
 Rubens. Where will the copier of Nature as it now is find a civilised 
 man who is accustomed to go naked ? Imagination only can furnish us 
 with colouring appropriate, such as is found in the frescoes of Eaphael 
 and Michael Angelo. The disposition of forms always directs colouring 
 in true art. As to a modern man, stripped from his load of clothing, 
 he is like a dead corpse. Hence Rubens, Titian, Correggio, and all of 
 that class are like leather and chalk. Their men are like leather and 
 their women like chalk, for the disposition of their forms will not 
 admit of grand colouring. In Mr. B.'s Britons the blood is seen to 
 circulate in their limbs : he defies competition in colouring. 
 
 No. VI 
 
 " A spirit vaulting from a cloud tp turn and wind a fiery Pegasus." — 
 Shakespeare. The Horse of Intellect is leaping from the cliffs of 
 Memory and Reasoning. It is a barren Rock It is also called the 
 Barren Waste of Loch and Newton. 
 
 This picture was done many years ago, and was one of the first Mr. 
 B. ever did in Presco. Fortunately, or rather, providentially, he left 
 it unblotted and unblurred, although molested continually by blotting 
 and blurring demons. But he was also compelled to leave it un- 
 finished, for reasons that will appear in the following. 
 
 No. VII 
 
 The Goats — an experiment picture. 
 
 The siibject is taken from the missionary voyage, and varied from 
 the literal fact for the sake of picturesque scenery. The savage girls 
 had dressed themselves with vine leaves, and some goats on board the 
 missionary ship stripped them oft' presently. This picture was painted 
 at intervals, for experiment with the colours, and is laboured to a 
 superabundant blackness. It has, however, that about it which may 
 be worthy the attention of the Artist and connoisseur for reasons that 
 follow. 
 
 No. VIII 
 
 The Spiritual Preceptor — an experiment picture. 
 
 The subject is taken from the Visions of Emanuel Swedenborg 
 (Universal Theology, No. 623). The learned who strive to ascend into 
 
"JOSTLING IN THE STREET" 289 
 
 heaven by means of learning, appear to children like dead horses, 
 when repelled by the celestial spheres. 
 
 The works of this visionary are well worthy the attention of 
 Painters and Poets. They are foundations for grand things. The 
 reason they have not been more attended to is because corporeal 
 demons have gained a predominance. Who the leaders of these are 
 win be shown below. Unworthy Men who gain fame among Men 
 continue to govern mankind after death, and in their spiritual bodies 
 oppose the spirits of those who worthily are famous, and, as Swedenborg 
 observes, by entering into disease and excrement, drunkenness, and 
 concupiscence, they possess themselves of the bodies of mortal men, and 
 shut the doors of mind and thought by placing Learning above 
 Inspiration. Artists, you may disbelieve all this, but it shall be 
 at your own peril. 
 
 No. IX 
 
 Satan calling up Ms legion, from Milton's "Paradise Lost": a com- 
 podtimi for a more perfect Picture afterwards executed for a Lady of 
 high rank. An experiment Picture. 
 
 This Picture was likewise painted at intervals, for experiment on 
 colours without any oily vehicle. It may be worthy of attention, not 
 only on account of its composition but of the great labour which has 
 been bestowed on it, — that is, — three or four times as much as would 
 have finished a more perfect picture. The labour has destroyed the 
 lineaments. It was, with difficulty, brought back to a certain effect, 
 which it had at first, when aU the lineaments were perfect. 
 
 These pictures, among numerous others painted for experiment, 
 were the result of temptations and perturbations, seeking to destroy 
 imaginative power, by means of that infernal machine called Chiaro 
 Oscuro, in the hands of Venetian and Flemish Demons, whose enmity 
 to the Painter himself, and to all Artists who study the Florentine and 
 Roman Schools, may be removed by an exhibition and exposure of 
 their vile tricks. They cause that everything in art shall become a 
 Machine. They cause that execution shall all be blocked up with 
 brown shadows. They put the original artist in fear and doubt of his 
 own original conception. The spirit of Titian was particularly active 
 in raising doubts concerning the possibility of executing without a 
 model ; and when once he had raised the doubt, it became easy for him 
 to snatch away the vision time after time, for, when the Artist took 
 hia pencil to execute his ideas, his power of imagination weakened so 
 much and darkened, that memory of nature, and of Pictures of the 
 various schools -possessed his mind instead of appropriate execution 
 resulting from the inventions,— like walking in another man's style, or 
 speaking, or looking in another man's style and manner, unappropriate 
 and repugnant to your own individual character, — tormenting the true 
 Artist tiU he leaves the Florentine, and adopts the Venetian practice, 
 or does as Mr. B. has done — has the courage to suffer poverty and 
 disgrace tiU he ultimately conquers. 
 
 Rubens is a most outrageous demon, and by infusing the remem- 
 brances of his pictures and style of execution, hinders aU power of 
 individual thought, so that the man who is possessed of this demon 
 loses all admiration of any other Artist but Rubens, and those who 
 
 U 
 
290 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 were his imitators and journeymen. He causes the Florentine and 
 Roman Artist to fear to execute, and though the original conception 
 was aU fire and animation he loads it with hellish brownness, a,nd 
 blocks up all its gates of light except one, and that one he closes with 
 iron bars, till the victim is obliged to give up the Florentine and 
 Roman practice and adopt the Venetian and Flemish. 
 
 Correggio is a soft and effeminate, and consequently most cruel 
 demon, whose whole delight is to cause endless labour to whoever 
 suffers him to enter his mind. The story that is told in all Lives of 
 the Painters about Correggio being poor and but badly paid for his 
 Pictures is altogether false. He was a petty Prince in Italy, and 
 employed numerous journeymen in manufactiiring (as Rubens and 
 Titian did) the pictures that go under his name. The manual labour 
 in these pictures of Correggio is immense, and was paid for originally 
 at the immense prices that those who keep manufactories of art always 
 charge to their employers, while they themselves pay their journeymen 
 little enough. But though Correggio was not poor, he will make any 
 true artist so who permits him to enter his mind, and take possession 
 of his affections. He infuses a love of soft and even tints without 
 boundaries, and of endless reflected lights that confuse one another, 
 and hinder all correct dravrtng from appearing to be correct ; for if 
 one of Raphael's or Michael Angelo's figures was to be traced, and 
 Correggio's reflections and refractions to be added to it, there would 
 soon be an end of proportion and strength, and it would be weak and 
 pappy, and lumbering, and thick-headed like his own works ; but then 
 it would have softness and evenness, by a twelvemonth's labour where 
 a month with judgement would have finished it better and higher ; and 
 the poor wretch who executed it would be the Correggio whom the 
 Life-writers have written of, — a drudge and a miserable man, com- 
 pelled to softness by poverty. I say again, O Artist ! you may 
 disbelieve all this, but it shall be at your own Peril. 
 
 Note. — These experiment pictures have been bruised and knocked 
 about without mercy to try all experiments. 
 
 No. X 
 
 The Bramins. — A Drawing. 
 
 The subject is Mr. Wilkin translating the Geeta ; an ideal design, 
 suggested by the first publication of that part of the Hindoo Scriptures 
 translated by Mr. Wilkin. I understand that my Costume is incorrect; 
 but in this I plead the authority of the Ancients, who often deviated 
 from the Habits to preserve the Manners, as in the instance of Laocoon, 
 who, though a priest, is represented naked. 
 
 No. XI 
 
 The Body of Alel found by Adam and Eve; Gain, who was about to hury 
 it, fleeing from the face of his parents. — A Drawing. 
 
 No. XII 
 
 5f7l« soldiers casting Lots for Christ's garment. — A Drawing. 
 
"JOSTLING IN THE STEEET" 291 
 
 No. XIII 
 Jacob's Ladder. — A Drawing. 
 
 No. XIV. 
 
 The Angels hovering over the Body of Jesus in the Sepulchre. — 
 A Drawing. 
 
 The above four drawings, the Artist wishes were in Fresco on an 
 enlarged scale to ornament the altars of churches, and to make England, 
 like Italy, respected by respectable men of other countries on account 
 of Art. It is not the want of Genius that can hereafter be laid to our 
 charge. The Artist who has done these Pictures and Drawings will 
 take care of that. Let those who govern the Nation take care of the 
 other. The times require that every one should speak out boldly. 
 England expects that every man should do his duty in Arts as well 
 as in Arms or in the Senate. 
 
 No. XV 
 Ruth. — A Drawing. 
 
 This design is taken from that most pathetic passage in the Book 
 of Ruth, where Naomi is taking leave of her daughters-in-law, 
 with intent to return to her own country. Ruth cannot leave her, 
 but says, " Whither thou goest I will go, and where thou lodgest I will 
 lodge ; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God ; where 
 thou diest I will die, and there will I be buried. God do so to me and 
 more also if aught but death part thee and me." 
 
 The distinction that is made in modern times between a painting 
 and a drawing proceeds from ignorance of art. The merit of a Picture 
 is the same as the merit of a drawing. The dauber daubs his drawings ; 
 and he who draws his drawings draws his Pictures. There is no 
 difference between Raphael's cartoons and his frescoes or Pictures, 
 except that the Prescoes or Pictures are more finished. When Mr. B. 
 formerly painted in oil colours his Pictures were shown to certain painters 
 and connoisseurs, who said that they were very admirable drawings on 
 canvas, but not Pictures ; but they said the same of Raphael's Pictures. 
 Mr. B. thought this the greatest of compliments, though it was meant 
 otherwise. If losing and obliterating the outline constitutes a Picture, 
 Mr. B. will never be so foolish as to do one. Such art of losing the 
 outlines is the art of Venice and Flanders. It loses all character and 
 leaves what some people call " expression " ; but this is a false notion of 
 expression. Expression cannot exist without character as its stamina, 
 and neither character nor expression can exist without form and 
 determinate outline. Frescoe Painting is susceptible of higher finishing 
 than Drawing on Paper or any other method of Painting. But he 
 must have a strange organisation of sight who does not prefer a 
 Drawing on Paper to a Daubing in Oil by the same master, supposing 
 both to be done with equal care. 
 
 The great and golden rule of art as well as of life is this ; — that the 
 more distinct, sharp, and wiry the boundary line, the more perfect the 
 work of art,— and the less keen and sharp, the greater is the evidence 
 
292 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 of weak imagination, plagiarism, and bungling. Great inventors in all 
 ages knew this. Protogenes and Apelles knew each other by this line. 
 Raphael, Michael Angelo, and Albert Diirer are known by this and 
 by this alone. The want of this determinate and bounding form 
 evidences the idea of want in the Artist's mind, and the pretence of the 
 plagiary in all its branches. How do we distinguish the oak from the 
 beech, the horse from the ox but by the bounding outline ? How do 
 we distinguish one face or countenance from another but by the 
 bounding line and its infinite inflexion and movements ? What is it 
 that builds a house and plants a garden but the definite and determinate ? 
 What is it that distinguishes honesty from knavery biit the hard and 
 wiry line of rectitude and certainty in the actions and intentions ? 
 Leave out this line, and yovi leave out life itself All is chaos again, 
 and the line of the Almighty must be drawn out upon it again before 
 man or beast can exist. Talk no more then of Coi'reggio or Rembrandt, 
 or any of those plagiaries of Venice or Flanders. They were but the 
 lame imitators of lines drawn by their predecessors, and their words 
 prove themselves contemptible, disarranged imitations, and blundering, 
 misapplied copies. 
 
 No. XVI 
 
 The Penance of Jane Shaw in St. Paul's Church. — A Drawing. 
 
 This Drawing was done above Thirty Years ago, and proves to the 
 Author, and he thinks will prove to any discerning eye, that the 
 productions of our youth and those of our maturer age are equal in all 
 essential points. If a man is master of his profession he cannot be 
 ignorant that he is so, and if he is not employed by those who pretend 
 to encourage art, he will employ himself, and laugh in secret at the 
 pretences of the ignorant, while he has every night dropped into his 
 shoe, — as soon as he puts it off, and puts out the candle, and gets into 
 bed, — a reward for the labours of the day, such as the world cannot 
 give,— and patience and time await to give him all that the world can 
 give. 
 
 So ends the famous Descriptive Catalogue. Butts bought 
 the Canterbury Pilgrims. The list of subscribers to the 
 engraving is lost. The exhibition very nearly escaped public 
 observation altogether. But before it closed, an art critic 
 — whether the same that Blake had so thoroughly chastised 
 for attacking Fuseli, or a friend writing for him, is not 
 known — found it out, and must have enjoyed it very much. 
 
 He does not write in Blake's savage sort of Shawn O'Neil 
 tone (why did Philips not bury Blake up to the ears in 
 sand when he wanted to write that letter about Puseli?), 
 but he makes himself quite sufficiently disagreeable. 
 
 The first article — both are in Leigh Hunt's paper, the 
 Examiner, in August — betrays the connection of his wrath 
 against Blake with the Fuseli letter by pairing Fuseli and 
 
"JOSTLING IN THE STEEET" 293 
 
 Blake together as a "visionary" and a "fanatic." The 
 designs to Blair's Grave are ridiculed. The design of the 
 Soul exploring the Becesses of the Grave suggests to the critic 
 " no other idea but that of a human being with a candle." 
 That of the Reunion of the Soul and Body, reproduced in the 
 second volume of the Chatto and Windus Blake's Poems, 
 suggests that the upper figure is trying to dive into the 
 mouth of the lower. 
 
 Though at the present day this seems so silly that we can 
 hardly avoid the idea that the critic is writing with his tongue 
 in his cheek, yet in fairness we must remember that it is not 
 really below the average intelligence of sensible mei; who are 
 ignorant of art and poetry. In his little collection of original 
 essays recently published under the title Ideas of Good and 
 Evil, which has been already alluded to, Mr. W. B. Yeats, 
 speaking of people whose education has not prepared them for 
 such imaginative expressions as are usual in good poetry, says : 
 
 " Go down into the street and read to your baker or your 
 candlestick-maker any poem which is not popular poetry. I 
 have heard a baker who was clever enough with his oven 
 declare that Tennyson could not have known what he was 
 writing when he wrote 
 
 . . . warming his five wits, 
 The white owl in the belfry sits. 
 
 And once when I read out Omar Khayyam to one of the best 
 of candlestick-makers he said, ' What is the meaning of 
 
 We come like water, and like wind we go ? ' " 
 
 We cease as we read this to doubt the objective and actual 
 existence of that traditional German critic who is said to 
 have discovered a curious misprint in the close of the Duke's 
 speech at the beginning of the Second Act of As You Like It, 
 in which the Duke speaks of the charms of living in the 
 backwoods, and says, 
 
 And this our life, exempt from public haunts, 
 Fin^s tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
 Sermons in stones, and good in everything. 
 
 This critic, it is said, bringing his own sound sense to bear 
 on the matter, placed the words in their right order, and 
 made the Duke say. 
 
 And this our life, exempt from public tongues, 
 Finds haunts in trees, stones in the running brooks, 
 Sermons in boohs, and good in everything. 
 
294 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 But just in time to show malice, although too late to 
 serve any public purpose by art-criticism, the critic of the 
 Examiner, when the chief picture of Blake's collection was 
 already taken down to engrave, and the exhibition itself is 
 about to close in two days, rushes before the public to warn 
 them against it. Blake himself is called "an unfortunate 
 lunatic, whose personal inoffensiveness secures him from con- 
 finement," and who would have escaped criticism also, had 
 not " persons of position " praised him, and so, " in feeding 
 his vanity stimulated him to publish his madness more 
 largely." Malkin's kind notice in A Father's Memoirs of his 
 Child seems to have hurt that critic. When a public school- 
 master knows no better than to take an interest in a man 
 of genius, that sort of thing is evidently becoming a danger 
 to society. The Descriptive Catalogue is called a " wild farrago 
 of nonsense, unintelligibleness, and egregious vanity, the wild 
 effusion of a distempered brain. . . . That men of taste, 
 in their sober senses, should mistake its unmeaning and 
 distorted conceptions for the flashes of genius is indeed a 
 phenomenon." 
 
 The critic was doubtless honest in his way, and so, indis- 
 putably, was Blake when, on reading the article, he attributed 
 it to a pen inspired and paid by Hayley ! 
 
 Hayley, who had tried in vain to make Blake have a little 
 common sense at Felpham, and had even endeavoured, Kke a 
 clever man of the world, to bring pressure on him through 
 his wife — the wives of men of genius are always supposed to 
 be more amenable to sensible counsels than their husbands 
 — was now, Blake conjectured, using just such " dagger and 
 poison" against him as Fuseli's critic had used against 
 Euseli. 
 
 Blake had already written " peevishly " in his notebook a 
 quatrain about Hayley before he had reduced him to being 
 a " completely silenced antagonist." Here it is : 
 
 When H y finds out what you cannot do, 
 
 That is the very thing he'll set you to. 
 
 If you break not your neck, 'tis not his fault, 
 
 But pecks of poison are not pecks of salt. 
 
 Since then Hayley had forgiven Blake for the scolding he 
 had given him, and Blake had wearied himself in effusions of 
 affection sent by post, and in the labours of an errand-boy 
 and a commercial traveller for his sake. 
 
 But lately Blake had suspected that something was wrong. 
 
"JOSTLING m THE STEEET" 295 
 
 Hayley's many fine promises had come to nothing, and the 
 fine gift of the ballads had turned out to be waste paper. 
 While telling him not to fear the lack of employment Hayley 
 had been secretly taking it from him. He had joined Blake's 
 enemy Cromek, and Flaxmau had been to blame for this. It 
 was now clear enough that he had hired Leigh Hunt (the 
 editor is always responsible) to strike him this blow in the 
 back, hindering him (" Murder is hindering another ! " as he 
 says in the notes to Lavater — a quotation that was found too 
 late for use in the Quaritch edition memoir), and even help- 
 ing to deprive him of the very scant allowance of bread with 
 which he kept body and soul together. He now wrote an 
 addition to that epigram — a new quatrain — but the MS. 
 book was crowded, and he had no room to put the lines under 
 one another, so he put two beside the other two : 
 
 To forgive enemies Hayley does pretend, 
 Who never in his life forgave a friend, 
 And when he could not act upon my wife, 
 Hired a villain to bereave my life. 
 
 In the chapter on this in the Quaritch edition memoir 
 the present writer has spent long pages in making the whole 
 affair clear, being impelled to do so by the unfortunate and, 
 as it seems to him, shocking and injurious mistake made by 
 Mr. Eossetti in his Memoir in the Aldine edition of Blake, 
 which held the field to the disgrace of Blake's memory for 
 many years. 
 
 This mistake of Mr. Eossetti must now be referred to, for 
 the sake of those who cannot otherwise believe that a pro- 
 fessed admirer of Blake could write such things of him. 
 Indeed, viewed as mere errors, Mr. Eossetti's words are, as 
 coming from such a quarter, hardly more credible than 
 
 Stones in the running brooks. 
 
 To begin with, Mr. Eossetti prints the epigram as a sestet, 
 taking the last couplet of the second quatrain and adding it 
 to the first. 
 
 He sayS about it, " The last couplet conveys two distinct and 
 most grave charges against poor Hayley, charges to which one 
 can hardly suppose Blake to have lent any real credence." (The 
 italics are ours, but is not this deliciously parUamentary ? It 
 is pleasant to know by the sequel that Mr. Eossetti does not at 
 all perceive that he is now bringing a " grave charge " against 
 Blake.) The paragraph continues: "He seems rather to 
 
296 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 have been writing in a spirit of wilful and wanton perversity ; 
 the more monstrous and obviously untenable the accusation, 
 the more pat it comes under a pen guided by mere testiness. 
 It is exactly the spirit of a ' naughty little boy.' The phrase 
 ' when he could not act upon my wife ' has a somewhat inde- 
 terminate though manifestly virulent meaning. The other 
 statement that Hayley ' hired a villain to bereave my life ' " 
 (note the grammar), " can only (it would seem) refer to the 
 affair of the soldier Scholfield, who accused Blake of using 
 seditious words, and thereby subjected him to a trial on a 
 criminal (not in reality a capital) charge." (Note that Mr. 
 Eos.ietti had only read of Scholfield in Gilchrist's Life, where 
 we are told that Blake used to suspect the Government, not 
 Hayley, of having sent the soldier to entrap him in revenge for 
 his having helped Tom Paine to escape from arrest a dozen 
 years before.) Mr. Eossetti goes on : " Now the fact is that 
 Hayley, so far from hiring the villain to bereave Blake's life, 
 had, as we have seen, come forward immediately as his bail, 
 and afterwards as a witness on his behalf. Blake, if he 
 believed that Hayley had plotted against his life, can hardly 
 have been quite sane, and if he disbelieved it and yet wrote 
 it, our conclusion as to his state of mind at that moment 
 need only differ in detail." (Mr. Eossetti thus does not notice 
 that he tells us now that there seems to him to be no essen- 
 tial difference between a lunatic and a liar — it is a mere 
 mitter of "detail.") He goes on: "I may here point out 
 that the line 
 
 Hired a villain to bereave my life 
 
 is repeated in this epigram from the poem ' Fair Elenor ' in 
 the Poetic (sic) Sketches. The other line also. 
 
 And when lie could not act upon my -vrife, 
 
 seems to have some affinity at any rate " (this is criticism) 
 " to the course of the story of Fair Elenor, more affinity, 
 at any rate, to that effort of the Macphersonian romancing 
 faculty in verse than to aught that we can suppose to have 
 taken place in real life between Mr. Hayley and Mrs. 
 Blake." 
 
 These references look like careful editing, but no intelli- 
 gent use is made of them. It is mere catch-word repetition. 
 Though leaving a bad taste in the mouth, one cannot look 
 on this kind of thing as serious, though its writer may have 
 thought it so ; but the wretched jest is not complete without 
 
"JOSTLING IN THE STREET" 297 
 
 Mr. Smetham's tribute to those who have done good work in 
 the cause, printed in the second edition of G-ilchrist's Life 
 of Blake. This ends : " Last, but not least, the richly con- 
 densed and representative essay prefixed by Mr. W. M. 
 Eossetti to his edition in the Aldine series of Blake's 
 Poetical Works " (from which we have quoted above), " de- 
 mands from all sides, as its writer has from all sides discerned 
 and declared Blake, the highest commendation we can here 
 briefly offer." 
 
 The same volume from which we quote this inimitable 
 piece of pomposity contains the statement that Blake's 
 connection with Hayley was " honourable to each " (Gilchrist's 
 Life, vol. i., p. 223). 
 
 It would have been pleasant to leave all this pack of 
 mistakes to settle itseK into the wallet at Time's back along 
 with his other " alms for oblivion," but the books where it is 
 found are still bought and read, and the Quaritch edition, 
 where it is exposed, is — in its cheaper form — a three-guinea 
 book. 
 
 Among the verses by Blake that are directly due to 
 distress of mind occasioned by the Hayley and Stothard 
 quarrels are two fine poems, of which the second bears, in 
 Blake's MS. book, this title : the Everlasting Gospel. It had 
 chiefly for cause the Canterbury Pilgrims, as the first had 
 Hayley's patronisingly ' coaxing manner and liis "gentle, 
 visionary Blake " way of speaking. He could not even give 
 Blake a copy of his own verses without writing in the 
 beginning. 
 
 Accept, my gentle, visionary Blake, 
 
 Whose thoughts are fanciful and kindly mild, etc., 
 
 while really he was almost " making Blake spue," as Blake 
 himself wrote at this time in his notebook. 
 
 These, joined together, with a few omissions, as one 
 poem, were printed by Mr. W. M. Eossetti in that Aldine 
 collection over which, with its essay, Mr. Smetham falls into 
 a trance of admiration. Mr. Eossetti says that he prints it 
 in extenso, though he does not. What is the morahty of 
 editing? one asks oneself. On studying the poems one 
 discovers : 
 
 1. That Mr. Eossetti did not know he had made up his 
 text from two poems, written at two different times. 
 
 2. That he did not know what either of them meant. 
 And yet he had the original manuscript in his hand. 
 
298 THE KEAL BLAKE 
 
 The first, or untitled poem, may be summed up in the 
 words, " I did well to be angry," and belongs to a mood 
 very like that which produced the paragraph in extra-page 3 
 of Milton beginning 
 
 If you account it Wisdom, when you are angry, to be silent and 
 Not to show it, I do not account that wisdom, but folly, 
 
 though the Milton lines were probably written a little later, 
 as the expression 
 
 Anger me not, thou canst not drive the harrow in pity's paths, 
 
 suggests, if we are not mistaken in seeing through its symbol 
 an allusion to the poetic failure of Hayley's " beautiful and 
 affectionate ballads." 
 
 The second poem, called the Everlasting Gospel, appears 
 to have been written as a substitube for the first, using 
 as much of it as Blake cared to retain in his altered 
 mood, and aimed at the kind of imagination that had 
 produced Stothard's Ganterlury Pilgrims, as distinguished 
 from the kind that had produced Blake's own design of that 
 subject. 
 
 But the most outrageous piece of doggerel ever written 
 by any man of real poetic ability was now set down by 
 Blake in what may be called his second period of wrath 
 against Hayley. The first had been mainly an inspired 
 wrath against a spiritual enemy, and fine poetry had arisen 
 from it. The second, when he suspected bim of having 
 hired the Examiner, was purely personal, and the poetic 
 result is deplorable. 
 
 In part justification of Blake's suspicion of Hayley it 
 must be remembered that he lived in times when Walpole's 
 saying, " Every man has his price," was by no means ancient 
 history, when votes were frankly bought and sold at 
 elections, and when the press was so venal that SheUey (a 
 few years later), without fear of being accused of writing 
 anything unlike what was to be seen in real life, could put 
 into his Peter Bell the Third the incident of the enemy of an 
 author enclosing copies of liis book to the papers with a five- 
 pound note in each and this brief notice, "Pray abuse." 
 To know that Hayley had not done anything of the kind 
 Blake would have needed some of that gift of instinctively 
 judging personal character at sight, so common in imaginative 
 people who are purely prosaic and sentimental, and so rare 
 in poets. Blake could judge situations, — as the Tom Paine 
 
"JOSTLING IN THE STEEET" 299 
 
 incident showed, — but to see into the heart of a speaker 
 while he was speaking was not his strong point. The fact 
 that he was what is called "a bad listener" was of the 
 utmost use to him all through life in defending his genius 
 from being frittered away by the personal influence of the 
 presence of people who had none. Personal influence over 
 minds — quite apart from personal opinions, a nervous exuda- 
 tion merely — is, unfortunately, strong in the unimaginative. 
 Byron, for example, was full of it. He made unpoetic 
 people think him the greatest of poets, but while he was 
 staying with Shelley in Switzerland, though he wrote, in 
 Childe Harold, the best pages of poetry that have come from 
 his energetic and egotistic pen, he so affected Shelley that 
 Shelley was not able to write at all. 
 
 A complete extinction of poetic faculty now came over 
 Blake during his wrath with Hayley, Flaxman, Stothard, and 
 Cromek, and will be noticed in the " Screwmuch " lines given 
 in the Chatto and Windus edition. They were printed for the 
 first time in the Quaritch edition, where some explanation of 
 them is given. They are so bad that their badness accounts 
 for the very small portion of them that remains to us, for it 
 is told by a friend of D. G. Eossetti, who had the privilege 
 of seeing him after he had bought for ten shilUngs from 
 Palmer of the British Museum that invaluable MS. book 
 from which so much, both poetical and biographical, has been 
 gathered, that there were many loose papers in the book 
 besides the sketches of Blake and his wife (reproduced in the 
 Gilchrist second edition) for which Eossetti really bought 
 the book. Many of these loose sheets contained verses which 
 were so bad that Eossetti threw them into his waste-paper 
 basket, from which Swinburne rescued a few fragments not 
 quite so worthless as the rest. Of course, the main mass of 
 the " Screwmuch " hnes, which we see to have been crowded 
 out of the now choking MS. book, went to the housemaid. 
 In Gilchrist's time, and until Mr. White of Brooklyn 
 generously sent to England the original of the book for the 
 present writer's use, no one seems to have guessed who 
 " Screwmuch " was. The Hght that would have been shed 
 on this part of Blake's life if the masks of " Daddy," " Jack 
 Hemp," and the others had been lifted in time from their 
 owners' faces is now lost to us for ever. There remains this 
 warning to all poets— Beware of anger ! 
 
OHAPTEE XXV 
 
 'PUBLIC address' 
 
 After this doggerel, but during the period when Blake 
 was scrambhng for dear life against want of employment 
 and the desertion of Hayley and Flaxman, he prepared 
 the misguided prose document, which is here printed from 
 the fragmentary notes in the MS. book. The paragraphs 
 are here placed in what seems the order in which they 
 were written by the author. Gilchrist's sscond volume 
 contains them in a somewhat fanciful sequence. Sentences 
 are dropped and pages transposed without any ascertain- 
 able reason. What was, at best, a series of hurried and 
 angry jottings comes forth as a Public Address in an order 
 which adds to their incoherence, and with a title which their 
 author's MS. does not place at their head. In putting the 
 words Public Address here the only object is that readers 
 may recognise at a glance what Gilchrist has given under 
 that name. An editorial note at the beginning of the prose 
 selections in Gilchrist's volume, of which this is one, refers 
 to it without giving any hint of the fact that the title is not 
 the author's, and instead of admitting that the text is not 
 the author's either, the editor leads the reader astray by this 
 explanatory note : " It has been compiled from a very con- 
 fused mass of MS. notes. ... As evidence of the writer's 
 many moods these pieces of prose are much best left 
 unmutilated." Not one of the pieces is so left. Even the 
 Descriptive Catalogue is silently deprived of its own preface, 
 and these pages, like the description of the picture called 
 the Last Judgment, are both jumbled and garbled. 
 
 For this — when pretence to Uteral reproduction is made — 
 no pardon can ever be accorded, but it is right to say that 
 even though it has not been quite faithfully fulfilled, the 
 task that Gilchrist's editor should have attempted was not 
 an easy one. Paragraphs intended for a late place in the 
 
 300 
 
'PUBLIC ADDEESS' 301 
 
 prospectus or Address were often written by Blake on 
 early pages of his notebook just as blank space offered itself 
 on turning oyer the leaves, backwards and forwards, long after 
 the later pages had been crowded with sentences intended 
 for the opening hues of the manifesto, for which he seems to 
 have hoped to find space there. 
 
 But the displacements and alterations actually made by 
 the Gilchrist editor were not due to error thus caused. He 
 divides what is continuous at his own fancy, and makes a 
 new composition of the fragments. 
 
 In all else but the claim to accuracy his editorial note is 
 admirable. 
 
 The punctuation here and elsewhere is conjectural. 
 Blake's own is on a wrong-headed system which confuses the 
 text. It was a convention of his own day, now obsolete, and 
 was adopted by the translator of Lavater, and by Flaxman 
 in private letters. These probably influenced or " infected " 
 Blake. 
 
 The numbers printed here at the margin indicate the 
 number of the page of the MS. book in which the paragraph 
 printed beside it is to be found. The sequence has not been 
 departed from except when an examination of the MS. gave 
 the impression that the later page was the earlier written. 
 Here and there extra sentences written later or sideways on 
 the margin are indicated. This enables the reader to 
 perceive that Blake's style is not broken to scraps because he 
 was too scatter-brained to write continuously, but because 
 he was here jotting down meditations and recollections for 
 consideration and after-use, employing a notebook already 
 too full to hold them properly. 
 
 These notes for a prospectus or advertisement were intended 
 for issue with the engraving to the Canterbury Pilgrims. 
 {On page 57 of the MS. hook we learn that in some form this 
 seems to have been printed.) " This day {no date) is published 
 Advertisment to Blake's Canterbury Pilgrims from Chaucer, 
 containing anecdotes of Artists." Where is it ? 
 
 Some erased sentences have been restored for their 
 biographical value — marked erased. What others would 
 have been erased also we cannot tell, since the entire 
 prospectus seems to have vanished as soon as it was published. 
 The present arrangement may stand until the lost print is 
 found. Nothing else can settle the matter. 
 
302 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 PUBLIC ADDRESS 
 
 {Gilchrist's title for the following) 
 
 66 Chaucer's canteebtjry pilgrims, being a complete index op 
 human characters as they exist age after age 
 
 [No date. This title is written on a page of the MS. book containing 
 rhymes that allude, among other things, to the death of Sohiavonetti, that 
 occurred on Jime 7, 1810. The title seems written later than the rhymes, 
 and as a note for those prose paragraphs. The title, however, was written 
 after the paragraphs, of which those on page 68 at any rate were written 
 before May 2, 1810, when Blake found the word golden and noted it on a 
 margin, where it is squeezed by these paragraphs.] 
 
 61 The originality of this production makes it necessary to say a 
 few words. 
 
 "While the works of Pope and Dryden are looked upon as the 
 same art with those of Shakespeare and Milton, — while the 
 works of Strange and WooUett are looked upon as the same art 
 with those of Raphael and Albert Diirer, there can be no art in 
 a nation but such as is subservient to the interests of the 
 monopolising trader,*^ who manufactures art by the hands of 
 ignorant journeymen, till at length Christian charity is held out 
 as a motive to encourage a blockhead, and he is accounted the 
 greatest genius who can seU a good-for-nothing commodity at a 
 great price. Obedience to the will of the monopolist is called 
 virtue, and the really virtuous, industrious, and independent 
 Barry is driven out to make room for a lot of idle sycophants 
 
 62 with whitloes on their fingers.** Englishmen ! rouse yourselves 
 from the fatal slumber into which booksellers and trading 
 dealers have thrown you, under the artfully propagated pretence 
 that a translation or a copy of any kind can be as nonourable to 
 a nation as an original, belying the English character in that 
 well-known saying, — Englishmen improve what others invent. 
 This, even Hogarth's works prove a detestable falsehood. No 
 
 63 man can improve an original invention.* Since Hogarth's time 
 we have had very few eflforts of originality,*** nor can an 
 original invention exist without execution organised and 
 minutely delineated and articulated either by God or man. 
 {Margin, sideways.) I do not mean smoothed and niggled, and 
 poco-penned and all the beauties paled out, blurred and spotted 
 out, but drawn with a firm hand at once, with all its ** spots 
 and blemishes, which are beauties, — ^not faulty,*** like Fuseli, 
 Michael Angelo, Shakespeare, and Milton. I have heard many 
 people say, — " Give me the ideas ; it does not matter what words 
 you put them into," — and others say, — " Give me the design ; it 
 is no matter for the execution." 'These people knew enough of 
 artifice but little of art. Ideas cannot be given but in their 
 minutely appropriate words. Nor can a design be made without 
 its minutely appropriate execution The unorganised blots of 
 Rubens and Titian are not art, nor can their method ever express 
 
 ■• The words between * and ** erased. 
 Between * and *** erased. Between ** and *** erased. 
 
PUBLIC ADDEESS' 303 
 
 ideas or imaginations any more than Pope's metaphysical jargon 
 (?) of rhyming, {later) Unappropriate execution is the most 
 nauseous of all affectation and foppery. 
 64 Whoever looks at any of the great and expensive works of 
 engraving which have been published by English traders must 
 feel a loathing and disgust ; and, accordingly, most Englishmen 
 have a contempt for art, which is the greatest curse which can 
 fall upon a nation. 
 
 The Modern Chalcographic connoisseurs and amateurs admire 
 only the work of the journeyman, picking out whites and blacks 
 in what is called tints. They despise drawing, which despises 
 them in return. They see only whether everything is carved 
 down but one spot of light. 
 
 Mr. B. submits to a more severe tribunal He invites the 
 admirers of old English portraits to look at his print. 
 
 (Below, — of another date, — this note intended to hit Rembrandt, 
 — not belonging to this part of the essay.) He who could represent 
 Christ uniformly like a drayman must have had queer concep- 
 tions : consequently his execution must have been queer, and 
 those must be queer fellows who give great sums for such non- 
 sense and think it fine art. 
 
 (Upside down, — at foot of page 64.) 
 
 Great men and fools do often we inspire, 
 But the greater fools the greater liar. 
 
 65 I do not know whether Homer is a liar, and that there is no 
 such thing as generous contention. I know that all those with 
 whom I have contended in art have striven, not to excel, but to 
 starve me out by calumny and the arts of trading competition. 
 
 66 {Title and verses. "Having given great offence by writing 
 prose," etc.) 
 
 67 The English artist may be assured that he is doing an injury 
 and injustice to his country while he studies and imitates the 
 effects of Nature. England will never rival Italy while we 
 servilely copy what the wise Italians, Raphael and Michael 
 Angelo scorned, as Vasari tells us. 
 
 Call that the public voice which is their error 
 Like to a monkey, peeping in a mirror, 
 Admires all his colours warm and brown, 
 Nor ever once perceives his ugly form. 
 
 What kind of intellect must he have who sees only the 
 colours of things and not the forms of things ? 
 
 Let us teach Buonaparte and whomsoever it may concern that 
 it is not the arts that follow and attend upon Empire, but 
 Empire that attends upon and follows arts. 
 
 It is nonsense for noblemen and gentlemen to offer premiums 
 for the encouragement of art when such pictures as these can 
 be done without premiums. Let them encourage what exists 
 already, and not endeavour to counteract by tricks. 
 
 Let it no more he said that empires encourage arts, for it is 
 arts that encourage arts, Arts and artists are spiritual and laugh 
 
304 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 at mortal contingencies. This is their power, to hinder instruc- 
 tion, but not to instruct, just as it is in their power to murder 
 a man but not make a man. 
 68 No man of sense can think that an imitation of an oleograph 
 is the art of painting, or that such imitation, which any one can 
 easily perform, is worthy of notice, much less that such an act 
 should be the glory and pride of a nation. The Italians laugh 
 at the English connoisseurs, who are most of them such siUy 
 fellows as to believe this. 
 Sideways, A man sets himself down with colours, and with all the 
 articles of painting. He puts a model before him, and he copies 
 that so neat as to make it a deception. Now let any man of 
 sense ask himself one question. Is this art ? Can it be worthy 
 of admiration to anybody of understanding ? Who could not do 
 this 1 What man who has eyes and an ordinary share of 
 patience cannot do this neatly ? Is this art, or is it glorious to 
 a nation to produce such contemptible copies 1 Countrymen ! 
 countrymen ! do not suffer yourselves to be disgraced ! 
 
 Pp. 69, 70, 71, etc., of the notehooh contain chiefly the account 
 of the picture called the " Last Judgment" with the title, " For the 
 year 1810, Addition to Blake's catalogue of pictures." On two 
 little clear spaces of p. 72 are found, written sideways, the following 
 two fragments : 
 72 A jockey that is anything of a jockey will never buy a horse 
 by the colour, and a man who has got any brains will never buy 
 a picture by the colour. 
 
 When I tell any truth it is not for the sake of convincing 
 those who do not know it, but for the sake of defending those 
 who do. 
 77 The greater part of what are called in England " old pictures " 
 are oil-colour copies of frescoe originals. The comparison is 
 easily made and the copy detected. {Note. — I mean frescoe, 
 easel, or cabinet pictures on canvas or wood, copper, etc.) 
 [The remainder of the book is filled with the description of the 
 Last Judgment picture, which seems to have been begun upon p. 69 
 before any of this was written. Whatever space it did not require 
 was given to verses. Therefore we must turn back to the beginning 
 of the book to find the rest of this Public Address.'] 
 
 2 If men of weak capacities have alone the power of execution 
 in art, Mr. Blake has now put to the test. If to invent and to 
 draw well hinders the executive power in art, and his strokes 
 are to be condemned because they are unlike those of artists 
 who are unacquainted with drawing, is now to be decided by the 
 public. Mr. Blake's inventive powers and his scientific know- 
 ledge of drawing are on aU hands acknowledged. It only 
 remains to be certified whether Physiognomic strength and 
 power are to give place to imbecility. In a work of art it is 
 not fine tints that are required but fine forms.*' Fine tints 
 without fine forms are always the subterfuge of the block- 
 head.* 
 
 I account it a public duty respectfully to address myself to the 
 Chalcographic Society, and to express to them my opinion, the 
 
 1 * * Later, 
 
'PUBLIC ADDEESS' 305 
 
 result of expert practice and experience of many years, that 
 engraving, as an art, is lost to England, owing to an artfully 
 propagated opinion that drawing spoils an engraver. I request 
 the society to inspect my print, of which drawing is the 
 foundation, and, indeed, the superstructure. It is drawing on 
 copper, as painting ought to be drawing on canvas, or any 
 other surface, and nothing else. I request likewise that the 
 society will compare the prints of Bartolozzi, WooUett, Strange, 
 etc., with the old English portraits : — that is, compare the 
 modern art with the art as it existed previous to the entrance 
 of Vandyke and Rubens into the country — since which event 
 engraving is lost — and I am sure the result of the comparison 
 will be that the society must be of my opinion, that engraving, 
 by losing drawing, has lost all character and expression, without 
 which the art is lost. 
 
 {No. 19 IS the next page which had blank space enough left in 
 1810 /or the manifesto. It continues on that page, — as follows) : 
 
 19 There is not, because there cannot be any difference between 
 the effect in pictures by Rubens and Rembrandt. When you 
 have seen one of their pictures you have seen alL It is not so 
 with Raphael, Julio Romano, Albert Dilrer, Michael Angela 
 Every picture of theirs has a different and appropriate effect. 
 What man of sense will lay out his money on the life's labour 
 of imbecility and imbecility's journeyman, or think to educate a 
 fool how to build a universe with farthing balls ? The con- 
 temptible idiots who have been called great men of late years 
 ought to rouse the public indignation of men of sense of all 
 professions. 
 
 That vulgar epigram in art, Rembrandt's Hundred Ouelders, 
 has entirely put an end to all genuine and appropriate effect. 
 All, both morning and night, is now a dark cavern. It is the 
 fashion. Yet I do not shrink from comparison in either relief 
 or strength of colour with Rembrandt or Rubens ; on the 
 contrary, I court the comparison and fear not the result. Their 
 effects are in every picture the same. Mine are in every 
 picture different. Raphael, Michael Angelo, Albert Diirer, 
 Julio Romano, are accounted ignorant of that epigrammatic 
 wit in art, because they avoid it as a destructive machine, 
 as it is. 
 
 I hope my countrymen will excuse me if I tell them a whole- 
 some truth. Most Englishmen when they look at a picture 
 begin immediately searching about for points of light, and clap 
 the picture in a dark comer. This, when done by grand works, 
 is like looking for epigrams in Homer. 
 
 A point of light is a witticism. Many are destructive of all 
 art. One is an epigram only, and no good work can have them. 
 
 Mr. B. repeats here that there is not one character or ex- 
 pression in this print which could be produced with the 
 execution of Titian, Rubens, Correggio, Rembrandt, or any of 
 that class. Character and expression can only be expressed by 
 those who feel them. Even Hogarth's execution cannot be 
 copied or improved. Gentlemen of fortune who give great 
 prices for pictures should consider the following : 
 
 20 Rubens' Luxembourg gallery is confessed on all hands to be the 
 
 X 
 
306 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 work of a blockhead. It bears this evidence in its face. How 
 can its execution be any other than the work of a blockhead 1 
 Bloated gods, — ^Mercury, Juno, Venus, and the rattletraps of 
 mythology, and the lumber of an awkward French palace are 
 thrown together, around clumsy and rickety princes and 
 princesses, higgledy-piggledy. On the contrary, Julio Eomano's 
 Palace of T. at Mantua is allowed on all hands to be the pro- 
 duction of a man of the most profound sense and genius, and 
 yet his execution is pronounced by English connoisseurs, and 
 Reynolds, their doll, to be unfit for the study of the painter. 
 Can I speak with too great contempt of such fellows 1 If all 
 the princes in Europe like Louis XlV. and Charles I. were to 
 patronise such blockheads. J. William Blake, a mental priTicfi, 
 would decollate and hang their souls as guilty of mental high 
 treason. 
 
 Who that has eyes cannot see that Rubens and Correggio 
 must have been very weak and vulgar fellows 1 And are we to 
 imitate their execution ! This is what Sir Francis Bacon says, — 
 that a healthy child should be taught and compelled to walk 
 like a cripple, while the cripple must be taught to walk like 
 healthy people. Oh rare wisdom ! 
 21 The wretched state of the arts in this country, originating in 
 the wretched state of political science (which is the science of 
 sciences), demands a firm and determinate conduct on the part of 
 artists to resist the contemptible counter arts, established by 
 such contemptible politicians as Louis XIV., and originally set 
 on foot by Venetian picture-traders, music-traders, and rhyme- 
 traders, to the destruction of all true art as it is this day. An 
 example of these contrary arts is given us in the characters of 
 Milton and Dryden as they are given in a poem signed with the 
 name of Nat Lee, which perhaps he never wrote, and perhaps 
 he wrote in a paroxysm of insanity, in which it said that 
 Milton's poem is a rough, unfinished piece, and that Dryden has 
 flmished it. Now let Dryden's Fall and Milton's Paradise be 
 read, and I will assert that everybody of imderstanding miist 
 cry out shame on such niggling and poco-pen as Dryden has 
 degraded Milton with. But at the same time I will allow that 
 stupidity will prefer Dryden, because it is rhyme, and monoton- 
 ous sing-song, sing-song from beginning to end. Such are Barto- 
 lozzi, Woollett, and Strange. To recover art has been the 
 business of my life, to the Florentine original, and if possible to 
 go beyond that original. This I thought the only pursuit worthy 
 of a man. To imitate I abhor. I obstinately adhere to the true 
 style of art such as Michael Angelo, Raphael, and Albert Diirer 
 left it, — ^*the art of invention, not of imitation. Imagination 
 is my World. This world of dross is beneath my notice, and 
 22 beneath the notice of the Public** ' I demand, therefore, of the 
 amateurs of art the encouragement which is my due. If they 
 continue to refuse, theirs is the loss, not mine, and theirs is 
 the contempt of posterity. I have enough in the approbation of 
 
 1 * to ** erased. The words are valuable as showing the consistency of the 
 author, who looked on the Public as being, like himself, truly a portion of the 
 spiritual world, and outside the " world of dross. " 
 
'PUBLIC ADDRESS' 307 
 
 fellow-labourers. This is my glory, and my exceeding great 
 reward. I go on, and nothing can hinder my course. 
 
 And in melodious accents I 
 
 Will sit me down and cry, — I ! I ! 
 
 23 {The Screwmuch lines fill page 23 ; they were written before this 
 " Address," as was also the fragment " was I angry with Hayley, who 
 used me so ill, etc.," which holds the central place under a sketch in 
 page 24.) 
 
 24 The painters of England are unemployed in public works 
 while the sculptors have continual and superabundant employ- 
 ment. Our churches and our abbeys are treasures of their 
 producing for ages back, while painting is excluded. Painting, 
 the principal art, has almost no place among our only public 
 works. Yet it is more adapted to solemn ornament than marble 
 can be, as it is capable of being placed in any height, and, 
 indeed, would make a noble finish placed above the great public 
 monuments in Westminster, St. Paul's, and other cathedrals. 
 To the Society for the Encouragement of Art I address myself 
 with respectful duty, requesting their consideration of my plan - 
 as a great public means of advancing fine art in Protestant 
 communities. Monuments to the dead painters by historical 
 and poetical artists like Barry and Mortimer (I forbear to name 
 living artists, though equally worthy), I say, monuments to 
 painters must make England what Italy is ; an envied store- 
 house of intellectual riches. 
 
 25 It has been said of late years the English public have no taste 
 for painting. This is a falsehood. The English are as good 
 judges of painting as of poetry, and they prove it by their con- 
 tempt for great collections of all the rubbish of the Continent 
 brought here by ignorant picture -dealers. An Englishman 
 may well say, " I am no judge of painting " when he is shown 
 these smears and daubs at an immense price, and told that such 
 is the art of painting. I say the English public are true 
 encouragers of real art, while they discourage and look with 
 contempt on false art. I know my execution is not like any 
 one else s. I do not intend it should be so. None but blockheads 
 copy one another. My conception and invention are allowed on 
 aU hands to be superior. My execution will be found so too. To 
 what is it that gentlemen of the first rank both in genius and 
 fortune have subscribed their names ? To my inventions. The 
 executive part they never disputed. 
 
 26 In a commercial nation impostors are abroad in all professions. 
 These are the greatest enemies of Genius. *Mr. B. considers it 
 his duty to caution the public against a certain impostor who * * 
 In one art, the art of painting, these impostors sedulously 
 propagate an opinion that great inventors cannot execute. 
 This opinion is as destructive of the true artist as it is false by 
 all experience. Even Hogarth cannot be either copied or 
 improved. Can (?) Anglus ever discern perfection but in the 
 journeyman's labour ? 
 
 Sideways. P.S. — I do not believe that this absurd opinion was set on 
 foot till, in my outset into life, it was artfully published both in 
 whispers and in print by certain persons whose robbery from me 
 
308 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 made it necessary to them that I should be hid in a comer. It 
 never was supposed that a copy could be better than an original, 
 or near so good, till a few years ago it became the interest of 
 certain envious knaves. The lavish praise I have received from 
 all quarters for invention and drawing has generally been 
 accompanied by this : " He can conceive but he cannot execute." 
 This absurd assertion has done me, and may still do me the 
 greatest mischief. I call for public protection against the 
 villains. I am, like others, just equal in invention, and 
 execution of my work. I, in my own defence, challenge com- 
 parison with the finest engravings, and defy the most critical 
 judge to make the comparison honestly, asserting in my own 
 defence that this print is the finest that has been done, or is 
 likely to be done when drawing, the foundation, is condemned, 
 and absurd nonsense about dots and lozenges made to occupy 
 the attention to the neglect of all true art. I defy any man to 
 cut cleaner strokes than I do, or rougher, when I please, and 
 apart that he who thinks he can engrave or paint without being 
 a master of drawing is a fool. Painting is drawing on canvas 
 and engraving is drawing on copper, and nothing else, and he 
 who draws best must be the best artist, and to this I subscribe 
 my name as a public duty. William Blake. 
 
 So we come in connected sentences to the end of the 
 manifesto. Valuable as it is, its great purpose, that of vin- 
 dicating the characteristics of the imaginative style in art 
 as against the false idea that smoothness is necessarily 
 "finish," has long ago been fully served. Every student 
 now knows only too well that smoothness is often merely 
 obliteration, and often leaves his own work timidly rough 
 lest it should appear foolishly smooth. 
 
 But in reading the statement that one man cannot take 
 up another man's beginnings and improve them we are led 
 astray, if we forget that this can only be true when the con- 
 tinuer is incapable of receiving the true impulse from the 
 work which he handles. Should he catch the intention and 
 work forward in the same spirit, then, supposing his capa- 
 cities not inferior to those of the " original inventor " he will 
 do just as well as the inventor himself would were he to 
 resume labour on a design that he had put aside in past 
 years, and forgotten so completely, that he had to re-invent 
 whatever of its development was not indicated ia the plan. 
 But when the continuer is superior to the beginner, then, — 
 as was the case when Shakespeare re-wrote old plays for the 
 stage, — he will simply put to the best artistic purpose an 
 opportunity which his predecessors left half used. 
 
 But the " advertisement " of the Canterlury Pilgrims did 
 
'PUBLIC ADDEESS' 309 
 
 not stop here. The Anecdotes of Artists referred to in the 
 announcement of its publication " this day " are yet to come. 
 These were probably added after he had finished and 
 signed it. One isolated " dictum " is to be found on p. 45, 
 twenty pages later than the close of the signed " advertise- 
 ment." 
 
 41 There is the same science in Lebriin or Rubens, or even 
 
 Vanloo, that there is in Raphael or Michael Angelo, but not the 
 same genius. Science is soon got, the other never. 
 
 45 "Let a man who has made a drawing go on, and he will 
 
 produce a picture, or painting, but if he chooses to have it 
 before he has spoiled it, he will do a better thing.'' 
 
 Then on p. 47, after many epigrams and the above two 
 isolated sentences, we get at last to what Blake seems to 
 have imagined could be called " Anecdotes of Artists." 
 
 47 They say there is no straight line in nature. This is a lie, 
 like all they say, for there is every line in nature. But I will 
 tell them what there is not in nature. An even tint is not in 
 nature. It produces heaviness. Nature's shadows are ever 
 varying, and a ruled sky that is quite even can never produce a 
 natural sky. The same with every object in a picture. Its 
 spots are its beauties. Now, gentlemen critics, how do you like 
 this ? You may rage, but what I say I will prove by such 
 practice, and have already done so, that you will rage to your 
 own distraction. Woollett I knew very intimately by his 
 intimacy with Basire, and I knew him to be one of the most 
 ignorant fellows that I ever knew. A machine is not a man, 
 nor a work ; it is destructive of humanity and of art. The 
 word Machination. . . . ^ 
 
 Delicate hands and heads will never appear, 
 
 While Titian, etc. ... as in the Book of Moonlight. 
 
 Woollett, I know, did not know how to grind his graver : I 
 know this. He has often proved his ignorance before me at 
 Basire's by laughing at Basire's knife-tools, and ridiculing the 
 
 48 form of Basire's graver till Basire was quite dashed and out of 
 conceit with what he himself knew. But his ignorance had a 
 contrary effect upon me. Englishmen have been so used to 
 journeymen's undecided bungling that they cannot bear the 
 firmness of a master's touch. ^ Every line is the line of beauty. 
 It is only fumble and bungle which cannot draw a line. This 
 only is ugliness. But that is not a line which doubts and 
 hesitates in the midst of its course. 
 
 49 and Everlasting Gospel, and the epigram on Fuseli, " The only man 
 50 I ever knew," etc. 
 
 1 In the MS. the .sentence about machination and the quotation from the 
 Book of Moonlight (a lost work of Blake's) are broken as here printed. 
 ^ Sideways. 
 
310 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 52 Everlasting Gospel above. On lower half: — In this plate 
 
 Mr. B. has resumed the style with which he set out in life, of 
 which Heath and Stothard were the awkward Imitators at that 
 time. It is the style of Albert Durer and the old engravers, 
 which cannot be imitated by any one who does not understand 
 drawing, and which, according to Heath, Stothard, Flaxman, 
 and even Romney, spoils an engraver ; for each of these men 
 
 53, has repeatedly asserted this absurdity to me in condemnation of 
 
 upper my work, and approbation of Heath's lame imitation, Stothard 
 
 part being such a fool as to suppose that his blundering blurs can be 
 
 made out and delineated by any engraver who knows how to 
 
 cut dots and lozenges, equally well with those little prints 
 
 54,'^ which I engraved after him twenty years ago, by which he 
 upper got his reputation as a draughtsman. Flaxman cannot deny 
 part that one of his very first monuments he did I gratuitously 
 designed for him. How much of his Homer and Dante he will 
 allow to be mine I do not know, as he went far enough off to 
 publish them, even to Italy, but the public will know ; and at 
 the same time he was blasting my character to Machlin my 
 employer, as Machlin told me at the time. 
 
 53, ^ The manner in which my character has been blasted these 
 lower thirty years both as an Artist and as a Man may be seen particu- 
 
 part larly in a Sunday paper called the Examiner, published in Beau- 
 fort's Buildings,^ and the manner in which I have rooted out the 
 nest of villains will be seen in a poem concerning my three years' 
 Herculean labours at Pelpham, which I shcill soon publish. 
 Secret calumny and open professions of friendship are common 
 enough all the world over, but have never been so good an 
 occasion of poetic imagery. When a base man means to be your 
 enemy, he always begins first with being your friend.^ We all 
 know that editors of newspapers trouble their heads very little 
 about art and science, and that they are always paid for what 
 they put in on those ungracious subjects. 
 
 54, Many people are so foolish as to think they can wound 
 lower M. Fuseli over my shoulder.* They will find themselves 
 
 part mistaken : they could not wound even Mr. Barry so. 
 
 A certain portrait painter said to me in a boasting way : 
 "Since I have practised painting I have lost all idea of 
 drawing." Such a man must know that I looked upon him with 
 contempt. He did not care for this any more than West did, 
 who hesitated and equivocated with me on the same subject, at 
 
 55, which time he asserted that Woollett's prints are superior to 
 Ever- Basire's, because they had more labour and care. Now this is 
 lasting contrary to truth. Woollett did not know how to put so much 
 Gospel labour into a head or a foot as Basire did. He did not know 
 to end. how to draw the leaf of a tree. All his study was clean 
 
 strokes and mossy tints. How then should he be able to make 
 
 1 The two upper parts of these pages were written cousecutively. The middle 
 was occupied by drawings, and by a late portion of the Everlasting Gospel 
 written after the prose. The lower portions were also written consecutively, and 
 now follow. 
 
 2 Begun in 1808. Criticised Blake August 1808, and September 1809. 
 '■> Hayley ; thus connected by the " living " with Hunt. 
 
 ^ In the Examiner Fuseli's name is coupled with Blake's. 
 
'ftJBLiC ADDEESS* 311 
 
 Use of either labour or care, unless the labour or care of 
 imbecility ? The life's labour of mental weakness scarcely equals 
 one hour of the labour of ordinary capacity, like the full gallop 
 of the gouty man to the ordinary walk of youth and health. 
 I allow that there is such a thing as high-finished ignorance, 
 as there may be a fool or a knave in an embroidered coat. But 
 I say that the embroidery of the ignorant finisher is not like a 
 coat made by another, but is an emanation from ignorance itself, 
 and its finding is like its master — the life's labour of five hundred 
 idiots, for he never does the work himself. 
 
 What is called the English style of engraving, such as it 
 proceeded from the toilets of Woollett and Strange, for theirs 
 were fribble's toilets, can never produce character and expression. 
 I knew the men intimately from their intimacy with Basire, 
 my master, and knew them both to be heavy lumps of cunning 
 and ignorance, as their works show to all the continent, who 
 laugh at the contemptible pretences of Englishmen to improve 
 art before they even know the first beginnings of art. I hope 
 
 67 this print will redeem my country from this coxcomb situation, 
 and show that it is only some Englishmen, and not all, who are 
 thus ridiculous in their pretences. Advertisements in the news- 
 papers are no proof of popular approbation, but rather the con- 
 trary. A man who pretends to improve fine art does not know 
 what fine art is. Ye English engravers must come down from 
 your high flights. Ye must condescend to study Marc Antonio 
 and Albert Durer. Ye must begin before you attempt to finish or 
 improve ; and when you have begun you will know better than 
 to think of improving what cannot be improved. 
 
 58 It is very true what you have said for these thirty years : I 
 
 am mad, or else you are so. Both of us cannot be in our right 
 senses. Posterity will judge by our works. Woollett's and 
 Strange's works are like those of Titian and Correggio, the life's 
 labour of ignorant journeymen, suited to the purposes of com- 
 merce, for comiQerce cannot endure individual merit; its 
 insatiable maw must be fed by what all can do equally well ; 
 at least it is so in England, as I have found to my cost these 
 forty years. Commerce is so far from being beneficial to arts 
 or empires that it is destructive of both, as aU their history 
 shows, for the above reason of individual merit being its 
 great hatred. Empires flourish until thejr become commercial, 
 and then they are scattered abroad to the four winds. 
 
 I do not pretend to paint better than Raphael or Michael 
 Angelo, or Jiuio Romano, or Albert Diirer, but I do pretend to 
 paint finer than Rubens, or Rembrandt, or Titian, or Correggio. 
 I do not pretend to engrave finer than Albert Durer, but I do pre- 
 tend to engrave finer than Strange, Woollett, Wall, or Bartolozzi, 
 and aU because I understood drawing which they understood not. 
 ^ Such prints as Woollett and Strange produce will do for those 
 who choose to purchase the life's labour of ignorance and imbecOity 
 in preference to the inspired mom'ents of genius and inspiration. 
 58 '' Woollett's best works were etched by Jack Brown. Woollett 
 
 again etched very ill himself. Strange's prints were, when I knew 
 
 ' Sideways — later. 
 
 " Between lines, written to connect the sideways sentence of 57 with that of 58. 
 
312 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 him, all done by Aliamet and his French journeymen, whose 
 names I forget. ' The Cottagers and Jocund Peasants, the 
 Views m Kew Oardens, the Diana and AcUeon, and, in short, all 
 that are called WooUett's were etched by Jack Brown, and in 
 WooUett's works the etching is all, even though a single leaf 
 of a tree is never correct. 
 
 59 In this manner the English public has been imposed upon, 
 under the impression that engraving and painting are somewhat 
 else besides drawing. Painting is drawing on canvas, and 
 engraving is drawing on copper, and nothing else, and he who 
 pretends to be either painter or engraver without drawing is an 
 impostor. We may be clever as pugilists, but as artists we are, 
 and have long been, the contempt of the continent. Gravelot 
 once said to my master Basire : " De English may be very clever 
 in deir own opinions, but dey do not draw de draw," 
 
 60 2 M.en think they can copy nature as correctly as I copy 
 imagination. This they will find impossible ; and all the copies 
 or pretended copies of nature, from Rembrandt to Reynolds, prove 
 that nature becomes, to its victim, nothing but blots and blurs. 
 Why are copies of nature incorrect while copies of imagination 
 are correct ? This is manifest to alL 
 
 59 2 Resentment for personal injuries has had some share in this 
 
 again public address, but love to my art, and zeal for my country a 
 much greater. 
 
 ^ Sideways. 
 
 ^ At the top of p. 60, apparently contimiing what is at the top of p. 59. 
 
 * This occupies tlie lower part of page 59. It was apparently intended as the 
 last sentence of the pamphlet, and was almost certainly the last written. The 
 corresponding portion of p. 60, that lies opposite as the book opens, is occupied 
 with a quotation from Bell's Weekly Messenger, dated Aug. 1811. The manifesto 
 begins on the next p. 61, over leaf. 
 
CHAPTEE XXVI 
 
 THE 'LAST judgment' 
 
 One of the finest pictures in the Blair's Grave is, as will be 
 remembered, a Last Judgment. Blake drew this subject 
 more than once. The design in the Grave series is more 
 condensed than that which was the subject of the description 
 printed (in a rather mixed way) in the second volume of 
 Gilchrist, and of the letter to Ozias Humphry in the first. 
 The form of the composition there referred to was built, as 
 one would say of a house, in many more stories than are 
 found in the Grave design. Had the scheme for the larger 
 work been exactly reproduced in the Grave, on account of 
 the comparative smallness of the folio page the figures would 
 have been only a couple of inches or less in height. The 
 group of trumpeters in the Grave design is a substitute, as 
 will be seen, for a very different centre-piece in the lower 
 part of this picture. 
 
 Gilchrist thinks that this picture was among the com- 
 missions claimed by Cromek as being won for Blake through 
 the Grave pubhcation, but it appears from his narrative that 
 it was really ordered by the Countess of Egremont (to whom 
 Hayley had introduced Blake) on the recommendation of 
 Ozias Humphry, as Blake himself tells us. 
 
 The probability is that this design, which " occupied Blake 
 during the year 1807," was in progress when Cromek visited 
 Blake, and first commissioned the Grave series, and that it 
 was the cause" of that commission. Gilchrist thinks that it 
 was " a repetition or enlargement of the most elaborate of 
 the Blair drawings." But everything in the appearance of 
 the sketch (which corresponds to this description) that was 
 shown at the Carfax Gallery suggests that it was an 
 original form of the idea from which the Blair drawing was 
 developed. The letter runs as follows : 
 
 313 
 
314 THE KEAL BLAKE 
 
 The design of the Last Judgment, which I have completed hy your 
 recommendation for the Countess of Egi'emont, it is necessary to give 
 some account of, and its various parts ought to be described for the 
 accommodation of those who give it the honour of their attention. 
 
 Christ seated on the throne of Judgment : before His feet, and around 
 Him, the heavens in clouds are rolling like a scroll ready to be con- 
 sumed in the fires of Angels who descend with the four trumpets, 
 sounding to the four winds. (In Blair they do not descend, but stand 
 and blow upwards.) 
 
 Beneath, the earth is convulsed with the labours of the resurrection. 
 In the caverns of the earth is the Dragon with seven heads and ten 
 horns, chained by two Angels with chains, while her palaces are falling 
 into ruins and her councillors are descending into the abyss in wailing 
 and despair. (The whole of this cavern, which has so little earth around 
 its entrance as to appear more like a catafalque a foot or two in thick- 
 ness, is omitted in Blair, and its place occupied by the four standing 
 angels with trumpets.) The right hand of the design is appropriated 
 to the resurrection of the just. The left hand of the design is appro- 
 priated to the resurrection and fall of the wicked. (This description 
 needs reversing. What Blake means, of course, is not the right and 
 left hand of the design, but of the figure of Christ in the design.) 
 
 Immediately before the throne ot Christ are Adam and Eve, kneel- 
 ing in humiliation as representatives of the whole human race (omitted 
 in the Blair design). Abraham and Moses kneel on each side beneath 
 them (also omitted). From the cloud on which Eve kneels is seen 
 Satan, wound round by the serpent, falling headlong (removed to right 
 of design, where he leads the faUers). The Pharisees appear on the 
 left hand, pleading their own righteousness before the throne of Christ, 
 and before the book of death, which is opened by two angels. (The 
 angels are elderly men with beards and no wings, as are the Pharisees.) 
 Many groups of figures are falling from before the throne, and from the 
 sea of fire which flows before the steps of the throne, on which are seen 
 the seven lamps of the Almighty, burning before the throne (the lamps 
 omitted). Many figures, chained and bound together in various attitudes 
 of despair and horror, fall through the air, and some are scourged by 
 Spirits with flames of fire (the scourgers omitted) into the abyss of Hell, 
 wnich opens beneath on the left side of the Harlot's seat (seat omitted), 
 where others are howling and descending into the flames, and in the 
 act of dragging each other into Hell, and of contending and fighting 
 with each other on the brink of perdition. (This group is transferred 
 to the lowest part of the centre, where the awakening skeleton was.) 
 
 Before the Throne of Christ, on the right hand, the just, in humilia- 
 tion and exultation, rise through the air with their children and families, 
 some of whom are bowing before the Book of Life, which is opened on 
 clouds by two angels (young figures in robes without wings). Many- 
 groups arise in exultation. Among them is a figure crowned with 
 stars and the moon beneath her feet, with six infants around her — she 
 represents the Christian church (omitted). Green hills appear beneath 
 the graves of the blessed, which are seen bursting with their births of 
 immortality ; parents and children, wives and husbands embrace and 
 arise together, and in exulting attitudes tell each other that the New 
 Jerusalem is ready to descend upon earth ; they arise upon the air 
 rejoicing ; others, newly awaked from the grave, stand upon the 
 earth embracing, and shouting to the Lamb who cometh in the clouds 
 
THE 'LAST JUDGMENT' 315 
 
 with power and great glory. (There is no Lamb, and no one coining in 
 either of the designs. The figure of Christ, in robes, with a book on 
 His knee, sits still on a still throne, on a still platform.) 
 
 The whole upper part of the design is a view of heaven opened 
 around the throne of Christ. In the clouds which roU away are four 
 living creatures filled with eyes, attended by seven angels with seven 
 vials of the wrath of God, and above these seven angels with the seven 
 trumpets — these compose the cloud (aU omitted and replaced by a 
 golden arch of atmospheric cloud at the top of the picture), which by 
 its rolling away displays the opening seats of the blessed, on the right 
 and on the left of which are seen (dimly and far behind the Throne, no 
 sitting figures except some of) the four and twenty Elders seated on 
 Thrones to judge the Dead. (Is that orthodox ?) 
 
 Behind the seat and throne of Christ appear the Tabernacle, with 
 its veil opened — the Candlestick on the right, the Table with the shew- 
 bread on the left, and in this the cross, in place of the ark, and the 
 cherubim bowing over it (replaced by young angels with harps and 
 wings). 
 
 On the right hand of the throne of Christ is Baptism, on the left is 
 the Lord's Supper — the two introdiicers into Eternal Life. Women 
 with infants approach the figure of an apostle, who represents Baptism, 
 and on the left hand the Lord's Supper is administered by angels 
 from the hands of another aged apostle. These kneel on each side of 
 the throne (replaced by two young winged angels with notebooks who 
 kneel right and left on lists of the saved and damned), which is 
 surrounded by a glory ; in the glory many infants appear, representing 
 Eternal Creation flowing from the Divine Humanity in Jesus, who 
 opens the Scroll of Judgment upon His knees before the Living and 
 the Dead. 
 
 Such is the Design, which you, my dear sir, have been the cause of 
 my producing, and which, but for you, might have slept till the last 
 judgment. William Blake. 
 
 February 1808. 
 
 The date of this letter is, if Gilchrist is right, a year later 
 than the commencement of the design from which so much 
 was omitted in the Blair. It is the date perhaps of the 
 completion of the first picture outside that series. " The 
 design which I have completed," the letter begins. 
 
 Gilchrist adds that in the final years of Blake's life he 
 repeated this as a fresco, "into which he introduced some 
 thousands of figures, bestowing much finish and splendour of 
 tint upon it." He also says that Blake made it too heavy in 
 trying to take the advice of a "Frenchwoman, a fellow- 
 lodger." She perhaps wanted more unity, less of confusing 
 "making out of parts." Again we see Blake wilHng to be 
 taught, if only he could see any good artistic sense in what 
 the teacher said. 
 
 02!ias Humphry, Gilchrist says, was " a miniature painter 
 of rare excellence, whose faces have a peculiar sweetness and 
 
316 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 refined simplicity in a now old-fashioned style." He was " a 
 patron, as well as a friend, for whom Blake had expressly 
 coloured many of his illustrated books." He painted Indian 
 princes in India, and his sketches and notebooks are now in 
 the British Museum. 
 
 This year, in 1808, Blake exhibited ("after nine years' 
 interval") two works at the Royal Academy, hung in the 
 drawing and miniature room. The subjects were Christ in 
 the Sepulchre, guarded hy Angels, and Jacob's Dream. 
 
CHAPTEE XXYII 
 
 blake's second account of his 'last judgment 
 pictuee, foe the yeae 1810 ^ 
 
 The Last Judgment is not fable or allegory, but Vision. Fable or 
 allegory is a totally distinct and inferior kind of poetry. Vision, or 
 imagination, is a representation of what actually exists really, and un- 
 changeably. Fable or allegory is formed by the daughters of Memory. 
 Imagination is surrounded by the daughters of Inspiration who in the 
 aggregate are called Jerusalem. 
 
 Fable is allegory, but that which is called the Fable is Vision 
 itself. 
 
 Fable or allegory is seldom without some vision. Pilgrim's Progress 
 is full of it. The Greek poets the same. But allegory and vision 
 ought to be known as two things, and so called for the sake of eternal 
 life. 
 
 {After a paragraph cut out in the MS. and leaving broken words 
 only) — 
 
 The (? Ancients produce fable) when they assert that Jupiter usurped 
 the throne of his father Saturn and brought on an iron age, and begot 
 on Mnemosyne or Memory the great Muses, which are not Inspiration 
 as the Bible is. Reality was forgot, and the accidents of Time and 
 Space only remembered, and called reality. Such is the mighty 
 difference between allegoric fable and spiritual mystery. Let it be 
 here noted that the Greek Fables originated in Spiritual Mystery and 
 real vision, which are lost and clouded in fable or allegory, while the 
 Hebrew Bible and Greek Gospel are genuine, preserved by the Saviour's 
 Mercy. The Nature of my work is Visionary or Imagination. It is 
 an endeavour to restore what the Ancients called the golden age. 
 
 The Greeks represent Chronos, or Time, as a very aged man. This 
 is fable ; but the real vision of Time is an eternal youth. I have, how- 
 ever, somewhat accommodated my figure of time to the common opinion, 
 as I myself am also infected with it, and I see Time aged — alas ! too 
 much so. 
 
 Allegories are things that relate to moral virtues. Moral virtues do 
 
 ' Such is the general subject of all the following in the MS. book : — These first 
 paragraphs are arranged from somewhat disordered notes in the MS. book, which 
 appear to have been intended as an introduction to the description of the com- 
 position representing the Last Judgment. Some occur in the course of the 
 description. They were not sorted out by the author. The places of these in 
 the MS. are indicated in footnotes. 
 
 317 
 
318 THE KEAL BLAKE 
 
 not exist. They are allegories and dissimulations. But Time and 
 Space are real beings. Time is a man. Space is a woman, and her 
 masculine portion is Death. 
 
 The Hebrew Bible and the gospel of Jesus are not allegory but 
 eternal vision, or imagination of aU that exists. ^ 
 
 Plato has made Socrates say that poets and prophets do not know 
 or understand what they write or utter. This is a most pernicious 
 falsehood. If they do not, pray is an inferior kind to be called 
 ' Knowing ' ? Plato confutes himself. 
 
 The Last Judgment is one of these stupendous visions. I have 
 represented it as I saw it. To different people it appears differently, 
 as everything else does, for though on earth things seem permanent, 
 they are less permanent than a shadow, as we all know too welL 
 
 In eternity one thing never changes into another thing. Each 
 identity is eternal Consequently Apuleius' Golden Ass and Ovid's 
 Metamorphoses, and others of the like kind are fable; yet they con- 
 tain vision in a sublime degree, being derived from real vision in 
 more ancient writings. Lot's wife being changed into a pillar of salt 
 alludes to the mortal body being made a permanent statue, but not 
 changed or transformed into another identity, while it retains its own 
 individuality. A man can never become ass or horse. Some are bom 
 with shapes of men who are both. But eternal identity is one thing, 
 and corporeal vegetation is another thing. Changing water into wine 
 by Jesus and into blood by Moses relates to vegetable nature also. 
 
 The Nature of visionary fancy or imagination is very little known, 
 and the eternal nature and permanence of its ever existent images is 
 considered less permanent than the things of vegetable and generative 
 nature. Yet the oak dies as well as the lettuce, but its eternal image 
 or individuality never dies but renews by its seed. Just so the 
 imaginative image returns by the seed of contemplative thought The 
 writings of the Prophets illustrate these conceptions of the visionary 
 fancy, by their various sublime and divine images as seen in the world 
 of vision. 
 
 The world of imagination is the world of eternity. It is the 
 divine bosom into which we shall all go after the death of the vegetated 
 body. This world of imagination is infinite and eternal, whereas the 
 world of generation or vegetation is finite and temporal There exist 
 in that eternal world the eternal realities of everything which we see 
 reflected in this vegetable glass of nature. 
 
 All things are comprehended in their eternal forms in the divine 
 body of the Saviour, the true vine of eternity, the Human imagination, 
 who appeared to me as coming to judgment among his Saints and 
 throwing off the temporal that the eternal might be established. 
 Around him are seen the images of existence according to a certain 
 order suited to my imaginative ej'e — {later ; energy). 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF THE PICTURE. 
 
 Jesus, seated between two pillars, Joachim and Boaz, with the word 
 of divine revelation on his knee, and on each side the four and twenty 
 
 ' Blake inserts at this point, "Note lieve that Fable or Allegory is seldom 
 without some vision, etc." But it breaks up what little continuity may be found 
 in the subsequent sentences. 
 
SECOND ACCOUNT OF 'LAST JUDGMENT' 319 
 
 elders sitting in judgment, the heavens opening around him by unfold- 
 ing the clouds around his throne. The old heavens and the old earth 
 are passing away, and the new heavens and the new earth descending : 
 a sea of fire issues from before the throne. Adam and Eve appear first 
 before the judgment-seat in humiliation ; Abel, surrounded by innocents, 
 and Cain, with the flint in his hand with which he slew his brother, 
 falling, with the head downwards. From the cloud on which Eve stands 
 Satan is seen falling headlong, wound round by the tail of the serpent, 
 whose bulk, nailed to the cross round which he wreathes, is falling 
 into the abyss. Sin is also represented by a female, bound in one of 
 the serpent's folds, surrounded by her friends. Death is chained to the 
 cross, and Time ialls, together with Death, dragged down by a demon 
 crowned with laurel Another demon with a Key has the charge of 
 Sin, and is dragging her down by the hair. Beside them a figure is 
 seen scaled with iron scales from head to feet, precipitating himself 
 into the abyss, with the sword and balances. He is Og, King of 
 Bashan. 
 
 On the right, beneath the cloud on which Abel kneels, is Abraham, 
 with Sarah and Isaac, also with Hagar and Ishmael, on the left. Abel 
 kneels on a bloody cloud descriptive of those churches before the 
 flood, — that they were fllled with blood and fire and vapour of smoke. 
 Even till Abraham's time the vapour and heat were not extinguished. 
 These states exist now. Man passes on, but states remain for ever. 
 He passes through them like a traveller, who may as well suppose 
 that the places he has passed through exist no more, as a man may 
 suppose that the states he has passed through exist no more. Every- 
 thing is eternal. 
 
 Beneath Ishmael is Mahomet, and beneath the falling figure of Cain 
 is Moses, casting his tables of stone into the deeps. It ought to be 
 understood that the persons, Moses and Abraham, are not here meant, 
 but the states signified by those names : the individuals being repre- 
 sentatives or visions of those states as they were revealed to mortal 
 man in the series of divine revelations as they are written in the Bible. 
 These various states I have seen in my imagination : when distant 
 they appear as one man ; but as you approach they appear multitudes 
 of nations. Abraham hovers above his posterity, which appear as 
 multitudes of children ascending from the earth, surrounded by Stars, 
 — as it was said : "As the stars of heaven for multitude." Jacob and 
 his twelve sons hover beneath the feet of Abraham and receive their 
 children from the earth. I have seen, when a.t a distance, multitudes 
 of men in harmony appear like a single infant, sometimes in the arms 
 of a female. This represented the Church. 
 
 But, to proceed with the description of those on the left hand. 
 Beneath the cloud on which Moses kneels are two figures, a male and a 
 female, chained together by the feet. They represent those who 
 perished by the,Flood. Beneath them, a multitude of their associates 
 are seen falling headlong. By the side of them is a mighty fiend with 
 a book in his hand, which is shut. He represents the person named 
 in Isaiah xxii. c, and 20 v., Eliakim, son of Hilkiah. He drags Satan 
 down headlong. He is crowned with oak. By the side of the scaled 
 figure, representing Og, King of Bashan, is a figure with a basket, 
 emptying out the variety of riches and worldly honours. He is 
 Araunah the Jebusite, master of the threshing floor. Above him are 
 two figures elevated on a cloud representing the Pharisees, who plead 
 
320 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 their owii righteousness before the throne. They are weighed clown 
 by two fiends. Beneath the man with the basket are three tiery fiends, 
 with grey beards, and scourges of fire. They represent cruel laws. 
 They scourge a group of figures down into the deeps. Beneath them 
 are various figures in attitudes of contention, representing various 
 states of misery, which, alas, every one is liable to enter into, and 
 against which we should all watch. The ladies will be pleased to see 
 that I have represented the three Furies by three men, and not by 
 three women. It is not because I think the aiicients wrong, but 
 they will be pleased to remember that mine is vision, and not fable. 
 The spectator may suppose them clergymen in the pulpit, scourging 
 sin instead of forgiving it. 
 
 The earth beneath these falling figures is rocky and burning, and 
 seems as if convulsed by earthquake. A great city, on fire, is seen in 
 the distance. The (?) armies are fleeing upon the mountains. On the 
 foreground Hell is opened, and many figures are descending into it, 
 down stone steps, and beside a gate, beneath a rock, where sin and 
 death are to be closed eternally by that fiend who carries the key in 
 one hand and drags them down with the other. On the rock, and 
 above the gate, a fiend with wings urges the wicked onward with fiery 
 darts. He is Hazael the Syrian, who drives abroad all those who 
 rebel against their Saviour. Beneath the steps is Babylon, represented 
 by a King, crowned, grasping his sword and sceptre. He is just 
 awakened out of his grave. Around him are other kingdoms arising 
 to judgment, represented in this picture by single persons according to 
 the descriptions in the Prophets. The figure dragging up a woman by 
 the hair represents the Inquisition, as do those contending on the 
 sides of the pit, and in particular, the man strangling a woman 
 represents a cruel church. 
 
 Two persons, one in purple, the other in scarlet, are descending 
 down the steps into the pit. These are Caiaphas and Pilate, two 
 states where all those reside who calumniate and murder under pretence 
 of holiness and justice. Caiaphas has a blue flame like a mitre on his 
 head. Pilate has bloody hands that can never be cleansed. The 
 females behind them represent the females belonging to such states, 
 who are imder perpetual terrors and vain dreams, plots, and secret 
 deceit. Those flgures that descend into the flames before Caiaphas and 
 Pilate are Judas and those of his class. Ahithophel is here, with the 
 cord in his hand.^ 
 
 Between the feet of Adam and Eve appears a fiery gulph descending 
 from the sea of fire before the throne. In this cataract four angels 
 descend headlong with four trumpets to awake the dead. Beneath 
 these is the seat of the harlot named Mystery in the Bevelations. 
 She is seized by two beings, each with three heads. They represent 
 vegetative existence. As it is written in the Revelations they strip 
 her naked and bum her with fire. It represents the eternal con- 
 sumption of vegetable life and death with its lusts. The wreathed 
 torches in their hands represent eternal fire, which is the fire of 
 generation or vegetation : it is an etenaal consummation. 
 
 ' Here, in the original, follows the paragraph teginning " In eternity one 
 thing never changes into another, consequently Apuleius' Golden Ass" etc., 
 and ending, " changing water into wine hy Jesus, and into blood by Moses 
 relates to vegetable nature also." It interrupts the narrative, and was probably 
 not intended to be printed where it is written. — Ed. 
 
SECOND ACCOUNT OF 'LAST JUDGMENT' 321 
 
 Those who are blessed with imaginative vision see this eternal 
 female, and tremble at what others fear not, while they despise and 
 laugh at what others fear. Beneath her feet is a flaming cavern, in 
 which are seen her kings and councillors and warriors descending in 
 flames, lamenting and looking on her in astonishment and terror, and 
 HeU is opened beneath her seat; on the left hand the great Eed 
 Dragon with seven heads and horns. He has Satan's book of 
 accusations, lying on the rock, open before him. He is bound in 
 chains by two strong demons. They are Gog and Magog, who have 
 been compelled to subdue their master (Ezekiel xxxviii. c. 8 v.) with 
 their hammer and tongs about to new - create the seven - headed 
 kingdoms. The graves beneath are opened and the dead awake and 
 obey the call of the trumpet. Those on the right hand awake in joy, 
 and those on the left in horror. Beneath the Dragon's cavern a 
 skeleton begins to re-animate, starting into life at the trumpet's 
 soimd, while the wicked contend with each other on the brink of 
 perdition. On the right a youthful couple are awaked by their 
 children : an aged patriarch is awaked by his aged wife. * He is 
 Albion our Ancestor, patriarch of the Atlantic Continent whose 
 history preceded that of the Hebrews, and in whose sleep and chaos 
 creations began. The good woman is Britannica, the wife of Albion ; 
 Jerusalem is their daughter.* Little infants^ creep out of the flowery 
 mould into the green fields of the blessed, who, in various joyful 
 companies, embrace and ascend to meet eternity. 
 
 The' persons who ascend to meet the Lord, coming in the clouds 
 with power and great glory, are representatives of those states de- 
 scribed in the Bible under the names of the Fathers before and after 
 the flood. Noah is seen in the midst of these, canopied by a rainbow ; 
 on his right hand Shem ; on his left Japhet. These three persons 
 represent Poetry, Painting, and Music — the three powers in man of 
 conversing with Paradise which the flood did not sweep away. Above 
 Noah is the Church Universal represented by a woman surrounded by 
 infents. There is such a state in eternity : it is composed of the 
 innocent civilised heathen, and the uncivilised savage who, having not 
 the law, do by nature the things contained in the law. This state 
 appears like a female crowned with stars driven into the wilderness. 
 She has the moon under her feet. The aged figure with wings, having 
 a writing tablet, and taking account of the numbers who arise, is that 
 Angel of the Divine Presence mentioned in Exodus xiv. c. 10 v., and 
 in other places. The angel is frequently called by the name of 
 Jehovah Elohim. t The I am, of the oaks of Albion, t 
 
 Aroimd Noah and beneath him are various figures risen into the air. 
 Among these are three females, representing those who are not of the 
 dead but who are found alive at the Last Judgment. They appear to 
 be innocently gay and thoughtless, not being among the condemned, 
 because ignorant of crime in a corrupted age. The Virgin Mary was 
 of this class. A mother meets her numerous family in the arms of 
 their father. These are representations of the Greek learned and wise, 
 
 * The words between the asterisks were added later by Blake. At the time 
 this description was written, 1810, there was no intention to mention Albion. 
 This seems to suggest that Jerusalem was still in progress ; probably but little of 
 it belongs to 1804. This also dates the substitution of the word " Albion " for 
 " Man " or " Fallen Man " in the MS. of Vala. 
 
 + Once more, a later insertion of Blake's. 
 
 Y 
 
322 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 and also of those other nations such as Egypt and Babylon in which 
 were multitudes who shall meet the Lord coming in the clouds. 
 
 The children of Abraham, or Hebrew Church, are represented as a 
 stream of figures on which are seen stars somewhat like the Milky 
 Way. They ascend from the earth, while figures kneel, embracing 
 above the graves, and represent religion, or civilised life, such as it is 
 in the Christian Church which is the offspring of the Hebrew. Just 
 above the graves and above the spot where the infants creep out of the 
 ground stand two — a man and a woman. These are the primitive 
 Christians. The two figures in purifying flames by the side of the 
 Dragon's cavern represent the latter state of the Church when on the 
 verge of perdition, yet protected by a flaming sword. Multitudes are 
 seen ascending from the green fields of the blessed in which a Gothic 
 Church is representative of true art (called " Gothic " in all ages by 
 those who follow the fashion, as that is called which is without form 
 or fashion). By the right hand of Noah, a woman with children 
 represents the state called Saban the Syrian. It is the remains of 
 civilisation in the state from which Adam was taken. Also on the 
 right hand of Noah a female descends to meet her lover or husband, 
 representative of that love called friendship which looks for no other 
 heaven than the beloved, and in him sees all reflected as in a glass of 
 eternal diamond. 
 
 On the right hand of these rise the diffident and humble, and on 
 their left a solitary woman with her infant. These are caught up by 
 three aged men who appear as suddenly emerging from the blue sky 
 for their help. These three aged men represent divine providence as 
 opposed to and distinct from divine vengeance — ^represented by three 
 aged men, on the side of the picture among the wicked, with scourges 
 of fire. 1 
 
 Above the head of Noah is Seth. This state called Seth is in a 
 higher state of happiness than Noah, being nearer the state of innocence. 
 Beneath the feet of Seth two figures represent the two seasons of 
 Spring and Autumn, while beneath the feet of Noah four seasons 
 represent the changed state made by the flood. ^ 
 
 By the side of Seth is Elijah. He comprehends all the prophetic 
 characters. He is seen in his fiery chariot bowing before the throne of 
 the Saviour. In like manner the figures of Seth and his wife com- 
 prehend the Fathers before the flood and their generations. When 
 seen remote they appear as one man. A little below Seth, on his 
 right, are two figures, a male and a female, with numerous children. 
 These represent those who were not in the line of the Church and yet 
 were saved from among the antediluvians who perished. Between 
 Seth and these a female figure represents the solitary state of those 
 who, previous to the flood, walked with God. 
 
 All these rise toward the opening cloud before the throne, led 
 onward by triumphant groups of infants. Between Seth and Elijah 
 three female figures crowned with garlands represent learning and 
 science which accompanied Adam out of Eden. 
 
 1 Here follows in the MS. the paragraph beginning ' ' If the spectator could 
 
 enter into these images ," and ending, "an insignificant blur or mark." It 
 
 has no place in the description, which is resumed after it as though it had not 
 been written. 
 
 ^ The words "the changed state produced by the flood" replace in the 
 original the words " our present state of existence," erased. 
 
SECOND ACCOUNT OF 'LAST JUDGMENT' 323 
 
 The cloud that opens, rolling apart from before the throne, and 
 before the new heaven and the new earth, is composed of various 
 groups of figures, particularly the four living creatures mentioned in 
 Eevelations as surrounding the throne. These I suppose to have the 
 chief agency in removing the old heaven and old earth to make way 
 for the new heaven and the new earth, to descend from the throne of 
 God and of the Lamb. That living creature to the left of the throne 
 gives to the seven angels the seven phials of the wrath of God, with 
 which they, hovering over the deeps beneath, pour out upon the 
 wicked their plagues. The other living creatures are descending with 
 a shout, and with the sound of the trumpet, and directing the combats 
 in the upper elements. In the two corners of the picture, on the left 
 hand, ApoUyon is foiled before the sword of Michael, and on the right, 
 the two witnesses are subduing their enemies. 
 
 On the cloud are opened the books of remembrance of life and of 
 death. Before that of life, on the right, some figures bow in lamenta- 
 tion. Before that of death, on the left, the Pharisees are pleading 
 their own righteousness. The one shines with beams of light, the other 
 utters lightnings and tempests.^ 
 
 Around the throne heaven is opened, and the nature of eternal 
 things displayed, all springing from the Divine Humanity. All 
 beams from him. He is the bread and the wine. He is the water of 
 Life. Accordingly on each side of the opening heaven appears an 
 Apostle, that on the right represents Baptism. That on the left 
 represents the Lord's Supper.^ 
 
 Over the head of the Saviour and Eedeemer, the Holy Spirit, like a 
 dove, is surrounded by a blue heaven in which are the two cherubim 
 that bowed over the ark, for here the temple is open to heaven and the 
 ark of the covenants is a dove of peace. The curtains are drawn apart, 
 Christ having rent the veil. The candlestick and the table of show- 
 bread appear on each side. A glorification of angels with harps 
 surrounds the dove. 
 
 The Temple stands on the mount of God. From it flows on each side 
 a river of life, on whose banks grows the Tree of Life, among whose 
 branches, temples, and pinnacles, tents and pavilions, gardens and 
 groves, display Paradise with its inhabitants walking up and down in 
 conversations concerning mental delights. * Here they are no longer 
 talking of what is good and evil, of what is right or wrong, and 
 puzzling themselves in Satan's Labyrinth, but are conversing with 
 eternal realities as they exist in the human imagination.* 
 
 Jesus is surrounded by beams of glory in which are seen all around 
 him infants emanating from them. These represent the eternal births 
 of intellect from the Divine Humanity. A rainbow surrounds the 
 throne and the glory, in which youthful nuptials receive the infants in 
 
 ' Here follows the paragraph beginning with the words, " A Last Judgment 
 is necessary hecause fools flourish," which were added later by Blake to the MS., 
 and ending, " the purpose of hindering them from oppressing the good." 
 
 ^ After the paragraph ending "the Lord's Supper" comes the paragraph 
 beginning, ' ' All life consists of these two, throwing olf error, and receiving truth," 
 — and ending, "A Last Judgment passes upon that individual." 
 
 * The words between asterisks were added here later by Blake, and were 
 followed by the paragraph beginning, "We are in a world of generation and 
 death," and ending, "Venetian painters who will be cast off and lost from 
 art." 
 
324 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 their hands. The Eternity woman is the emanation of man. She 
 has no will of her own. There is no such thing in eternity as a 
 female will. 
 
 On the side next Baptism are seen those called in the Bible, 
 Nursing Fathers and Nursing Mothers. They represent Education. 
 On the side next the Lord's Supper, the Holy Family, consisting of 
 Mary, Joseph, John the Baptist, Zacharias, and Elizabeth receiving 
 the bread and wine among other spirits of the Just made perfect. 
 Beneath these a cloud of women and children are taken up, fleeing 
 from the rolling cloud which separates the wicked from the seats of 
 bliss. They represent those who, though willing, were too weak to 
 reject error without the assistance and countenance of those already in 
 the truth, for a man can only reject error by the advice of a friend or 
 by the immediate inspiration of God. It is for this reason, among 
 others, that I have put the left hand of the throne, for it appears so at 
 the Last Judgment, for a protection. 
 
 End op the Desceiption of the Picture 
 
 The following paragraphs appear to have been intended as 
 a sequel to the description. Those whose places are not 
 indicated in footnotes above, come all together at the end. 
 They chiefly unite the idea of Imagination as the Saviour with 
 art, considered as a service and vision as a manifestation of Him. 
 
 BLAKE'S SEQUEL TO HIS DESCRIPTION OF THE PICTURE 
 OF THE 'LAST JUDGMENT.' 
 
 If the spectator could enter into these images in his imagination, 
 approaching them on the fiery chariot of his contemplative thought — 
 if he could enter into Noah's rainbow, could make a friend and com- 
 panion of one of these images of wonder, which always entreat him to 
 leave mortal things (as he must know), then would he arise from the 
 grave, then would he meet the Lord in the air, and then he would be 
 happy. General knowledge is remote knowledge. It is in particulars 
 that wisdom consists and happiness too. Both in art and in life, 
 general masses are as much art as a pasteboard man is human. Every 
 man has eyes, nose, and mouth. This every idiot knows. But he 
 who enters into and discriminates most minutely the manners and 
 intentions, the characters in all their branches, is the alone wise or 
 sensible man, and on this discrimination all art is founded. I entreat, 
 then, that the spectator will attend to the hands and feet, to the 
 lineaments of the countenance. They are all descriptive of character, 
 and not a line is drawn without intention, and that most discriminate 
 and particular. As poetry admits not a letter that is insignificant, so 
 painting admits not a grain of sand, or a blade of grass insignificant — 
 much less an insignificant blur or mark. 
 
 A Last Judgment is necessary because fools fiourish. Nations 
 flourish under wise rulers and are depressed under foolish rulers. It 
 is the same with individuals as with nations. Works of art can only 
 be produced in perfection where the man is either in afiluence or above 
 the care of it. Poverty is the fool's rod which at last is turned on his 
 own back. That is a Last Judgment when men of real art govern and 
 pretenders fall. Some people, and not a few artists, have asserted that 
 
SECOND ACCOUNT OF 'LAST JUDGMENT' 325 
 
 the painter of this picture would not have done so well if he had been 
 properly encouraged. Let those who think so reflect on the state of 
 nations under poverty and their incapability of art. Though art is 
 above either, the argument is better for affluence than poverty, and 
 though he would not have been a greater artist he would have produced 
 greater works of art in proportion to his means. A Last Judgment is 
 not for the purpose of making bad men better, but of hindering them 
 from oppressing the good.^ 
 
 AH Life consists of these two,^ throwing off error, and knaves from 
 our company continually, and receiving truth, or wise men into our 
 company continually. He who is out of the church and opposes it 
 is no less an agent of religion than lie who is in it. No man can 
 embrace true art until he has explored and cast out false art, such is 
 the nature of mortal things, or he will be himself cast out by those 
 who have already embraced true art. Thus my picture is a history of 
 art and science, the foundation of Society, which is humanity itself. 
 What are the gifts of the Spirit but mental gifts? When any in- 
 dividual rejects error and embraces truth, a Last Judgment passes upon 
 that individuaL 
 
 ' We are in a world of generation and death, and this world we 
 must cast off if we would be painters {sic) such as Raphael, Michael 
 Angelo, and the ancient sculptors. If we do not cast off this world we 
 shall be only Venetian painters who will be cast off and lost from art. 
 
 The painter hopes that his friends Amytus, Melitus, and Sycon * 
 wUl perceive that they are not now in ancient Greece ; and though 
 they can use the poison of calumny the English public wiU be con- 
 vinced that such a picture as this could never be painted by a madman, 
 or one in a state of outrageous manners, as these bad men both print 
 and publish by all the means in their power. The painter begs public 
 protection and aU will be weU. 
 
 {Here followed a paragraph through which BlaJce seems to have drawn 
 his pen. It is found in the chapter on the MS. Book, Vol. I., p. 332.) 
 
 Men are admitted into heaven not because they have curbed and 
 governed their passions, or have no passions, but because they have 
 cultivated their understandings. The treasures of heaven are not 
 negations of passion, but realities of intellect, from which the passions 
 emanate, uncurbed in their eternal glory. The fool shall not enter 
 into heaven, let him be ever so holy. Holiness is not the price of 
 entrance into heaven. Those who are cast out are all those who, 
 having no passions of their own, because no intellect, have spent their 
 lives in curbing and governing other people's by the various arts of 
 poverty and cruelty of all kinds. The modem church crucifies Christ 
 with the head downwarda Woe, woe, woe to you hypocrites ! Even 
 murder, with the courts of justice, more merciful than the church, is 
 not done in passion but in cold-blooded design and intention.^ 
 
 ' This paragraph wa.s writteu later — probaWy 1812— but meant for insertion 
 here. 
 
 '' "These two " actions correspond with the Sacraments of Baptism and the 
 Lord's Snpper respectively. 
 
 " A sentence added later. ? 1812. 
 
 ^ ?Flaxman, Hayley, and Cromek, "in disguise," the late date makes it 
 probable. It also date.? and explains p. 93 of Jerusaiem. 
 
 ' This use of the word "murder" in spiritual sense should have been noted 
 in the course of vol. i., chapter vii. 
 
326 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 Many suppose that before the Creation all was solitude and oliaos. 
 This is the most pernicious idea that can enter the mind, as it takes 
 away all sublimity from the Bible and limits aU existence to creation 
 and chaos — to the time and space fixed by the corporeal and vegetated 
 eye, and leaves the man who entertains such an idea the habitation 
 of unbelieving demons. Eternity exists, and all things in eternity, 
 independent of creation, which was an act of mercy. I have repre- 
 sented these who are in eternity by some in a cloud, within the 
 rainbow that surrounds the throne. They merely appear as in a 
 cloud when anything of creation, redemption, or judgment is the 
 subject of contemplation, though their whole contemplation is con- 
 cerning these things. The reason they so appear is the humiliation of 
 the reasoning and doubting selfhood and the giving up all to inspiration. 
 By this it will be seen that I do not consider either the just or the 
 wicked to be in a supreme state, but to be every one of them states of 
 the sleep which the soul may fall into in its deadly dreams of good and 
 evil when it leaves Paradise following the serpent. 
 
 Many persons, such as Paine and Voltaii'e, with some of the 
 ancient Greeks, say : " We will not converse concerning good and evil ; 
 we will live in Paradise and Liberty." You may do so in spirit, but 
 not in the mortal body as you pretend, until after a Last Judgment. 
 For in Paradise they have no corporeal and mortal body. That 
 originated with the fall and was called Death, and cannot be removed 
 but by a Last Judgment. While we are in the world of mortality we 
 must suffer. The whole Creation groans to be delivered. 
 
 There will always be as many hypocrites born as honest men, and 
 they will always have superior power in mortal things. Tou cannot 
 have liberty in this world without what you call ^ moral virtue, and 
 you cannot have moral virtue without the subjection of that haK of 
 the human race who hate what you call moral virtue. 
 
 The nature of hatred, and envy, and of all the mischiefs in the 
 world, is here depicted. No one envies or hates one of his own party. 
 Even the devils love one another in their own way. They torment one 
 another for other reasons than hate or envy : These are only employed 
 against the just. Neither can Seth envy Noah, or Elijah envy 
 Abraham. But they may both of them envy the success of Satan, or 
 Og, or Moloch. The horse never envies the peacock, nor the sheep 
 the goat ; but they envy a rival in life and existence, whose ways and 
 means exceed their own. Let him be of what class of animals he wiU, 
 a dog will envy a cat who is pampered at the expense of his comfort, 
 as I have often seen. The Bible never tells us that the devils 
 torment one another through envy. It is through this that they 
 torment the just. But for what do they torment one another? I 
 answer : For the coercive laws of hell — moral hypocrisy. They 
 torment a hypocrite when he is discovered ; they punish a failure in 
 the tormentor who has suffered the subject of his torture to escape. 
 In Hell all is self-righteousness. There is no such thing there as 
 forgiveness of sins. He who does forgive sin is crucified as an abettor 
 of criminals, and he who performs works of mercy in any shape what- 
 ever is punished, and if possible destroyed — ^not through envy, or 
 hatred, or malice, but through self-righteousness that thinks it does 
 God service, which God is Satan. They do not envy one another. 
 
 ' The words " what you call" are later in date. 
 
SECOND ACCOUNT OF 'LAST JUDGMENT* 327 
 
 They contemn or despise one another. Forgiveness of sin is only at 
 the judgment-seat of Jesus the Saviour, where the accuser is cast out 
 not because he sins, but because he torments the just, and makes them 
 do what he condemns as sin, and what he knows is opposite to their own 
 identity. 
 
 It is not because angels are holier than men or devils that makes 
 them angels, but because they do not expect holiness from one another, 
 but from God only.' 
 
 The player is a liar when he says, " Angels are happier than men 
 because they are better." Angels are happier than men or devils 
 because they are not always prying after good and evil in one another, 
 and eating the tree of knowledge for Satan's gratification. 
 
 The Last Judgment is an overwhelming of bad art and science. 
 Mental things are alone reaL "What is called corporeal, nobody knows 
 of. Its dwelling-place is a fallacy, and its existence an imposture. 
 Where is the existence out of mind, or thought ? Where is it but in 
 the mind of a fool ? Some people flatter themselves that there will be 
 no Last Judgment, and that bad art will be adopted and mixed with 
 good art — that error, or experiment, wiU make a part of truth, and 
 they boast that it is its foundation. These people flatter themselves. 
 I will not flatter them. Error is created. Truth is eternal. Error or 
 creation will be burned up, and then, and not tiU then, truth or 
 eternity will appear. It is burned up the moment men cease to 
 behold it. I assert for myself that I do not behold the outward 
 creation, and that to me it is hindrance, and not action. It is as the 
 dirt upon my feet — no part of me. 
 
 " What," it will be questioned, '■' when the sun rises do you not see 
 a round disk of fire something like a guinea ! Oh ! no ! no ! I see an 
 innumerable company of the heavenly host crying — ' Holy, holy, holy, 
 is the Lord God Almighty ! ' " I question not my corporeal eye any 
 more than I would question a window concerning a sight. I look 
 through it and not with it. 
 
 The Last Judgment (will be) when all those are cast away who 
 trouble religion with questioning concerning good and evil, or eating 
 of the tree of those knowledges or reasonings which hinder the vision 
 of God, turning all into a consuming fire. When imagination, art, and 
 science, and all intellectual gifts — all the gifts of the Holy Ghost— are 
 looked upon as of no use, and only contention remains to man, then 
 the Last Judgment begins, and its vision is seen by every eye' according 
 to the situation which he holds. 
 
 All through this it is clear that Blake considered the 
 Jesus whose " body " was the " Human Imagination," com- 
 posed of the immortal parts of all the hving and the dead, to 
 be a " Grand Man " (to use the Swedenborgian phrase), and 
 a deity to whom prayer might be addressed, and whose 
 existence was judgment and mercy in itself as well as 
 brotherhood and power. 
 
 ' The difference between Blake's conception of an angel in 1789 and 1810 is 
 worth noting. The progress in nobility of mind, it shows, is peculiarly unlike 
 "a madman, or one in a state of outrageous manners."- 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 A LITTLE BIT OF INTERPRETATION 
 
 But we have gone on too long with fatal facility, offering no 
 hint of interpretation to Blake's myth, though it is in this 
 that the Eeal Blake is most to be found. Something has 
 been done in notes elsewhere — a small postscript on a few 
 points may be added now. Blake devoted himself to his 
 books of Jerusalem and Milton all through his exhibition 
 period. 
 
 These are not at all what they would have been but for that 
 harassing period of perpetual visits, interviews, and letters 
 that kept Blake constantly distracted in the service of 
 Hayley and his Life of Bomney, during the years 1804 and 
 1805, when Milton was reduced to two books and Jerusalem 
 was begun. Here again we must look at what has already 
 been noticed when comparing the styles of Thel and Uriel. 
 The parts of Milton that evidently belong to Felpham con- 
 tain a freer and smoother diction than that which is 
 habitual in Jerusalem. There is a marked change of style. 
 It is the difference in tone between a narrative and a 
 manifesto. The difference between Vala and Jerusalem is 
 still more distressingly noticeable. The tendency to melody 
 of language which is a physical thing in a poet, and has a 
 close connection with the nerves that direct his articulation, 
 is always injured if he is obliged to talk much prose. The 
 Arabs say that if their best racer goes once in the plough his 
 gallop is never the same afterwards. Prolonged business 
 conversations cause a poet to lose a fairyland note from his 
 verse, and to descend to a sort of inspired and emphatic 
 talking. Sometimes he brings with him what was best from 
 his earlier manner and only drops a retarding and behttUng 
 sweetness. No one would say that Shakespeare's verse in 
 Antony and Cleopatra was worse than in Romeo and Juliet, 
 yet a shadow of the same kind of change as that between 
 
 328 
 
A LITTLE BIT OF INTEEPEETATION 329 
 
 Thel and Tiriel and between Vala and Jerusalem may be 
 noticed there. Sometimes the contrast in Jerusalem is only 
 between a passage taken verbatim from Vala and the rest of 
 the page. But sometimes additional words are thrust into 
 the verse of Vala to bring it into keeping with the sur- 
 roundings in Jerusalem by adding terms from that poem that 
 Blake had not begun to use when Vala was written. No 
 attempt is made to so alter the sentence that these terms 
 may come in without destroying the musical quality of the 
 verse. The " long -resounding line " resounds no longer, 
 though it powerfully urges and impresses. 
 
 Blake seems to have felt in Jerusalem that he was making 
 his last great cry to the inattentive world. 
 
 He has only one thing to say : Imagination is Mernity. 
 Art is its means of Brotherhood. Brotherhood is its means of 
 Immortality. These three things together will weld the souls 
 of the dead into the kingdom of God in heaven. Seek them ! 
 
 He has still the same enemies as before against which to 
 warn us, the most dangerous being individual morality, 
 a private property in sin or righteousness, detrimental to 
 that socialism of mental properties without which we could 
 not learn to be Members of Christ. 
 
 We must learn to forgive sins to individuals ; but sin is 
 unpardonable unless it be looked on as a property of the 
 state in which the sinful individual is. When we can so 
 look on it, we have acquired " the only means to the for- 
 giveness of sins." 
 
 The contrast and seeming antagonism between the 
 sweetness of Blake's religious professions and the fury of his 
 denunciations of those who, he thought, had used him ill, 
 now grow less and less as the years pass. He ended by 
 forgiving them all, but they never forgave him. Flaxman, 
 probably feehng that Blake was the most ungrateful of men, 
 at last dropped him : " I have no more intercourse with Mr. 
 Blake." Hay ley could not be expected to endure him_ as a 
 judge and denunciator twice. Stothard, in later life, refused 
 to shake hands with him. Of course, as the phrase runs, 
 "it served hitn right." His doctrine of the difference 
 between a friend and an enemy may be invoked by those 
 who considered his conduct to them as not that of a friend. 
 " He who loves his enemies, hates his friends ; this surely is 
 not what Jesus intends." Does not Jesus, he reflected, whom 
 we are told to imitate, promise in the end to cast off for ever 
 all who will not accept him ? In his parables is not the 
 
330 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 tree, that by a year's gardening is proved useless, to be cut 
 down. Did not he whip his own enemies out of his " Father's 
 House " ? " He that is not with Me is against Me," with 
 the postscript — "and I will be against him," was Blake's 
 Christianity. It is, at least, biblical, but is evidently as 
 well adapted for use by our opponents as by ourselves. 
 " The Word " is " a two-edged sword." 
 
 But Blake's main idea of reforming the world turned on 
 the providing of mankind with a love for ideas which they 
 could share, instead of the love of property and woman which 
 he admitted that, at present, they cannot, socialists and 
 upholders of promiscuous intercourse notwithstanding. This 
 great hope and object in Blake's hfe was due to a peculiar 
 effect of his unusually strong imagination upon his equally 
 unusually affectionate heart ; and his complete forgetfuhiess 
 that other people are almost invariably incapable of feehng as 
 he did, because the vital connection between their imagina- 
 tions and their hearts, always weak, breaks for ever while 
 they are still children. The quahty in his own character 
 that led to Blake's beUef that symbohc art, vivifying all 
 things and all words through imaginative connection with 
 the human form, would lead to universal love has already 
 been shown by this sentence in his notes to Swedenborg : 
 
 Think of a white cloud as holy ; you cannot love it But of a holy 
 man within the cloud ; love springs up in your thought. 
 
 Jealousy and eovetousness are parts of Nature, and Nature 
 is full of evil will. " There is no good will." 
 
 But sympathy with unshared feelings (none shares his 
 wife, but each good husband sympathises with each other 
 good husband) ends in leading man into imagination and so 
 to art and heaven. That is the doctrine. Or as Blake says, 
 we pass Ore (the Polypus) to get to Golgonooza. 
 
 This Polypus symbol is always so far good as adjoining 
 is good, whether the Polypus be that of loves, each bad, or 
 of Albion's spectre sons, each bad. But its bad form tends to 
 destroy its good form — Jerusalem. The adjoining is the 
 first step to anything good. It is an opening of the Western 
 Gate, now closed by this attempt to live individual lives, 
 which are necessarily temporary, composite Hfe only being 
 eternal. Of course, composite hfe means quite another 
 thing to most people from what it means to a clairvoyant 
 and a spiritualist, who really feels and sees that total un- 
 reality of Nature with its " apparent surfaces," which scientific 
 men only calculate on. 
 
A LITTLE BIT OF INTERPEETATION 331 
 
 In reading Blake we must allow for this, and allow for 
 that anti-individual or composite view of Christ, the opposite 
 to the individualist view which the nonconformist conscience 
 has adopted from the non-mystic Eoman Catholic Church 
 since it gradually changed into prose from the day when 
 Gnostics were declared heretics ; when these allowances are 
 made they will clear all clouds from the symbolism. Then 
 Jerusalem will be seen to be not only intelligible, but true. 
 In it we also see Blake as a missionary. 
 
 It requires reading and re-reading before we track all 
 the symbols down and sort out those that are explained in 
 various passages from those that almost remain mere names 
 (Hke some of the counties of England that are but loosely 
 joined to any other symbols, and for lack of authoritative 
 punctuation not quite comprehensibly divided under the 
 headings of the tribes) ; and it must always be remembered, 
 no reader can expect to take much pleasure in it who has 
 not had a little Swedenborgian training, even though Blake 
 does not adopt Swedenborg exactly. The day when people can 
 be expected to endure a full account of Jerusalem, which 
 would necessarily be ten times as long as the poem, has not 
 dawned yet. The few students who really care wiU find that 
 it interprets itself with a little help from Blake's letters, mani- 
 festoes, and maxims. But it is always necessary to beware 
 of being satisfied too soon with any one of the four meanings 
 of every symbol, even after the stories of the Zoas are 
 familiar to us and we can even see one in the other, 
 and Milton in Blake, in Christ, in his own Shadow, and 
 even in Satan. That word in, with its brother within and 
 the interpretation of within as above, is the beginning of a 
 comprehension of Blake. There is hardly any hne of his 
 poems that can be read apart from his use of this idea and 
 symbol. 
 
 Barely, but with suggestive hint for interpretation, Blake 
 even employs in so that it is difficult for the mind to see a 
 vision of his particular statement that shall be congruous 
 with its preconceived vision of one or more terms of his 
 statement. There is an example of this in Milton, page 36, 
 hne 13, where we hear that — 
 
 Ololon stepped into the polypus. 
 
 Now, as the Polypus is Ore, son of Los and Enitharmon, 
 we have a female stepping into a, male. 
 
 But Ololon, who was a host, appeared in a female form, 
 
332 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 for reasons described in the immediate context. These 
 reasons are elaborated in connection with the " nameless 
 shadowy female " by Ore himself in the long argument which 
 fills extra-page 17. The exact prose interpretation of " Ololon " 
 is not offered here, because, like other mystical symbols, it 
 would require too frequent a reference to generative truths 
 and details to make it suitable for the uninitiated, who 
 would not take it wisely and purely. 
 
 The word in has also been used, as we have seen if we 
 have read through Milton, on page 19, line 59, etc. — 
 
 So spake the family Divine as One Man, even Jesus, 
 Uniting in One with Ololon, and the appearance of One Man 
 Jesus the Saviour appeared coming in the clouds of Ololon — 
 
 this cloud being an appearance that became female within 
 the Mundane Shell. The word in is also used when what 
 is seen in the vision of Milton is described — Milton, page 37, 
 lines 15 to 60. 
 
 In the same way the word is becomes a lamp for those 
 who can use its flame and a thick darkness to those who are 
 lost in its smoke. 
 
 Satan is Enitharmon's first-born (he is also her last-born, 
 being Ore's human remains, explained in Vala). 
 
 Ore is her first-born — Murope, page 4, line 11; Vala, Night 
 VIII, Hne 375, etc. 
 
 Ore is Luvah — Vala, Night VII, line 151. 
 
 Luvah is Satan — Jerusalem, page 49, line 63. 
 
 TJrizen is Satan — Milton, extra-page 8, line 1. 
 
 In Milton, Milton is both Los, Blake, and a crowd of 
 others. In the Jerusalem, page 96, line 22, Albion sees 
 Jesus in likeness of Los. In real life Blake would sometimes 
 only just remember in time not to speak the same language. 
 To Crabb Eobinson, who asked him whether there was an 
 affinity between his Spirits and the Genius that used to hold 
 converse with the mind of Socrates, he said : " I was Socrates, 
 or a sort of brother. I must have had conversations with 
 him. So I had with Jesus Christ. I have an obscure 
 recollection of being with both of them." " Jesus," he also 
 said, " is the only God, and so are you, and so am I." This 
 passage about having been with Socrates may have given 
 rise to the idea that Blake adopted the theory of reincarna- 
 tion. To those who know how free from Time is the part of 
 us called by Swedenborg the " Celestial Mind," and how 
 difi&cult it is, when we have put this to sleep in order to chat 
 
A LITTLE BIT OF INTEEPEETATION 333 
 
 with our friends across its bed, to exactly place a " memory " 
 belonging to it (which ought not to be called memory) with 
 its right relation to the " obscure recollections " of our 
 ■' corporeal understanding," Blake's remark will be seen not 
 to require the reincarnation theory to make sense of it. 
 
 Of a similar kind was his opinion that Wordsworth had 
 not written all his poems, nor ]S'apoleon I fought all his 
 battles. The first merely submitted to " dictate," the latter 
 was hilled and another spirit possessed his body. We aU 
 know cases now in which a man is personally killed by a 
 bang on the head, while, on his " recovery," another person is 
 found to be using his body. Sometimes later on the first 
 person returns, whether by another bang or by a system of 
 repeated awakenings from short sleeps, but to those who take 
 it that one man means one person the medical accounts of 
 such cases must make many physicians appear as mad as 
 Blake seemed at his worst. 
 
 All this change of personality in the poetic beings or 
 " states " was very annoying to readers of Blake who had no 
 natural capacity for " meeting the Lord in the air " and no 
 previous training in myth beyond such simple exercises as 
 the classic tales have preserved for us, which have the 
 immense advantage of lending themselves to almost unlimited 
 misunderstanding without pulhng us up short in our com- 
 placent career of misinterpretation. The theory usually 
 adopted is that already mentioned as frankly uttered by 
 Dr. Garnett,- — namely, that Blake did not know what he 
 meant himself. But Dr. Garnett's day was over before it 
 dawned, and now Messrs. Eussell and Maclagan, working 
 independently with no further guide than the incomplete 
 and reticent interpretations of the Quaritch edition (which 
 was in Dr. Garnett's hands also), made one discovery which 
 they have written down and signed. " Blake is never vague." 
 (See preface to their edition of Jerusalem, the first in ordi- 
 nary type to be printed, and still, for the sake of its cheap- 
 ness (5s.), its wide margins good to write notes on, and its 
 sketch of an index, one that every reader who buys will be 
 glad of) A full index should be published. Theirs has the 
 disadvantage of omitting many important words, and, what 
 is worse, omitting important references to those words that 
 it contains. There will be an encyclopaedia and complete 
 index to Blake published some day, but the disparaging tone 
 of the scholarly average critic who does not know his Blake, 
 but can write in such a tone as to make plain people think 
 
334 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 that he knows all that is worth knowing, still clings like a 
 wet blanket over the heads of the public, and publishers 
 are very naturally afraid to print such a book, though the 
 present writer has offered it. It ought to come out as the 
 " Proceedings " of a Blake Society. 
 
 The explanation .of most of Blake's seeming errors about 
 himself in the use of his own symbols is that he never quite 
 threw off a habit of using nouns, and even proper names, as 
 adjectives, or rather in places where adjectives would have 
 seemed more comprehensible ; and though this sounds a very 
 wicked thing to do, it is not so if we who read have but the wit 
 to understand ; and those who contest this point, and set up a 
 prejudice derived from the prose value of the nomenclature of 
 grammar (a strong and valid plea in. its place) as a reason for 
 condemning Blake, might learn something if they would try 
 and say what Blake said according to their ovm rules. They 
 could do it, but the weary and verbose volume that would 
 result would by its depressing and unpoetic quality so injure 
 the fresh nerves of its best reader as to unfit him for seeing 
 the visions and hearing the voices in his own interior faculties, 
 without which all Blake's works will be to him as those nods 
 or winks which the old proverb teUs us are the same to 
 a blind horse. 
 
 With regard to the tangle of is in is given above. The 
 way to sort it from the text of Blake without any special 
 exercise of faculties not usual to the run of mankind (the 
 present writer has no such faculties whatsoever) may be 
 found from contemplation of such sentences as that in 
 Jerusalem, page 49, line 68 — 
 
 Luvali is named Satan because he has entered that State ; 
 
 which has just been explained by — 
 
 Satan is the State of Death, and not a Human Existence. 
 
 The whole passage is a master key to most of Blake's houses. 
 Enitharmon (who loved Satan and nursed him as a son, as 
 she had nursed Ore, Vala, Night V, line 70) herself sings a 
 song of death to kill Los (after line 250 of Night I of Vala), 
 who refused to be killed, though he had to smite her " to the 
 earth." She also sang a song reviving him to life towards 
 the end of Night II, but admitting the delight of the female 
 in the death of the male. 
 
 It ceases to be paradoxical when we think of the facts of 
 
A LITTLE BIT OF INTEEPEETATION 335 
 
 life that underlie the poetry, on the living power of imagina- 
 tion that springs from the mental love aroused hy our desire 
 to be near the material beauty of nature, which is its one 
 real result, notwithstanding that such beauty is illusion, its 
 date a flash, and its material future eternal death. 
 
 So the good feminine or good material is essentially 
 Nature's faculty of being the vessel that holds the male 
 vital power, the emotion in which the " seed of contemplative 
 thought " is carried, and the bad feminine is the carrier of 
 the unformed reason and unformed memory or chaos that 
 between them shall fight with imagination, trying to con- 
 vince it of worthlessness and even of sin, and persuading it 
 "to try self-murder on its soul" — Vala, Night I. These 
 males and females are in fact influences. 
 
 Divide, ye bands, influence by influence, 
 
 says Urizen to his hosts in Vala, Night II. 
 
 Now that we have grown accustomed to understanding 
 that throughout all mind, all hfe, feminine is one kind of 
 influence, an emotional and beautiful kind, good when 
 subservient to mascuhne, and that mascuhne is absolutely 
 dead and satanic without it, and only tends to build nature 
 by the power of reason in the space which otherwise is void 
 and virginal, with no result (since nature is nothing), not 
 even with the result of death, which is the state of nothing, 
 we can with equanimity read such symbolic words as those, 
 for example, about Canaan, which offer a typical set of 
 Blakean difficulties : 
 
 Th.e Heavenly Canaan ... is over Albion ... as the soul is to 
 the body {Jerusalem,, p. 71, first paragraph). 
 
 They took the falsehood [falsehood is prophetic]. They named it 
 Canaan — gave a time — even six thousand years — called it Divine 
 Analogy {Jerusalem, page 82, lines 17-20 ; page 84, line 28 ; page 85, 
 first seven lines). 
 
 And compare with — 
 
 The body of Moses in the valley of Peer — the body of Divine 
 Analogy. 
 
 Compare also for the expression six thousand years, and the 
 connection between Locke, Nature, Eahab, Luvah, and Satan, 
 Milton, page 44, lines 14 and 15. We can understand it along 
 with further allusions, as when we are told how Jerusalem 
 (is an) emanative vision of Canaan, page 82, line 21. For 
 meaning of this compare Jerusalem, page 54, lines 1-5. The 
 
336 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 kings of Canaan: delusion and love, page 89, line 46. "I 
 call to Canaan, etc. : they listen not," page 83, line 17. The 
 central or heart daughters of Albion are Canaan (deceitfully 
 so called), page 82, Itaes 24-30. " Flames of dusty fire " to 
 Canaan, Jerusalem, page 80, line 50. Los drove the daughters 
 of Albion from Albion ; they became daughters of Canaan, 
 page 74, line 38. (He did a similar thing for the kings of 
 Asia.) Reasoning, doubt, despair, and death, go from Canaan 
 to devour Jerusalem. The daughters of Albion shoot forth in 
 (note the in) tender nerves, and are taught to dance before 
 the kings of Canaan, who are, as we learn from Milton, page 
 16, line 36, the fires of youth, enthusiasm, "the all in all" of 
 art in this world as a practical thing. They eaU Luvah king 
 of Canaan, and take off his vesture (the woof of sik hundred 
 years) and darken his eyes, Jerusalem, page 66, lines 20 to 34. 
 The Mundane Shell froze round Canaan, whose love is in man's 
 blood (p. 64, line 1 and line 37). Canaan's daughters require 
 human victims (imaginative ideas; jealousy separates it 
 from man, Albion — lines 31, 41, and 42). Once Canaan 
 was under the sky of Hberty, Jerusalem. This is Canaan the 
 man, not the place (line 18). Canaan is a portico, through 
 which the sun and moon can pass, of the Temple of Human 
 Intellect (page 58, hne 33). It was in the central region, 
 or his heart (page 29, line 31), and as one of the double- 
 tried tends to destroy the offspring of liberty and mental love 
 (page 5, line 14). Finally, there is Milton, extra-page 8, (from 
 which we learn how) Urizen as Satan oft entered, vibrating 
 and weeping, into the space called Canaan, there appearing 
 an aged female form (six thousand years !) that shrinks the 
 organs of life tiU they become finite and itself seems infinite. 
 It will be seen that difficulty is not obscurity, and this will 
 also enable the reader to recall again the poem called the 
 Mental Traveller, and on going through Jerusalem once more 
 to be less pestered by echoes in his mind of ordinary church- 
 going allusions to Canaan which make it, to most of us, 
 almost as annoyingly blessed a word as Mesopotamia. 
 
 Among the most irritating and perhaps at first the most 
 puzzling sayings of Blake are those about the Mundane 
 Shell. Built by Los in the power of " Urizen and by the 
 bands of ' Influences,' above (within) which, see Milton, last 
 half of page 16, Milton's Human Shadow travelled in lands 
 some of which belong to a Ust given in Jerusalem, page 5, 
 line 14. The Mundane Shell turns out to be itself in 
 twenty-seven heavens that are folds of opaqueness (" another 
 
A LITTLE BIT OF INTEEPEETATION 337 
 
 covering of Earth is removed," Blake wrote triumphantly, 
 after arriving at Eelpham, in his letter). It has caverns, for- 
 tunately (Milton, page 18, line 42), and is blue (page 19, line 
 30), and its caves are between the stars (page 22, line 22), 
 and — we must note this — it is continually biult by Los 
 round the Polypus, which is the dead sea of storgeous appetite, 
 within which are the females, and which has, for its male 
 portion, the Satanic sons of Albion. Compare Jerusalem, 
 page 69, lines 1 to 5, with Milton, page 84, lines 23 to 31. It 
 has chaoses (places of memory without imagination), where 
 the sons of Ololon, who turns out to be (page 34, line 41), so 
 far as she was female, Milton's wives, daughters, Eahab, the 
 twenty-seven heavens, and the Shell itself as a shadow,— all 
 that is Gontrary to the poetic genius (see page 43, line 29 
 and onwards). 
 
 In the clouds of Ololon (Pathos), the Lord (Imagination) 
 surrounds the dry acts of Intellect (Mundane Shell), page 35, 
 line 39. 
 
 Line 13 of page 36 shows us the Polypus (" soft affec- 
 tions" under the name of Ololon, of course) within the 
 Mundane Shell. 
 
 These things, moods, thoughts, and despairs in this 
 Polypus— so called because they all grow to one another, and 
 to touch one is to touch all — are named, that they may be 
 recognised wherever else mentioned in page 37, hnes 19 to 
 end; where its relation is seen to Los, the voids between 
 the stars and much else that is related in Jerusalem, 
 especially where Los's spectre, Satan, and Sons of Albion are 
 explained. In page 40, line 43 to end, we hear of Milton, 
 who unites with Los in the shadowy prophet who fell six 
 thousand years ago — fell from his station, and who now 
 labours while Urizen faints in terror to find that he is giving 
 him life, among the caverns of the Mundane Shell, and (so 
 large is the contest) on the banks of appetite (Armon). 
 
 In Milton we hear no more of this Shell, but in Jerusalem 
 we hear of it from the earlier pages, which again is an 
 indication \\\a!i , Milton was at first written before Jerusalem 
 at Felpham, after Blake had read over Vala and thrust the 
 word Albion into its earlier Nights, for in Jerusalem we are 
 told, in that long and explanatory page 13 (lines 33, 35 to 
 54), of its twenty-seven heavens that, of course, are outside 
 Golgonooza (the city of art and life), and of all that Ues in 
 the voids and chasms. It is again explained as separate 
 from the Earth of Vegetation, page 16, line 25, and then not 
 
338 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 heard of till page 59, line 10, where it is not spoken of directly, 
 but where we hear of the egg whose shell it is ; and in page 
 64, line 1, we hear that it froze on all sides round Canaan, 
 which with its context we must read along with page 65, 
 line 32, in the long passage about the daughters of Albion. 
 Its relationship to the Vegetative Earth is given in page 72, 
 line 45 and following. 
 
 But in page 75 the first puzzUng detail is offered, namely, 
 that the twenty-seven folds of opaqueness — satanic folds — or 
 " heavens " are formed ly Los within the Mundane Shell, 
 which can only be understood in connection with its purpose 
 in the foUovrang Une 25, and in connection with the line in 
 " Africa " (a portion of the book called A Song of Los), where 
 the terrible race of Los gave laws and rehgions to the sons of 
 Har, binding them more and more to earth till a philosophy 
 of the five senses was complete which Urizen, weeping, gave 
 to Newton and Locke. Churches tend to make worshippers 
 materiahstic. They are poetic, if at all, at their peril. These 
 coverings are " poisons " of Eahab, one notices, in this same 
 page 75 of Jerusalem, which must be read also with page 37 
 of Milton. The sense in which the physical part is to be 
 taken is indicated in page 83, Hues 33 etc., which may be 
 also read along with the poem called the Mental Traveller, 
 and in the long and diificult speech of Los in page 92 of 
 Jerusalem (where a wrong full -stop seems to have been 
 inserted after the word Judgment, Hue 20 of the Russell and 
 Maclagan edition), and where we are told that the Druids 
 reared their rocky circles and framed the] Mundane Shell in 
 order to make permanent remembrance of sin. But this is 
 how the thing is seen when viewed in the emanative visions 
 of Canaan. With regard to poison, this is (in poetry only) 
 used by Blake to refer to whatever charms the mind into 
 corporeal limits : 
 
 Why cannot the ear be closed to its own destruction, 
 Or glistening eye to the poison of a smile ? 
 
 from the closing page of Thel, is the most widely-known 
 instance of this, as it is in Gilchrist and in Mr. Yeats's cheap 
 volume of selections — the best cheap volume yet issued. 
 
 In her lips and cheeks his poisons rose 
 In blushes like the morning. 
 
 Quaritch edition, Vala, I, 152 ; 
 
 Reddening, the demon strong prepared the poison of sweet love. 
 
 Quaritch edition, Vala, VII, 227, 
 
A LITTLE BIT OF INTEEPEETATION 339 
 
 are the next most familiar. The following words from the 
 crossed-out lines in Tiriel, given on page 293 of the Chatto 
 and Windus edition of Blake, are less famiUar, but to the 
 same purpose : 
 
 In silent deceit, poisons inhaling from tte morning rose. 
 
 This has the further value of reminding us that deceit in 
 Blake always meant the deceit of the flesh, its power of 
 making us attribute reality to it on account of our emotions, 
 though our minds know better. 
 
 This is all that Jerusalem contains about the Mundane 
 Shell, but it would be troublesome enough without the 
 references in Vala, where we learn that Urizen ordered its 
 building to be done by his bands of influences (Night II, 
 hne 21 and following), and that it was he who petrified 
 human imagination into rock and sand, till there were groans 
 among the Druid temples. 
 
 Line 240 says plainly : 
 
 Thus was the Mundane Shell huilt by Urizen's strong power — 
 
 a hne which follows what, but for the allusions in Milton (last 
 page) to the red woof of 600 years, would be unintelligibly 
 irrelevant : 
 
 And the Divine vision appeared in Luvah's robes of blood. 
 
 The difficulty is to understand why Blake did not seem to 
 see that he was contradicting himself. We see it without 
 difficulty by looking at the names. He overlooked the 
 appearance — it is no more — by having his eyes fixed on the 
 meanings. 
 
 A little higher in Night VI, we find Luvah saying : 
 
 And Urizen who was Faith and Certainty is changed to Doubt. 
 
 Urizen is spoken of as changed by the action of Luvah. 
 Affections and passions change intellect. 
 
 We find that the furnaces (of affliction) were unsealed, 
 and that the metal ran in channels cut by the plough of ages 
 held in Urizen's hands. In this part of the poem, it is true, 
 Los now and then appears. He is young and sarcastic. 
 Later on he changes, takes command of the furnaces, and 
 manages everything, because he has found Urizen unfit to do 
 80, until the time of the end when Albion (Man) awakes. 
 The spirit of prophecy, the " ever-apparent Ehas," who is Los, 
 
340 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 takes up the work of mere Intellect when it ceases to have 
 strength to carry the living fire of Faith, and, elaborating 
 every religion into a system in his style, at last shows him 
 how they all lead to a philosophy of the five senses which he 
 has to give, weeping, to Newton and Locke. 
 
 Thus the Mundane Shell is buUt twice over in each of us, 
 for "The fool sees not the same tree that the wise man sees," and 
 " The eye altering alters all," and in the human race generally, 
 as the early innocent savage for ms of " wisdom, art, and science " 
 (the primseval state of man) freeze into mathematic hardness 
 as man's rationalistic intellect advances, he passes through 
 miscomprehension of all poetry and so of all psychology into 
 hopeless darkness (" Science is bankrupt " as the French say 
 now), and finally has to learn, from freshly inspired reading 
 of the misunderstood Christian religion, the relation of vision 
 to mind, and of mind, in its two parts, to death and the body 
 on one side and to immortahty and brotherhood on the other. 
 This is the last judgment now going on. It will, of course, 
 " overwhelm bad art and science." 
 
 These few details are intended for readers of Blake who, 
 even after going through all his works, and reading the few 
 explanatory notes given in the Chatto and Wiudus edition, 
 are] occasionally hindered by seeming contradictions from 
 seeing the real meaning, and so the real man, in his poetry. 
 
CHAPTEE XXIX 
 
 HIS THREE LEADING IDEAS 
 
 A.MONG the preoccupations of Blake's mind one reKgious 
 thought was always first, the idea of the " Grand Man " that he 
 derived from Swedenborg, and that we aU know from Auguste 
 Comte. By contemplating Swedenborg's symbol that fell 
 into his mind hke an apple into a garden, he discovered what 
 may be called a law of Spiritual Gravitation. This gives him 
 so curious a brotherhood with Sir Isaac Newton, his favourite 
 aversion, that it is difficult to read his bursts of fury against 
 Newton without smiling. The Newton whom he abused was 
 a name for a mood, of course. The actual Sir Isaac he would 
 have loved. There was much in common between the two 
 men, beginning with their appearance, for if the nose be a 
 Uttle sharpened, the long quivering mouth reduced and 
 moulded into lines more fit for a benevolent silence, and the 
 eyes pressed a little back under the brows, instead of bulging 
 out while they flashed fire, Blake's face and forehead would 
 be very Hke Newton's. Newton reminds us of Blake also in 
 his fate, in being compelled to work hard for his living while 
 conscious that his genius was hindered by such labour, so that 
 it was really a compulsory waste of time, in being misunder- 
 stood, in having the works of his brain attributed to others, 
 in being supposed to be an alchemist, and even in being 
 supposed to be mad. The word alchemist, indeed, was never 
 applied to Blake, but his symbols were misread in a way 
 similar to that which made Newton seem an alchemist. 
 
 The Mind, into which, as Blake says (in his letter about 
 Flaxman's death, given below), we shall all go after death, is 
 the Divine Bosom into which all the " Human Forms " of the 
 Powers we now see in " Visions of Time and Space " as trees, 
 metals, and stones, will also awake, as told in the last lines of 
 Jerusalem. That inanimate objects have life as much as we 
 ourselves, seems another of Blake's opinions in which he was 
 
 341 
 
342 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 just a century before his time, since Jerusalem bears date 
 1804. He even defined in his own way the region of the 
 Divine Mind in which we shall live : it was the Body (the 
 risen body) of Christ, and was the Human Imagination 
 (Jerusalem, page 5, line 59), of which we were members, 
 and which it was our business to help to build. It was " not 
 a state," being " existence itself," and was therefore all that 
 a " state " is and more. The extra-page 32 of Milton, read 
 with Jerusalem, page 73, line 43, explains this. Incongruous 
 as are such terms us protoplasm, primordial ceU, and microbe 
 in this connection, we see these organisms as intermediately 
 between electrons and our own selves, much as Blake saw 
 himself intermediary between Ideas and Christ, the Com- 
 posite or Grand Man. 
 
 The word Body in a mental sense is used also in Jerusalem. 
 " Satan," called Limb of opaqueness (page 73, line 27), is the 
 Body of Doubt, that seems but is not, in page 93, line 20 ; 
 and in page 49, hne 57, the body of Moses is seen to be built 
 and to be Divine Analogy, but not to circumscribe Divine 
 Analogy, for on being looked at again (page 85, hne 7), this 
 is seen to be larger, and Moses is planted in it as a seed, 
 along with David and the Twelve Tribes. None of these are 
 to be understood as the historical personages any more than 
 Newton (along with Bacon and Locke) is the historic Eahab, 
 who (in her turn) is only a name in the mortal and temporal 
 region for the mythic Vala, who is the goddess Nature, 
 daughter of " Luvah," mother, along with Jerusalem, of 
 Albion's sons and partly of Los, and built herself by the 
 reasoning power in man, aided by the Polypus, Ore, for 
 passion, like reason, opposes the translucence and eternity of 
 Imagination, and all the opposites of Imagination, being 
 opposites of Eternity, and Christ, and Forgiveness, become 
 also composite and One Body, that of Satan, who is Ore, Luvah, 
 the Spectre of each Zoa (selfhood of each sense) and of 
 Albion (Man), and of Eahal), and Tirzah, and Vala, and so 
 far of Enitharmon as she is mother of Satan, and one of the 
 emotional forms of that state of mind of which " the males " 
 (Sons of Albion) are the intellectual forms. They are all 
 Nature in the mass, until they arise and get free and join 
 Christ. " That is Satan ; he is the Greek Apollo," said Blake 
 once, pointing to the sun. As natural objects lead us to 
 doubt imaginations, though they do not really exist, Blake 
 called Satan " The body of doubt that seems, but is not " 
 (Jerusalem, page 93, line 30). That Nature does not forgive. 
 
HIS THREE LEADING IDEAS 343 
 
 and is, in fact the permanent " opposite " of " Forgiveness of 
 Sins," was another of Blake's ideas in which he spoke an 
 opinion that has become celebrated in the mouths of modern 
 thinkers who would have despised him as a dreamer, though 
 they had a great respect for their own dreams, none of which 
 were so scientific as his. 
 
 Plainly as he says in the preface to the last chapter of 
 JerusaleTTi that we shall " live " in our eternal or imaginative 
 bodies when our vegetable or mortal bodies are no more, 
 except as part of the composite mind, Blake does not preach 
 immortality. When his selfhood and reason begs him with 
 tears to give it a httle hope, he is as obdurate as any 
 eighteenth-century rationalist. This portion of him, " cold, 
 scientific " (Jerusalem, page 43, line 2), under the name of 
 " Urizen," both in Jerusalem and Vala, desires " with iron 
 power to avert his own despair " (Jerusalem, page 7, line 33, 
 and Vala, Night II, 76, and VIII, 136). When he is seen 
 in "The Spectre" or the Pride, Self-righteousness, and Eeason- 
 ing Power of man, this portion of mind says to the prophetic 
 portion : 
 
 OL. that I could cease to be ! Despair ! I am despair, 
 Created to be the great example of horror and agony ; also my 
 Prayer is vain. I' called for compassion, compassion mocked ; 
 Mercy and Pity threw the gravestone over me, and with lead and iron 
 Bomid it over me for ever. 
 
 And in reply to this, and more, the prophetic portion of mind 
 wiped the tears of self-pity from Eeason and Pride ; 
 
 But comfort none could give or beam of hope. 
 
 Jerusalem, page 10, lines 51, 61. 
 
 On the subject of division and unity as to be seen in the 
 soul of one man between other " men " — his many thoughts 
 that are men and even seem so to one another ( VaZa, VIII, 
 118), just as cities are men (Jerusalem, page 30, line 46) 
 — much is told, beginning with the early lines of Vala that 
 promise to sing of the Spirit of Prophecy, 
 
 His faU into Division and his Resurrection into Unity. 
 
 He divides into " sons and daughters," which are ideas and 
 feelings, as we learn, and include the twelve tribes. We can 
 see ourselves in these mythic figures, who are to one of us 
 what we aU are to the chief "Son," or development and 
 corollary, of the Universal Father. 
 
344 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 In the first lines of page 87 of Jerusalem, "Los'' begs 
 " Enitharmon " to seize in her hand the roots of love that 
 surround him — the small fibres, and he says : 
 
 I will fire them 
 With pulsations ; we will divide them into Sons and Daughters 
 To live in thy bosom's translucence as in an eternal morning ; 
 
 but she will not. The Eeasoning Power has quite another 
 purpose in having sons and daughters (for Albion's are 
 essentially his). It is 
 
 To separate a law of Sin, to punish thee in thy members. 
 
 The daughters provoke love, the sons contradict it. Los 
 afterwards tells of his divisions to Eahab (Nature): 
 
 I am that shadowy prophet who, six thousand years ago, 
 
 Fell from my station in the eternal bosom. I divided 
 
 To multitudes, and my children are children of care and labour. 
 
 Oh, Rahab, I behold thee. I was once, like thee, a son 
 
 Of Pride, and I have pierced the Lamb of God in pride and wrath 
 
 Hear me repeat my generations that thou may'st also repent. 
 
 Vala, VIII, 345. 
 
 Then follows a list of the children of Los, that causes the 
 reader to beheve that only the earlier portions of Vala were 
 written in 1797, and that this and much else was produced at 
 Felpham in 1801 — a conjecture supported by the handwriting 
 of the MS., but of whach proof is not yet acquired. Los 
 also, though, says of the " Sons of Albion " : 
 
 They have divided themselves in wrath ; they must be united 
 By pity ; Jerusalem, page 7, line 57, 
 
 though elsewhere we are told of how even pity, which may 
 work both ways, " divides the soul " (Milton, page 6, hne 19). 
 The " Eehgion of Generation," of which he speaks hereafter, 
 calls for a uniting pity, which was meant for the de- 
 struction of Jerusalem, and is to " become her covering till 
 the time of the end," is a " representative " symbol, and means 
 the rehgion of restraint of imagination, which is " first author 
 of energy enslaved " ( Vala, IX, 151), and substitutes argu- 
 ment as a mental effort to attain truth and sympathy, has 
 this result. The network of symbols hiding the doctrine is 
 never entangled, and is always clear whenever any of the 
 words in which it is contained is found in the text. 
 
 War — Energy enslaved, argument. 
 
 Greneration — Energy divided to create argument. 
 
HIS THEEE LEADING IDEAS 345 
 
 Eegeneration — Inspired imagination undisputed. 
 Jerusalem — ^All mental liberty to dream, to unite, and 
 to adjoin man to Ms fellow-man. 
 
 The contrast is symbolised also as cog-wheels opposed to each 
 other compared with concentric wheels, the contrast being that 
 of nature with imagination, and of law with forgiveness. That 
 ideas are Sons of Albion is seen in Jerusalem, page 70, line 
 1, as they are streets of the composite person called London 
 (page 38, Une 31). When he is looked at closely, London, 
 called the " immortal guardian " {Jerusalem, page 38, Une 40) 
 of those " minute particulars " symbolised as his own streets, 
 is Luvah in a secondary sense, after Luvah has "assumed 
 the south " {Jerusalem, page 36, hue 29), and so got into his 
 place. But in the same hne Urizen assumed east, and 
 London is always geographically in the south - east of 
 England. He has markedly the attributes of Urizen, and in 
 his resemblance to Tiriel (when bhnd, age-bent, led by a 
 child — Jerusalem, page 84, Hne 11), is related to Tharmas; 
 both these had, we remember, innocent days when Urizen 
 was Prince of Light. He is a symbol full of universal 
 suggestiveness, his quarters being those of Man, and his 
 points of the compass the four " senses " or Zoas, for he is 
 fourfold, and spiritually is Art and Golgonooza {Jerusalem, 
 page 53, line 19). " In the exchanges of London every nation 
 walked" (nations are truths of imagination) — Jerusalem, 
 page 24, hne 42. And yet London was only a stone of the 
 ruins of Jerusalem when she was ruined for a while by 
 Albion's reaction in favour of ideas of Sin and Eepentance — 
 the forbidden tree {Jerusalem, page 29, line 19). Properly he 
 is the centre of Erin, his " holy place " (page 72, Hne 20), but 
 in evil days, when the Zoas or senses are " clouded " and rage 
 {Jerusalem, page 36, line 25), London is Luvah, and is his 
 "English name," in fact {Jerusalem, page 59, line 14), and is, 
 Hke imaginative art, " a void." He mingles with Albion's 
 reasoning power and becomes Satan (Body of Doubt) and the 
 dark Hermaphrodite of self-contradiction {Jerusalem, page 49, 
 line 67, and page 58, line 20). 
 
 The expression Spiritual Gravitation, here offered only as 
 a descriptive figure of speech to help us to group Blake's 
 ideas, not as a term of his or part of his language, does not 
 refer to such a line as 
 
 All fell towards the centre, sinking down in dire ruin, 
 
 Jerusalem, page 59, line 17, 
 
346 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 as these told of the senses acting without imaginative 
 liberty, but to such tendencies of the separate to unite, as in 
 this passage, where every noun is a technical symbol from 
 the myth : 
 
 Teaching tliem to form the Serpent of Precious Stones and Gold, 
 To seize the sons of Jerusalem and plant them in One Man's Loins. 
 
 Jerusalem, page 55, line 15. 
 
 The idea of a composite individual is, of course, familiar 
 in an incomplete way to whoever has seen two men puUing 
 at one rope, has heard the music of a chorus, or the speech 
 of a member of Parliament, has seen any of the effects pro- 
 duced (unprofessionally) by people sitting in a ring and 
 wishing all together, or has heard of the miracles at Lourdes, 
 or of that star of Italy that appeared miraculously in the 
 sky while Mazzini was making a great speech to an excited 
 multitude — a star which two Englishmen left the crowd to 
 observe better, and of which they could see nothing when 
 alone, though they perceived it again when they came back 
 to the crowd to hear the rest of the speech. The existence 
 of TJrizen or Luvah is shown just as the existence of the 
 great god Pan was shown. He has survived his own myth, 
 and his adjective has become a noun — ^panic. Our Lady of 
 Lourdes, whose existence stands on similar testimony, may 
 have as unforeseen a future. What that of Blake's " Zoas " 
 may be we cannot guess tUl they have a more complete 
 birth. They are still " advancing," as he said was the 
 beauty of imagination and the horror of selfish rational 
 despair : 
 
 The joys of God advance 
 
 But my griefs advance also, for ever, and without end. 
 
 jferusalem, page 10, lines 40 and 50. 
 Or— 
 
 Brotherhood is Religion. Jerusalem, page 57, line 10. 
 
 Where " EeUgion " is used in its good sense of non-legal or, 
 as it may be called, antinomian restraint — Blake's only idea 
 of true morality ; or — 
 
 In beauty the Daughters of Albion divide and unite at will. 
 
 Jerusalem, page 58, line 1. 
 
 Where this gravity works (as in nature) to produce centri- 
 fugal as well as centripetal movement. Or — 
 
 Then all the Males conjoined in One Male and every one 
 Became, etc. Jerusalem, page 61, line 1. 
 
HIS THREE LEADING IDEAS 347 
 
 Or again when the Sons of Albion were incorrect — 
 
 They rise as Adam before me, united into One Man. 
 
 Jerusalem, page 10, line 16. 
 
 Or again in the final perfection — 
 
 We live as One Man, for, contracting our infinite senses. 
 We beiold multitude or expanding we behold as one, 
 As One Man all the Universal Family, and that One Man 
 We call Jesus the Christ, etc. 
 
 Jerusalem, page 30, line 17. 
 
 Spiritual gravitation makes even those under the influence 
 of the Daughters, or, in brief, Tirzah, who is jS'atural 
 Eeligion, Daughter of Morality (compare Milton, page 17, 
 line 54), though such are not able to mingle and meet by 
 sympathy and become one in " Jesus," yet 
 
 By invisible hatreds adjoined they seem remote and separate. 
 
 He who will not commingle in Love must be adjoined by Hate. 
 Jerusalem, page 66, lines 53 and 56. 
 
 But as the "contraction" of senses is just what leads to 
 " fall," or movement of the soul into exterior or experience, 
 this explains the sentence in the opening of Vala, where the 
 poem is said to tell of the Spirit of Prophecy (called Los), 
 and of 
 
 His fall into division and his resurrection into Unity, 
 
 and why it was only in the " Earth of Eden " that he pro- 
 pagated his sons and daughters, of which (towards the close 
 of Night VIII, in line 350) he gives repentantly so terrible 
 a hst, speaking to Eahab, the symbolised natural con- 
 science and vegetative restraint. 
 
 Satan, the Body of Doubt (Jerusalem, page 93, line 20), on 
 which vegetative man, or Eeuben, was fed till he became so 
 horrible that aU who beheld him fled and guarded their 
 tongues for pain (Jerusalem, page 36, Une 9), has allowed 
 him divine attributes of unifying — " that he may be put off." 
 The Sons of Albion become one great Satan mingled with 
 Luvah (Jerusalem, page 90, line 43). The thirty-ninth and 
 fortieth pages of Milton, as well as much of Jerusalem, 
 teU of this. The last line of page 37 may be read with 
 remembrance that Europe and Asia correspond with Urizen 
 and Luvah. The twelve gods becoming Satan in Jerusalem, 
 page 74, line 22, the end of page 37, and beginning of page 
 
348 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 40 of Milton, all repeat the idea that Doubt is opposed to 
 Imagination — particularly to Vision. 
 
 That Imagination leads to the Grand Man through 
 brotherhood and its opposite, fleshly experience and reasou, 
 to isolation, is told both in Jerusalem and Vala, where after 
 line 620 in Night IX, we read : 
 
 Man is a worm renewed with joy, lie seeks the caves of sleep. 
 
 Forsaking brotherhood and universal love in selfish clay, 
 Folding the wings of his pure mind. 
 
 Man subsists by brotherhood and universal love. 
 
 Man liveth not by self alone, but in his brother's face 
 
 Man shall behold the Eternal Father, and love and joy abound — 
 
 Which may be read with this from Night III : 
 
 Rent from eternal brotherhood we die and are no more. 
 
 All deities reside in the human breast. 
 
 Marriage of Heaven and Hell, page 11. 
 
 If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to 
 man, as it is, infinite. 
 
 Marriage of Heaven and Hell, page 14. 
 
 God only Acts and Is in existing beings, or Men. 
 
 Marriage of Heaven and Hell, page 16. 
 
 The Infinite alone resides in Definite and Determined Identity. 
 
 Jerusalem, page 55, line 64. 
 
 The Worship of God is honouring His gifts 
 
 In other men, and loving the greatest, best, each according 
 
 To his Genius, which is the Holy Ghost in Man ; there is no other 
 
 God than that God who is the intellectual fountain of Humanity. 
 
 He who envies or calumniates, which is murder and cruelty. 
 
 Murders the holy one. Jerusalem, page 91, line 7. 
 
 And thou Lamb of God, whom I 
 Slew in my dark self-righteous pride ! 
 
 Jerusalem, page 27, seventeenth stanza. 
 
 I act with benevolence and virtue and get murdered time after time. 
 
 Jerusalem, page 91, line 25. 
 
 Displaying the Eternal Vision, the Divine Similitude, 
 
 In loves and tears of brothers, sisters, sons, fathers, and friends 
 
 Which if Man ceases to behold he ceases to exist. 
 
 Jerusalem, page 38, line 11. 
 
 On the Laocoon plate he has summed up the whole affair 
 in one sentence : 
 
 The whole Business of Man is : the Arts and All Things in Common. 
 
HIS THEEE LEADING IDEAS 349 
 
 Many more passages of the same kind could easily be 
 added, but these are enough to show that Blake's idea of the 
 composite person was to him the one greatest and most 
 pressing reality. Besides the One Man, the Divine Saviour, 
 there were lesser composites called " states " that came into 
 existence when imagination in the person of some existing 
 imaginative man perceived them, much as sound comes into 
 existence when we hear it and light when we see it. Seeing 
 them " created them." They say of themselves : 
 
 We are not Individuals but States, combinations of Individuals. 
 
 Milton, extra-page 32, line 10. 
 
 They are permanent in one way : 
 
 As the Pilgrim passes on while the country permanent remains, 
 So men pass on, but States remain permanent for ever. 
 
 Jerusalem, page 73, line 43. 
 
 But they do not remain unchangeable. They merge, divide, 
 and recombine : 
 
 States change, but Individual Identities never change nor cease. 
 
 A mortal, however, may change, and his mortaUty cease, and 
 it and he must cease and change if he is to become fit to 
 survive : 
 
 The Mortal fades away in improved knowledge. 
 
 Vala, Night VIII, 546. 
 
 At the present day Mr. Myers has brought on to the solid 
 mahogany or oak table of every Hbrary the very vaporous 
 question of what is individual personality as a matter of fact ; 
 and there is some reason to suppose that Blake was attempt- 
 ing to say something in his day that would have been 
 consonant with the new discoveries. 
 
 The word in continues to be the one which most needs a 
 special gift of comprehension if the reader would not be 
 misled by it. Bepresent is another Swedenborgian term to be 
 read with care. 
 
 Then Milton knew that the three Heavens of Beulah were beheld 
 
 By him on earth in his bright pilgrimage of sixty years 
 
 In the three females whom his wives and those three whom his 
 
 daughters 
 Had represented and contained that they might be resumed 
 By giving up of selfhood ; and they, distant, viewed his journey 
 In their eternal spheres, now human, though their bodies remained 
 
 closed 
 
350 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 In the dark Ulro till the judgment. Also Milton knew and they 
 
 knew 
 Himself was Human, though now wandering through death's vale 
 In conflict with those three female forms which in blood and 
 
 jealousy 
 Surrounded hira, dividing and uniting without end or number. 
 
 Milton, pages 15 and 16. 
 
 The females whom Milton's Uving wives and daughters 
 represented were female forms — forms of thought whose 
 tendency is to the opposite of sympathy and forgiveness, and 
 who fight for their mental lives, and are ready to destroy 
 any mental life, or to bind any down that threatens their 
 materialistic view of existence, which is their existence. 
 Their names — 
 
 Eahab and Tirzah, and Milcah and Mahlah, and Noah and Hoglah, 
 
 Milton, page 16, line 11, 
 
 betray what kind of forms of thought they are. We have 
 seen them in Jerusalem in page 68, at their symboHc work on 
 Schofield (variously spelled), who was the limit of contraction 
 recreated in Edom (or red earth), and therefore called Adam, 
 who absorbed many of his brethren, to be himself bound down 
 by Mahlah, Hoglah, and Milcah. Their names are biblical, 
 and will be recognised as those of Zelophehad's daughters. 
 He, as related in Numbers, chap, xxvi., verse 33, and chap, 
 xxvii. at the beginning, had only these daughters and no sons. 
 They obtained from Moses a special iuheritance, as though 
 they were heirs male, and not female, and from their time 
 the Salic law, hitherto existing (though not under that 
 name) among Israelites, was abolished. 
 
 Blake uses them symbolically as names suggestive of 
 feminine or materialistic tyranny, as he uses those of the 
 " Sons of Albion " for argumentative or negative tyranny. 
 The next thing we hear of Milton was that 
 
 His body was the rock Sinai — that body 
 Which was on earth bound to corruption ; 
 
 and the female influences were rocky also, and have further 
 names which are heard of in Jerusalem. 
 
 All this is aimed at the belief in the hard apparent 
 surfaces of Nature, that seems real, but is not, till some one 
 is entrapped into lending his imagination to believe it. 
 
 The rock Sinai is heard of in the Book of Ahania in 
 detail : 
 
HIS THEEE LEADING IDEAS 351 
 
 But Milton's Human Shadow continued journeying above 
 The rocky masses of the Mundane Shell. Line 18. 
 
 And this is elaborately explained. Space forbids us to follow 
 Ms journey minutely, but at last Blake cries out, after 
 exhausting attempt to makes liimself clear : 
 
 How can I, with my gross tongue that cleaveth to the dust, 
 Tell of the fourfold man ? Milton, page 10, line 15. 
 
 He cannot, except by figures of speech. Our language was 
 made for food and love, labour and war, on the plain, and in 
 the state of mind that produced utterance. How can it in 
 specific terms tell of psychic involutions ? Arithmetic alone 
 could as easily deal with the forms of thought for which the 
 language called Algebra was invented. Blake's books are to 
 those of other poets almost exactly what algebra is to arith- 
 metic. His X, y, and z are bibUeal and historical names, and 
 their action on each other contains truth that cannot be told 
 except in mythic form. Those who insist that Blake shall 
 be explained in non-mythic form are as reasonable as those 
 who expect the mathematician to go without his letters and 
 signs. More may be done than has yet been done, but 
 Milton alone deserves a volume as long as this entire book 
 to unravel it, though Blake tried hard, as such passages as 
 the following show : 
 
 As when a man dreams he reflects not that his body sleeps, 
 Else he would wake, so seemed he entering his own shadow, 
 
 Milton, page 14, line 1, 
 
 a passage to be read whenever the word sUe'p or dream 
 occurs in Jerusalem. A httle farther down, on hue 10 and 
 following : 
 
 When he entered into his shadow, himself. 
 His real and immortal self was, as appeared to those 
 Who dwell in immortality, as one sleeping on a couch of gold. 
 
 But to himseK he seemed a wanderer lost in dreary night. 
 
 The word self is used in several senses. It is a pity that 
 Blake did not adopt a different way of writing for each,— 
 roman, italic, black letter, and Greek. 
 
 Thus Milton stood forming bright Urizen, while his Mortal past 
 Sat frozen on the rock of Horeb, and his Kedeemed portion 
 Thus formed the clay of Urizen, but within that portion 
 His real Human walked above in power and majesty 
 Thoueh darkened, and the seven angels of the Presence attended him. 
 ^ Page 18, Hues 10-14, 
 
352 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 Or again : 
 
 As the ploughman or artificer or shepherd, 
 While in the labours of his calling, sends his thoughts abroad 
 To labour in the ocean or in the starry heavens, so Milton 
 Laboured in chasms of the Mundane Shell, though here before 
 My cottage, etc. Page 40, lines 4 etc. 
 
 " Milton," being the name of a state about to he created, is 
 a composite individual, and yet, "Milton" being a person, 
 personal division is carefully explained. 
 
 The doctrine that there is a divided as well as a composite 
 personality is seen even without more attempt to analyse it ; 
 as Blake's it was his second leading idea : his third, almost 
 as puzzling at first, must be spoken of if we are to set up 
 any real portrait of his mind. 
 
 This third idea was his view of morahty. That he had 
 been punished as a child for seeing visions, left him for hfe 
 with the idea that generalised maxims not poetically illus- 
 trated in myths were what people called moral, and that it 
 was therefore immoral to allow the mind to create mythic 
 figures with their refusal to be translated, and their pictorial 
 vividness — ^vision being clearer than sight itself, — and their 
 own passions of love and hate, lust and cruelty, that make 
 them just like so many Hving savages. 
 
 All through Jerusalem, moral and matter-of-fact are seen 
 to mean the same thing, while sin and sympathy are the same. 
 Vision and forgiveness, we have already seen, are names 
 for the Saviour seen in different attributes, male or female. 
 
 The result inevitably is that moral becomes a term of, 
 reprobation. The word " holy " means (in sarcastic sense) 
 unfruitful of imagination, sterile. Impurity and harlotry is 
 a mixture of imagination with actual love or credulity, — of 
 nature and mind. Chastity is (in a bodily sense) of no more 
 importance compared to the mental virtues than body is 
 compared to mind. It is actually evil when its mental effects 
 are evil. 
 
 This is very much the view that Mr. Sinnett says was 
 current in the Atlantic lands, now under the ocean, in times 
 before that modern period known as ancient history. It 
 survives, of course, in the modern clubman. Perhaps no 
 one is ready to deny it unconditionally, except to uphold 
 the ascetic Christianity of the Pauline dogma. Paul will be 
 read of in Blake along with Constantino, Charlemagne, and 
 Luther, as one who was not a whole-hearted upholder of 
 Forgiveness as the only Christ. 
 
HIS THEEE LEADING IDEAS • 353 
 
 At one period of Blake's life he certainly considered 
 thought that is wrong a deadUer sin than certain acts that 
 are not held to be right. The ethics of thought are still so 
 far from being generally agreed on that the subject must 
 be left here. There are words at the close of Broken Love 
 that show him as not in the mood that wrote the Marriage of 
 Heaven and Hell. 
 
 2a 
 
CHAPTEE XXX 
 
 SUMMING UP OF THE POSITION OF ' JERUSALEM ' AND ' MILTON ' 
 
 Later than Jerusalem and Milton we can find no record of 
 Blake's mind which has any completeness and force to be 
 compared to that which they contain. They will remain 
 the places where we must look for his portrait by his own 
 hand in its most emphatic form. As it has been supposed 
 for so long that Jerusalem was the poem that he wrote at 
 Pelpham, though passages in it are common to both 
 Milton and Vala, and though we have no contemporary 
 record, and though some pages of Milton, as engraved, seem 
 to be later than anything in Jerusalem, the reasons for con- 
 sidering that Milton was the poem he wrote there, and 
 " considered the grand reason " of his " being brought there," 
 deserve to be brought together, even if some are repeated 
 in doing so. 
 
 The first is that the poem was shortened from twelve books 
 to two ; the second, that he says, page 36 of Milton, that 
 "Los" prepared his cottage at Pelpham that he might 
 write those visions, and one chief incident is given as 
 occurring on his garden path. The third is that in Jerusalem,, 
 page 38, he says that he saw certain visions in Felpham that 
 belong to the poem, but that he writes in South Molton 
 Street, London. He says that he even heard some of what 
 he writes in Lambeth, where he lived before he went to 
 Felpham. The fourth is that he begins the poem with a list 
 of symbolic characters, among whom is one (Scholfield) whose 
 name he had only heard during the very last days that he was 
 at Felpham. The fifth is that Milton is full of country descrip- 
 tions and symbols — the lark, the shepherd, wildflowers — and 
 that these are lost in Jerusalem. The siKth is that though 
 a passage from one of his letters dated from Felpham recalls 
 an expression from Jerusalem about the " fluctuating earth " 
 on page 83, it is even more closely aUied to the passage 
 
 354 
 
POSITION OF 'JEEUSALEM' AND 'MILTON' 355 
 
 on the vegetable earth bound on the foot in Milton, 
 page 19, while the long poem called Los the Terrible in the 
 Collected Works, which was written at Felpham, is closely 
 allied to the part played by Los in Milton, and not at all 
 in the manner of the speeches of Los and his acts in 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 Another sign of Felpham in Milton is the frequent use of the 
 word bard, a term habitually used by Hayley when speaking 
 of his friend, E. Gr. Johnson, Cowper's nephew, who may 
 be the personage whose presence in Oxford caused Blake to 
 give it afterwards in Jerusalem its function as giving leaves 
 of the tree of life to Albion, after mistakenly repenting its 
 human kindness, though its imagination was cut round and 
 shrunken. With Cambridge, Winchester, and the Scottish 
 Universities it holds a place among the places that correspond 
 to the four ungenerated sons of Los and Jerusalem. Its 
 references are — Albion's ancient porches (or "inlets to the 
 soul," or imaginative senses), including Oxford, are darkened 
 and scattered, page 5, line 3. Oxford is the dust of Jerusa- 
 lem's wall, page 29, hne 19. Jerusalem ruined it, repents of 
 its human kindness, page 42, hne 58, is urged by the spirit 
 of heaUng (Bath) to take leaves of the tree of hfe and bring 
 them to help Albion, and does so, weeping, page 45, hne 30, 
 and page 46, hues 8, 17. It counts as a symbol for one of 
 the four " ungenerated " sons of prophecy and sympathy who 
 did not Jlee into error. Daughters of Albion beam on it 
 mildly, and Oothoon hides these in chaste appearances, pages 
 81, hne 11, and 83, hne 28. 
 
 This is all written in the last days of Felpham and first of 
 South Molton Street. Blake still corresponded with Hayley. 
 But though Oxford continued to produce an impression on 
 him, the word " bard," which occurs nine times in the first 
 twenty pages of Milton, is forgotten. Oxford is only 
 mentioned once in Milton, on page 40, written after most 
 of Jerusalem, and then only on hne 44 as one of four, 
 Bath, Oxford, Cambridge, Norwich, on the front of Albion's 
 bosom. 
 
 That the last pages of Milton are later than the last of 
 Jerusalem is suggested by the ending of the poem — a call to 
 the harvest (of symbols), and a statement that no more seed 
 should be sown. This is presumably the " seed of contem- 
 plative thought," by which all things renew. 
 
 It is also suggested by the deplorable and hasty state of 
 the drawings towards the close of Milton. They betray 
 
356 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 worn-out patience, jarred nerves, and a distracted mind. 
 They seem to say, " I shall print no more," as Blake said to 
 Crabb Eobinson. 
 
 That the story of Satan and Palamabron in Milton recalls 
 Hayley and Blake is not so conclusive as it would be if it 
 did not occur in a modified form in Vala, whose MS. title- 
 page dates 1797. But the latter pages of Vala are later than 
 the title, and so far as the " Satan " there has an af&nity to 
 Sir Joshua Eeynolds, no moral turpitude in Sir Joshua is 
 implied in the suggestion that he has something to do with 
 the symbol ; it is a term all whose more precise characteristics 
 are in Milton only, and are clearly to be traced to a recent 
 reading of Paradise Lost, and to a purposed departure from 
 its ideas. 
 
 There was another " Satan " — Bacon. There was another 
 — the old-fashioned Bevil. Blake was soon to see him. 
 
 Before finally leaving the subject of Jerusalem until the 
 not-yet-demanded Encyclopaedia of Blake is required by the 
 pubHc, a detail may be referred to with regard to Gilchrist's 
 treatment of the subject. In the first edition of the Life of 
 Blake the poem To the Jews is given at full length, with a 
 challenge at the top to whoever can do so to interpret it. 
 
 The present writer has to thank Gilchrist for this 
 challenge. It was what set him to work in 1870, and caused 
 him to find that clue to the four regions, four points of the 
 compass, four quarters of London and of the world, or the 
 four ungenerated sons of Los, and four Zoas, with then- 
 relationships and their order of habitual arrangement, which 
 had escaped the elder critics. For want of it they had no 
 means of discovering any coherence in the book. They 
 could not prove that a region never loses its characteristics 
 whether it be entered into by a being from another region 
 or not. Height and depth are never as length and breadth, 
 nor north and south as east and west. Europe and Asia 
 never means what Asia and Europe would, and America is 
 never anything but opposite to England. 
 
 The clue slept while its discoverer was travelling and 
 living in Italy until, in 1890, Mr. Yeats asking for it, some 
 rough hints were dragged out of a little notebook. Mr. Yeats 
 took fire from the slender gleam and offered the collaboration 
 which was entered on at once, and resulted in a crop of 
 discoveries made now by one, now by the other, often by 
 both at once, of which as many as could be got into any 
 sort pf order were thrust into the Quaritch edition, which 
 
POSITION OF 'JEKUSALEM' AND 'MILTON' 357 
 
 grew from two volumes to three while under compilation, and 
 was prepared during an excitement of enthusiasm that left 
 it full of misprints. 
 
 The challenge that began it all is quietly suppressed in 
 the second edition of Gilchrist, but all the old depressing 
 mistakes are repeated. 
 
 The arrangement of the quarters of London and the 
 chief towns of England and the continents of the world 
 under the four Zoas is, although it was the clue to aU Blake, 
 a matter that itseK is as difi&cult to sort up as anything that 
 he contains. Canterbury is the most diiScult of aU. As it 
 is but lightly treated in the notes to the Chatto and Windus 
 edition, the references to the word in Jerusalem, being but 
 few, are here offered. They are — 
 
 Page 17, line 59 Page 46, line 6 Page 65, line 39 
 „ 33 „ 12 „ 57 „ 1 
 
 „ 38 „ 45 „ 63 „ 35 
 
 York, another of the four, occurs — 
 
 Page 16, line 44 Page 57, line 1 Page 73, line 51 
 „ 38 „ 51 „ 59 „ 14 „ 74 „ 3 
 
 „ 46 „ 24 „ 66 „ 65 
 
 In Milton there is a long passage on page 40, as "Albion 
 rose up," which merely sums itself up into the symbol of 
 facing eastwards. The colossal figure is a map of the 
 imagination, whose nether parts, as elsewhere — the exterior 
 region — are seen as feet, hands being more inward. The four 
 pillars do not exactly follow the usual four-fold. 
 
 There is only one general system to follow in reading 
 Blake, and that is to remember that aU his names are merely 
 tickets more or less appropriate through correspondence with 
 points of the compass when they are places, and facts of his- 
 tory or traditions of doctrine when they are personages either 
 sacred or profane. These tickets apply only to impersonations 
 of Human Qualities. The quahties must be thought of partly 
 iy help of the appropriateness of the symbol when the four 
 points of the compass and Swedenborg's meaning of Biblical 
 names are borne in mind, and partly in spite of the almost 
 overwhelming picturesqueness of those suggestions belonging 
 to the words on the tickets that have nothing to do with 
 the human qualities — the psychology, for the sake of which 
 they are used. The qualities change and mingle, and the 
 
358 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 tickets cannot always, even by aid of the allegoric figures 
 behind them, tell all the drama. 
 
 This system must be used along with an unceasing 
 memory that Blake had always before his mind the root idea 
 that there is only one good — love with imaginative art, and 
 only one evil — law with realistic art ; that the first unites us 
 all with each other, beauty, and eternity, Christ having made 
 this possible by inventing forgiveness; the second entices 
 us to distraction, God having made this possible by inventing 
 virtue, and Satan by inventing pride and punishment. This 
 summary is the condensation of a lifetime of ardent thought 
 that was never lukewarm for one moment, and whose chief 
 hatreds were for doubt, distraction, and restraint. 
 
CHAPTEE XXXI 
 
 SATAN, BACON, REES, AND THORNTON 
 
 In 1813 Mr. Cumberland introduced Blake to John Linnell, 
 whose descendants at this moment have the finest collection 
 existing of his work. For him he made a set of pictures to 
 Job, different from those he sold to Mr. Butts, all his coloured 
 drawings to Dante and to the Temptation of Christ, besides 
 many separate designs. Linnell kept him aHve for the rest 
 of his Ufe, never giving him large sums, but always keeping 
 him employed at a living wage. It was less than would be 
 paid to a good head gardener now, but was more than the 
 publication of the Joh when engraved showed to be the 
 market value of the work. The fact is, of course, that art, 
 until it is talked about, has no market value. Talk alone is 
 worth gold. Talk has gone on since then for nearly a century 
 about Blake, and now every penny that John Linnell paid 
 could be recovered in the shape of a pound if the family 
 desired to do so. None the less, it was a fine deed on the 
 part of John Linnell when it was done, and wiU remain a 
 patent of nobility associated with the name of his heirs as 
 long as art or poetry exists. 
 
 It is pleasant to be able to note as a proof that John 
 Linnell is not forgotten that two of his landscapes were sold 
 by auction for good prices as lately as June 4 of this 
 year (1904), his Woodcutters for £504 and his Carting 
 Timber for £840. In him now, when past the prime 
 of life, Blake may be said to have found his good angel. 
 (The expression is used popularly, not technically.) It is 
 amusing to remember that now also he saw a vision of the 
 devil. We hear of it through Varley and Allan Cunning- 
 ham. 
 
 "For many years I had longed to see Satan," said he. 
 Eeaders of Jerusalem will notice how few visions there are in 
 its descriptive passages. " I never could believe him to be 
 
 369 
 
360 THE KEAL BLAKE 
 
 the vulgar fiend which our legends represent him. I imagined 
 him a classic spirit such as he appeared to him of Uz with 
 some of his original splendour about him. At last I saw him. 
 I was going upstairs in the dark when suddenly a light 
 streamed among my feet. I turned round, and there he was 
 looking fiercely at me between the iron gratings of my stair- 
 case window. I called for my things. Catherine thought 
 the fit of song was on me, and brought me pen and ink. I 
 said, ' Hush ! never mind ! this wUl do.' As he appeared, so 
 I drew him. There he is." " Upon this " (Allan Cunning- 
 ham's report of Varley's reminiscence goes on), " Blake took 
 out a piece of paper with a grated window sketched on it, 
 while through the bars glared the most frightful phantom 
 that ever the mind of man imagined. Its eyes were large and 
 like two coals, its teeth as long as those of a harrow, and the 
 claws such as might appear in the distempered dream of a 
 clerk in the Heralds' office. 
 
 " ' It is the Gothic Fiend of our legends,' said Blake, ' the 
 true devil ; all else are apocryphal.' " 
 
 In reading about " Satan " in the poems we must adopt 
 the picture of him suggested by the text described in the 
 early part of this reminiscence, and afterwards drawn iu the 
 Joh series. Blake used this "apocryphal" devil for poetic 
 purposes and quietly suppressed the " true." Varley was an 
 artist with whom LinneU had lived for a year as pupil He 
 is well known both for his art and his astrology, with which 
 he made many true predictions, as astrologers often do. He 
 used to get Blake to sketch heads from him from " vision." 
 Sometimes Blake only needed to be asked to see any his- 
 torical head one pleased to name, and he would see it, and 
 unless it moved, or some portion vanished, as was the |case 
 occasionally before he had finished his drawing, a creditable 
 sketch would be made. If people criticised the likenesses 
 Blake would say calmly, " It's all right, it must be so ; I saw 
 it so." 
 
 Gilchrist says that nevertheless "critical friends could 
 trace in all these heads Blake's mind and hand, his receipt for 
 a face. Every artist has his own, from which he may depart 
 in the proportions, but seldom substantially. John Varley, 
 however, could not be persuaded to look at them from this 
 merely rationalistic point of view." One asks oneself why 
 not ? Could Blake at that age be rationalisticcdly or ration- 
 ally expected to drop his mannerism because he was drawing 
 from vision ? Would he have done so had the sitters been 
 
SATAN, BACON, EEES, AND THOENTON 361 
 
 half-a-dozen of his " critical friends " who occupied the chair 
 for a few minutes each? Edward III in the drawing 
 appeared to have a swollen head. Blake's assertion that it 
 was right because he saw it so is merely a bit of his usual 
 self-confidence. He was not only the most gifted, poetic, 
 generous, lovable, courageous, industrious, and philosophic of 
 men ; he was the most opinionative. " The man who built 
 the pyramids" is as funny a title for a visionary head as 
 though it had been called " the man who wrote the news- 
 papers." Most of these heads were drawn in August 1820. 
 The celebrated Ghost of a Flea (with two legs and two 
 arms), manifestly symbolic, " appeared " in as authentically 
 visionary a form as. any of them. Doubtless he, too, is " all 
 right." One asks oneself whether Varley hypnotised Blake a 
 little. But all this is neither art, in any important sense, 
 nor poetry. It is not beauty in any sense at all. "The 
 visionary faculty was so much under control that at the wish 
 of a friend he could summon before his abstracted gaze any 
 of the familiar forms he was asked for. This was during the 
 favourable and befitting hours of night, from nine or ten in 
 the evening till one or two, or perhaps three or four in the 
 morning, Varley sitting by, sometimes slumbering and some- 
 times waking. Varley would say, 'Draw me Moses,' or 
 David, or would call for a likeness of Julius Caesar, or Cassi- 
 vellaunus, or Edward III, or some other great historical 
 personage. Blake would answer, ' There he is ! ' and paper 
 and pencil being at hand, he would begin drawing with the 
 utmost alacrity and composure, looking up from time to time . 
 as though he had a real sitter before him. . . . Sometimes 
 Blake had to wait for the Vision's appearance, ... at others, 
 in the midst of the portrait he would suddenly leave off, 
 . . . would remark, ' I can't go on, it is gone ! I must wait 
 till it returns,' or, ' It has moved; the mouth is gone,' or, ' He 
 frowns ; he is displeased with my portrait of him.' " 
 
 This recalls Blake's complaint of the effect on him of 
 Venetian painters, who " snatch away the vision time after 
 time," and accounts for his anger with them. Two pictures, 
 very unUke each other, of Eichard Coeur de Lion were made. 
 But if Blake had drawn for Crabb Eobinson as he did for 
 Varley we should have Milton with a beard. 
 
 Gilchrist also relates how once, " the other evening," said 
 Blake, " taking a walk, I came to a meadow and saw a fold 
 of lambs. Coming nearer, the ground blushed with flowers, 
 and the wattled cote and its woolly tenants were of an 
 
362 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 exquisite pastoral beauty. But I looked again, and it proTed 
 to be no living flock but only beautiful sculpture." 
 
 " I beg pardon, Mr. Blake," said a lady, " but where did you 
 see this ? " 
 
 " Here, Madam," said Blake, touching his forehead. 
 
 It was a " Memorable Fancy." No doubt the story is true, 
 but Blake never said, " its woolly tenants were of an ex- 
 quisite pastoral beauty." Why could no one remember his 
 real words ? 
 
 In a similar vein he tells how he saw a fairy's funeral. 
 
 Blake in his more important, his indignant mood is 
 seen in extracts from his notes on the margin of his " Bacon." 
 Gilchrist, who had the privilege of seeing these, says : 
 
 The epithets /ooi, liar, villain, atheist, nay Satan, are freely indulged 
 in, and even, most singular of all, " stupid. " Good advice for Satan's 
 kingdom " is the inscription on the title-page. " Is it true or false that 
 the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God 1 This is certain ; if 
 what Bacon says is true, what Christ says is false. If Caesar is right, 
 Christ is wrong, both in politics and religion, since they wiU divide 
 themselves in two." Another note, "Everybody knows that this 
 is epicureanism and libertinism, and yet everybody says that it is 
 Christian philosophy. How is this possible? Everybody must be a 
 liar and deceiver ? No ! ' Everybody ' does not do this, but the hire- 
 lings of kings and courts " (here is a " hired villain " again), " who made 
 themselves ' everybody ' and knowingly propagate falsehood. It was a 
 common opinion in the court of Queen Elizabeth that knavery is 
 wisdom. Cunning plotters were considered as wise Maohiavels." 
 
 To Bacon's " It is great blasphemy to personate God and 
 .bring him in, saying, 'I wiU demand,'" etc., Blake notes, 
 " Did not Jesus descend and become a servant ? The Prince 
 of Darkness is a gentleman and not a man ; he is a Lord 
 Chancellor." To the essay on Virtue Blake says, " What do 
 these knaves mean by ' virtue ' ? Do they mean war and its 
 horrors and its heroic villains ? " To Bacon's " Good thoughts 
 are little better than good dreams," Blake says, " Thought is 
 act. Christ's acts were nothing to Cassar's if this is not so." 
 To Bacon's "The increase of a state must be upon the 
 foreigner," Blake says, " The increase of a state, as of a man, 
 is from internal improvement or intellectual acquirement. 
 Man is not improved by the hurt of another. States are not 
 improved at the expense of foreigners." Blake also says, 
 " Bacon calls intellectual arts unmanly, and so they are for 
 kings and wars, and shall in the end annihilate them." He 
 means that art shall in the end annihilate kings and war, 
 but does not seem to say so. Later, " What is fortune but 
 
SATAN, BACON, EEES, AND THOENTON 363 
 
 an outward accident, for a few years, sixty at the most, and 
 then gone ! " (Blake of course counts from twenty-one years 
 of age.) Again, " King James was Bacon's primum moUle." 
 To Bacon's expression "mighty princes," Blake adds "the 
 Powers of darkness." Again, " A tyrant is the worst disease, 
 and is the cause of all others " (and yet Mr. Yeats in his last 
 essay on Blake goes no further than to say that he was 
 " probably " an Irishman). Also, " Everybody hates a king. 
 David was afraid to say that this envy was upon a king, but 
 is this envy or indignation?" Gilchrist gives no more. 
 The curious recurrence of "envy" in Blake is interesting. 
 He had cause for much, of course, but cause without a special 
 faculty of feeling never produced an emotion yet, not even 
 gratitude. 
 
 In 1820 Blake was employed by Dr. Thornton to illustrate 
 a school edition of Virgil's Pastorals. He made some curious 
 and simple woodcuts for it, engraved by himself. They are 
 oblong and small, scarcely exceeding a postage stamp in 
 height, and four postage stamps in width. They are 
 " generahsed " very finely, if Blake will permit us to say so, 
 and are poetic and touching. The Linnell family own the 
 blocks, of which a few examples are given in Gilchrist's Life. 
 Dr. Thornton must have been very much disappointed with 
 them, and they must have seemed to him coarse, heavy, and 
 childish. 
 
 To quote Gilchrist : 
 
 Blake made twenty drawings to illustrate the Pastorals of Philips, 
 introduced by Dr. Thornton into his "course" of Virgil reading. 
 From these he executed seventeen wood - blocks, the first he ever 
 executed, and, as it will turn out, the last. The rough, unconventional 
 work of a mere 'prentice hand to the art of wood-engraving they are 
 (an unfortunate expression ; there is nothing of the apprentice and 
 everything of the untaught master about them) ; they are in effect 
 vigorous and artist-like, recalling the doings of Albert Durer and the 
 early masters, whose aim was to give ideas, not pretty language 
 (another error, of course. Gilchrist's misfortunes when he speaks of 
 art are Niobean). When he sent in these specimens, the publishers, 
 imused to so daring a style, were taken aback, and declared " this man 
 must do no more," nay, were for having all he had done re-cut by one 
 of their regular hands. The very engravers received them with derision, 
 crying out in the words of the critic, " This will never do ! " 
 
 Dr. Thornton, adds Gilchrist, 
 
 Had in his various undertakings been mimificent to artists, to an 
 extent which brought him to poverty. But he had no knowledge of 
 art, and despite kind intentions was disposed to take his publishers' 
 
364 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 view. However, it fortunately happened that, meeting several artiste at 
 Aders's table — Lawrence, James Ward, Linnell, and others — conversation 
 fell on the VirgiL All present expressed warm admiration of Blake's 
 art, and of those designs and woodcuts in particular. . . . The contem- 
 plated sacrifice of the blocks already cut was averted. The three other 
 designs had, however, been cut by another, nameless, hand : those 
 illustrative of the three " comparisons " in the last stanza but one of 
 Philips's Pastorals. 
 
 Dr. Thornton introduced Blake's blocks with this 
 apology : 
 
 The illustrations of this English Pastoral are by the famous Blake, 
 the illustrator of Young's Night Thoughts and Blair's Grave, who 
 designed and engraved them himself. This is mentioned, as they 
 display less of art than of genius, and are much admired by some 
 eminent painters. 
 
 Dr. Thornton also employed Blake to make etchings from 
 antique busts. "Eees" had already given him somewhat 
 similar work, for the article on " Sculpture " in his Encyclo- 
 pcedia. Gilchrist says : 
 
 One example selected (for Rees) was the Laooobn, which carried 
 our artist to the Royal Academy's antique school for the purpose of 
 making a drawing from the cast of that group. "What, you here, 
 Meesther Blake ! " said Keeper Fuseli ; " we ought to come and learn of 
 you, not you of us." Blake took his place with the students and exulted 
 over his work, says Mr. Tatham, like a yovmg disciple, meeting his old 
 friend Fuseli's congratulations and kind remarks with cheerful, simple 
 
 joy- 
 
 Gilchrist's omission of many interesting pieces of Blake 
 biography which are inserted here from Tatham's manuscript 
 sketch is only the more surprising because of this reference 
 to Tatham. Equally surprising is the absence of all notice 
 of Blake's most remarkable engraving, a Laocoon made from 
 this drawing that differs in outHne very little from the plate 
 in Rees, but that in style of execution is altogether unHke it. 
 Blake's plate is done in the artistic style of a "drawing on 
 copper," without the least conventionality. AU that he had 
 learned from Basire is dropped at last. Its fault, besides a 
 careless and round-lined rendering of the form of the figures, 
 is that the shading makes the statue so dark that it seems a 
 bronze. The plate in Rees is all rendered in dotted " half- 
 tone " outhne, as are the other figures, the Apollo, and so 
 forth, which Blake must have drawn when he drew the 
 Laocoon. It is hardly credible that they are Blake's at all. 
 He must have foamed at the mouth while doing them. They 
 
SATAN, BACON, EEES, AND THOENTON 365 
 
 suggest Cromek. But what makes the Laocobn most in- 
 teresting is that he took his shaded plate (presumably after it 
 had been rejected by the publishers) and covered every open 
 space in it with little prose aphorisms on art, which are printed 
 in type in vol. i. of the Chatto and Windus edition of his 
 Works. They are facsimiled in the Quaritch edition. 
 
 Blake's views on Dr. Thornton's religion were as hostile 
 as Dr. Thornton's views on his wood engravings. It 
 happened — though over this also Gilchrist has drawn a 
 discreet veil of silence — that Dr. Thornton published, about 
 seven years later, during the last year that Blake lived, a 
 pamphlet, stitched in blue paper, about the Lord's Prayer. 
 It was quarto size, and Blake covered the wide margin of the 
 paper with pencilled comments which show that it would be 
 desirable, if possible, to collect all the books that he had 
 during the close of his life. 
 
 Dr. Thornton's scholarly observations he describes thus : 
 
 This is saying the Lord's Prayer backwards, which, they say, raises 
 the Devil. 
 
 Dr. Thornton having attempted a fresh translation of his 
 own, Blake expands it, putting in what he conceives to be 
 the ideas left out, but not left unthought, by Dr. Thornton. 
 The effect is inconceivably blasphemous, until one examines 
 it closely and sees that it is just what a mystic might 
 suppose a matter-of-fact man's view of the meaning of this 
 prayer would be, if he were suf&ciently complex-minded to 
 draw all possible ignominious and matter-of-fact inferences 
 from his matter-of-factness, which, of course, no one ever 
 does. Blake calls his indignant paraphrase 
 
 Doctor Thornton's Tory translation, translated out of its disguise in 
 the classical or Scotch language into the vulgar English. 
 
 Our Father Augustus Caesar who art in these thy substantial 
 astronomical, telescopic heavens, holiness to thy name or title, and 
 reverence to thy shadow. 
 
 Thy kingship come upon earth ; then in heaven. 
 
 Give us day by day our real, substantial, taxed, money -bought 
 bread. Deliver us from the Holy Ghost, and everything that cannot 
 be taxed. Forgive us all debts and taxes between Caesar and us, and 
 deliver us from poverty in Jesus. 
 
 Lead us not to read the Bible, but let our Bible be Virgil and 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 For thine is the kingship, or allegoric godship, and the power, or 
 war, and the glory, or law, ages after ages, in thy descendants, for God 
 is only an allegory of kings and nothing else. Amen. 
 
 Blake is not attempting to make fun. In this rather 
 
366 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 clumsy but intelligible paraphrase he is too angry to try to 
 be witty. He wribes on Dr. Thornton's title-page : 
 
 I look on this as the most malignant and artful attack upon the 
 kingdom of Jesus by the classical learned, through the instrumentalify 
 of Dr. Thornton. The Greek and Roman classics is the Antichrist. I 
 say is and not are as most expressive, and correct too. 
 
 To Dr. Thornton's remark that the Bible is a difBieult 
 book and not understood by the unlearned, Blake says — 
 
 Christ and His Apostles were illiterate men. Caiaphas, Pilate, and 
 Herod were learned. 
 
 Blake, whether learned or not, is at least irrelevant. 
 Another attempt at a hit is — 
 
 If morality was Christianity, Socrates was the Saviour. 
 
 This is repeated from the Laocoon plate. Dr. Thornton 
 mentions Dr. Johnson. Blake notes — 
 
 The beauty of the Bible is that the most ignorant and simple minds 
 understand it best. Was Johnson hired to pretend to religious terrors 
 while he was an infidel, or how was it ? 
 
 Nicholas Breakspear, the only Englishman who was ever 
 made Pope (who was choked by a fly in the fifth year of his 
 pontificate), composed a version of the Lord's Prayer in 
 rhyme, that English children might learn it. He took a 
 symbolic view that would have pleased Blake, even of the 
 daily bread, praying — 
 
 That holy bread that lasteth ay 
 Thou send it ous this ilke day. 
 
 With regard to the crucifixion and our duty of considering 
 and pondering upon that, Blake says in his marginal notes 
 to Dr. Thornton — 
 
 The only thing for Baconian and Newtonian Philosophers to con- 
 sider is this — whether Jesus did not suffer Himself to be mocked by 
 Csesar's soldiers willingly. To consider this to all eternity will be 
 comment enough. 
 
 Mere jibes foUow. Some are directed at Dr. Thornton's 
 heaven (because he seems to look for it outside himself) as a 
 " heaven seen through a lawful telescope." " The Holy 
 Ghost and whatever cannot be taxed is unlawful and witch- 
 craft." He puns on the word "spirit," and suggests that 
 there is a kind that can be taxed, and so made " lawful." 
 
SATAN, BACON, EEES, AND THOENTON 367 
 
 Dr. Thornton, resenting the thoughtless and parrot-hke 
 repetition which is taught to children as saying the Lord's 
 Prayer, observes, "Men from their childhood have been 
 accustomed to mouth the Lord's Prayer." 
 
 Blake will not take it as it is meant. He notes 
 
 It is learned that mouth, not the vulgar. 
 
 Blake suggests a prose meaning of a purely free-trade, if 
 not even socialistic description, if we must needs have one — 
 
 Give us the bread that is our due by taking away money, or a price, 
 or a tax upon what is common to all in thy kingdom. 
 
 As for the " which art in heaven," Blake notes — 
 
 Who, that, and which are equally right, and Basileia (he writes it in 
 Greek letters) is not kingdom, but kingship. 
 
 He suggests another paraphrase to Dr. Thornton's expres- 
 sions, or another expression of his views — 
 
 I, Nature, Hermaphroditic Priest and King, live in the real, sub- 
 stantial, natural Born Men, and (assert) that spirit is the ghost of 
 matter, and God is the ghost of Priest and King, who exist wherever 
 God exists, not except from the effluvia. 
 
 He draws some more inferences which Dr. Thornton might 
 not have countersigned : 
 
 "" Here is . . . (at this point are one or perhaps two words, but quite 
 illegible), and two names which are too holy to be written. Thus we 
 see that the real God is the Goddess Nature, and that God creates 
 nothing but what can be touched, and weighed, and taxed, and 
 measured. All else is heresy against Caesar, Virgil's only God. For all 
 this we thank Dr. Thornton. 
 
 Here follows one more note, valuable as an interpretation 
 of Blake's technical and philosophic use of the word Female 
 (which he apphes not as meaning a woman at all). " Dim 
 at the best," says Dr. Thornton, " are the conceptions we have 
 of a Supreme Being who, as it were, keeps the human race 
 in suspense', neither discovering nor hiding himself." Blake 
 simply notes, "A Female God," and we think of "Nobo- 
 daddy." 
 
 " The female will " (Blake says elsewhere " of which there 
 is none in Heaven ") is to converse concerning weight and 
 distance in the wilds of Newton and Locke " (Jerusalem, 
 page 34, line 40, and elsewhere). 
 
368 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 This pamphlet of Dr. Thornton belongs to the LinneU 
 brothers. 
 
 For the more positive side of Blake's ideas about salva- 
 tion, apart from distinctive criticism of the materialistic 
 Christianity which he strikes at here through Dr. Thornton, 
 we naturally turn to the poem where he telb us to look for 
 it — Milton. 
 
 The reader of Milton will ask himself fifty times how 
 this book relates to eternal salvation, and why the " words " 
 of it should be " marked " as doing so. 
 
 The end of Jerusalem gives a hint. 
 
 The " visions of time and space " which man saw in his 
 deadly sleep of six thousand years are, of course, " the vast 
 form of nature," and, of course, are like "a serpent." line 
 12 of page 96 compares with line 80 of page 89, and the 
 same Une where it is repeated in Vala, Night III, Kne 101. 
 
 The self of false forgiveness " is to be annihilated, as we 
 see by the lines on one of the pictures ia Milton." 
 
 Luvah is told to " go die the death of man for Vala, the 
 sweet wanderer," ia line 66 of page 29 of Jerusalem. 
 
 " Man cannot exist without mysterious offering of self for 
 another" (Jerusalem, page 90, line 20). 
 
 Self is disapproval, censoriousness, and this means the 
 desire to cUng to a little self-conscious virtue. It is 
 annihilated when replaced by love, and that redeems the 
 weak, who are loved instead of beiug found fault with. This 
 is the last page of Jerusalem and all Milton in a few words. 
 
 The most essential passages in Milton, those which explain 
 Blake's repeated assurance to any reader that, his salvation 
 being the subject of the poem, he ought to mark its words, 
 are in the ninth page. 
 
 Satan stands for the attractiveness, especially the sexual 
 attractiveness (called precious stones in the symbology ; 
 compare Jerusalem, page 59, line 1, and page 96, line 12) of 
 Nature. His Druid sons are the same as Albion's on account 
 of the commingling of the selfhood of Albion and Satan 
 at Albion's darkening after he has fallen and closed his 
 western gate — an act related often, once at the end of 
 page 29. It causes the death of Luvah, who dies like the 
 Saviour, who also dies in him and his robes of blood. A 
 portion of this is told in Jerusalem, page 89, lines 65, 70. 
 The 80th Une of the same page, being the same as the 101st 
 of the Third Night of Vala, sheds a little more light on the 
 connection of the mass of symbols. 
 
SATAN, BACON, EEES. AND THOENTON 369 
 
 The class of Satan is called the elect, and he is created 
 morning by morning and is the pet son of Enitharmon 
 (Space) and dwells where God does not dwell, in that void, 
 for the region of nature in art is void of symbolic imagina- 
 tion. The contrasted doctrines are found in the dramatic 
 speech in Jerusalem, page 23, line 29. Taking the word 
 "feminine" as meantag materialistic imagination, not the 
 kind Blake calls " human existence itself," this passage and 
 Milton, page 9, lines 7 to 26, help one another. With the 
 remembrance that all these names stand for real human 
 qualities, and that the myth contains the earliest psychology 
 of Christianity of which we have any record — a kind de- 
 stroyed with Gnosticism by the Eoman Church, and also not 
 forgetting that this was written by a man brought up on the 
 latest kind, that of Swedenborg, Blake's own words will be 
 found more lucid and explanatory than any note. Page 24 
 oi Jerusalem, particularly from line 23 onwards, must be read 
 with this, and also page 25 of Jerusalem, for what is newer 
 (in literature) even than Swedenborg, though consonant with 
 what is oldest in faith. 
 
 The word " feminine " in the prose sentences at the end of 
 page 27 is also explanatory. 
 
 That bodily love must not be a rejoicing, but a licensed 
 privilege, to be taken as grimly as' possible, with the sole 
 intention to produce offspring, with as little enthusiasm as 
 may be, is what Blake was taught by his modest wife to 
 think " morality " meant, his parents having shown him that 
 it must include a complete absence of vision also. Page 36, 
 lines 41 to 48, showed what Blake had to teach Catherine 
 Bouchier of the larger purity. 
 
 Lines 25 and 27 of page 41 of Jerusalem are a further 
 revelation ; also page 42, lines 37 to 45. What is told in lines 
 35, 36 of page 43 naturally follows. Mystically, lines on Ulro, 
 21, 22 of page 44, and on Jerusalem, lines 38, 40, help. 
 
 All page 49 is particularly explanatory, lines 28 and 29, 
 46, 66, and 75 in especial. Line 11 of the next page recalls 
 the first part, of line 30 of page 44. 
 
 Knowing what we know of Blake's idea of " sin " (page 
 30, line 44), line 25 of page 50 turns out to be the very last 
 thing we should have expected, from what people still tell 
 about him, for it is a defence of public modesty. 
 
 On the other hand, in higher life modesty is a sin, how- 
 ever sweet and lovely as an indulgence (page 53, line 11). 
 We are here in the region of symbolism again. 
 
 2b 
 
370 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 Of the difference between forgiveness and atonement, 
 page 61 of Jerusalem, lines 15, 25, are the most emphatic, 
 and must be read with lines 20 to 27 of page 96. 
 
 Lines 18 to 20 of page 62 of Jerusalem help the difficulty 
 of the 9th page of Milton also. 
 
 What may be called the ultimate of Blake's theology on 
 the Christian side is to be found in lines 21 and 22 of page 
 75 of Jerusalem, which are excessively dangerous reading 
 to a hasty eye. The prose line 15 of page 27 is perhaps 
 the closest to what is usually called " salvation," however. 
 While on creation, line 34 of page 83 is the most emphatic 
 and clear, with lines 6 to 8 of page 85, and line 42 of 86, 
 and line 52 of page 88. 
 
 Let line 34 of page 90 be put up visibly as a warning and, 
 for those to whom it is of use, line 34 of page 91, and the 
 Miltonic trouble about atonement and the Satanic paradox 
 will be evident enough, perhaps, as parts of that Eeal Blake 
 whom we are seeking to make live once more, without further 
 intrusion of the interpreter. 
 
CHAPTEE XXXII 
 
 MARGINAL NOTES ^ TO THE 'DISCOURSES' OF 
 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS, 1798 
 
 {On title-page.) " This Man was Hired to Depress Art." This is the 
 opinion of WilL Blake. My proofs of this opinion are given in the 
 following notes. 
 
 {At foot of page.) Advice to the popes who succeeded to the age of 
 Rafail {sic) — 
 
 Degrade first the Arts, if you'd Mankind Degrade, 
 Hire Idiots to Paint with cold light and not shade. 
 Give High Price for the worst, leave the best in disgrace, 
 And with Labours of Ignorance fill every place, 
 
 {On fly-leaf.) Having spent the vigour of my youth and genius 
 under the oppression of Sir Joshua and his gang of cunning hired 
 knaves, without employment, and, as much as could possibly be, 
 without bread, the reader must expect to read in all my remarks on 
 these books nothing but indignation and resentment. While Sir 
 Joshua was rolling in riches, Barry was poor and unemployed except 
 by his own energy. Mortimer was called a madman, and only portrait 
 painting applauded and rewarded by the rich and great. Reynolds 
 and . Gainsborough blotted and blurr'd one against the other and 
 divided all the English world between them. Fuseli, indignant, 
 almost hid himself. I am hid. 
 
 {On table of contents.) The arts and sciences are the destruction 
 of tyrannies or bad government. Why should a good government 
 endeavour to depress what is its chief and only support. 
 
 To : " Much copying discountenanced." 
 
 Blake : To learn the language of art, copy for ever is my rule. 
 
 {At foot of first page of table of contents.) 
 
 Blake : The foundation of empire is art and science. Remove them, 
 or degrade them, and the empire is no more. Empire follows art, not 
 vice versa as Englishmen suppose. 
 
 ' The date of these is either 1820, when Blake was sixty-three, as he says in 
 a verse written to Discourse I, or in 1810, when most of the epigrams on the 
 same subject were written in the MS. book, when he was fifty-three. The 
 epigrams in the MS. book suggest that the notes were written in 1810, but 
 since Blake himself dates them 1820, we must suppose they were written iu 
 the mood of his notes to Dr. Thornton's Lord's Prayer, and in the same year — 
 unless the epigram alone was added in 1820 by an afterthought as already 
 suggested, or, what is really far more probable, ' ' aged sixty- three " in its last 
 Une is a mere slip of the pen, and Blake meant "aged fifty-three," which was 
 the fact. 
 
 371 
 
372 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 {At foot of table.) 
 
 On peut dire que le Pape Lion X""" en encourageant les Etudes donna 
 lea armes centre lui-mSme. J'ai oui dire Ji un Seigneur Anglais qu'il 
 avait vu une lettre du Seigneur Polus, ou de la Pole, depuis Cardinal, k 
 ce Pape : dans laquelle on le felicitant sur ce qu'il etendait le progres 
 de Science en Europe, il I'avertissait qu'il etait dangereux de rend/re les 
 Jiommes trap savants. Voltaire, Mxurs (et V Esprit) des Nations. 
 
 (?) Tom. 4. 
 
 Englislimen, why are you still of this foolish Cardinal's opinion ? 
 {Onfly-leaf — opposite Dedication to the King, and over it.) who will 
 
 Dare to Say that Polite Art is Encouraged or Either Wished, or 
 Tolerated in a Nation where the Society for the Encouragement of 
 Art Suffered Barry to give them his labour for nothing. A Society 
 Composed of the Flower of the English Nobility and Gentry Suffer- 
 ing an Artist to Starve while he Supported Really what They under 
 Pretence of Encouraging were Endeavouring to Depress. — Barry told 
 me that while he did that Work he Lived on Bread and Apples. 
 O Society for the Encouragement of Art, King and Nobility of 
 England, Where have you hid Euseli's Milton ? Is Satan troubled at 
 his exposure. 
 
 The Bible says that Cultivated Life existed First. Uncultivated 
 Life came afterwards from Satan's Hirelings. Necessaries, Accommo- 
 dation, and Ornaments are the whole of Life. Satan took away Orna- 
 ment first, next he took away Accommodations, and then he became 
 Lord and Master of Necessaries. 
 
 (This is written as note to the statement in the dedication that " the 
 regular progress of cultivated life is from necessaries to accommodations, 
 from accommodations to ornaments.") 
 
 " To give advice to those who are contending for Royal liberality 
 has been for some years the duty of my station in the Academy " — says 
 Reynolds. 
 
 To this, Blake : Liberality ! We want no liberality. We want a 
 Fair Price and proportionate value, and a General Demand for Art. 
 
 {At foot of page.) Let not the Nation where Less than Nobility is 
 the Reward Pretend that Art is encouraged by that Nation. Act is 
 First in Intellectuality, and ought to be First in Nations. 
 
 {At head of account of Reynolds's life.) Invention depends altogether 
 upon Execution or Organisation ; as that is right or wrong, so is the 
 Invention perfect or imperfect. Whoever is set to undermine the 
 Execution of Art is set to destroy Art. Michael Angelo's Art depends 
 on Michael Angelo's Execution Altogether. 
 
 To : " RaffaeUe appeared to him superior to the most illustrious 
 names." 
 
 Blahe : Why, then, did he not follow Rafael's Track ? 
 
 To : " The better taste of Reynolds put an end to Hudson's reign.'' 
 
 Blake : Hudson drew correctly. 
 
 To a long account of how first impressions of RaffaeUe at the 
 Vatican disappointed Reynolds and other students and visitors. 
 
 Blake : Men who have been Educated with the Works of Venetian 
 Artists under their Eyes cannot see Rafael, unless, they are born with 
 determinate Organs. 
 
 1 am happy that I cannot say that Rafael Ever was from my Earliest 
 Childhood hidden from Me. I saw, and I knew immediately the 
 difference between Rafael and Rubens, 
 
SIR JOSHUA EEYNOLDS 373 
 
 Some look to see the sweet Outlines, 
 And beauteous Forms that Love does wear : 
 Some look to find out Patches, Paint, 
 Bracelets and Stays and Powdered Hair. 
 
 To : "I found that those persons only, who, from natural imbecility, 
 appeared to be incapable of ever relishing those divine performances, 
 made pretensions to instantaneous raptures on first beholding them." 
 
 Blake : Here are Mocks on those who saw Eafael. 
 
 To : " Not relishing them " (the works of Eaffaelle) " as I was 
 conscious I ought to have done ... I felt my ignorance and stood 
 abashed." 
 
 Blake : A liar. He never was Abashed in his Life, and never felt 
 his Ignorance. 
 
 To : "I viewed them again and again. I even affected to feel their 
 merit and admire them more than I really did. In a short time a new 
 taste and new conceptions began to dawn upon me, and I was convinced 
 that I had originally formed a false opinion of the perfection of art, 
 and that this great painter was entitled to the high rank which he 
 holds in the estimation of the world." 
 
 Blake : All this concession is to prove that Genius is Acquired as 
 follows on the next page. 
 
 {On next page) " I am now clearly of opinion that a relish for the 
 higher exceUenoies of art is an acquired taste. . . . We are often 
 ashamed of our apparent dullness ; as if it were to be expected that our 
 minds, like tinder, should instantly catch fire from the divine spark 
 of Eaffaelle's Genius." 
 
 Blake : A Mock. 
 
 To : " The excellence of his style is not on the surface, but lies 
 deep, and at the first view is seen but mistily." 
 
 Blahe : A mock. 
 
 To : " It is the florid style which strikes at once, and captivates the 
 eye for a time." 
 
 Blake : A lie. 
 
 The Florid Style such as the Venetian or Flemish never struck Me 
 at Once nor At All. The style that Strikes the Eye is the True Style, 
 But a Fool's Eye Not to be a Criterion. 
 
 To : "I consider general copying as a delusive style of industry." 
 
 Blake {after underlining the words) : Here he Condemns Generalising, 
 which he almost always Approves and Recommends. 
 
 To : " How incapable of producing anything of their own those are 
 who have spent most of their time in making finished copies. . . ." 
 
 Blake : Finished. What does he Mean ? Niggling Without the 
 Correct and Definite Outline. If he means that Copying Correctly is a 
 hindrance, he is a Liar, for that is the only School to the Language of Art. 
 
 To : " It is'the thoughts expressed in the works of Michael Angelo, 
 Correggio, Eaffaelle, Parmegiano, and perhaps some of the old Gothick 
 masters, and not the invention of Pietro di Cortona, Carlo Maratti, 
 Luca Giordano, and others whom I might mention, that we seek after 
 with avidity." 
 
 Blake : Here is an Acknowledgement of aU that I could wish. But 
 if it is True — Why are we to be told that Masters who could Think had 
 not the Judgment to Perform the Inferior parts of Art, as Eeynolds 
 astfuUy calls them. But that we are to learn to Think from Great 
 
374 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 Masters, and to Learn to Perform from Underlings ? Learn to Design 
 from Rafael, and to execute from Rubens ? 
 
 {More is added, hut cut off by the binder.) 
 
 To a description of " Mr. Mudge, the clergyman," often seen at Sir 
 Joshua's house, as a " learned and venerable old man," very conversant 
 in the Platonick Philosophy, and very fond of that method of 
 Philosophising. 
 
 Blahe : Hang villainy. 
 
 To an account of two different reports, one saying that Dr. Johnson 
 and the other that Burke had written Reynolds's Discowses. 
 
 Blahe : The Contradictions in Reynolds's Discourses are Strong 
 Presumption that they are the work of several Hands. But this is 
 no proot that Reynolds did not write them. The Man, either Painter 
 or Philosopher, who Learns or Acquires all he knows from Others, 
 Must be fuU of Contradictions. 
 
 To a note on Mr. Moser, Keeper of the Royal Academy, of whom it 
 is said that he " might in every sense be called the Father of the 
 present race of Artists." 
 
 Blake : I was once looking over the Prints from Rafael and Michael 
 Angelo in the Library of the Royal Academy. Moser came to me and 
 said, " You should not study these old Hard, Stiff, and Uniinished Works 
 of Art. Stay a little, and I will show you what you should Study." 
 He then went and took down Le Brun's and Rubens' Galleries. How 
 did I secretly rage. I also spoke my mind. 
 
 {A line follows, cut off by the binder, so as to be illegible.) 
 I said to Moser, These things that you call Finished are not even 
 Begun ; how can they then be Finished ? The Man who does not know 
 the Beginning never can know the End of Art. 
 
 To the statement of Sir Joshua that he "consoled himself by 
 remarking that these ready inventors are extremely apt to acquiesce in 
 imperfection." 
 
 Blake (after underlining " imperfection ") : Villainy — a Lie. 
 
 To : " How difficult it is for the artist who possesses this faculty 
 (invention) to guard against carelessness and commonplace invention is 
 well known, and in a kindred art Metastasio is an eminent instance, 
 who always complained of the great difficulty he found in. attaining 
 correctness in consequence of having been in his youth an Improvisatore. ' 
 
 Blake : I do not oelieve this anecdote. 
 
 To : " There is nothing in our art which enforces such continued 
 exertion and circumspection as attention to the general effect of the 
 whole. It requires much study and much practice ; it requires the 
 painter's entire mind : whereas the parts may be finishing by nice 
 touches, while his mind is engaged on other matters : he may even hear 
 a play or a novel read without much disturbance." 
 
 Blake : A Lie. Working up of Effect is more an operation of 
 Indolence than the making out of the Parts as far as Greatest is more 
 than Least. I speak here of Rembrandt's and Rubens's and Reynolds's 
 Effects. Real effect is Making out of Parts, and it is Nothing Else but 
 That. 
 
 To an editor's note on the lost secrets of colour-mixing known to the 
 old Masters. 
 
 Blake ; Oil colours will not do. Why are we told that Reynolds 
 was a great colourist and yet inferior to the Venetians ? 
 
 To an editor's note on a list of prices obtained by Reynolds, stating 
 
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS 375 
 
 that being " without a rival lie continues to add thousands to 
 thousands." 
 
 Blahe : How much did Barry set ? 
 
 To : "Many of the pictures of Rubens being sold in 1783, in conse- 
 quence of certain religious houses being suppressed by the Emperor, 
 he (Eeynolds) again in that year visited Antwerp and Brussels, and 
 devoted several days to contemplating the productions of that great 
 painter." 
 
 Blake : If Reynolds had really admired Mich. Angelo he never 
 would have followed Rubens. 
 
 To : " His (Reynolds's) deafness was originally occasioned by a cold 
 he caught in the Vatican, by painting for a long time near a stove, by 
 which the damp vapours of that edifice were attracted, and affected 
 his head. When in company with only one person he heard very well 
 without the aid of a trumpet." 
 
 Blahe ; A Sly Dog. So can everybody ; but bring Two People, and 
 the Hearing is Stopped. 
 
 To a note from " Retaliation," a poem by Dr. Goldsmith, in which 
 he has drawn the characters of several of his friends in the form of 
 epitaphs to be placed on their tombs — with the quotation — 
 
 Here Reynolds is laid, and to tell you my mind, 
 
 He has not left a wiser or better behind. 
 
 His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand ; 
 
 His manners were gentle, complying, and bland ; 
 
 Still born to improve us in every part, 
 
 His pencil our faces, his manners our heart. 
 
 To ooxoombs averse, yet most civilly steering, 
 
 "When tliey judged without skill be was still hard of hearing ; 
 
 When they talked of their Raffaelles, Correggios, and stuff. 
 
 He shifted his trumpet and only took snuff. 
 
 Blahe : Such Men as Goldsmith ought not to have been Acquainted 
 with such Men as Reynolds. 
 
 To an editor's note saying of Reynolds : " It is clear from his 
 manners and his writings that in the character of his eloquence he would 
 have resembled the perspicuous and elegant Lslius, rather than the 
 severe and vehement Galba." 
 
 Blahe : He certainly would have been more like a fool than a wise 
 man. 
 
 To: "HewasagreatgeneraUser . . . generalising, and classification 
 is the great glory of the human mind." 
 
 Blahe : To generalise is to be an Idiot. To Particularise is the Alone 
 Distinction of Merit.— General Knowledges are those Knowledges that 
 Idioi's noRSPSS 
 
 To : " Such was his love of his art and such his ardour to excel that 
 he often declared he had, during the greater part of his life, laboured 
 as hard with 'his pencil as any mechanick working at his trade for 
 
 Blahe : The Man who does not Labour more than the Hireling must 
 
 To a quotation from Pope, appropriate to " the ferocious and enslaved 
 Republics; of France," ended in these words : 
 
 They led their wild desires to woods and caves 
 And thought that all but savages were slaves. 
 
376 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 Blake : 
 
 When France got Free, Europe, 'twixt fools and knaves, 
 Were savage first to France, and after — slaves. 
 
 To a note on the prosperity of England, stating that the national 
 trade having doubled between 1784 and 1796, amounted then to Thiett 
 Millions, and that the price of land, war notwithstanding, was nearly 
 as high as in times of profound peace, and that these Facts ought to be 
 sounded from one end of England to the other, and furnish a complete 
 answer to aU the Seditious Declamations that have been or shaU 
 be made on this subject. 
 
 Blake : This whole Book was written to some Political Purposes. 
 To the account of Reynolds's death in 1792. 
 Blahe : 
 
 When Sir Joshua Reynolds died 
 
 All Nature was degraded ; 
 
 The King dropped a Tear into the Queen's Ear ; 
 
 And all his Pictures Faded. 
 
 To the account of his funeral, where the pall was borne up by three 
 Dukes, two Marquises, and five other noblemen. 
 Blake : A Mock. 
 
 To : " Sir Joshua Reynolds was, on very many accounts, one of the 
 most memorable men of his time." 
 Blake : Is not this a Manifest Lie ? 
 
 To : " In taste, in grace, in happy invention, in the richness and 
 harmony of colouring, he was equal to the great masters of the renowned 
 ages." 
 
 Blake : Barry Painted a Picture for Burke, equal to Rafeel or Mich. 
 Ang. or any of the Italians. Burke used to show this Picture to his 
 friends and say, " I gave Twenty Guineas for the horrible Daub, and if 
 any man would give ..." 
 
 {The rest cut off by the binder.) 
 Such was Burke's patronage of Art and Science. 
 
 (So end the notes to Reynolds's Memoir. Then, on the fly-leaf of the 
 dedication of the Discourses to the Members of the Royal Academy, and on 
 the blank spaces of that dedication ;) 
 
 Blake : I consider Reynolds's Discourses to the Royal Academy as 
 the Simulations of the Hypocrite who smiles particularly when he 
 means to Betray. His Praise of Rafael is like the Hysteric Smile of 
 Revenge. His Softness and Candour the hidden trap, and the poisoned 
 feast. He praises Michel Angelo for qualities which Michel Angelo 
 abhorred : and He blames Rafael for the only qualities which Rafael 
 Valued. Whether Reynolds knew what he was doing is nothing to 
 me : the Mischief is the same whether a man does it Ignorantly or 
 Knowingly. I always considered true Art and true Artists to be 
 particularly Insulted and Degraded by the Reputation of these 
 Discourses, as much as they were Degraded by the Reputation of 
 Reynolds's Paintings, and that such Artists as Reynolds are at aU times 
 hired by the Satans for the Depression of Art. A Pretence of Art : 
 To destroy Art. 
 
 The Neglect of such as Milton in a Country pretending to the 
 Encouragement of Art is Sufiicient Apology for my Vigorous Indigna- 
 tion, if indeed the Neglect of My own Powei-s had not been. Ought 
 
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS 377 
 
 not the Employers of Fools to be Execrated in future Ages. They 
 Will and Shall. Foolish Men, your own real Greatness depends on 
 your Encouragement of the Arts, and your Fall will depend on 
 their Neglect and Depression. What you Fear is your true Interest. 
 Leo. X was advised not to encourage the Arts. He was too wise to 
 take this Advice. 
 
 DISCOURSE I 
 
 The Rich Men of England form themselves into a Society to Sell 
 and Not to Buy Pictures. The Artist who does not throw his 
 Contempt on such Trading Exhibitions, does not know either his own 
 Interest or his Duty. 
 
 When Nations grow Old the Arts grow Cold, 
 And Commerce settles on every Tree ; 
 And the Poor and the Old can live upon Gold, 
 For all are Born Poor, Aged Sixty-Three. 
 
 To the commencement of the first Discourse. 
 
 Blake : Reynolds's opinion was that Genius May be Taught, and that 
 all Pretence to Inspiration is a Lie and a Deceit, to say the least of it. 
 For if it is a Deceit the whole Bible is Madness. This opinion 
 originates in the Greeks calling the Muses Daughters of Memory. 
 
 The Enquiry in England is not whether a Man has Talents and 
 Genius ! But whether he is Passive and Poetic and a Virtuous Ass, 
 and obedient to Noblemen's Opinions in Art and Science. If he is, he 
 is a Good Man : if Not, he must be Starved. 
 
 To : "After so much has been done by His Majesty, etc," 
 
 Blake : 3 Farthings. 
 
 To : " Raflfaele, it is true, had not the advantage of studying in an 
 Academy, but all Rome, and the works of Michael Angelo in particular, 
 were to him an Academy. On the sight of the Capella Sistina, he 
 immediately from a dry Gothick, and even insipid manner, which 
 attends to the minute accidental discriminations of particular and 
 individual objects, assumed that grand style of painting which 
 improves partial representation by the general and invariable ideas 
 of nature." 
 
 Blake : Minute Discrimination is not Accidental. All Sublimity is 
 founded on Minute Discrimination. 
 
 I do not believe that Rafael taught Mich. Angelo, or that Mich. 
 Ang. taught Rafael, any more than I believe that the Rose teaches the 
 Lily how to grow, or the Apple tree teaches the Pear tree how to bear 
 Fruit. I do not believe the tales of Anecdote when they militate 
 against Individual Character. 
 
 To : "I would chiefly recommend that an implicit obedience to the 
 Rules of Art, as established by the practice of the Great Masters, 
 should be exaeted from the young Students. That those Models, which 
 have passed through the approbation of ages, should be considered by 
 them as perfect and infallible guides ; as subjects for their imitation, 
 not their criticism." 
 
 Blake : Imitation is criticism. 
 
 (On a page on the importance of directing the studies of youth at f/rst 
 to what is substantially necessary for their artistic knowledge, lest they 
 should pick up brilliant and superficial tricks early on, and not have the 
 courage to go back afterwards, and learn essentials.) 
 
378 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 To : "A facility in composing ... a masterly handling ... are 
 captivating qualities to young minds." 
 
 Blake : I consider the following sentence is Supremely Insolent, for 
 the following Eeasons : — Why this Sentence should begin by the words, 
 A Facility in composing, I cannot tell, unless it was to cast a stigma 
 upon Eeal Facility in composition by assimilating it with a Pretence 
 to and Imitation of Facility in Execution. Or are we to imderstand 
 him to mean that Facility in composing is a Frivolous pursuit ? A 
 Facility in composing is the Greatest Power of Art, and Belongs to 
 , None but the Greatest Artists, the Most Minutely Discriminating and 
 Determinate. 
 
 {To the next pages which are about the " useless industry " that mahes 
 executants of mere boys with mechanical facility, about its danger as a 
 source of corrwption and error as shown in Foreign Academies, about 
 frivolousness of the ambition of a student who wants to show dashing effect, 
 not to attain exactness — and about a warning against the impetuosity of 
 youth seeking short paths to excellence, and needing to be told that labour 
 is the price of fame, and that however great their genius, there is no easy 
 method for them to become painters.) 
 
 Blake : Mechanical Excellence is the only Vehicle of Genius. 
 
 This is all False and Self -Contradictory. 
 
 Execution is the Chariot of Genius. 
 
 This is all Self- Contradictory ; Truth and Falsehood Jumbled 
 Together. 
 
 To : " When we read the lives of the most eminent Painters, every 
 page informs us that no part of their time was spent in dissipation. 
 . . . They pursued their studies ..." 
 
 Blake : The Lives of Painters say that Eafael Died of Dissipation. 
 Idleness is one Thing and Dissipation is Another. He who has 
 Nothing to Dissipate Cannot Dissipate. The Weak Man may be 
 Virtuous Enough, but will Never be an Artist. 
 
 Painters are noted for being Dissipated and Wild. 
 
 To : " When they (the old masters) conceived a subject, they first 
 made a variety of sketches, then a finished drawing of the whole ; after 
 that a more correct drawing of every separate part, — head, hands, feet, 
 and pieces of drapery ; they then painted the picture, and after all 
 re-touched it from the life." 
 
 Blake {after underlining) : This is False. 
 
 To : "A Student is not always advancing because he is employed ; he 
 must apply his strength to that part of the art where the real difficulties 
 lie. . . . The Students, instead of vying with each other which shall 
 have the readiest hand, should be taught to contend who shall have 
 the purest and most correct outline." 
 
 Blake : Excellent. 
 
 To : "I must beg to submit ... to Visitors ... a matter of very 
 great consequence. . . . The students never draw exactly from the 
 living models which they have before them . . . drawing rather what 
 a figure ought to be than what it appears. . . . This obstacle has 
 stopped the progress of many young men. ... I very much doubt 
 whether a habit of drawing correctly what we see will not give a 
 proportionable power of drawing correctly what we imagine." 
 
 Blake : This is Admirably Said. Why does he not always allow as 
 much. 
 
 To : " He who endeavours to copy nicely the figure before him not 
 
SIE JOSHUA EEYNOLDS 379 
 
 only acquires a habit of exactness and precision, but is continually 
 advancing m his knowledge of the human figure." 
 
 Blake: Excellent. 
 
 {At the close of Discourse I.) 
 
 Blake : The Laboured Works of Journeymen employed by Correggio, 
 Titian, Veronese, and aU the Venetians, ought not to be shown to the 
 young Artist as the Works of original conception, any more than the 
 Engravings of Strange, Bartolozzi, or WooUett. They are Works of 
 Manual Labour. 
 
 DISCOURSE II 
 
 {At the head, of Discourse II.) 
 
 Blake : What is laying up materials but copying. 
 
 To : " When the Artist is once enabled to express himself ... he 
 must collect subjects for expression . . . amass a stock of ideas . . . 
 learn all that has been known and done before . . . perfections which 
 lie scattered amongst various masters . . . united in one general idea 
 ... to enlarge his imagination." 
 
 Blake : After having been a Fool, a Student is to amass a Stock of 
 Ideas, and, knowing himself to be a Fool, he is to assume the Eight to 
 put other Men's Ideas into his Foolery. 
 
 To : " Though the Student will not resign himself blindly to any 
 single authority when he may have the advantage of consulting many, 
 he must still be afraid of trusting to his own judgment, and of 
 deviating into any track where he cannot find the footsteps of some 
 former master." 
 
 Blake : Instead of Following One Great Master, he is to follow a 
 Great Many Fools. 
 
 To : "A Student unacquainted with the attempts of former adven- 
 turers is always apt to overrate his own abilities ; to mistake the most 
 trifling excursions for discoveries of moment, and every coast new to 
 him for a new-found country." 
 
 Blake : Contemptible mocks. 
 
 To : " The productions of such {i.e. uneducated) minds are seldom 
 distinguished by an air of originality ; they are anticipated in their 
 happiest efforts ; and if they are found to differ in anything from their 
 predecessors, it is only in irregular sallies and trifling conceits." 
 
 Blake : Thus Reynolds Depreciates the Efforts of Inventive Genius. 
 Trifling Conceits are better than Colouring without any meaning 
 at all. 
 
 To : " How incapable those are of producing anything of their 
 own, who have spent much of their time in making finished copies, is 
 known to all who are conversant with our art." 
 
 Blake : That is most false, for no one can ever design till he has 
 learned the language of art by making many finished copies both of 
 Nature and art, and of whatever conies in his way from earliest 
 childhood. The difference between a bad artist and a good one is : 
 the bad artist seems to copy a great deal ; the good one really does 
 copy a great deal. 
 
 To : " The great use of copying, if it be at all useful, seems to be in 
 learning to colour; yet even colouring will never be obtained by 
 servilely copying the model before you." 
 
 Blake: Contemptible. Servile copying is the great merit of 
 copying. 
 
380 THE KEAL BLAKE 
 
 To : " Following these rules, and using these precautions, when 
 you have clearly and distinctly learned in what good colouring consists, 
 you cannot do better than have recourse to nature herself, who is always 
 at hand, and in comparison of whose true splendour the best coloured 
 pictures are but faint and feeble." 
 
 Blake : Nonsense. Every eye sees differently. As the eye, such the 
 object. 
 
 To : " Instead of copying the touches of those great masters, copy 
 only their conceptions. . . . Labour to invent on their general 
 principles." 
 
 Blake : General Principles again ! Unless you consult particulars you 
 cannot even know or see Michael Angelo or Raphael or anything else. 
 
 To: "But as mere enthusiasm' will carry you but a little 
 way. ..." 
 
 Blake : Mere enthusiasm is the All in All ! Bacon's philosophy 
 has ruined England. Bacon is only Epicurus over again. 
 
 To : " Few have been taught to any purpose who have not been 
 their own teachers." 
 
 Blake : True! 
 
 To : "A facility of drawing, like that of playing upon a musical 
 instrument, cannot be acquired Ijut by an infinite number of acts." 
 
 Blake : True. 
 
 To : "I would particularly recommend that after your return 
 from the Academy . . . you would endeavour to draw the figure 
 from memoiy." 
 
 Blake : Good advice. 
 
 To : " But while I mention the port - crayon as the student's 
 constant companion, he must still remember that the pencil is the in- 
 strument by which he must hope to obtain eminence." 
 
 Blake : Nonsense. 
 
 To : " The Venetian and Flemish schools, which owe much of their 
 fame to colouring, have enriched the cabinets of the collectors of 
 drawings with very few examples." 
 
 Blake : Because they could not draw. 
 
 To : " Correggio and Baroccio have left few, if any, drawings behind 
 them. And in the Flemish school, Rubens and Vandyck made their 
 drawings for the most part in colour or chiaroscuro. . . . Not but that 
 many finished drawings are made under the names of those artists. 
 More,' however, are undoubtedly the work either of engravers or their 
 scholars, who copied their works." 
 
 Blake : All the paintings said to be by these men are the laboured 
 productions of journey-work. They could not draw. 
 
 To : "... He who would have you believe that he is waiting for 
 the inspirations of Genius is in reality at a loss how to begin, and is at 
 last delivered of monsters with difficulty and pain." 
 
 Blake : A stroke at Mortimer. 
 
 To : " The well-grounded painter ... is contented that all shall 
 be as great as himself, who have undergone the same fatigue. . . ." 
 
 Blake : The man who asserts that there is no such thing as softness 
 in art, and that everything in art is definite and determinate, has not 
 been told this by practice, but by Inspiration and Vision, because 
 Vision is determinate and perfect, and he copies that without fatigue. 
 Everything being definite and determinate, softness is produced 
 alone by comparative strength and weakness in the making out of 
 
SIE JOSHUA REYNOLDS 381 
 
 forms. I say these things could never be found out from nature 
 without con or innate science. 
 
 DISCOURSE III 
 
 (At the head of Discourse III.) Blake : A work of genius is a work 
 "not to be obtained by the invocation of memory, and her syren 
 daughters, but by devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit who can enrich 
 with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his Seraphim with 
 the hallowed fire of his altar to touch and purify the lips of whom he 
 pleases. " — Milton. 
 
 The following discourse is particularly interesting to blockheads, as 
 it endeavours to prove that there is no such thing as inspiration, and 
 that any man of a plain understanding can, by thieving from others, 
 become a Michael Angelo. 
 
 To : " The genuine painter . . . instead of endeavouring to amuse 
 mankind with the minute neatness of his imitations, must endeavour 
 to improve them by the grandeur of his ideas." 
 
 Blake : Without minute neatness of execution the sublime cannot 
 exist. Grandeur of ideas is founded on precision of ideas. 
 
 To : " The modems are not less convinced than the ancients of this 
 superior power existing in their art (the power of a fixed idea of perfect 
 beauty)." 
 
 Blake : I wish that this was true. 
 
 To : " Such is the warmth with which both the ancients and 
 modems speak of this divine principle of the art ; but, as I have 
 before observed, enthusiastic admiration seldom promotes knowledge. 
 Though a student by such praise may have his attention roused, and 
 a desire excited of running in this great career, yet it is possible that 
 what has been said to excite may only serve to deter him. _ He 
 examines his own mind and perceives there nothing of that divine 
 inspiration with which, he is told, so many others have been favoured. 
 He never travelled to heaven to gather new ideas, and he finds him- 
 self possessed of no other qualifications than what mere common 
 observation and a plain understanding can confer. Thus he becomes 
 gloomy amidst the splendour of figurative declamation, and thinks it 
 hopeless to pursue an object which he supposes to be out of the reach 
 of human industry." 
 
 Blake : And such is the coldness with which Reynolds speaks ! 
 And such is his enmity. Now he begins to degrade, to deny, and to 
 mock. Enthusiastic admiration is the first principle of knowledge 
 and its last. The man who on examining his own mind finds nothing 
 of inspiration ought not to dare to be an artist. He is a fool, and a 
 cunning knave, suited to the purposes of evil demons. The man who 
 never in his mind and thoughts travelled to heaven is no artist. It is 
 evident that Reynolds wished none but fools to be in the arts, and in 
 order to this, te calls all others vague enthusiasts and madmen. What 
 has reasoning to do with the art of painting ? Artists who are above 
 a plain understanding are mocked and destroyed by this President of 
 Fools. . . „ , 
 
 To : " Most people err not so much from want of capacity to hnd 
 their object, as from not knowing what object to pursue.'" 
 
 Blake : The man who does not know what object to pursue is an 
 
 idiot. , , / ■ s i i , 
 
 To : " This great ideal of perfection and beauty are (mc) not to be 
 
382 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 sojiglit in the heavens but on the earth . . . upon every side of us . . . 
 only to be acquired by experience." 
 
 Blake : A lie. A lie. A lie. 
 
 To : "... and the whole beauty and grandeur of the art consists, 
 in my opinion, in being able to get above all . . . details of every 
 kind." 
 
 Blake : A folly ; singular and particular detail is the foundation of 
 the sublime. 
 
 To : " The most beautiful forms have something about them like 
 weakness — minuteness, or imperfection." 
 
 Blake : Minuteness is their whole beauty. 
 
 To : " But not every eye can perceive these blemishes. It must be 
 an eye long used to the contemplation and comparison of these forms." 
 
 Blake : Knowledge of ideal beauty is not to be acquired. It is 
 bom with us. Innate ideas are in every man, bom with him ; they 
 are truly Himself The man who says that we have no innate ideas 
 must be a fool and a knave, having no conscience, or innate science. 
 
 To,: "... From reiterated experience an artist becomes possessed 
 of the idea of a central form." 
 
 Blake : One central form composed of all other forms being granted, 
 it does not, therefore, follow that all other forms are deformity. All 
 forms are perfect in the poet's mind, but they are not abstracted or 
 compounded from nature, but are from imagination. 
 
 To : " The great Bacon treats with ridicule the idea of confining 
 proportion to rules. . . . Says he : ' . . . The painter must do it by a 
 kind of felicity and not by rule.' " 
 
 Blahe : The great Bacon he is called — I call him the little Bacon — 
 says that everything must be done by experiment. His first principle 
 is unbelief, and yet he says that art must be produced without 
 such method. This is like Mr. Locke, full of self-contradiction and 
 knavery. 
 
 "What is general nature ? Is there such a thing ? What is general 
 knowledge ? Is there such a thing ? Strictly speaking, aU knowledge 
 is particular. 
 
 To : "... It may be objected, there are various central forms . . . 
 Hercules . . . Gladiator . . . Apollo." 
 
 Blake : Here he loses sight of a central form, and gets to many 
 central forms. 
 
 To : " There is one central form belonging to the human kind at 
 large ... in each class there is one . . . central form . . . common 
 form in childhood . . . common form in age." 
 
 Blake : Every class is individual There is no end to the foUies of 
 this man. Childhood and age are equally belonging to every class. 
 
 To : "... highest perfection not in Hercules . . . Gladiator . . . 
 Apollo . . . taken from all . . . activity of Gladiator . . . delicacy of 
 Apollo . . . strength of Hercules." 
 
 Blake : Here he comes again to his central form ! 
 
 To : " There is likewise a kind of symmetry or proportion which 
 may be said to belong to deformity." 
 
 Blake : The symmetry of deformity ! Here is a pretty foolery. 
 Can any man who thinks talk so ? 
 
 To : "A figure lean, or corpulent, tall or short, though deviating 
 from beauty, may still have a certain union of the various parts 
 which may contribute to make them, on the whole, not unpleasing." 
 
SIE JOSHUA EEYNOLDS 383 
 
 Blahe : Leanness and fatness is not deformity. But Reynolds 
 thouglit cliaracter itself extravagance and deformity. Age and youth 
 are not classes but properties of each class. So are leanness and 
 fatness. 
 
 To : "... when he has reduced the variety of nature to an abstract 
 idea ..." 
 
 Blake: What folly ! 
 
 To : " The painter must divest himself of . . . age . . . country 
 . . . local and temporary ornaments ... he addresses his work to 
 people of every country and every age . . and says with Zeuxis, m 
 cetemitatem pingo." 
 
 Blake : Generalising in everything the Man would soon be a Fool, 
 but a Cunning Fool. 
 
 To : " Albert Diirer — as Vasari has justly remarked — would have 
 been one of the first painters of his age . . . had he been initiated 
 into those great principles . . . practised by his contemporaries in 
 Italy." 
 
 Blake : What does this mean ? " Would have been one of the first 
 painters of his age I " Albert Diirer Is ! Not would have been. Besides, 
 let them look at Gothic Figures, and Gothic Buildings, and not talk 
 of Dark Ages, or of any Age. Ages are all equal, but Genius is always 
 above The Age. 
 
 To : " Though the painter is to overlook the accidental discrimina- 
 tions of nature, he is to exhibit distinctly, and with precision, the 
 general forms of things." 
 
 Blake : Here he is for Determinate, and yet for Indeterminate. 
 Distinct General Form Oannot Exist. Distinctness is Particular, Not 
 General. 
 
 To : "A firm and determined outline is one of the characteristics 
 of the great style in painting, and let me add that he who possesses 
 the knowledge of the exact form which every part of nature ought to 
 have, will be fond of expressing that knowledge with correctness and 
 precision in all his works." 
 
 Blahe : A Noble Sentence ! Here is a Sentence which overthrows 
 all his Book. 
 
 To : "I have endeavoured to reduce the idea of beauty to general 
 principles . . . the only means to . . . give rest and satisfaction to an 
 inquisitive mind." 
 
 Blake : Bacon's Philosophy makes both Statesmen and Artists Fools 
 and Knaves. 
 
 DISCOURSE IV 
 
 (At the head of Discourse IV.) 
 
 The Two Following Discourses are Particularly Calculated for the 
 Setting Ignorant and Vulgar Artists as Models of Execution in Art. 
 Let him who wiU. follow such advice ; I will not. I know that The 
 Man's Execution is as his Conception and not better. 
 
 To : " Gentlemen, the value and rank of every art is in proportion 
 to the mental labour employed in it, or the mental pleasure produced 
 by it. As this principle is observed or neglected, our profession 
 becomes either a liberal art or a mechanical trade." 
 
 Blake : Why does he not always allow This ? 
 
 To : "I have formerly observed that perfect form is produced by 
 leaving out particularities, and retaining only general ideas." 
 
384 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 BlaJce : General Ideas again ! 
 
 To : " Invention in painting does not imply invention of subject, 
 for that ia commonly supplied by the poet or historian." 
 
 Blake : All but Names of Persons and Places is Invention, both in 
 Poetry and Painting. 
 
 To : " The usual and most dangerous error is on the side of 
 minuteness." 
 
 Blahe : Here is Nonsense ! 
 
 To : " All smaller things, however perfect in their way, are to be 
 sacrificed without mercy to the greater." 
 
 Blake : Sacrifice the Parts ; what becomes of the Whole ? 
 
 To : " Even in portraits the grace, and we may add the likeness, 
 consists more in taking the general air than in observing the exact 
 similitude of every feature." 
 
 Blake : How Ignorant ! (Unknown commentator — " No ; 'tis true ! ") 
 
 To : "A painter of portraits shows the individual likeness. A 
 painter of history shows the man by showing his actions." 
 
 Blake : If he does not Show the Man as well as the Actions, he is 
 a poor Artist. 
 
 To : " He cannot make his hero talk like a great man. He must 
 make him look like one. For which reason he ought to be well 
 studied in those circumstances which constitute dignity of appearance 
 in real life." 
 
 Blake : Here he allows Analysis of Circumstance. 
 
 To : " Certainly nothing can be more simple than monotony, and 
 the distinct blue, red, and yellow colours which are seen in the draperies 
 of the Roman and Florentine schools, though they have not that 
 harmony which is produced by a variety of broken and transparent 
 colours, have the effect of grandeur which was intended. Perhaps 
 these distinct colours strike the mind the more forcibly from there not 
 being any great union between them, as martial music which is 
 intended to arouse the nobler passions has its effect from the sudden 
 and strongly marked transitions from one note to another, which 
 that style of music requires. Whilst in that which is intended to 
 move the softer passions the notes imperceptibly melt into one 
 another." 
 
 Blake : These are Fine and Just Notions. Why does he not always 
 allow as much ? 
 
 To : " In the same manner as the historical painter never enters 
 into the detail of colours, so neither does he debase his conceptions 
 with minute attention to the discriminations of drapery." 
 
 Blake : Excellent Remarks. 
 
 To : " Carlo Muratti was of opinion that the disposition of drapery 
 was a more difficult art than that of drawing the human figure." 
 
 Blake : I do not believe that Carlo Muratti thought so, or that 
 anybody can think so. The Drapery is formed alone by the Shape of 
 the Naked. 
 
 To : " Some will censure me for placing Venetians in this inferior 
 class. . . . Though I can by no means allow them to hold any rank 
 with the nobler schools of painting, they accomplished perfectly the 
 thing they intended . . . elegance." 
 
 Blake : They accomplished nothing. As to Elegance, they have not 
 a Spark. 
 
 To : " Paul Veronese, although a painter of great consideration, 
 
SIE JOSHUA EEYNOLDS 385 
 
 had — contrary to the strict rules of art — in his picture of Perseus and 
 Andromeda represented the principal figure in the shade . . . His 
 intention . . . effect of light and shadow . . . everything sacrificed to 
 that . . . capricious composition suited . . . style." 
 
 Blake : This is not a Satisfactory Answer. To produce an effect of 
 True Light and Shadow is Necessary to the Ornamental Style, which 
 altogether depends on Distinctness of Form. The Venetian ought not 
 to be called the Ornamental Style. 
 
 To : " The powers exerted in the mechanical parts of the art have 
 been called the language of painters. . . . The language of painting 
 must be indeed allowed these masters (the Venetians)." 
 
 Blahe : The language of Painters cannot be allowed them. If 
 Reynolds says right at p. 97. He there says that the Venetian WiU 
 Not Correspond with the great style. The Greek Gems are in the 
 Same Style as the Greek Statues. 
 
 To : " Such as suppose that the great style may be happily blended 
 with the ornamental — that the simple, grave, and majestic dignity of 
 Raffaelle could unite with the glow and bustle of a Paolo or Tintoret, 
 are totally mistaken. The principles by which each is attained are so 
 contrary to each other that they seem in my opinion impossible to 
 exist together, as that in the same mind the most sublime ideas and 
 the lowest sensuality should be at the same time united." 
 
 Blake : What can be better said on this Subject ? But Reynolds 
 contradicts what he says continually. He makes little Concessions 
 that he may take Great Advantages. , 
 
 To : " . . . the Venetians show extraordinary skill . . . their 
 colouring ... I venture to say . . . too harmonious to produce that 
 solidity, steadiness, and simplicity of effects which heroic subjects 
 require, and which simple or grave colours only can give to a work." 
 
 Blahe : Somebody else wrote this for Reynolds. I think Barry or 
 Fuseli wrote it — or dictated it. 
 
 To : " . . . the principal attention of Venetians, in the opinion of 
 Michael Angelo . . . study of colour . . . neglect of ideal beauty of 
 form . . . general censure from the sight of a picture of Titian's." 
 
 Blake : Venetian attention is to a Contempt and Neglect of Form 
 Itself, and to the Destruction of all Form or Outline, Purposely, and 
 Intentionally. 
 
 As if Mich. Ang. had seen but One Picture of Titian ! Mich. Ang. 
 knew and despised all that Titian could do. 
 
 On the Venetian Painter 
 
 He makes the Lame to walk we all agree, 
 But then he Strives to blind all who can see. 
 
 If the Venetian Outline was right, his Shadows would destroy it and 
 deform its appearance. 
 
 A pair of stays to mend the shape 
 Of Crooked, Humpy Woman ; 
 Put on, Venus ! Now thou art 
 Quite a Venetian Roman. 
 
 To : " When I speak of Venetian painters ... I mean ... to the 
 exclusion of Titian. . . . There is a sort of senatorial dignity about 
 
 him." 
 
 2c 
 
386 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 Blake : Titian, as well as other Venetians, or far from Senatorial 
 Dignity appear to me to give always the Characters of Vulgar Stupidity. 
 Why should Titian and the Venetians be Named in a Discourse on Art ? 
 Such Idiots are not Artists. 
 
 Venetian ! All thy Colouring is no more 
 Than Boulstered Plasters on a Crooked Whore. 
 
 To : " The Venetian is indeed the most splendid of the schools of 
 elegance." 
 
 Blake : Vulgarity and not Elegance. The Word Elegance ought to 
 be applied to Forms — ^not Colours. 
 
 To : " . . . elaborate harmony of colouring . . . brilliancy of tints 
 . . . soft transition . . . merely a gratification of sight. Properly 
 cultivated where nothing higher than elegance is intended . . . un- 
 worthy . . . when work aspires to grandeur and sublimity." 
 
 BlaJce : Broken Colours, — Broken Lines, — and Broken Shapes are 
 equally Subversive of the Siiblime. — Well Said Enough. 
 
 To : " Rubens, — formed on Venetians . . . took figures from people 
 before him . . . more gross than they (the Venetians) ... all err from 
 the same cause. Paolo introduced gentlemen, Bassano, boors of district 
 of Bassano . . . called them patriarchs and prophets." 
 
 Blake : How can that be called the Ornamental Style of which Gross 
 Vulgarity forms the Principal Excellence. 
 
 To: "Some inferior dexterity, — some extraordinary mechanical 
 power is apparently that from which they seek distinction." 
 
 Blake : The words Mechanical Power should not thus be Prostituted. 
 
 To : " An History- Painter Paints man in general : a portrait painter 
 a particular man." 
 
 Blake : A History-Painter Paints the Hero, and not Man in general, 
 but most minutely in Particular. 
 
 To : " Thus, if a portrait painter desires to raise and improve 
 his subject ... he leaves out all the minute breaks and peculiarities 
 . . . and changes the dress from a temporary fashion to one more 
 permanent which has annexed to it no ideas of meanness from being 
 familiar to us — etc." 
 
 Blake : Polly ! Of what consequence is it to the Arts what a Por- 
 trait Painter does. 
 
 To : " Of those who have practised the composite style, — the fore- 
 most is Correggio." 
 
 Blake : There is no such thing as a composite style. 
 
 To: ". . . The errors of genius." 
 
 Blake : Geniiis has no Error. It is Ignorance that is Error. 
 
 To : " On the whole it seems to me that there is but one presiding 
 principle which regulates and gives stability to every act The worto 
 which are built on general nature live for ever." 
 
 Blake : All Equivocation is Self-Contradiction. 
 
 DISCOURSE V 
 
 (On fly-leaf.) Blake: Gainsborough told a Gentleman of Rank and 
 Fortune that the Worst Painters always chose the Grandest Subjects. 
 I desired the Gentleman to Set Gainsborough about one of Rafael's 
 Grandest Subjects, Namely, Christ delivering the Keys to St. Peter, 
 
SIE JOSHUA EEYNOLDS 387 
 
 and he would find that in Gainsborough's hands it would be a Vulgar 
 Subject of Poor Fishermen and a Journeyman Carpenter. 
 
 The following Discourse is ivritten with the Same End in View that 
 Gainsborough had in making the Above assertion, Namely To Represent 
 Vulgar Artists as Models of Executive Merit. 
 
 To : " Nothing has its proper lustre but in its proper place. That 
 which is most worthy of esteem in its proper sphere becomes an 
 object, not of respect, but of derision, when it is forced into a higher, 
 to which it is not suited." 
 
 Blake : Concession to Truth for the sake of Oversetting Truth. 
 
 To : " If you mean to preserve the most perfect beauty in its most 
 perfect state you cannot express the passions." 
 
 Blake : What Nonsense ! Passion and Expression is Beauty Itself 
 The Face that is Incapable of Passion and Expression is deformity 
 Itself Let it be Painted and Patched and Praised and Advertised for 
 Ever, it will only be admired by Fools. 
 
 To : " . . . Cartoon and other pictures of Raifaelle where the 
 excellent master himself may have attempted the expression of passions 
 above the powers of art. ..." 
 
 Blake : If Eeynolds could not see varieties of Character in Rafael 
 Others Can. 
 
 To : " The ancients . . . when they employed their art to represent 
 Jupiter confined his character to majesty alone." 
 
 Blake : False ! The Ancients were chiefly attentive to Complicated 
 and Minute Discrimination of Character. It is the Whole of Art. 
 EejTiolds cannot bear Expression. 
 
 To : "A stature in which you endeavour to unite stately dignity, 
 youthful elegance, and stern valour must surely possess none of these to 
 any eminent degree." 
 
 Blake : Why not ? Poverty ! 
 
 To : " The summit of excellence seems to be an assemblage of con- 
 trary qualities, but mixed in such proportions that on one part is found 
 to counteract the other." 
 
 Blake : A Fine Jumble ! 
 
 To: ". . . transcendent, commanding, and ductile genius ... is 
 fitter to give example than to receive instruction." 
 
 Blake : Mocks ! 
 
 To : " The principal works of modern art are in Fresco, a mode of 
 painting which precludes attention to minute elegancies." 
 
 Blake : This is False. Fresco Painting is the Most Minute. Fresco 
 painting is like Miniature Painting. A Wall is a Large Ivory. 
 
 To: "Raifaelle ... owes his reputation to fresco. . . . His easel 
 works stand on a lower degree of estimation ... he never aimed at 
 such perfection as to make him an object of irritation." 
 
 Blake : Folly and Falsehood. The Man who can say that Rafael 
 knew not the smaller beauties of the Art ought to be Condemned, and 
 I accordingly hold Reynolds in contempt, and his critical Pretences in 
 particular. 
 
 To : " When he painted in oil his hand seemed so cramped and 
 confined that he lost, etc." 
 
 Blake : Rafael did as he Pleased. He who does not Admire RaffaeUe's 
 Execution does not Ever See Raphael. 
 
 To : "I have no desire to degrade Raifaelle from the high rank 
 which, etc." 
 
388 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 Blake : A lie ! 
 
 To : " Michael Angelo considered art as consisting of little more 
 than sculpture. . . . He never attempted those lesser elegancies or 
 graces in art." 
 
 BlaJce : According to Reynolds Michael Angelo was worse Still, 
 and Knew Nothing at all about Art as an Object of Imitation. Can any 
 Man be such a fool as to believe that Rafael and Michael Angelo were 
 incapable of the mere Language of Art, and that Such Idiots as Rubens, 
 Correggio, and Titian knew how to Execute what they could not think 
 or Invent. 
 
 To : " Along with these he rejected all the false, though specious, 
 ornaments which disgrace the works of even the most esteemed 
 artists." 
 
 Blake : Here is another Contradiction. If Mich. Ang. Neglected 
 anything that Titian or Veronese did, he Rejected it for good Reasons. 
 Sir Joshua in other places owns that the Venetian cannot Mix with the 
 Roman and Florentine. What does he Mean when he says that Mich. 
 Ang. and Rafael even are not worthy of Imitation in the Lower parts 
 of Art ? 
 
 To : " Raflfaelle had more taste and fancy, Michael Angelo wise 
 genius and imagination." 
 
 Blake : What Nonsense ! 
 
 To : " Michael Angelo's works have a strong, peculiar, and marked 
 character. Raffaelle's materials were chiefly borrowed. . . . The . . . 
 structure is his own . . . the propriety, beauty, and majesty of his 
 characters, the judicious contrivance of his composition, the correctness 
 of drawing . . . etc." 
 
 Blake : If all this is true, why does not Reynolds recommend The 
 Study of Raphael, and Mich. Angelo's Execution? At page 17 he 
 allows that the Venetian Style will 111 correspond with the great 
 Style. 
 
 To : " . . Such is the great style, in this search after novelty has 
 no place. ..." 
 
 Blake : The great style is always Novel or New in all its Opera- 
 .tions. 
 
 To : " But there is another style, the characteristic . . . Sal- 
 vator Rosa, . . . has that sort of dignity which belongs to savage 
 nature. . . ." 
 
 Blake : Original and Characteristic are the Two Grand Merits of the 
 Great Style. Why should the words be applied to such a Wretch as 
 Salvator Rosa ? Salvator Rosa is precisely what he Pretended to be. 
 His Pictures are high laboured Pretensions to Expeditious Workman- 
 ship. He was the Quack Doctor of Painting. His Roughnesses and 
 Smoothnesses are the Production of Labour and Trick. As to Imagina- 
 tion, he was totally without Any. Savages are Tops and Fribbles more 
 than any other Men. 
 
 To : " Everything is of a piece, even to his (Salvator Rosa's) 
 handling." 
 
 Blake : Handling is all that he has, and we all know that Handling 
 is Labour and Trick. Salvator Rosa employed Journeymen. 
 
 To : " Rubens ... a remarkable instance of the same mind in all 
 the various parts of art The whole is ... of a piece. . . ." 
 
 Blake : All Rubens' Pictures are Painted by Journeymen, and so far 
 from being all of a Piece, are the most wretched Bungles. 
 
SIR JOSHUA EEYNOLDS 389 
 
 To : " ffis colouring, in which he most excelled. . . ." 
 
 Blake : To my eye Rnbens's colouring is most Contemptible. The 
 shadows are of a Filthy Brown, somewhat of the Colour of^Excrement. 
 These are flUed with tints of yellow and red. His lights are all the 
 colours of the Rainbow laid on Indiscriminately, and broken into one 
 another. Altogether his Colouring is Contrary to the Colouring of Real 
 Art and Science. 
 
 To: " Opposed to this, . . . Poussiu . . . etc." 
 
 Blake : Opposed to Rubens's Colouring, Sir Joshua has placed 
 Poussin. But he ought to put all men of genius who ever painted. ' 
 Rubeus and the Venetians are Opposite in everything to Pine Art, and 
 they Meant to be so. They were hired for this Purpose. 
 
 To : " Poussin in the latter part of his life changed from his dry 
 manner to one richer . . . not at all comparable to his dry mannei'. ..." 
 
 Blake : True. 
 
 To : "The favourite subjects of Poussin was ancient fables, and no 
 painter was ever better qualified to paint such subjects." 
 
 Blake : True. 
 
 To : " Poussin seems to think that the style and language in which 
 such stories are told is (sic) not the worse for preserving some relish of 
 the old way of painting. ..." 
 
 Blake : True. 
 
 To : " If the figures which people his pictures had a modern air or 
 countenance, ... if the landscape had the appearance of a modern 
 view, how ridiculous would Apollo appear instead of sin, an old man, 
 or nymph, with an urn to rejaresent a river or a lake ? " 
 
 Blake : These remarks on Poussin are Excellent. 
 
 To : " It is certain that the lowest style will be the most popular, as 
 it falls within the compass of ignorance itself, and the vulgar will 
 always be pleased with what is natural in the confined and misunder- 
 stood sense of the word." 
 
 Blake : Well said. 
 
 To : "I mention this because our Exhibitions, while tliey produce 
 such admirable effects by nourishing emulation, and calling out genius, 
 have also a mischievous tendency by seducing the painter to an am- 
 bitionof pleasing indiscriminately the mixed multitude who resort to 
 them." 
 
 Blake : Why, then, does he talk in other places of jjleasing Every- 
 body? 
 
 DISCOURSE VI 
 
 {On fly -leaf.) Blake : When a Man talks of Acquiring invention, or 
 of learning how to produce Original Conception, he must expect to be 
 called a Fool by Men of Understanding. But such a Hired Knave 
 cares not for the Few. His eye is on the Many — or, rather, on the Money. 
 
 To : " Those who have represented art as a kind of inspiration, a 
 gift . . . more captivating than he who attempts to examine whether 
 ... art may be acquired.' 
 
 Blake : Bacon's philosophy has Destroy'd true Art and Science. 
 The Man who says that Genius is not Born but Taught, is a Knave. 
 
 0, Reader, behold the Philosopher's grave ! 
 
 He was born quite a Fool, but he died quite a Knave. 
 
 To : "To derive . . . nothing from another ... is the praise which 
 
390 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 men bestow . . . naturally lightened by a supercilious censure of the 
 low, the barren, the grovelling, the servile imitator." 
 
 Blake : How ridiculous it would be to see the Sheep Endeavour to 
 walk like the Dog, or the Ox striving to trot like the Horse — just as 
 Ridiculous it is to see one Man Striving to Imitate Another. Man 
 varies from Man more than Animal from Animal of Different Species. 
 
 To : " The truth is that the degree of excellence which proclaims 
 genius is different in different times and different places." 
 
 Blake : Never ! Never ! 
 
 To : " We are very sure that the beauty of form, the expression of 
 the passions, the art of composition, even the power of giving a general 
 air of grandeur to a work, is at present very much under the dominion 
 of rules. These excellencies were heretofore considered merely as the 
 effects of genius, and justly, if genius is not taken for inspiration, but 
 as the effect of close observation and experience." 
 
 Blake : Damned fool 
 
 To : " He who first made these observations . . . had that merit 
 ... as art shall advance its powers will be still more and more fixed 
 by rules." 
 
 Blake : If art was Progressive, we should have had Mich. Angelos 
 and Eafaels to Succeed and to Improve upon each other. But it is not 
 so. Genius dies with its Possessor, and comes not again till Another is 
 bom with It. 
 
 To : " Even works of genius, like every other effect must have their 
 cause." 
 
 Blake : Identities, or things, are Neither Cause nor Effect They 
 are Eternal 
 
 To : " Our miiids should be habituated to the contemplation of 
 excellence . . . the substance which supplies the fullest maturity of 
 our vigour." 
 
 Blake : Reynolds thinks that Man Learns all that he knows. 1 say 
 on the Contrary, that Man Brings All that he has or Can have Into 
 the World with him. 
 
 To : " The mind is but a barren soil ..." 
 
 Blake : Man is Born Like a Garden ready Planted and Sown. This 
 World is too poor to produce one Seed. The Mind that could have 
 produced this sentence must have been a Pitiful, a Pitiable Imbecility. 
 I always thought that the Human Mind was the most Prolific of All 
 Things, and Inexhaustible. I certainly thank God I am not like 
 Reynolds. 
 
 To : " (The mind) wiU produce no crop or only one, unless con- 
 tinvially fertilized with foreign matter." 
 
 Blake : Nonsense. 
 
 To : " Nothing can come of nothing." 
 
 Blake : Is the Mind Nothing ? 
 
 To : " We are certain that Michel Angelo and Raphael were equally 
 possessed of all the knowledge in art which had been discovered in the 
 works of their predecessors." 
 
 Blake : If so, they knew all that Titian and Correggio knew. Cor- 
 reggio was two years older than Michel Angelo. Correggio, born 1472 ; 
 Michel Angelo, born 1474. 
 
 To : " It is not that I advise any endeavour to copy the exact 
 peculiar colour and complexion of another man's mind. . . . The 
 copy will be ridiculous." 
 
SIK JOSHUA KEYNOLDS 391 
 
 Blake : "Why then Imitate at all ? 
 
 To: "Art in its perfection is not ostentatious. It lies hid, and 
 works its effect itself unseen. It is the proper study and labour of an 
 artist to uncover, and find out the latest cause of conspicuous beauty, 
 and from them form principles of his own conduct. Such an examina- 
 tion is a continual exertion of the mind ; as great, perhaps, as that of 
 the artist whose works he is studying." 
 
 BlaJce : This is a Very Clever Sentence. Who wrote it God knows. 
 
 To : " Peculiar marks I hold to be generally, if not always, 
 defects.'' 
 
 Blahe : Peculiar marks are the Only Merit. 
 
 To : " They are always so many blemishes, both in real life and in 
 painting." 
 
 Blake : Infernal Falsehood. 
 
 To : " The great name of Michel Angelo may be used to keep in 
 countenance a deficiency, or rather a neglect, of colouring. ... In 
 short, there is no defect that may not be excused, if it is a sufficient 
 excuse that it can be imputed to considerable artists." 
 
 Blake : No Man who can see Michel Angelo can say that he wants 
 either Colouring or Ornamental parts of Art in the highest degree, for 
 he has everything of Both. He who Admired Eafael, must admire 
 Rafael's Execution. He who does not admire Raphael's execution, 
 Cannot Admire Raphael. 
 
 To : " In this (strength of parts) certainly men are not equal, and a 
 man can bring home wares only in proportion to the capital with 
 which he goes to market." 
 
 Blake : A confession. 
 
 To : " In order to encourage you to imitation ... a skilful painter 
 ... in no danger of being infected . . . under the rudeness of Gothic 
 essays, will find original, rational, and even sublime inventions." 
 
 Blake : This sentence is to Introduce another in Condemnation and 
 Contempt of Albt. Durer. 
 
 To: "The works of Albert Diirer . . . afford a rich mass of 
 genuine materials, which, wrought up and polished to elegance, will 
 add copiousness to what perhaps, without such aid, could only have 
 aspired to justness and propriety." 
 
 Blake : A polished Villain, who Robs and Murders ! 
 
 To : " The greatest style . . . would receive an additional grace by 
 the elegance and precision of pencil" 
 
 Blake : What does Precision of Pencil mean ? If it does not mean 
 Outline it means Nothing. 
 
 To : "I can easily imagine that if he (Jan Stein) had lived in Rome, 
 and been blessed with Michel Angelo and Raphael for his masters . . . 
 he now would have ranged with the great pillars and supporters of our 
 art." 
 
 Blake : Jan Stein was a Boor, and neither Rafael nor Mich. Aug. 
 could have made him any better. 
 
 To : " Men, who thus bound down by the almost invincible powers 
 of early habit ..." . 
 
 Blake : He who can be bound down is no Genius. Genius cannot be 
 Bound. It may be Rendered Indignant or Outrageous. " Oppression 
 makes the wise man mad." — Solomon. 
 
392 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 DISCOURSE VII 
 
 {On f/y-Uaf.) Blake: The purpose of the following discourse is to 
 Prove that Taste and Genius are not of Heavenly Origin, and that all 
 who have supposed that they Are so, Are to be considered as Weak- 
 headed Fanatics. The obligations which Reynolds has laidjon bad 
 Artists of all classes will at all times make them his Admirers, but 
 most especially for this discourse, in which it is proved that the stupid 
 are born with Faculties Equal to other Men, Only they have not 
 Cultivated them, because they have not thought it worth the trouble. 
 
 To : " We allow a poet to express his meaning, when his meaning is 
 not well known to himself, with a certain degree of obscurity, as it is 
 one source of the sublime." 
 
 Blake : Obscurity is Neither the Source of the Sublime nor of any- 
 thing Else. 
 
 To : " But when in plain prose we talk of courting the muse in 
 shady bowers, waiting the call and inspiration of genius, ... we 
 generally rest contented with mere words, or at best entertain notions 
 not only groundless but pernicious." 
 
 Blake : The Ancients, and the wisest of the Modems, are of the 
 opinion that Reynolds condemns and laughs at. 
 
 To : "I am persuaded that scarce a poet is to be found who pre- 
 served a sound mind in a sound body . . . whose latter works are not 
 all replete with the face of imagination as those which he produced in 
 his more youthful days." 
 
 Blake ; As Replete, but not More Replete. 
 
 To : " To understand literally these metaphors or ideas expressed in 
 poetical language seems as absurd as to conclude that because painters 
 sometimes represent poets writing from the dictates of a little winged 
 boy or genius, that this same genius did really inform him in a whisper 
 what he was to write. ..." 
 
 Blake : The Ancients did not mean to Impose when they affirmed 
 their belief in Vision and Revelation. Plato was in earnest. Milton 
 was in earnest. They believed that God did visit Man reaUy and 
 Truly, and not as Reynolds pretends. How very Anxious Reynolds is 
 to Disprove and Contemn Spiritual Perceptions ! 
 
 To : " Genius and taste . . . pretend . . . that great works are 
 produced . . . and an exact judgment is given, without our knowing 
 why . . . one can scarcely state these opinions without exposing their 
 absurdity. ..." 
 
 Blake : Who ever said this ? He states Absurdities in Company 
 with Truths, and Calls both Absurd. 
 
 To : " The prevalent opinion . . . considers the principles of taste 
 as . . . less solid . . . than really . . ." 
 
 Blake : The Artifice of the Epicurean Philosopher is to Call aU 
 other Opinions Unsolid and Unsubstantial than those which are 
 derived from Earth. 
 
 To : " We often appear to differ in sentiment from each other from 
 inaccuracy of terms. 
 
 Blake : It is not in Terms that Reynolds and I disagree. Two 
 Contrary Opinions can never by any Language be made aUke. I say 
 Taste and Genius are Not Teachable nor Acquirable, but are both bom 
 with us. Reynolds says the Contrary. 
 
SIE JOSHUA EEYNOLDS 393 
 
 To : " We apply the term taste to . . . like or dislike ... we give 
 the same name to our judgment on a fancy . . . and on unalterable 
 principles. However inconvenient this may be, we are obliged to take 
 words as we find them." 
 
 Slake : This is False. The Fault is not in "Words but in Things. 
 Lock's Opinions on words and their Fallaciousness are hurtful opinions 
 and Fallacious also. 
 
 To: "The same taste relishes demonstration . . . resemblance of a 
 picture . . . and harmony." 
 
 Blake: Demonstration, Similitude, and Harmony are Objects of 
 Eeasoning Invention. Identity and Melody are Objects of Intuition. 
 
 To : "... as true as mathematical demonstration. . . ." 
 
 Blake : God forbid that Truth should be Confined to Mathematical 
 Demonstration. He who does not know Truth at sight is unworthy of 
 Her Notice. 
 
 To : " In proportion as prejudices are . long received, . . . taste 
 . . . approaches certainty ..." 
 
 Blake : Here is a great deal to do to Prove that All truth is pre- 
 judice, for all that is Valuable in Knowledge is Superior to Demon- 
 strative Science, such as is Weighed and Measured. 
 
 To : "As these prejudices become more narrow, this secondary taste 
 becomes more fantastical . . ." 
 
 Blake : And so he thinks he has proved that Genius and Inspiration 
 are All a Hum. 
 
 To : " Having laid down these propositions I shall proceed with less 
 method." 
 
 Blake : He calls the Above, proceeding with Method. 
 
 To : " We will take it for granted that reason is something in- 
 variable." 
 
 Blake : Reason — or a ratio of all we have known — is not the same 
 it shall be when we know More. He therefore takes a Falsehood for 
 granted to set out with. 
 
 To : " We will conclude that whatever goes under the name of taste 
 which we can fairly bring under the dominion of reason must be con- 
 sidered as equally exempt from change." 
 
 Blake : Now this is supreme Fooling. 
 
 To : " The arts would lie open for ever to caprice and casualty if those 
 who are to judge of their excellencies had no settled principles. . . ." 
 
 Blake : He may as well say that if man does not lay down settled 
 Principles the Sun wiU not rise in a Morning. 
 
 To : " My notion of nature comprehends . . . the internal fabric 
 ... of the human mind and imagination." 
 
 Blake : Here is a plain Confession that he Thinks Mind and Imagina- 
 tion not to be above the Mortal and Perishing Nature. Such is the 
 End of Epicurean or Newtonian Philosophy. It is Atheism. 
 
 To : " This/(Poussin's Perseus with Medusa's head) is undoubtedly a 
 subject of great bustle and tumult ... the eye finds no repose any- 
 where ... I remember turning from it in disgust. . . ." 
 
 Blake : Reynolds's Eye cannot bear Characteristic Colouring or Light 
 and Shade. 
 
 To : " This ... I hold to be improper to imitate. A picture should 
 please at first sight." 
 
 Blake : Please whom ? Some Men Cannot see a Picture except in a 
 Dark Comer. 
 
394 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 To : " No one can deny that violent passions will naturally emit 
 harah and disagreeable tones." 
 
 Blake : Violent Passions emit tlie Real Good and Perfect Tones. 
 
 To : " If it be objected that Rubens judged iU . . . to make his 
 work so very omamentaL ..." 
 
 Blake : Here it is Called Ornamental that the Roman and Bolognian 
 Schools may be Insinuated not to be Ornamental. 
 
 To : " No one will dispute that the Roman or Bolognian Schools 
 would have produced a more learned and more noble work." 
 
 Blake : Learned and Noble is OmamentaL 
 
 To: " This leads us to weighing . . . the diflferent classes of art ..." 
 
 Blake : A fool's Balance is no criterion, because though it goes down 
 on the heaviest side, we ought to look what he puts into it. 
 
 To : " If a European who has cut off his beard, put false hair on his 
 head, or tied up his own, and . . . with the help of the fat of hogs 
 covered the whole with flour . . . issues forth and meets a Cherokee 
 Indian, who has bestowed as much time on his toilet . . . laid on his 
 ochre . . . whichever of these two despises the other for this attention 
 to the fashion of his country ... is the barbarian." 
 
 Blake : Excellent. 
 
 To : " In the midst of the highest flights of the fancy or imagination, 
 reason ought to preside. ..." 
 
 Blake : If this is True it is a devilish Foolish Thing to be an Artist. 
 
 DISCOURSE VIII 
 
 {On fly-leaf.) Blake : Burke's treatise on the Sublime and Beautiful 
 is founded on the Opinions of Newton and Locke. On this Treatise 
 Reynolds has grounded many of his assertions in all his Discourses. 
 I read Burke's Treatise when very young. At the same time I read 
 Locke on the Human Understandiny, and Bacon's Advancement of 
 Learning. On every one of these Books I wrote my opinion, and, on 
 looking them over, find that my notes on Reynolds in this book are 
 exactly similar. I felt the same Contempt and Abhorrence then that 
 I do now. They mock Inspiration and Vision. Inspiration and 
 Vision was then, and now is, and I hope will always remain, my 
 Element, my Eternal Dwelling-place. How can I then hear it con- 
 demned without returning Scorn for Scorn ? 
 
 To: " Principles of art . . . in their excess become defects." 
 
 Blake : Principles according to Sir Joshua become Defects. 
 
 To: "Artists should learn their profession from endeavouring to 
 form an idea of proportion from the different excellencies which lie 
 dispersed in the various schools of painting." 
 
 Blake : In another discourse he says that we cannot mix the 
 Florentine and Venetian. 
 
 To : An instance occurs to me of two painters — Rembrandt and 
 Poussin. . . . Rembrandt's manner was absolute unity. . . . Poussin 
 has no principal light at all." 
 
 Blake : Rembrandt was a Generaliser ; Poussin a Particulariser. 
 
 To : " The works of Poussin are as much distinguished for simplicity 
 as those of Rembrandt for combination." 
 
 Blake : Poussin knew better than to make all his pictures have the 
 same light and shade. Any fool may concentrate a light in the Middle. 
 
 To : " We may compare . . . the portraits of Titian, where dignity, 
 
SIE JOSHUA EEYNOLDS 395 
 
 seeming to be natural and inherent, ... has the appearance of an 
 inalienable adjunct. ..." 
 Blahe : Dignity an Adjunct. 
 
 To: "When a young artist ... is told . . . certain animating 
 words of Spirit, Dignity, Energy, Grace, greatness of Style and 
 brilliancy of Tints ... he becomes suddenly vain of his newly 
 acquired knowledge.'' 
 Blake : Mocks. 
 
 To : " Art in its infancy, like the first work of a student, was dry, 
 hard, and simple. But this kind of barbarous simplicity would be 
 better named Penury, as it proceeds from mere want ; from want of 
 knowledge, want of resources, want of abilities to be otherwise. Their 
 simplicity was the offspring, not of choice, but of necessity." 
 Blake : Mocks. A lie. 
 
 To : " In the second stage they are sensible of this poverty , . . ran 
 into a contrary extreme. But ... we cannot recommend them to 
 return to that simplicity . . . but to deal out their abundance with a 
 more sparing hand. . . ." 
 
 Blake : Abundance of Stupidity. 
 
 To : "... it is not enough that a work be learned ; it must be 
 pleasing." 
 
 Blake : If you Endeavour to Please the Worst, you wiU never Please 
 the Best. To Please all is Impossible. 
 
 To : " Again, in the artificial management of figures, it is directed 
 that they shall contrast each other according to the rules generally 
 given. . . . But when students are more advanced, they will find that 
 the greatest beauties of character and expression are produced without 
 contrast. St. Paul preaching at Athens, far from any affected 
 academical contrasts of limbs, stands equally on both legs, and both 
 hands are in the same attitude ; add contrast, and the whole energy 
 and unaffected grace of the figure is destroyed. Elymas the Sorcerer 
 stretches both hands forward in the same direction, which gives 
 perfectly the expression intended." 
 Blake : WeU said. 
 
 To : " It may not be improper to give instances where the rule itself, 
 though generally received, is false. ... It is given as a rule by 
 Fresnoy : That the principal figure of a subject must appear in the midst 
 of a picture, under the principal light, to distinguish it from the rest." 
 Blake : What a Devil of a Eule. 
 
 To : " . . . what those proportions are cannot be so well learned 
 by precept as by observation on pictures, and in this knowledge bad 
 pictures will serve as well as good. 
 
 Blake : Bad pictures are always Sir Joshua's friends. 
 To : " It ought, in my opinion, to be indispensably observed that 
 the masses of light in a picture be always of a warm mellow colour— 
 yeUow, red, or yellowish white ; and that the blue, the grey, or the 
 green colours be kept almost entirely out of these masses, and used 
 only to support and set off these warm colours, and for this purpose a 
 small proportion of cold colours will be sufficient." 
 
 Blake : Colouring formed on these Principles is destructive of All 
 Art, because it takes away the possibilitjr of Variety, and only promotes 
 Harmony, or Blending of Colours one with another. 
 
 To : " The conduct of Titian in the picture of Bacchus and Ariadne 
 has been much celebrated, and justly, for the harmony of colouring." 
 
396 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 Blake : Such Harmony of Colouring is Destructive of Art. One 
 Species of General Hue over all is the Cursed Thing called Harmony. 
 It is like the Smile of a Fool. 
 
 To : " The illuminated parts of objects are in nature of a warmer 
 tint than those that are in the shade." 
 
 Blake : Shade is always cold, and never, as in Eubens and the 
 colourists, hot, and Yellowy Brown. 
 
 To ; " . . . fulness of manner found in perfection in the best works 
 of Correggio and, we may add, of Rembrandt. This effect is produced 
 by melting and losing shadows in a ground still darker than those 
 shadows. ..." 
 
 Blake : All this is destructive of Art. 
 
 To : "A picture I have of Eubens ; it is a representation of moon- 
 light. . . . The Moon in this picture does not preserve so great a 
 superiority in regard to the object which it illumines as it does in 
 nature. This is likewise an intended deviation, and for the same 
 reason. If Eubens had preserved the same scale of gradation of light 
 between the moon and the objects which is found in nature, the 
 picture must have consisted of one smaU spot of light only, and at 
 a little distance from the picture nothing but this spot would have 
 been seen." 
 
 Bktke : These are Excellent remarks on Proportionate Colour. 
 
 To : " Before and above aU things it is necessary that the work 
 should be seen, not only without difB.culty, but with pleasure and 
 satisfaction." 
 
 Blake : If the Picture ought to be Seen with Ease, surely the nobler 
 parts of the Picture, such as the Heads, ought to be Principal But 
 this is never the case except in the Koman and Florentine Schools, 
 not, I (?) trust the German in the Florentine school. 
 
 To : " . . . Sketches give the pleasure of imagination . . . the 
 imagination supplies more than the painter probably could produce." 
 
 Blake : "What Falsehood ! 
 
 To : " . . . Everything shall be carefully and distinctly expressed 
 as if the painter knew with correctness and precision the exact form 
 and character of whatever is introduced into the picture. This is 
 what, with us, is called Science and Learning, which must not be 
 sacrificed and given iip for an uncertain and doubtful beauty which, 
 not naturally belonging to our art, will probably be sought for without 
 success." 
 
 Blake : Excellent, and contrary to his usual opinion. 
 
 To : " Mr. Falconet has observed in a note . . . that the circumstance 
 of covering the face of Agamemnon was probably not in consequence 
 of fine imagination of the painter ... he thinks meanly of this trick 
 of concealing. ..." 
 
 Blake : 1 am of Falconet's opinion. 
 
 So end the notes on Eeynolds. CompEiring them with 
 the " Public Address," the likelihood that they really belong, 
 with it, to 1810 seems so strong that an apology is due to 
 the reader for not printing them nearer to it in this biography, 
 in defiance of Blake's " aged sixty-three." 
 
CHAPTEE XXXIII 
 
 VISIONS AND DANTE 
 
 Though August 1820 was the year of most of Varley's 
 " visionary heads," Blake continued to do more and more of 
 these. His theory of a permanent mental substance into 
 which he could dip his own mind and find — by the resulting 
 visions — a means of remembering people who had "died 
 from the earth " before he was born is now, of course, easily 
 recognised as one that hardly differs from what is being 
 scientifically proved to be as near to an account of the truth 
 as any other which tries to describe etheric movements and 
 changes in terms of more subtle and more unusual experi- 
 ences than those that come to us every day through our five 
 senses. These terms have hitherto belonged, in this, as in all 
 sciences not yet scientific, to magicians and occultists. There 
 is one thing of which we need continually to remind ourselves. 
 Myth is the natural language of occultism in the mouth of 
 primitive nature. It lays us open to new and fascinating 
 mistakes, such as are made by children who try to understand 
 poetry. When locomotives were first introduced into Turkey, 
 a delightful science of demonology suited to their explana- 
 tion grew up. It was a mistake, of course, but the terms of 
 it hardly differ from those in which the most experienced 
 American engine-drivers speak of their machines as if they 
 were persons, attributing to them not only personal names but 
 personal qualities. That there is even a scientific justification 
 for this is seen in that wittiest book of last century, Samuel 
 Butler's Ehwhon, and recently we have had an expert in metal 
 work telling us that he is so impressed with the life of iron 
 that when he sees a big bar he takes off his hat to it. Poor Blake 
 has been derided for having been reported to have done this to 
 a vision of St. Paul while he was walking with a corporeal 
 friend in the streets of London. The anecdote is of doubtful 
 authenticity. A mistake is easily made in telling such tales. 
 
 397 
 
398 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 When a man is right about visions we call him a tele- 
 pathist, a prophet, or a magician ; when wrong, he passes for 
 a madman. The day will come when we shall be sane 
 enough ourselves to remember that in these difficult subjects 
 he may be wrong without being mad, for he is more likely to 
 be wrong than right, and that in reasoning normally about 
 his abnormal experiences he is practically certain to talk as 
 though he had lost his reason. 
 
 Crabb Robinson's notes about Blake's later visions tell us 
 so many interesting things, and with so evident a sincere 
 avoidance of exaggeration, that he must be quoted at some 
 length. There are two forms of his reminiscences, not in the 
 same words. He altered and condensed the second from the 
 first. The presence of some specially significant words in the 
 condensed account, absent from GUchrist's quotations from 
 the original journals, suggests that these were doctored by 
 the biographer. 
 
 In speaking of the 1820 period of visions Gilchrist notes 
 that Varley's "critical friends" discovered traces of his 
 " receipt for a face " in them, and hints by this expression 
 that they were all sham and made up to impose on Varley. 
 Crabb Eobinson, with similar ignorance of the working of the 
 artistic mind, whether or not it is aided by the visionary 
 mind, thinks he has found an inconsistency in Blake, which 
 he notes. Here is the whole paragraph. It contains more 
 than one obvious error of judgment : 
 
 There was nothing wild about his looks. Though very ready to be 
 drawn out to the assertion of his favourite ideas, yet there was no warmth, 
 as though he wanted to mahe proselytes. (The italics are ours ; Crabb 
 Robinson had not peeped into Blake's notebook and read — 
 
 He's a blockhead who wants a proof 
 
 Of what he can't perceive ; 
 And he's a fool who tries to make 
 
 Such a blockhead believe. ) 
 
 Indeed one of the peculiar features of his scheme, so far as it was 
 consistent, was indifference, and a very extraordinary degree of tolerance 
 and satisfaction with what had taken place — a sort of pious and humble 
 optimism, not the scornful optimism of Candide. He warmly praised 
 some compositions of Mr. Aders ; and having brought for Aders an 
 engraving of his Canterbury Pilgrims, he remarked that one of the 
 figures in it resembled a figure in one of the works then in Aders' room, 
 and that he had been accused of having stolen from it. But he added 
 that he had drawn the figure in question twenty years before he had 
 seen the original picture. "However, there is no wonder in the 
 resemblance, as in my youth I was always studying that class of 
 paintings," I have forgotten what the figure was. ~But his taste was 
 
VISIONS AND DANTE 399 
 
 in close conformity witli the old German school. This is somewhat at 
 variance with what he said, both this day and afterwards— implying 
 that he copied his visions. 
 
 It is, as we all know now, not at variance at all, only in 
 supplement. His art did not always copy " vision," it often 
 "composed" like that of other people, and even when it 
 copied " vision " it often copied visions that were altered or 
 " infected " by other mental activities. 
 
 Blake certainly had the Socratic theory about art, that it 
 is a proof when genius cannot analyse it of the existence of 
 the gods. He said, "Art is inspiration. When Michel- 
 angelo or Eaphael in their day, or Mr. Flaxman does one 
 of his fine things he does them in the spirit." Blake 
 gave Flaxman's name in this connection long after the 
 quarrel with Flaxman about the " Screwmuch " conspiracy, 
 and therefore after Flaxman, who had been accused of joining 
 those who wished to keep down Blake's prices, refused all 
 further intercourse. It is a pure piece of artistic mag- 
 nanimity on Blake's part. He told Crabb Eobinson that he 
 had " seen Shakespeare," who was Uke his portraits, especially 
 the " old engraving " ; that he had seen Milton often, once " as 
 a very old man " with a long flowing beard, and that Milton 
 had asked him to correct in a poem or picture an error of his 
 in Paradise Lost. " But I declined ; I said I had my own 
 duties to perform." The error that Milton wished corrected 
 was that sexual intercourse grew out of the Fall — of course 
 a most anti-Blakean view of the Fall, which did not very 
 substantially prove the " devils' account " of it in the Marriage 
 of Heaven and Hell, a marriage absolutely different from the 
 erroneous reconciliation of contraries which leads to that 
 hateful thing an aggregate, or hloated general form, that was 
 in his mind connected with the evil idea "Morality," 
 Jerusalem, page 91, line 27. Milton did not grow to be a 
 very old man. He only lived sixty-six years on earth, and 
 never wore a beard. "We are in a " spiritual " sphere in this 
 conversation. Voltaire came to Blake much and talked what 
 might have been French, Blake said, but was English to his 
 ear. Milton was perhaps a shaven spirit, but appearing to 
 Blake was bearded to his eye. This again shows the im- 
 personal surface, yet personal depth of these visions. 
 Voltaire, in this wordless language, said to Blake, when 
 speaking of his enemies, that they had blasphemed the Holy 
 Ghost in him, which should not be forgiven, though it would 
 be forgiven him that he had blasphemed the Son of Man. 
 
400 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 He did not say that this had been forgiven him. Crabb 
 Eobinson does not seem to notice that the doctrine of 
 Purgatory is implied here — a doctrine naturally absent from 
 so practical a church as ours, practical in its dealings 
 with a free and married clergy as weU as with its laity. 
 Voltaire was, said Blake, commissioned by God to expose 
 the Scriptures when read in their literal sense. 
 
 The most important opinion on religion given by Bkke, 
 and the one that would have arrayed the narrower clergy 
 against him more than all his belief in the " Saviour " would 
 have attracted them, was that reading the Scriptures in the 
 literal or " natural " sense " takes all sublimity from the 
 Bible." This is his answer to those who consider explaining 
 the Biblical myths to be nothing else than "explaining 
 away." 
 
 Crabb Eobinson's note on Swedenborg and Dante is : 
 
 Incidentally Swedenborg was mentioned. (Blake) declared him to be a 
 Divine teacber ; he had done, and would do, much good, yet he did 
 wrong in endeavouring to explain to the reason what it could not 
 comprehend. 
 
 Did Swedenborg do so ? Cannot the reason comprehend 
 that a mask is a mask ? Of course it, in Blake's use of the 
 word, cannot be said to understand the face that Swedenborg 
 claimed to have found under the Old Testament mask. 
 Swedenborg himself says that we cannot comprehend it till 
 we have " soaked ourselves " for long in our celestial mental 
 faculties, and that it is " irksome " to the everyday parts of 
 our minds — the " Natural Man." 
 
 He seemed (Crabb Eobinson goes on, speaking of Blake) to consider, 
 but that was not clear, the visions of Swedenborg and Dante as the same 
 kind. Dante was the greater poet ! (When was Swedenborg anything 
 but the essence of prose ?) Yet this did not appear to aflfect the estima- 
 tion of Dante's genius (why should it ?) or his opinion of the truth of 
 Dante's visions. Indeed when he even declared Dante to be an atheist 
 it was accompanied by the highest admiration, "though," said he, 
 " Dante saw devils where I saw none." 
 
 Crabb Eobinson then puts down in his journal some 
 " insulated remarks " of Blake : 
 
 Jacob Boehmen was placed among the divinely inspired men. He 
 praised also the designs to Law's translation of Boehmen : " Michel- 
 angelo could not have surpassed them." " Bacon, Locke, and Newton are 
 the three great teachers of Atheism, or Satan's doctrine." " Irving is a 
 highly gifted man ; he is a sent man, but they who are sent sometimes 
 go further than they ought." (It will be remembered how Blake in his 
 
VISIONS AND DANTE 401 
 
 notes to Lavater admits Ms own feeling of temptation to do this in 
 order to produce more effect.) " I saw nothing but good in Calvin's 
 house, In Luther's there were harlots." He declared his opinion that 
 the earth is flat and not roimd, and just as I had objected flie circum- 
 navigation, dinner was announced. 
 
 It is a loss that this did not go further. Of course, 
 around the size of the earth is an eternal plane to a spectator 
 walking on it. Blake was speaking purely about its result 
 on the emotions of man through his eye, by means of which 
 "we become what we behold," and the vision of the earth in 
 each of us is that of a plain that leaves off at the horizon. 
 It is even a cup, concave like a " Mundane "Shell." 
 
 By way of an example of the difference between the 
 natural and spiritual sun (a very strong point with 
 Swedenborg), Blake says to Crabb Eobinson : 
 
 You never saw the spiritual sun ? I have. I saw him on Primrose 
 HilL He said : " Do you take me for the Greek Apollo ? No. Tfiat " 
 (pointing to the sky) " is the Greek Apollo. He is Satan.'' 
 
 Eeaders of Jerusalem and Milton are grateful to Crabb 
 Eobinson for that. Satan : Apollo : Greek materialism, 
 reason : nature : death. Blake also said : " I know what is 
 true by internal conviction — a doctrine is stated ; my heart 
 teUs me it must be true." 
 
 Of course we all get our convictions, most of them at 
 second or third stages, from some original conviction, in 
 precisely the same way. Of course, also, Blake had at his 
 hand his Bible, in which he might have read (Jeremiah 
 xvii. 9): "The heart is deceitful above all things and 
 desperately wicked." He does not seem, however, to have 
 reflected that from this arises the plain duty of every 
 religious man to be a doubter, nor does he reproach his own 
 impatience for constantly rebelling against this hardest of 
 all religious duties. 
 
 Crabb Eobinson gives a number of further notes about 
 Dante, which form a useful help to understanding the few 
 pencillings by Blake found among the designs to the Divine 
 Comedy made for the Linnell brothers. 
 
 Blake declared him (Dante) a mere politician and atheist, busied 
 about this world's affairs, as Milton was, till in his old age he turned 
 back to the God he had abandoned in childhood. I in vain en- 
 deavoured to obtain from him a qualification so as not to include him 
 (Dante) in the ordinary reproach. Yet he afterwards spoke of Dante 
 as being then with God. 
 
 2d 
 
402 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 Blake's designs to Dante are made in thinly -washed 
 water-colours in a large thick sketch-book which was prob- 
 ably bound for the purpose. It is a heavy folio several 
 inches thick. Its pages measure fourteen by eighteen inches, 
 but look more and more gigantic as one turns them over, on 
 account of the largeness of style in the designs and the 
 trance-producing influence that passes from them to the mind 
 of any one who lends himself to their power. Only a few 
 were engraved by Blake. To aid himself in comprehending 
 the scheme of the poem, he sketched a diagram of Dante's 
 " circles," No. 1 being at the bottom. They are placed above 
 the other with a note : " This is upside down, but right 
 when viewed from purgatory after they had passed the 
 centre." This recalls the descent of the angels in the Marriage, 
 of Heaven and Hell until they get so low that they hold on 
 by the roots of trees and hang over a nether void, and the 
 bending down of Milton into Albion's "bosom of death," 
 until " what was under soon seemed above." " In equivocal 
 worlds," Blake notes to Dante, " all is equivocal." He has 
 also drawn what looks like a target. The bull's-eye is labelled 
 " Purgatory," and the rings have these names : — the inner- 
 most ring, " Terrestrial Paradise : it is a Hmbo " ; then 
 " Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Starry Heavens"; 
 and for the exterior ring of aU, " Vacuum." He also notes : 
 " It seems as if Dante supposes that God was something 
 superior to the Father of Jesus, or, if he gives rain to the 
 evil and the good, and the sun to the just and the unjust, he 
 can never have builded Dante's Hell, nor the Hell of the 
 Bible, as our parsons explain it. It must have been 
 originally framed by the dark Spirit itself, and so I under- 
 stand it." 
 
 He begins again : 
 
 Whatever task is for vengeance for sin, and whatever is against 
 forgiveness of sin, is not of the Father but of Satan, the accuser and 
 father of hells. 
 
 He is now speaking of the Father after Jesus has become 
 God. Blake had then ceased to consider the First Person of 
 the Trinity (either as Jehovah or as Elohim) as separate from 
 the Second, though he at one time did so very often, with the 
 result that he has left this note in his MS. book : 
 
 Thinking as I do that the Creator of this world is a very cruel 
 being, and being a worshipper of Christ, I cannot help saying to the 
 Son, how unlike the Father ! First, God Almighty comes with a 
 
VISIONS AND DANTE 403 
 
 thump on the head, and then Jesus Christ comes with a balm to 
 heal it. 
 
 This recalls a still earlier note made in the same book in 
 the same quaint and grotesque style, like that of some Gothic 
 ornaments. It was made after he had written the dedication 
 to Stothard (who had a long nose) of the " everlasting gospel," 
 that begins — 
 
 The vision of Christ that thou dost see 
 Is my vision's greatest enemy. 
 Thine has a long hooked nose like thine, 
 Mine has a snub nose like mine. 
 
 1 always thought that Christ was a snubby, or I should not have 
 worshipped him, if I had thought he had been one of those long 
 spindle-nosed rascals. 
 
 Eeturning to the book of Dante drawings, once Blake 
 makes a cartoon where Homer is seen crowned with laurels 
 and armed with a sword in the centre ("the classics de- 
 vastated Europe with wars "), and a series of circles surround 
 him. The first is labelled " Swedenborg " ; the rest are 
 illegible. A note teUs us — 
 
 Everything in Dante's Paradise shows that for tyrannical purposes 
 he has made this world the foundation of all, and the goddess Nature, 
 — Memory, — not the Holy Ghost ... in her empires. ... As poor 
 Cha-Bell said, " Nature, thou art my goddess." Round Purgatory is 
 Paradise, and round Paradise is vacuum, or limbo. Homer is the 
 centre of all — I mean the poetry of the heathen — stolen and perverted 
 from the Bible, not by chance, but by design, by the kings of Persia, 
 their generals, the Greek heroes, and lastly the Eomans. Swedenborg 
 does the same in saying that the world is the ultimate of heaven. 
 This is the most damnable falsehood of Satan and the Antichrist. 
 
 This is one of the " old falsehoods " of which Swedenborg 
 is accused in the Marriage of Heaven and Hell, where, un- 
 fortunately, they are not specified. 
 
 This is all that we have of Blake's ideas about Dante. 
 He learned Italian in order to read him in the original after 
 studying Gary, whose translation he spoke of approvingly. 
 It was as easy to win Blake's praise as to incur his vitupera- 
 tion. Any faithful service done to a visionary or even to an 
 outlining artist — any receiving a prophet as a prophet — 
 would be rewarded by his blessing. As for the contrary, we 
 must be either sheep (of the true fold) or goats— outcast in 
 the wilderness, or, as he calls it, " the indefinite," an expres- 
 sion whose amusing inappropriateness when it is applied to 
 Newton he did not see. 
 
404 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 Of the many designs made in the third book for John 
 Linnell, only seven were engraved. The subjects are (1) 
 Paolo and Francesca, (2) Devils tormenting Ciampolo, (3) 
 Devils tormenting each other, (4) Brunelleschi and the 
 serpent, (5) Donati and the serpent, (6) The falsifiers, (7) 
 The traitors. 
 
 It is easy, and melancholy, to see what cause for appli- 
 cation to his own experience Blake had in his mind while 
 engraving these designs. None is carried very far. The 
 style of Marc Antonio is almost distressingly evident in the 
 shading. The figures contain Blake's usual merits and 
 defects, and it is exceedingly difficult to find in the figure of 
 Dante himself any attempt to bring before us the "long- 
 nosed rascal " that it is supposed to represent. 
 
 Death interrupted the engraving of the series. 
 
CHAPTEE XXXIV 
 
 'JOB' AND LINNBLL 
 
 Perhaps the chief work, however, of Blake's last years — for 
 the exact date of the hundred designs to G-ray in the Duke 
 of Hamilton's collection is not known to the present writer 
 — and surely the chief artistic work of his hfe, is the series of 
 twenty-one engravings to the Book of Joh, for which two sets 
 of drawings were made. These engravings are well known 
 from the reproductions that have been published from time 
 to time since they were first printed from very good " photo- 
 intaglios " in the second volume of Grilehrist's Life. Their 
 presence here will always make that book sought after till a 
 comfortable edition of them replaces it. 
 
 They were produced in Fountain Court, and " published 
 as the Act directs " on March 8, 1825. It will be noticed 
 that in the first picture of Job and his family the date is 
 1828. Of course, in numbering so many it is not surprising 
 that the figure 8 from " 8th of March " was repeated once 
 by error at the close of the date of the year, which is given 
 as 1828, for all the dates were added together on the outer 
 margins of the twenty -one plates. This trifling error is 
 probably responsible for the belief of the earlier biographers 
 that Blake died in 1828, and makes the year of his death 
 unforgettable by the sadness of the mistake, for as he died 
 the year before, in 1827, this plate can by no possibility 
 be accepted as engraved in the year to which Blake 
 assigns it. 
 
 The work was all done after Blake left South Molton 
 Street and went to Fountain Court, Strand (again a house- 
 hold move for economy's sake), where he had rooms on the 
 first floor, whose back windows looked between two high 
 houses on to the river. Great reduction and destruction of 
 the contents of the sixteen packages that made up his luggage 
 when he went to Felpham must have now been necessary. 
 
 40S 
 
406 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 He had less room than ever. When Crabb Eobinson called 
 on him there was not even a sound spare chair, so that the 
 visitor sat on his bed. Gilchrist says (on page 321 of the 
 Biography) that No. 3 Fountain Court, Strand, was "a 
 house kept by a brother-in-law named Baines," who was, as 
 Tatham records, the husband of Mrs. Blake's sister, who 
 is only mentioned once, and then in this connection. The 
 removal from South Molton Street, and the consequent break 
 in daily poring over one class of work, had its usual effect of 
 putting a new edge on Blake's artistic nerves — which his 
 misguided belief in industry was continually deteriorating. 
 To this is due the vigour and freshness of the Jol designs, 
 which contain nothing to suggest that when they were 
 published the artist was an old man, worn and ready to 
 sink under an illness that would never have attacked him 
 had he sat less constantly at his work-table. That he ate 
 only just enough to support life for years, and that he was 
 often at his press turning its handle, explains why he was 
 aUve at all and had not died of sedentary habits. For two 
 years, it is said that he never left the house. His only 
 relaxation was reading the Bible, which he consulted in 
 several languages. That it was a relaxation, and not a pious 
 and stupefying duty, is his debt to Swedenborg. 
 
 At Fountain Court he was able to forget all the old Hayley 
 trouble and Cromek struggle. From now — in fact, from a little 
 before the removal — he had never, a moment's real anxiety 
 about being able to find enough to eat while doing his own 
 best work. John Linnell has to be thanked for this. Butts, 
 Blake's other best patron, full of his drawings, and losing the 
 eyesight that enabled him to see them, after buying the first 
 set of Jol drawings, is no longer heard of. He had been a 
 true believer and a. persistent supporter in a very quiet and 
 inexpensive way. But he had never been a real mental 
 companion. In John Linnell Blake had at last found, if not 
 a reader who could follow his symbols, at least some one who 
 would give him help and employment and sympathy that 
 was not patronage. The days are over now of the " injurious 
 doubts " with which Hayley had, in his kindest moments, 
 done his artistic nerve much irreparable harm, and obliged 
 him to labour like " Milton " striving with " Urizen." There 
 is a direct reference in many passages that spring from this 
 experience. Freedom from employers, unsympathetic, how- 
 ever well-meaning and affectionate, accounts for the value of 
 the Job as a work of art, and is in itself an indictment 
 
'JOB' AND LINNELL 407 
 
 against Hayley, whose memory will never be able to 
 answer it. 
 
 Little fragments of encouragement from different sources 
 came now to Blake, as it were, spontaneously, like the sun 
 and rain. 
 
 "Wainewright, who used to write in the London Magazine 
 under the name of "Janus Weathercock," replaces the 
 unknown enemy on the Examiner, who vanishes from the 
 stage. G-ilehrist tells us that Wainewright wrote under other 
 pseudonyms also. He concealed cleverness under an air of 
 flippancy. He recognised the value and seriousness of the 
 figure in art, whether drawn by the great German outliner 
 Moritz Eetzsch, or our own Stothard (the Walter Crane of 
 his day), or Etty (its Sir Edward Poynter). He also took 
 up Blake, tried to puff his Jerusalem smilingly, a hopeless 
 task, and bought a copy of his Songs of Innocence and 
 Mxperience. He painted also, and Blake said, pointing to a 
 picture of his in the Academy of 1823 or 1824 (as Samuel 
 Palmer recalls), that it was " very fine." Samuel Palmer 
 remembers that Blake wore that day his plain black suit and 
 rather broad-brimmed, but not Quakerish, hat. He used to 
 wear knee-breeches — then already becoming old-fashioned — • 
 out-of-doors, and the more modern trousers at home. He 
 must have despised this garment, and looked upon it as a 
 sort of pinafore for the legs, for he used to lay his engraved 
 plates on his lap till the knees of his trousers were shiny. 
 
 It is to be hoped that Wainewright has been admitted to 
 heaven as an appreciator of Blake, at least to the corner of 
 it to which holiness does not give access, for he ended by 
 using strychnine to poison a beautiful girl who was his 
 sister-in-law, in order to obtain £18,000 from the life-in- 
 surance offices. After committing this and some lesser acts 
 of infamy, he died wretchedly as a convict (also perhaps of his 
 own strychnine), and his memory forms a curious comment 
 on the Latin tag about study of art tending to soften the 
 manner of life and forbid its ferocity, which is one of the few 
 really humorous passages in our school Latin grammar. 
 
 Among ihe little bits of good fortune that came to Blake 
 at Fountain Court was a donation of £25 from the funds of 
 the Eoyal Academy in recognition of the merit of the designs 
 to Blair's Grave. It is to be hoped that the critic of the 
 Examiner heard of that gift. If Cromek had ever known of it 
 he would have attributed it to his own " herculean labours " for 
 a man who was " predetermined not to be served." Gilchrist 
 
408 THE KEAL BLAKE 
 
 records that Collins and Abraham Cooper recommended the 
 grant, and Bally and Eichard Bone were the movers and 
 seconders of the vote granting it. 
 
 But in 1823, before the permanence of Linnell's help was 
 assured, Blake began the year with very short commons. It 
 was now that he borrowed the Job designs that he had sold 
 to Butts, and showed them about in the hope of employment, 
 with the result that linnell gave him the order for their 
 engraving, and for a " duphcate " set of drawings. They are 
 not identically the same ; and the first set (which it would 
 be a mistake to call the originals) were sold eventually by 
 Lord Houghton, into whose possession they had come. 
 
 In the arrangement about the Job engravings, Blake for 
 the first time received a proper agreement about his work, 
 drawn up and signed. For the designs and copyright he is 
 to have £100, payable in instalments, and out of the profits 
 after the engravings are sold he is to receive another £100. 
 If there were no profits, then of course nothing beyond the 
 first £100 was due to him; in fact, it is not clear that 
 anything was due unless the profits exceeded £100. There 
 were practically none, and Linnell gave Blake £50 "out of" 
 their absence. 
 
 There was an element of grandeur in the air of cold and 
 business-Hke dignity with which LinneU surrounded all he 
 did for Blake, and on the Blakean principle that " grandeur 
 of ideas is founded on precision of ideas," the exact sums 
 that passed shall now be set down and recorded. 
 
 In the little sketch of a memoir, elaborated only on the 
 few points where a correction of or addition to previous 
 records was needed, that was tacked on to the Quaritch 
 edition, — where it was intended to serve as a supplement 
 to Gilchrist and a source of information to some future 
 biographer, — the present writer said : " In 1825, the date when 
 the first complete proof of the Job was made, payments began 
 to pass for a series of coloured drawings done for Mr. Linnell 
 (the Dante series). . . . They were paid for by instalments, 
 about £52 being given in all, so far as record remains." 
 
 Fortunately, the misunderstanding of some information 
 and figures supplied by the Linnell family, which caused this 
 mistaken statement, is corrected in a long and valuable letter 
 from the eldest surviving son, who writes : — 
 
 January 7, 1893. 
 Dear Mr. Ellis — I have as yet had time only to glance at a very 
 few parts of your new book (the Quaritch edition), and I instinctively 
 
From tiik "Book of Joe." 
 ■Wlieu the Moruiii- Stars sang togetlier auil all tlie Sons of <4o(l slimited for joy," 
 
'JOB' AND LINNELL 409 
 
 turned to those subjects as to which I have knowledge, aud that have 
 relation to J. Linnell, viz. those chapters describing the execution for 
 J. L. of the Job engravings, and the Dante drawings, and plates, etc. 
 I at once noticed a few inaccuracies and certain statements that are not 
 in agreement with the real facts. Now, I am the only one of my 
 family who has taken the pains and the time to examine my father's 
 papers, and his diary, memoranda, etc., and thus I have obtained from 
 these both certain and definite information as to some particulars in 
 the transaction between him alnd Mr. Blake not known to everybody. 
 The above documents are the ultimate authority for determining the 
 facts in these matters. . . . 
 
 Here follows a gentle reprimand to the present writer 
 from Mr. Linnell for not having applied to him for informa- 
 tion, and for not having submitted the MS. of the memoir to 
 him. The more assiduous conduct of another biographer, 
 writing the life of another subject, is held up at some length 
 to show what should have been done : 
 
 . . . Certain statements would then have been made correct which 
 are now misleading. See p. 131 (vol. i.), we read : " While the engraving 
 of the Job series was in hand, etc." I believe it would be more correct 
 to say : " On the completion of the engravings of the Job, J. L. commis- 
 sioned W. B., in return for the different payments he made to W. B. 
 (since the final payment on account of the Job, October 30, 1825), to 
 illustrate Dante's poem by drawings in the book J. L. gave him, W. B. 
 doing as much or as little as he chose." 
 
 From this we see that the date upon the proofs of the 
 plates themselves, which says that they are " published as 
 the Act directs, March 8, 1825," was only the date on which 
 Blake himself iirst thought that he might consider the plates 
 complete, and that proofs, rebouches, and afterwards prints, 
 were taken from them at leisure, and that the real " publica- 
 tion" took place the following year. The proofs were 
 published at £10 : 10s. the set, and the prints at £5 : 5s. the 
 set, bound in cardboard covers of terra - cotta colour, with 
 white labels pasted in the middle upon which the price is 
 written in pencil. 
 
 AVe know that the Job plates which were begun in March 1823 were 
 completed in November 1825. In Blake's letter to J. L., November 10, 
 
 1825, he speaks of the final touches to the Job plates, and says: " I hope 
 a few days more will bring us to a conchision.' 
 
 The plates must have been in the printer's hands in the latter part 
 of 1825 and the beginning of 1826, for the book was published in March 
 
 1826. Now the Job was virtually finished and paid for before the 
 work of Dante, and the payment of various sums on account of it com- 
 menced, Blake, in letter February 1, 1826, asks for a copy of the Job 
 to show to Mr. Chantrey, showing that copies were being issued at that 
 date. . . . 
 
410 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 A few lines condemning another biographer follow, and 
 the letter is resumed : 
 
 Now from the oontemporaneous accounts and receipts of the pay- 
 ments made by J. L. to w . B., it is certain and provecl : — Firstly, the 
 final payment for the Job plates was made October 1825. (The payments 
 were from March to December 1823, during the year 1824, and from 
 January to October 1825, for the Joh plates.) [A word of general praise 
 for another biographer follows.] This is given wrongly in your 
 book, p. 135. All the proofs that have been taken of the plates were 
 taken at this iirst date [Which ? The proofs themselves, with the acci- 
 dental exception mentioned, bear date March 8, 1825], before the 
 publication, and after the proofs a certain number ot prints were taken, 
 which were also sold in March 1826. Of course no more "proofe" can 
 follow after the "prints." Secondly, that the payments to W. B. of 
 various sums on account of the Dante designs, both the drawings and 
 the plates, for these were carried on together, commenced at the latter 
 part of the year 1825, and continued till August 1827 (the last payment 
 to W. B. was on August 2, 1827). Further, these payments added 
 together amount to £103 : 5 : 6 (the total actually paid by J. L. to 
 W. B. himself). This sum is cut down in p. 137 of your book to £52 ! 
 
 The " your book " here referred to is the memoir to the 
 Quaritch edition. In justification, the present writer can 
 but conjecture that the figure, which he did not invent, but 
 received from one of the Linnell brothers, must have been 
 taken from a note made by J. Linnell at some date or other 
 when he had really paid only £52, and that notes of further 
 payments were made later, which not being shown to the 
 present writer when he was taking down the figures, he was 
 left to infer, mistakenly, that this was the latest record, and 
 represented the total payment. 
 
 After W. B.'s death, J. L. paid to Mrs. B., from September 1827 to 
 September 1828, about £46 (including burial of Mr. B., £10 : 15s., the 
 rent of Fountain Court, etc.). Of the above sum, J. L. reckoned about 
 £20 would be allowed to Mrs. B. for taking care of the house in Circuit 
 Place, and the remainder he considered as additional payment for the 
 Dante work, drawings and plates. I kno' in a letter March 1831, by 
 J. L. to Fred Tatham, in reply to his question how much would have 
 to be repaid to J. L. if the Dante were sold at an enhanced price for 
 the benefit of Mrs. B., etc., he quotes these payments and says : Taking 
 the £103 he paid to Mr. B. from (?) December 1825, and the £47 paid 
 to Mi's. B., with £20 deducted for the housekeeping at Circuit Place, it 
 leaves £130 to be repaid to himself if the drawings were resold, in 
 which case the seven plates woiild be given up to Mrs. Blake. (That 
 is all about the payments. The letter contiuues :) Further, I notice in 
 page 168 an extraordinary statement — " How the MS. of Vala escaped 
 and found safe keeping is not kno^oi by his own family " ! ! This is 
 utterly untrue. 
 
 Unfortunately, the present writer had, when compiling 
 
'JOB' AND LINNELL 411 
 
 this part of the memoir, only questioned other of the Linnell 
 brothers, whose memories, then as now, were less accurate and 
 complete than that of the elder, who alone had retained and 
 studied their late father's papers. 
 
 I have perfectly known as far back as I can remember bow it 
 escaped ; there never was the slightest doubt about the matter. Since 
 the death of Mr. Blake and onwards, my father often told me as well as 
 others_ that Mr. Blake gave him the MS. The exact date of the gift 
 he said nothing about, as of no consequence. Certainly I never heard 
 anything about his " death-bed." This is a pure invention of some 
 one. 
 
 The other Linnell brother who was the present writer's 
 informant did not use the phrase " death-bed," but said that 
 the MS. had been given to his father by Blake when he was 
 ill, and during the latter or last days of his life. Blake's 
 final illness was of an intermittent character, and he was 
 drawing for J. Linnell, sometimes in hed, on and off, up to a 
 short time before he actually died. There is every probability 
 that the gift was really made on " his death-bed," though 
 long before the day of his death. The sentence to which Mr. 
 Linnell takes such energetic exception in his letter is as 
 follows : " How the MS. of Vala escaped " [that is, escaped 
 destruction from Tatham's hands when other MSS. were ruth- 
 lessly burned], " and found safe keeping with Mr. John Linnell 
 is not known by his own family. It is believed to have been 
 given by Blake himself on his death-bed as a recognition 
 that he owed more to his last patron than the short hours 
 that were left to him would let him accomplish." "Death- 
 bed " is not oS'ered as a quotation of any one's exact words. 
 Mr. Linnell's letter here does not deny the substantial 
 accuracy of the recollections of his brother as followed in the 
 memoir, though he appears to believe himself to be doing so. 
 But he suggests a reason for Blake's not allowing Tathani to 
 get at the MS., which may perhaps be the real answer to the 
 question how it escaped. 
 
 Blake gave it to J. L., no doubt because he knew that he would be 
 the one most likely to appreciate and preserve it, as at first it contained 
 some rather extraordinary illustrations. 
 
 " At first " refers to the fact that later on it did not contain 
 aU of these " extraordinary illustrations," because J. Linnell 
 used the india-rubber to one in particular, to make it less 
 audaciously defiant of the proprieties, — the drawings were 
 in pencil only. Their subjects include the distinguishing 
 
412 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 characteristic of the ancient god " Priapus," an object fitted 
 for sacred art before the degrading spirit of a later civilisa- 
 tion had vulgarised it, but not fitted for secular art, other 
 than medical, at any period of the world's history. In one 
 design to Vala, the Priapic attribute is represented as 
 nearly the height of a signpost: three figures are bowing 
 down to it. They presumably represent Bacon, Newton, and 
 Locke worshipping Nature. The association of the symbol 
 with this rendering is found in its character of being that 
 which most causes man, apart from argument, to believe 
 in external nature (the great delusion), and the design 
 represents the fact that all rationalistic and experimental 
 philosophy depends upon for support, and therefore worships 
 as its god, the great source of temptation to a belief in 
 external nature, for without external nature they are nothing. 
 On this also depends MoraUty, which is necessary, if they be 
 right, but is nothing and ceases to exist if there be no such 
 thing as temptation, which it therefore worships as its crea- 
 tor ; of all this, however, as part of Blake's mind, and of the 
 meaning, in any respect, of Blake's prophetic books, neither 
 the late John Linnell nor any of his descendants ever had 
 the glimmering of an idea. The present Mr. John LinneU 
 continues : 
 
 Wlio could iliave misled you tx) make such a statement I oamiot con- 
 ceive, and that after Mr. Story had simply told the truth (page 170). 
 What will the public think of this ? 
 
 The public will understand, of course, that the present 
 writer had not at that date read or even heard of Mr. Story's 
 little book. 
 
 I have no room for more now. Excuse bad writing through haste. — 
 Yours faithfully, J. Linnell. 
 
 The letter is beautifully written in a minute handwriting, 
 and, notwithstanding its great length, covers only the usual 
 four pages of a sheet of notepaper. 
 
 The " payments," of which it gives so hard, full, and careful 
 an account, passed often by post, and the letters acknow- 
 ledging them are always pleasant, though they contain 
 hardly anything of those outpourings of the "spirit" that 
 are to be found in what Blake used to write, even to Hayley, 
 at times. That of November 18, 1825, referred to in Mr. 
 Linnell's letter, is as follows : 
 
'JOB' AND LINNELL 413 
 
 Dear Sir— [Until the year before Ma death Blake addressed LinneU 
 as Dear Sir ]— I have done, I believe, nearly aU we agreed on. And 
 it you should put on your considering cap, as you did last time we met, 
 I have no doubt that the plates would be all the better for it. [This 
 is evidence that retouchings m consultation had been going on since 
 the date on the plates of March 8, 1825.] I cannot get well, and am 
 now m bed, but seem as if I should get better to-morrow. Eest 
 does me good. Pray take care of your health this wet weather; and 
 though I write, do not venture out on such days as to-day has been. 
 I hope a few more days will bring us to a conclusion. 
 
 J. LinneU himself was a good engraver, and had engraved 
 plates in collaboration with Blake. With regard to the 
 house "in Circuit Place," referred to in the letter of J. 
 Linnell's eldest son, can it have been in Cirencester Place ? 
 
 Blake wrote one letter to Mrs. LinneU at CoUins's Farm, 
 North End, Hampstead, describing a scene in which he, who 
 had once undergone a trial, actuaUy describes an imprison- 
 ment, though for a short term : 
 
 Dear Madam — I have had the pleasure to see Mr. LinneU set off 
 safe in a very comfortable coach. And I may say I accompanied him 
 part of the way on his journey in the coach. For we both got in, 
 together with another passenger, and entered into conversation when 
 at length we found that we were all three proceeding on our journey. 
 But as I had not paid, and did not wish to pay for, or take so long a 
 ride, we with some difficulty made the coachman understand that one 
 of his passengers was unwilling to go, when he obligingly permitted 
 me to get out, to my great joy. 
 
 This is the second time that Blake has set his persuasive 
 tongue to change the intentions of a man accustomed to 
 govern horses, and has succeeded. He must have remembered 
 Astley and Poland Street. 
 
 It was at the house of Mr. Aders, a buyer of pictures, to 
 whom LinneU had introduced Blake, that, in 1825, Blake 
 met Mr. Crabb Eobinson, who afterwards called on him 
 several times, and wrote of him at some length in his jour- 
 nals (quoted by Gilchrist) and in his reminiscences, condensing 
 his journals, and yet — unless Gilchrist makes misleading 
 omissions — ^p,dding a sentence or two. These reminiscences 
 are complete in the memoir to the Quaritch edition. His 
 personal description of Blake at this time is : ; 
 
 He had a broad pale face, a large full eye, and a benignant expression, 
 at the same time a look of languor, except when excited, and then he 
 had an air of inspiration, but not such as, without previous acquaint- 
 ance with him or attending to what he said, would suggest the notion 
 that he was insane. 
 
414 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 Mr. Eobinson's opinion was that Blake, nevertheless, was 
 insane, a victim of monomania (on the subject of art, evi- 
 dently) ; and Gilchrist says that Mr. Eobinson was the only- 
 one who thought so of all whom he had met that knew 
 Blake. 
 
 The reason is obvious. Of Blake's friends Mr. Eobinson 
 had most general education, without having enough imagina- 
 tion to judge Blake. Yet he thought that he could judge and 
 understand any sane person, and that if Blake were really 
 sane, he must be able to understand him. Yet he knew 
 nothing of symbolism, and nothing of Swedenborg. The 
 other people consulted by Gilchrist were simpler folk, and 
 admitted that it did not at all follow that Blake, who 
 seemed sane, was mad merely because they could not always 
 understand what he was saying. When their knowledge of 
 books fails to be enough to prepare their judgments, well- 
 educated men are dangerous. 
 
 Of Mrs. Blake's appearance Crabb Eobinson says : 
 
 Notwithstanding her dress, which was poor and dirty, she had a 
 good expression in her countenance, and, with a dark eye, remains of 
 beauty from her youth. 
 
 She always spoke of, and to, her husband as " Mr. Blake." 
 
CHAPTER. XXXV 
 
 BLAKE AND WORDSWORTH'S IMAGINATION 
 
 In the conversations remembered by Crabb Eobinson, there 
 are notes of a good deal besides what has abeady been re- 
 ferred to. Most of this is about Wordsworth, who had not 
 then been put away on an upper shelf because room was 
 wanted for Tennyson, Swinburne, and Browning ; nor were 
 men's ears rendered impatient of his wearying manner by 
 the fascination of Keats and the tragic sweetness of Shelley, 
 nor was the book-case filling up as now with the gradually 
 increasing editions of Blake himself. 
 
 Crabb Robinson did not suspect, when he wrote his jour- 
 nals, that when his interview had ceased to be of value as 
 explaining Blake or illuminating Wordsworth, it would still 
 be worth reading to smile over. Least of all did he foresee 
 that the smile would be at himself: 
 
 On the 24tli December I called a second time on him. On this 
 occasion it was that I read to him Wordsworth's Ode on the supposed 
 pre-existent state [he means pre-natal, of course], Intimations of Immor- 
 taUty. The subject of Wordsworth's religious character was discussed 
 when we met on 18th February and 12th May (this is all 1826). I will 
 here bring together^Blake's declarations regarding Wordsworth. I had 
 been in the habit, when reading this marvellous Ode to friends, of 
 omitting one or two passages, especially that — 
 
 But there's a tree of many a one, 
 A single field which I have looked upon, 
 • Both of them speak of something that has gone : 
 
 The pansy at my feet 
 
 Doth the same tale repeat : 
 Whither is fled the visionary gleam ? 
 Where is it now, the glory and the dream ? 
 
 lest I should be rendered ridiculous, being unable to explain precisely 
 what I advised. Not that I acknowledged this to be a fair test. But 
 with Blake I could fear nothing of the kind. And it was this very 
 stanza which threw him almost into an hysterical rapture. His delight 
 in Wordsworth's poetry was intense. Nor did it seem less notwithstand- 
 
 415 
 
416 THE KEAL BLAKE 
 
 ing tlie reproaches he continually cast on Ms worship of Nature, which 
 in the mind of Blake constituted Atheism. The combination of the 
 warmest praise, with imputations which, from another, would assume 
 the most serious character, and the liberty he took to interpret as he 
 pleased, rendered it as difficult to be offended as to reason with him. 
 The eloquent descriptions of nature in Wordsworth's poems were con- 
 clusive proofs of Atheism. " For whoever believes in Nature," said 
 Mr. B., " disbelieves in God, for Nature is the work of the DeviL" On 
 my obtaining from him the declaration that the Bible was the Word 
 of God, I referred him to Genesis : " In the beginning God created 
 the heavens and the earth." But I gained nothing by this, for I was 
 triumphantly told that this God was not Jehovah, but the Elohim ; 
 and the doctrine of the Gnostics was repeated with sufficient con- 
 sistency to silence one so unlearned as myself The Preface to The 
 Excursion, especially the verses quoted from Book I of The Recluse, so 
 troubled him as to bring on a fit of illness. Those lines he singled 
 out: 
 
 Jehovah, with His thunder and the choir 
 Of shouting angels, and the empyreal throne, 
 I pass them unalarmed. 
 
 " Does Mr. "W. think he can surpass Jehovah 1 " There was a copy of 
 the whole passage in the copy of Wordsworth's poems returned to my 
 chambers after his death. There was this note at the end. " Solomon, 
 when he married Pharaoh's daughter and became a convert to the 
 heathen mythology, talked exactly in this way of Jehovah, as a very 
 inferior object of man's contemplations. He also passed him ' un- 
 alarmed,' and was permitted. Jehovah dropped a tear, and followed 
 him by his Spirit into the abstract void. It is called the Divine 
 Mercy. Sarah dwells in it, but mercy does not dwell in him." Some 
 of the poems he maintained were from the Holy Ghost and some from 
 the Devil. I lent him the 8vo edition (1815), in two volumes, of Words- 
 worth's poems, which he had in his possession at the time of his death. 
 They were returned to me then. I did not recognise the pencil notes 
 he had made in them to be his for some time, and was on the point 
 of rubbing them out when I made the discovery, and they were 
 preserved. 
 
 To Crabb Eobinson the word Mercy did not recall, as it 
 does to us, other passages of Blake, such as — 
 
 We were placed here by the Universal Brotherhood and Mercy, 
 With powers fitted to circumscribe this dark satanic death, 
 
 Milton, page 22, lines 50, 51, 
 
 because he had looked on this " dark satanic death " as life, 
 and had never dreamed of asking himself what powers he 
 had over it, or how these were to " circumscribe it." He 
 did not know that outline is one symbol and indefiniteness 
 another, and that one is of life and the other of death. 
 Nor had he read another and more obvious passage in 
 Milton that connects this world of the visions of Time and 
 Space with Mercy : 
 
BLAKE AND WOEDSWOETH 417 
 
 Time is the Mercy of Eternity. Without Time's swiftaess, 
 Which is the swiftest of all things, all were eternal torment, 
 
 Page 23, lines 73 and 74, 
 
 any more than he knew of the imitation of Nature's images 
 drawn from remembrance, which is Generation, symbohcally 
 the " sixfold Miltonic female " — 
 
 Void outside of Existence, which when entered into 
 Becomes a womb. Page 43, last line, 
 
 that it is the literal reading of nature and Scripture that 
 is dipped now in blood and now in sleep, and is the origin 
 of war and lassitude, the alternate evils of this evil world, 
 the spectre and emanation of its senses, the severity and the 
 lethargy — its division and delusion day and night ! 
 
 Gilchrist gives a word or two from those notes that Crabb 
 Eobinson so nearly rubbed out of his Wordsworth. (How the 
 present writer would thank the owner of the volumes if he 
 would tell him, through the publishers, what the rest are !) 
 
 In the preface to that edition we are told that the powers 
 requisite for the production of poetry are first those of 
 observation and description. 
 
 Blake, passing over the obvious fact that the author only 
 required to substitute the word prose for poetry and there 
 would be no quarrel with his remark, gives this note: 
 "One power alone makes a poet — Imagination, the Divine 
 Vision," which shows us how sublimely unconscious he was 
 of his own gift of melodious language, and how little the 
 divine vision did, except indirectly, for this equally necessary 
 half of a complete poetry. 
 
 On Wordsworth's line, " Bound each to each by natural 
 piety," he makes a note, but of course he cavils at this 
 usual and populp,r way of using the word natural, as 
 though Wordsworth could be expected to use it in his 
 deeply Swedenborgian manner. "There is no such thing 
 as natural piety, because the natural man is at enmity 
 with God." 
 
 This recalls his remark when seeing in the Gallery our full- 
 size copy of Leonardo da Vinci's Last Svpper that is now 
 slowly growing leathery in possession of the Eoyal Academy, 
 but is nevertheless even now more visible than the original. 
 He looked at the faces of the apostles and said, " Each of 
 them seems to have subdued the natural man." Has any 
 better remark been made about that picture? Those who 
 are disappointed with the face of the central figure should 
 
418 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 buy the photograph of Leonardo's original sketch for it, now 
 in the Milan Museum — the most truly religious face ever 
 drawn. It might be by a Gnostic. 
 
 On the fly-leaf, under the heading Poems referrvag to the 
 Period of Childhood, Blake writes — 
 
 I see in Wordsworth the natural man rising up against the spiritual 
 man continually, and then he is no poet but a heathen philosopher, at 
 enmity with all poetry or inspiration. 
 
 At the end of the poem To H. C. Six Years Old, he 
 exclaims — 
 
 This is all in the highest degree imaginative and equal to any poet, 
 but not superior. I cannot think that real poets have any competition. 
 None are greatest in the kingdom of heaven. It is so in poetry. 
 
 Against the heading On the Influence of Natural Ohjeds 
 he writes — 
 
 Natural objects always did, and now do, weaken, deaden, and 
 obliterate imagination in me. Wordsworth must know that what he 
 writes valuable is not to be found in nature. 
 
 Blake seems at times to forget that there are two moods, 
 each called Nature, and that if Scripture has its misleading 
 natural reading, Nature has its invaluable spiritual reading, 
 and that though an excess of contemplation of it may stupefy 
 our minds and render them unfit for this, so wiU an in- 
 sufficiency. Starvation will as surely make a man feeble 
 as plethora, and the mind is as the body. His own mind 
 is insufficiently nourished on the material side. Yet he 
 knew the Smaragdine table of Hermes, with its " As above ; 
 so below," for he alludes to it in Jerusalem. 
 
 Blake, in these Wordsworth notes, then calls on us to 
 read Michael Angelo's sonnet, vol. ii, p. 129, which as given 
 by Wordsworth is worth repeating : 
 
 No mortal object did these eyes behold 
 
 When first they met the placid light of thine ; 
 
 And my soul felt her destiny divine, 
 
 And hope of endless peace in me grew bold, 
 
 Heaven-bom, the soul a heavenward course must hold. 
 
 Beyond the visible world she strives to seek 
 
 (For what delights the sense is false and weak) 
 
 Ideal form, the universal mould. 
 
 The wise man, I affirm, can find no rest 
 
 In that which perishes, nor will he lend 
 
 His heart to aught which doth on Time depend. 
 
 'Tis sense, unbridled wiU, and not true love 
 
 That kills the souL Love betters what is best 
 
 Even here below, but more in heaven above. 
 
BLAKE AND WOEDSWOETH 419 
 
 As an expression of spiritual experience this is in fact 
 pure Blake in every line, and justifies Blake's instinctive 
 delight in Michael Angelo, the man as well as the artist, 
 from his first years. Michael Angelo was (hke Socrates) " a 
 sort of brother." 
 
 Of "Wordsworth's prefaces Blake writes — 
 
 I do not tnow who wrote these prefaces. They are very mis- 
 chievous, and direct contrary to Wordsworth's own practice. 
 
 And again, p. 341 — 
 
 This is not the defence of his own "style in opposition to what is 
 called poetic diction, but a sort of historic vindication of the un- 
 popular poets. 
 
 And at the end of the Supplementary Essay — 
 
 It appears to me as if this last paragraph beginning with " It is 
 the result of the whole that in the opinion of the writer the judgment 
 of the people is not to be respected, was writ by another hand and 
 mind from the rest of these prefaces. Imagination is the divine 
 vision, not of the world, nor of man, nor from, man as he is a natural 
 man. Imagination has nothing to do with memory. 
 
 Gilchrist gives no more of these. His printing is 
 followed here. Blake probably used many capital letters 
 that he has omitted. 
 
 Among the lost books of Blake besides the French 
 Bevolution, Oothoon, Titian, the Book of Moonlight, and 
 Barry, a poem, is one that he was doing at this time that, 
 of course, fell a victim soon after to Tatham's Irvingite 
 odium theologicum. 
 
 Crabb Eobinson records after the record quoted in an 
 earUer chapter : 
 
 I inc[uired about his own writings. " I have written," he answered, 
 " more than Rousseau or Voltaire. Six or seven epic poems as long as 
 Homer's, and twenty tragedies as long as Macbeth." 
 
 He showed me his version of Genesis, for so it may be called as 
 understood by a Christian Visionary. He read a wild passage in a 
 sort of Biblical style. "I shall print no more," he said. "When I 
 am commanded by the spirits then I write, and the moment I have 
 written I see the words fly about the room in all directions. It is 
 then published. The spirits can read, and my MS. is of no further use. 
 I have been tempted to burn my MSS., but my wife won't let me." 
 
 He incidentally denied causation, everjthing being the work of God 
 or DeviL "Every man has a devil in himself, and the conflict 
 between this Self and God perpetually going on." 
 
 On another day he said, " Men are born with an Angel or Devil." 
 
420 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 Blake has gone beyond that wish of the Lavater period to 
 have a man's "leading propensity" called his angel. The 
 Blake of the time before he " subdued the Spectrous Eiend " 
 (after the visit to the Truchsessian Gallery) was not the 
 same Blake as the one we are hearing now. 
 
 "This" (the angel and the devil) "he himself inter- 
 preted as soul and body. He spoke of the Old Testament 
 as if it were the evil element. ' Christ took much after his 
 mother ' (the Law)." (These two words, found in the Crabb 
 Eobinson reminiscences, do not appear in Gilchrist's extracts 
 from his journals. But we already know Gilchrist's method 
 of unconfessed omissions. ' He did not add this time " his 
 mother.") " He digressed into a condemnation of those who 
 sit in judgment on others. ' I have never known a very 
 bad man who had not something good about him.' " 
 
 This was on the same day when Crabb Eobiuson told 
 Blake of the death of Flaxman, curious to see how he would 
 take it. " He said — with a smile — ' I thought I should have 
 gone first.' " 
 
 In one of the last letters written by Blake he speaks, 
 almost in the same words, but with an addition that lights 
 up all his work for us : 
 
 Flaxman is gone, and we must soon follow, every one to his own 
 eternal home, leaving the delusions of the goddess Nature and her 
 laws, to get into freedom from all the laws of the Numbers, into the 
 Mind, in which every one is King and Priest in his own house. God 
 grant it on earth as it is in heaven. 
 
 We know what " law " was " Christ's mother " now. The 
 last sentence reveals Blake's own meaning when he prayed 
 the Lord's Prayer, and we are cured of that horrible illness 
 we went through in reading his laborious paraphrase of 
 Dr. Thornton's meaning. 
 
 In the margin of a copy of Cennini's book on fresco painting 
 that Linnell lent to Blake we read — 
 
 The Pope supposes Nature and the Virgin Mary to be the same 
 allegorical personages, but the Protestant considers Nature as incapable 
 of bearing a child. 
 
 Has the Pope enough habit of mystic thought to go even 
 so far as to make this mistake ? Did any " Protestant " 
 (between the fifth and the eighteenth centuries) know 
 enough to set him right ? 
 
 To avoid danger of confusion from the apparent incon- 
 sistencies between Blake's different utterances, it is neces- 
 
BLAKE AND WORDSWOETH 421 
 
 sary to remember that most of the interpretation and 
 explanation that we can collect from his works and his 
 reported speeches has reached us from the two opposite 
 periods of his active life. The first period is represented 
 by the Marriage of Heaven and Hell, with the "Devil" 
 triumphantly quoted, and " Hell" as a place where are to be 
 had the "enjoyments of genius." It begins to change at 
 once from the time when he divided the nature of man 
 under four powers, and the states of these powers under 
 Wrath and Pity, neither of which was good when dominant. 
 The struggle in his mind came to its climax after the visit 
 to the Truchsessian Gallery, when he finally seems to have 
 made up his mind against anything but a complete yielding 
 of the whole mental nature to a passive acceptance of 
 inspiration, protected by a watchfulness against aU impulses 
 that arise from self-interest or from reason. 
 
 Quakers and Quietists had long ago aimed at the same 
 perception of the value of mental calm. So had Sweden- 
 borg and Boehme. Blake describes "self-annihilation" as 
 " inward complacency of soul," and it is evidently the same 
 experience known in the Benediction of the Church of 
 England as "the peace of God that passeth aU under- 
 standing." Its mystic value is limited in the second part 
 of that benediction, where peace is invoked to keep us in 
 knowledge. 
 
 The difiference between Blake and other inspirationists 
 was that he did not seek Nirvana — which is, in this world, 
 quietism — merely as a means of a knowledge of God, 
 but as necessary to the one form of mental activity that he 
 considered as Godlike : imaginative art, the life of the 
 poetic genius, that comes to us by what Swedenborg calls 
 influx during the absence of our personal will. 
 
 Inevitably this led him to a firm rejection of the doctrine 
 of the Atonement as it is usually explained. Those who 
 think carefully are already inclined to perceive that, like 
 the Mosaic law, it was given to us " for the hardness of our 
 hearts," and t^iat it will soon be time for us all to pass it by. 
 Blake, who was enthusiastically tender-hearted, would not 
 endure it. " It kills Mercy in the victim " was his view. 
 As for the justice of God being satisfied by it, and therefore 
 it being necessary, he simply would not hear of this. God's 
 "justice," in our human sense of the word, is too plainly 
 a figment. " To be an error and to be cast out is part of 
 God's plan." " Some are born to endless night ; it is right 
 
422 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 it should be so." He accepted the Calvinistic view of 
 predestination. Like the author of the Book of Job, 
 he considered that among the infinite attributes of the 
 Almighty was an infinite and ultimate immunity from 
 all criticism by us, or all explanation by us, in which our 
 ideas of Justice have any share whatsoever. They only 
 exist to give us material for forming an idea of the meaning 
 of the words Mercy and Forgiveness that are God's active 
 self. Such was Blake's repeated view, to be found differently 
 worded over and over again. One principle of thought his 
 miad appeared to lack entirely, however dominant it may 
 be in ours. We consider that no statement can both 
 express truth and contradict truth. He does not. 
 
 When he says, " There is a place beneath the bottom of 
 the graves, which is earth's central joint, where contraries 
 are equally true," he gives what he intends to be the 
 philosophic basis of inconsistency, difficult to express con- 
 sistently, of course, but meaning, in Blake, something like 
 this — "The peace between inconsistencies in ultimate thought 
 is the sign that we have reached a mental place where con- 
 tradiction is of no further use to us, for it exists only for 
 progression, and does not serve where this cannot be. The 
 contradiction of the sexes, its symbol, is equally without 
 contest in the part of the organism where what even will do 
 equally for both is preserved and propagated. Friendship, 
 Sympathy, Humanity, Imagination, Heaven, and God are 
 free from argument and from sex." 
 
 Into this peacefully luminous state of life Blake now 
 passed at Fountain Court, Strand, and from it he no longer 
 went out to " jostle in the street." He had really " found 
 the word golden," as he notes in his MS. book when it first 
 came to him as a sign of the change- on May 2, 1810, and 
 he put it into Jerusalem at once with the httle quatrain — 
 
 I give you tlie end of a golden string, 
 
 Only wind it into a ball ; 
 It will lead you in at heaven's gate, 
 
 Built in Jerusalem's wall 
 
 He had been writing it for some years now, at first with 
 struggle, but now with peace. He was very near the gate. 
 
 The little peep of the river from Blake's back window 
 was so treated by him when he showed it that every one 
 felt a child-like fairy-tale fascination in it. "That divine 
 window ! " says one friend. As for the little room, " There 
 
BLAKE AND WOEDSWOKTH 423 
 
 was no misery in Blake's rooms for men who love art, a 
 good table " (well done, Mrs. Blake !), " and warmth. I 
 never look upon him as an unfortunate man of genius. He 
 knew every great man of his day, and had enough." Palmer 
 says : " Himself, his wife, and his rooms were clean and 
 orderly; everything was in its place. His delightful 
 working corner had its implements ready, tempting to the 
 hand." 
 
 If we wish to know what Blake's hands were like we 
 must look at those in the Joh engravings, full and flexible, 
 with finger tips not too stiff with the finger, and wrists that 
 would bend back at a right angle in times of surprise or 
 horror. For description from life we have only Mrs. Blake's 
 one sentence about those hands in which she tells that she 
 " never saw them idle." 
 
 " The millionaire's upholsterer," breaks out Pahner again, 
 " can furnish no enrichments like those of Blake's enchanted 
 rooms." 
 
 They were approached by a fine Queen Anne staircase 
 with thick balustrade. The front window looked into 
 Fountain Court. Neither had the noise or distraction of the 
 Strand below it. This front room was the drawing-room. 
 The one behind was bedroom, dining-room, studio, and 
 kitchen. 
 
 Here he was hving when he made to a little child that 
 memorable speech, " My child, may God make this world to 
 you as beautiful as it has been to me"; and this of Sir 
 Thomas Lawrence and others of the great men of his day : 
 " They pity me, but 'tis they are the just objects of pity. I 
 possess my visions and peace. They have bartered their 
 birthright for a mess of potage." It must be remembered 
 that the " potage," in the form of a post in the Eoyal Family as 
 drawing-master, had been offered to Blake in his day. He 
 had chosen the visions, and at last he had attained to 
 peace. 
 
 The esteem in which John Linnell held Blake, and his 
 complete freedom from all feelings of a patron in regard to 
 him, is shown in his proposal to christen his second son 
 William. Blake himself expostulated. " The name of the 
 child ought to be Thomas, after Mr. Linnell's father," he 
 wrote ; " it will be brutal, not to say worse, in my opinion 
 and on my part. Pray consider it, if it is not too late. 
 It troubles me very much as a crime in which I shall be a 
 principal." 
 
424 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 The child was, after discussion, christened James. He is 
 still living, and has made the only coloured copies of any 
 of Blake's designs that are good enough to be mistaken for 
 originals. Besides his own original work, he has produced 
 one of the best small copies of Leonardo's Last Supper in 
 existence. The present writer owes much to his hospitality 
 and sympathy while making some supplementary study of the 
 MS. of Vala in his house this year (1904). The first copy of 
 it prepared for the Quaritch edition in 1891-92 was found to 
 contain inaccuracies and lost lines, and this having been 
 pointed out by Mr. Fleay, the MS. was revised for the edition 
 now issued by Chatto and Windus. The first copy of it and 
 the sorting of the pages were done in collaboration with Mr. 
 Yeats at the house of William, the youngest of the Linnell 
 brothers, who has produced work of which specimens will be 
 in our National Gallery one day. Blake's name is in the 
 family, therefore Mr. WUliam Linnell remembers being put 
 on Blake's knee at two years old, but smilingly disclaims 
 having any further knowledge of him. 
 
 Blake himself carried the quiet sorrow of the childless 
 man throughout his life, and Samuel Palmer says : " i yet 
 recall (his lips quivering with feeling) when, on one occasion, 
 dwelling on the exquisite beauty of the parable of the 
 Prodigal, he began to repeat a part of it, but at the words, 
 ' when he was yet a great way off his father saw him,' could 
 go no further. His voice faltered and he was in tears." 
 
 John Linnell and Cumberland and Palmer were, with 
 Varley and Calvert, Blake's best friends in his latter years. 
 He was quite without enemies. " Cosway, Eraser, and 
 Baldwin of Egypt's lake " are no more heard of. 
 
 In the Serewmuch lines he alludes to " poor Schiavonetti " 
 who " died of the Cromek." Cromek himself soon followed. 
 Hay ley, his would-be kind "adversary," had remarried. 
 FuseU should be counted amongst the friends, perhaps. He 
 Uved, it is true, till 1825, but latterly in retirement, and 
 almost in mental torpor, though, as he said, "now and then 
 a wave of imagination rises and breaks at my feet." Of the 
 value of Tatham as a companion to Blake we can only con- 
 jecture, knowing that his sympathy, if Blake supposed him 
 to have any, was illusory, and hoping that it formed 
 a pleasant illusion. John Linnell was, in religion, also 
 conscious that he did not agree with Blake. To have clear 
 and serious, if unobtrusive, ideas on religion runs in the 
 Linnell family. Yet he stood up for him while he disagreed. 
 
BLAKE AND WORDSWOETH 425 
 
 "Often," he wrote, "Blake said things in order to puzzle 
 and provoke those who teased him in order to bring out his 
 strongest peculiarities. With the froward he showed himself 
 froward, but with the gentle he was as amiable as a child. 
 His eccentricities have been enlarged upon beyond the truth. 
 He was so far from being so absurd in his opinions or so 
 nearly mad as has been represented that he always de- 
 fended Christian truth against the attacks of infidels and 
 its abuse by the superstitious. ... It must be confessed that 
 he uttered occasionally sentiments sadly at variance with 
 sound doctrine." 
 
 Crabb Eobinson has recorded some of these " sentiments," 
 and they are reaUy, when examined, as much at variance 
 with Blake's own sound heart as with Linnell's "sound 
 doctrine," but he was an Antinomian in theory, and tried to 
 be one consistently. 
 
 He did not succeed exactly, for his blood getting the 
 better of his theology, he announced that Ggd (since Jesus 
 had become God) was always forgiving sins, and that there 
 were no sins. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVl 
 
 SAMUEL PALMER 
 
 Samuel Palmer recalls of Blake in his old age that 
 
 He was energy itself, and shed around him a kindling influence, an 
 atmosphere of life, full of the ideal. To walk with him in the country 
 was to perceive the soul of beauty through the forms of matter, and 
 the high, gloomy buildings between which, from his study window, a 
 glimpse was caught of the Thames and the Surrey shore opposite 
 assumed a kind of grandeur from the man dwelling near them. Those 
 may laugh at this who did not know such an one as Blake, but of him 
 it is the simple truth. He was a man without a mask, his aim single, 
 his path straightforward, his wants few, so he was free, noble, and 
 happy. His voice and manner were quiet, yet all awake with 
 intellect. Above the tricks of littleness or the least taiut of affectation, 
 with a natural dignity which few would have dared to affront, he was 
 gentle and affectionate, loving to be with little children and to talk 
 about them. " That is heaven," he said to a friend, leading him to a 
 window and pointing to a group of them at play. . . . I can never forget 
 the evening when Mr. Linnell took me to Blake's house, nor the quiet 
 hours passed with him in the examination of antique gims, choice 
 pictures, and Italian prints of the sixteenth century. Those who may 
 have read some strange passages in his catalogue, written in irritation 
 and probably in haste, will be surprised to hear that in conversation 
 he was anything but sectarian or exclusive, finding sources of delight 
 along the whole range of art, while as a critic he was judicious and 
 discriminating. 
 
 Samuel Palmer is writing of the time aft&r the subduing 
 of the " Spectrous Fiend," that Blake too hopefully had 
 believed had been quite accomplished by his visit to the 
 Truchsessian Gallery, was really a fact. 
 
 He thought — with Fuseli and Plaxman (or perhaps he assented 
 when reminded that Fuseli and Flaxman thought) — the Elgin Theseus, 
 however full of antiqvie savour, could not as ideal form, rank with 
 the very finest relics of antiquity. He fervently loved the early 
 Christian art, and dwelt with peculiar affection on the memory of 
 Pra Angelico, often speaking of him as an inspired inventor and as a 
 saint, but when he approached Michel Angelo, the Last Supper of Da 
 
 426 
 
SAMUEL PALMEE 427 
 
 Vinci or the Torso Belvidere, and some of the inventions preserved in 
 theAntique Gems, all his powers were concentrated in admiration. . . . 
 _ He was fond of the works of St Theresa, and often quoted them 
 with other writers on the interior life. Among his eccentricities will, no 
 doubt, be remembered his preference for ecclesiastical government. He 
 used to ask how it was that we heard so much of priestcraft, and so 
 little of soldier-craft and lawyer-craft. 
 
 It is to be regretted that he did not open a stall on the 
 threshold of the Vatican for the sale of an Italian translation, 
 dedicated to the Pope, of his Marriage of Heaven and Hell 
 and First Book of Urizen. 
 
 The Bible,ihe said, was the book of Liberty, and Christianity the 
 regeneration of nations. 
 
 In politics a Platonist, he put no trust in Demagogues. His 
 ideal home was with Fra Angelico ; a little later he might have been 
 a reformer, but after the fashion of Savonarola. 
 
 (Samuel Palmer here reveals a dream like state of 
 illusion based on infantile misconception worthy of Blake 
 himself, whose books would never have reached Fra Angelico's 
 home, and would have been burned in the market-place by- 
 Savonarola.) 
 
 Samuel Palmer's account goes on : 
 
 He loved to speak of the years spent by Michel Angelo, without 
 earthly reward and solely for the love of God, in building St. Peter's 
 (he evidently never read Michel Angelo's letter saying that but for the 
 necessity of keeping his father supplied with money he would give up 
 art). ... I asked him how he womd like to paint on glass for the great 
 west window (of Westminster Abbey) his Sons of God shouting for Joy, 
 from the designs to Job. He said, after a pause, "I could do it," 
 kindling at the thought. 
 
 (Ought it not to be done ? We have his pictures, we 
 have processes of enlargement, we have the technique of 
 translation into glass. Where is the Blake Society ? Where 
 is the necessary Dean ? Where are the subscriptions ?) 
 
 He made a copy of a picture of Giulio Eomano's ; it hung 
 in his room near Durer's Melencolia. 
 
 There are living a few artists, then boys, who may remember the 
 smile of welcome with which he used to rise to receive them. 
 
 After mentioning Wordsworth's pleasure in his Songs of 
 Innocence, and Flaxman's general admiration of his poems, 
 Palmer goes on in this priceless letter : 
 
 To the multitude they (his poems) were unintelligible. In many 
 parts full of pastoral sweetness, and often flashing with noble thoughts 
 
428 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 or terrible imagery, we must regret that he should sometimes have 
 suffered fancy to trespass within sacred precincts. 
 
 The italics are ours. They point out the real tragedy of 
 Blake's life — its isolation. Samuel Palmer is quite un- 
 conscious that he understood just as little of Blake's poems 
 as the multitude to whom they were unintelligible, and 
 John Linnell, with his vague remark about " sound doctrine," 
 certainly understood no more. Had there been one man 
 who knew what Blake meant, he could have read the Prodigal 
 Son without a tear. Se was alone. 
 
 But Samuel Palmer was not at all foolish or shallow. 
 His next words are full of good sense of a kind. 
 
 Thrown partly among the authors who resorted to Johnson the 
 bookseller, he rebuked the profanity of Paine, and wa.s no disciple of 
 Priestley, but, too undisciplined, and cast upon times that yielded him 
 neither guidance nor sympathy, he wanted that balance of faculties 
 that miglit have assisted him in matters extraneous to his profession. 
 He saw everything through art, and in matters beyond its range 
 exalted it from a witness into a judge. 
 
 Yet Samuel Palmer must have often heard from Blake 
 that ultimate maxim carved on the Laocoon plate — 
 
 The whole business of man is : the Arts, and all things in common. 
 
 In considering this view, if we are to find any religion at 
 all in it, we must in fairness to Blake remember that almost 
 every one who interprets the Bible does so by building aU his 
 ideas on something that he thinks God must have meant. We 
 have the Latin Church in Europe now that says, " Since God 
 cannot have meant to mock man by leaving an incompre- 
 hensible Scripture that could not be understood when read 
 privately, therefore He must have left an interpreter, and we 
 are that interpreter." It is true that outsiders view the 
 interpretation with hair on end, whether they are consider- 
 ing its fitfulness, its insufficiency, or its policy. 
 
 Swedenborg, in the same " GoA-must " spirit, said, " Since 
 the Bible is the Word of God, it miist be about the Lord, and 
 the degrading and ridiculous story of Abraham, for example, 
 must be a sacred symbol from which to learn the Divine life," 
 — and he learns it. 
 
 The Scots " Minister " says, " Since the group of southern 
 ecclesiastics that pretends to the interpretation of Scripture 
 was a scandal to Europe for centuries, God must have meant 
 7ne to understand it without such help, — and I do." 
 
SAMUEL PALMEE 429 
 
 Blake, in the same spirit, said, " Since all is Mind, and 
 Brotherhood is the Divine purpose in man, the only form of 
 Mind free from covet, aloof from argument, and resting on 
 vision supplied straight from God Himself, must be the true 
 religion, and that is Art." 
 
 Samuel Palmer, after recording, as others have done, Blake's 
 boyish pleasure in upsetting the dignity of people who tortured 
 him with matter-of-fact unappreciativeness, concludes : 
 
 Such was Blake as I remember him. He was one of the few to be 
 met with in our passage through life who are not in some way "double- 
 minded" and inconsistent with themselves, one of the very few who 
 cannot be depressed by neglect, and to whose name rank and station 
 could add no lustre. Moving apart in a sphere above the attraction 
 of worldly honours, he did not accept greatness, but conferred it. He 
 ennobled poverty, and by his conversation and the influence of his 
 genius made two small rooms in Fountain Court more attractive than 
 the threshold of princes. 
 
 With this peroration Palmer is silent, though on general 
 grounds we must regret that he did not tell us why he 
 thought the threshold of princes was attractive. 
 
 On June 13, 1826, Crabb Eobinson records : 
 
 ' I saw him again. He was as wild as ever, says my journal, but he 
 was led to-day to make assertions more palpably mischievous, if capable 
 of influencing other minds, and immoral, supposing them to express the 
 will of a responsible agent, than anything he had said before. 
 
 This is probable from a man who did not wear a mask, 
 and who thought morality wrong, notwithstanding that he 
 thought nothing wrong, yet who did not quite think that 
 morality was nothing. (It was the state in which we are 
 willing to sacrifice our brother to our censoriousness.) 
 
 If we wish an absolutely complete view of Blake's system 
 on its moral and religious side, as well as its practical or 
 social side, we need add ouly a few words to his formula. 
 After, The whole business of man is the Arts and all things in 
 common, the addition might take some such words as these. 
 The whole virtue of man is productiveness and sympathy. 
 The whole hope of man is imagination and union. But we 
 must understand that the phrases are to be used in their best 
 sense. Productiveness is to imply conscientious worship of 
 beauty, sympathy is to imply disinterestedness and pity; 
 imagination is to include vision and inspiration, and union 
 must be taken to develop into an eternal merging of all 
 men in One Man, the only Immortal. 
 
CHAPTEK XXXVII 
 
 LAST FEIENDS AND LAST HOURS 
 
 But Blake's whole business in life was now nearly over. The 
 constant strain of his nervous system from drawing out of 
 his own head, and from feeling emotions of love, hatred, 
 admiration, and even desire for the visions that his head 
 presented to him, just as we feel in sleep personal feelings 
 about the beings of our dreams, was now to have its revenge 
 upon him. 
 
 He even thought that these things were no tax on him, 
 no source of "dissipation," but just the contrary, being 
 mercifully given in the dull world, where, as he says. 
 
 The Angel who presided at my birth 
 
 Said, Little creature formed for joy and mirth, 
 
 Go, love without the help of anything on earth, 
 
 and that they were divinely sent to repose his burning 
 thirst and freezing hunger {Milton, p. 3, line 4). Doctors 
 tell us that a man has two great nervous centres, that of 
 the brain and spine, and that of, or at least near, the stomach. 
 One or the other must now break down. Both had been 
 overstrained for years. Old age had come with its reckoning. 
 If Blake had not been the sanest of men, the nerves more 
 closely connected with the brain (the cerebro-spinal system, 
 as they are called) would have been wrecked, and he would 
 have become a dangerous madman. As it was, the apparatus 
 that enables digestion to keep the blood alive was the portion 
 of his physique whose coherence began to be lost. Deathly 
 chill, and symptoms resembling the sort of cholera that is 
 said to be produced by fear in otherwise healthy subjects, 
 began to come at intervals to this fearless man. "Warmth 
 and rest would drive the attack away. The keen air of 
 Hampstead, where he lived for a while in his last years, or a 
 
 430 
 
LAST FRIENDS AND LAST HOUES 431 
 
 mental excitement such as he felt over Wordsworth's bom- 
 bastic verse about '^passing Jehovah and his choir unalarmed " 
 would bring it on again. Between the attacks Blake would 
 cast off depression and be full of hope and work as ever. 
 Mr. LinneU. invited him to Hampstead, and was full of 
 kindness and sympathy. These alternations of hope and 
 despair went on for a year and a half. Blake's letters always 
 show consideration for his friends, and he even gently rebukes 
 Linnell for his solicitude when writing to congratulate him 
 on the birth of "another fine boy" (now William, Blake's 
 namesake, if not technically his godson) ; he says — 
 
 I go on just as if perfectly well, except during those paroxysms 
 whicli I now believe will nevermore return. Pray let your own health 
 and convenience put all solicitude concerning me at rest. You have a 
 family ; I have none. There is no comparison between our necessary 
 avocations. 
 
 This is in July 1826. The year following he died. 
 
 At Collins's farm, Hampstead, where he visited the Linnells, 
 Gilchrist found Mrs. Collins still remembering Blake as " that 
 most delightful gentleman." He could hardly be better 
 described, and when Westminster Abbey finds room for 
 his bust its title is already found. 
 
 Blake was not troubled with spiritual fears of any punish- 
 ment beyond the grave. On the contrary, one sentence of 
 his on this subject is left that might well be added as a 
 motto to the title for his bust that we owe to Mrs. Collins : 
 " Perhaps, and I verily believe it, every death is an improve- 
 ment in the state of the departed." So the dark cloud of 
 Calvinistic predestination had a silver lining to it. That 
 God would not take vengeance for sin, he had always believed, 
 and through the little side-gate of " Perhaps " his mind was 
 coming to understand that even folly might not exclude us 
 from heaven for ever. 
 
 Meantime he began designing nice, weU-lettered chapter- 
 headings for that Bible "as understood by a Christian mystic " 
 of which he read a few chapters (quite in vain) to poor Mr. 
 Crabb Eobinson. Their titles almost make up for .their loss 
 to readers of his existing works : — 
 
 Chap. I. The creation of the Natural Man. 
 
 Chap II. The Natural Man divided into male and female, and of 
 the Tree of Life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 
 
 Chap. III. Of sexual nature, and its fall into generation and death. 
 
 Chap IV. How generation and death took possession of the Natural 
 Man Of the Forgiveness of Sins written on the murderer's forehead, 
 
432 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 Here ends what the linnells possess. Blake probably did 
 not live to do any more. 
 
 A fragment in the MS. book seems to have belonged to 
 this. It is all crossed out with one long pencil stroke, as if 
 to note that it had been copied out elsewhere — perhaps among 
 the MSS. that Tatham thoughtfully destroyed after Blake's 
 death, lest they should do harm. 
 
 The Combat of Good and Evil is eating of the Tree of Knowledge. The 
 combat of Truth and Error is eating of the Tree of Life. These universal 
 and particular. Each are (sic) personified. There is not an error but 
 has a man for its agent ; that is, it is a man. There is not a truth but 
 it has also a man. Good and evil are qualities in every man, whether 
 a good or evil man. These are enemies, and destroy one another by 
 every means in their power, whether of deceit or open violence. The 
 Deist and the Christian are but the results of these opposing Natures. 
 Many are Deists who, under certain circumstances, would have been 
 Christians in outward appearance. Voltaire was one of this number. 
 He was as intolerant as an inquisitor. (Samuel Palmer seems not to 
 have seen this sentence when writing about Blake's views of ecclesiastical 
 government.) Manners make the man, not habits. It is the same in 
 art. " By their fruits ye shall know them." The knave who is con- 
 verted to Deism and the knave who is converted to Christianity is still 
 a knave. But he himself wiU not know it, though everybody else does. 
 Christ comes, as He did at first, to deliver those who are bound under 
 the knave, not to deliver the knave. He comes to deliver Man the 
 Accused, not Satan the Accuser. We do not fimd anywhere that Satan 
 is accused of Sin. He is accused of unbelief, and thereby of drawing 
 man into sin that he may accuse him. Such is the last judgment — a 
 deliverance from Satan's accusation. Satan thinks that sin is displeas- 
 ing to God. He ought to know that nothing is displeasing to God but 
 unbelief, and eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. 
 
 As we read this appalling statement we remember Blake's 
 use of the word is, and his statement to Crabb Eobinson, 
 " Jesus is the only God ;— and so am I, — and so are you," and 
 that the portion of the only God that was. Blake himself 
 was exceedingly conscientious in his own dealings and 
 scrupulously considerate, and ready to boil up into furious 
 rage at the least sight of cruelty or knavery, or even any 
 lack of thoughtfulness or of sympathy. 
 
 So ends that amazing cry of the heart — Blake's life. 
 Gilchrist has sought and recorded every little detail of the 
 kindness of his latest friends, and the modesty, courage, and 
 probity with which Blake worked for his living even while 
 dying, his last commission receiving extra care because so 
 much as three guineas and a half had been paid for it 
 " within a few days " of the end. 
 
 One letter, whose last sentences have been already quoted 
 
LAST FEIENDS AND LAST HOUES 433 
 
 in reference to the death of Flaxman, must be given here 
 complete, as only two later ones are known as written by 
 Blake before his death. They are short, and Gilchrist' has 
 already published them. This one is not in his Life, though 
 he gives a facsimile of the " little card " done for Cumberland 
 by Blake, and referred to here. This letter appears by the 
 reference to Jol to be an answer to one from Cumberland 
 referred to in Blake's letter to LinneH dated March 15— a 
 month earlier— printed by Gilchrist, in which he tells how 
 Cumberland has bought a copy of Job, and is trying to get 
 other people to do the same. 
 
 Dear Cumberland — I have been very near the gates of death, and 
 have returned, very weak and an Old Man, feeble and tottering, but not 
 in the Spirit and Life, not in the Real Man, the Imagination, which 
 Liveth for Ever. In that I am stronger and stronger as this Foolish 
 Body decays. I thank you for the Pains you have taken with poor Job. 
 I know too well that the great majority of Englishmen are fond of the 
 indefinite, which they measure by Newton's doctrine of the fluxions of 
 an atom,~a Thin^, that does not Exist. These are Politicians, and 
 think that EeJ)ublican Art is inimical to their Atom. For a Line or 
 Lineament is not formed by Chance ; a line is a line in its minutest 
 subdivisions. Straight or Crooked, It is Itself, and not Intermeasur- 
 ahle with, or by, any Thing Else. Such is Job. But since the French 
 Eevolution Englishmen are all Intermeasurable, One by Another, 
 certainly a happy state of Agreement, to which I for One do not 
 Agree. God keep me from the . . . (word illegible) of Yes and No too,, 
 the Yeay Nay Creeping Jestis, from supposing Up and Down to be 
 the same thing as aU Experimentalists must suppose. 
 
 You are desirous, I know, to dispose of some of my works and to make 
 them (?) Pleasing. I am obliged to you and to all who do so. But 
 having none remaining of all that I had Printed I cannot Print more, 
 Except at a great loss. For at the time I printed those things I had a 
 whole house to range in. Now I am shut up in a Corner, therefore I 
 am forced to ask a price for them that I scarce expect to get from a 
 stranger. I am now printing a set of the Songs of Innocence and 
 Eicperience for a Friend at 10 guineas, which I cannot do imder six 
 months consistent with my other work, so that I have little hope 
 of doing any more of such things. The Last Work is a poem entitled 
 "Jerusalem the Emanation of the Giant Albion," but find that to 
 print it will cost my time to the value of Twenty Guineas. One I 
 have finished. It contains 100 plates, but it is not likely that I shall 
 get a Customer for it. 
 
 As you. wish me to send you a list with the prices of these things, 
 they are as fijllows : — 
 
 America 
 
 Europe 
 
 Visions, etc. 
 
 Thel . 
 
 Songs of Inn. and Exp. 
 
 Urizen .... 
 
 2f 
 
 £6 6 
 
 
 
 6 6 
 
 
 
 5 5 
 
 
 
 3 3 
 
 
 
 10 10 
 
 
 
 6 6 
 
 
 
434 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 The little card I will do as soon as Possible, but when you Consider 
 that I have been reduced to a Skeleton, from which I am slowly 
 recovering, you will, I hope, have patience with me. 
 
 Flaxman is gone, and we must All soon follow, every one to his 
 Own Eternal House, Leaving the Delusive Goddess Nature to her 
 Laws, to get into Freedom from all Law of the Numbers, into the 
 Mind, in which every one is King and Priest in his own House. God 
 send it so on Earth as it is in Heaven. — I am, dear sir, yours affection- 
 ately, William Blake. 
 
 12 April 1827, No. 3 Fountain Court, Strand. 
 The letter is addressed — 
 
 George Cumberland, Esq., 
 Culver Street, 
 Bristol 
 
 In the next letter, a very short one, written to Linnell and 
 dated April 25, 1827, after giving thanks for ten pounds 
 received that day and for an introduction promised to Mr. 
 Ottley, who was likely to buy books or pictures, and assur- 
 ing Linnell that he is going on better every day " both in 
 health and in work," Blake says : 
 
 I go on without daring to count on futurity, which I cannot do 
 without doubt and fear that ruin activity, and are the greatest hurt to 
 an artist such as I am. As to UgoUno, etc., I never supposed I should 
 sell them. My wife is answerable for their having existed in any 
 finished state. I am too much attached to Dante to think much of any- 
 thing else. I have proved the six plates and reduced the fighting devils 
 ready for copper. I count myself sufficiently paid if I live as I now 
 do ; and only fear that I may be unlucky to my friends, and especially 
 that I may be so by you. 
 
 This allusion to his wife recalls how closely she had come 
 to live with him. She even once (at least) brought him a 
 spiritual message. It was in South Molton Street. On the 
 87th page of the MS. book is this note : 
 
 Sunday, August 1807. My wife was told by a spirit 
 
 Here the copy of the entry made by the present writer stops. 
 He cannot now remember whether the record continued. 
 Probably it broke off there. 
 
 The original book has gone back to America. These few 
 words, however, are enough to show that the wife had a 
 message, and that the husband cared to record that she had 
 one — things notable as far as they go, and showing that Mrs. 
 Blake was more than Blake's housekeeper, and more than 
 his "beloved." Even beyond domestic matters there was 
 give and take : 
 
LAST FEIENDS AND LAST HOUES 435 
 
 For many years (Smitli writes of Blake) he was in the habit of light- 
 ing the fire and putting on the kettle for breakfast before his Kate 
 awoke. Having never been a mother, to this devoted wife Blake was 
 at once husband, lover, and child. She would get up in the night, 
 when he was under his very fierce inspirations, which were as if they 
 would tear him asunder while he was yielding himself to the Muse, or 
 whatever else it could be called, sketching and writing, and so terrible 
 did this task seem to be that she had to sit motionless and silent only 
 to stay him mentally, without moving hand or foot, this for hours, night 
 after night. 
 
 The italics are ours. Tatham relates ia almost the same 
 words the value of her silent presence. Blake wanted to be 
 stayed nervously rather than mentally. He has recorded 
 the scene in Jeruscdem in few words, with no allusion to the 
 mental staying, which would, if it existed, have come into 
 the poem : 
 
 Trembling I sit, day and night, my friends are astonished at me. 
 Yet they forgive my wanderings. I rest not from my great task 
 To open the Eternal Worlds, to open the immortal Eyes 
 Of Man upwards, into the World of Thought, into Eternity, 
 Ever expanding in the Bosom of God, — the Human Imagination. 
 
 Gilchrist says, however, of Catherine Blake that " she too 
 learned to have visions, to see processions of figures wending 
 along the river in broad dayUght, and would start when they 
 disappeared in the water." 
 
 Both Butts and Linnell possessed drawings by Mrs. Blake, 
 her own compositions, that if looked at carelessly would be 
 considered to be Blake's own. 
 
 Now, in his last illness, he turned to her and said, " I 
 have no grief but in leaving you, Catherine. We have 
 lived happy, we have lived long, we have been ever together, 
 but we shall be divided soon. Why should I fear death ? 
 Nor do I fear it. I have endeavoured to live as Christ com- 
 manded, and have sought to worship God truly in my own 
 home, when I was not seen of men." 
 
 But the truth began to press upon him. 
 
 " Kate," he said, " I am a changing man. I always arose 
 and wrote down my thought, whether it rained, snowed, or 
 shone, and you sat beside me. This can be so no longer." 
 
 Garth Wilkinson kept these few words for us. Gilchrist 
 has collected all else that there is to tell of the end : how 
 when he was lying waiting for death, with no one but his wife 
 beside him, he said, " Stay ; keep as you are. You have ever 
 been an angel to me ; I will draw you." Tatham described 
 
436 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 the drawing as " a phrenzied sketch of some power — highly 
 interesting, but not like." 
 
 She consulted him about where he would be buried. He 
 chose Bunhill Fields. Perhaps it would be better to lie there, 
 where his father, mother, aunt, and brother lay, but so far as 
 his own feelings were concerned, she might bury him where 
 she pleased. He chose for funeral service that of the Church 
 of England. 
 
 As the mid-day passed on August 12, 1827, an uprising 
 of joyous emotion seized Mm. He began to sing aloud new 
 songs to new melodies, as he did in early days when the 
 Songs of Innocence began and were sung to Mrs. Mathews 
 at Eathbone Place. His voice was powerful. In his ecstasy 
 he " made the rafters ring." He said of these songs, " My 
 beloved, they are not mine ! no, they are not mine ! " Then, 
 in happier mood than when he had spoken of their being 
 divided, he told her that they would not be parted, and that 
 he would always be there to take care of her. It appears 
 that he did so. His convictions supported her mind and 
 enabled her to live quietly and not feel too lonely, siace 
 he was always really near, and she died at peace. Even in 
 a physical sense he took care of her. His books and drawings 
 gave her the food she ate while waiting to cease to require 
 to eat food. 
 
 Then silence fell. The colour of his face changed, and, so 
 quietly that the watchers did not know the exact hour, he 
 ceased to breathe. 
 
 " I have been at the death of a saint," said a neighbour 
 who had come to help his wife in that last hour. 
 
POSTSCKIPT 
 
 Cumberland notes on the blank page of the letter dated 12th 
 April 1827, here given in full, " He died August 12, 1827, in 
 the back room on the first floor of No. 3 Fountain Court in 
 the Strand, and was buried in Bunhill Fields Burying-ground 
 on 17th of August in 25 feet from the north wall, No. 80." 
 
 Gilchrist says, "That particular part of the burying- 
 ground was not added till 1836 ; in 1827 it was occupied 
 by houses, then part of Bunhill Eow. On reference to the 
 register now kept at Somerset House I find the grave to be 
 numbered 77 east and west, 32 north and south. As it was 
 an unpurchased 'common grave' (only a nineteen -shilling 
 fee was paid), it was doubtless (to adopt the official 
 euphemism for the basest sacrilege) used again, after the 
 lapse of some fifteen years, as must have been the graves of 
 those dear to him." 
 
 When antiquaries of the future desire to identify the 
 remains for a monument, the skull measurements, when 
 verified by the cast of the head now in possession of Sir 
 WiUiam Eichmond (see Frontispiece to this volume), will 
 give means for a complete and authoritative identification. 
 
 Mrs. Blake, when a widow, received a gift of £100 from 
 the PriQcess Sophia, which she returned " with all due thanks, 
 not liking to take or keep what, as it seemed to her, she 
 could dispense with, while many to whom no chance nor 
 choice was given might have been kept alive by the gift." 
 
 She lived chiefly by the sale of Blake's remaining books 
 and works. Mr. Cary, the Dante translator, bought an 
 Oberon and Titania, and Lord Egremont a group of 
 Spenserian characters from the Faerie Queene. 
 
 Tatham says that Mrs. Blake coloured more of Blake's 
 designs than was generally believed. He was useful to her 
 in helping to find purchasers. When she died she bequeathed 
 
 437 
 
438 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 all that remained to him, and he continued to sell them. He 
 told Mr. W. M. Rossetti in 1862 that he had sold Blake's 
 " works " for thirty years, and at about the same period said, 
 when visiting Dr. Garnett, that he had "destroyed some of 
 Blake's manuscripts and kept others by him, which he had 
 sold from time to time." 
 
 He looked on Mrs. Blake with veneration, and relates 
 touchingly how " she suffered the remains of her dear husband 
 to leave the house " on the day of the interment, "... set 
 out herself the refreshments of the funeral, and parted with 
 him with a smile." 
 
 " For some time " after this she lived with and kept house 
 for Tatham, — who was young enough to be her grandson, — 
 and then returned to the same lodgings where Blake had 
 lived with her and where he had died ; where constant 
 sorrow caused her to suffer such pain when she took food 
 that at last, after a specially bad attack lasting a day and a 
 night, she died; grief, and grief only, having slowly killed 
 her in four years. Tatham, Mr. Bird the painter, Mr. Denham 
 the sculptor, Mr. and Mrs. Eichmond, and another friend 
 unnamed were at her funeral. 
 
 But though she died of no illness but bereavement, she 
 did not lament or repine. Neither the thoughts of her last 
 years, nor of the whole of her married Ufe since her husband 
 finished her education, can be understood unless we constantly 
 remember how much in advance of his century he was in his 
 intellectual perception of those actions of mind that differ 
 from "corporeal understanding" as much as sight from hearing, 
 and of the fact that they have their own region and atmo- 
 sphere, as different from that of ordinary reason as ether from 
 the atmospheric air that we breathe, and that conveys sound 
 but not light. 
 
 We must not rashly consider that this occult mental 
 power, which Blake called " Imagination," was like our 
 ordinary imagination, though it had a kinship. It exceeds 
 it sometimes as the fancied fourth dimension of space exceeds 
 the usual three, has its own here and there, its own lefore and 
 after, a Time where Successivity does not rule, and a Space 
 where Place has other laws. So he called it Eternity, and 
 by it the Eeal Blake is yet with us, his posterity, as he was 
 with Catherine his widow. 
 
INDEX 
 
 ^ * This index does not give every occurrence in the text of the words that it includes. 
 Where a subject is continued on consecutive pages its commencement only is indi- 
 cated. If a second or third reference is given, a break of one or more pages and a 
 resumption will usually he found. The words selected are chosen to make this 
 the foundation for a dictionary, not merely of Blake facts, but of Blake terms. The 
 latter, however, are more fully explained in the notes to the Chatto and Windus 
 edition of Blake's Poeticcd W(yrlcs. 
 
 Abbey, Westminster, 14, 18 
 Adam and Eve, 192 
 Aders, 413 
 Adjectives, 334 
 Advertisement, 49, 301 
 Albion, 23, 208 
 Aldine, 158 
 Algebra, 351 
 Allegory, 25 
 America, 165, 170, 218 
 Ancient Britons, 272 
 Annihilation, 368 
 Antinomian, 425 
 Antiquaries, Society of, 17 
 Apollo, 342, 401 
 Appearance, 7, 8, 14, 414 
 Ark, 177 
 Arrest, 236 
 Arthur, 273, 285 
 Artist, 10, 63 
 Asia, 179, 205 
 Astley, 163 
 Athens, 63 
 Atonement, 370, 421 
 
 Babel, 62 
 
 Babylon, 62 
 
 Bacon, 13, 68, 856, 362 
 
 Barbauld, Mrs., 43 
 
 Bard, 355 
 
 Bartolozzi, 13, 252 
 
 Basire, 12, 252 
 
 Bathurst, Lord, 197 
 
 Beauty, 8, 167 
 
 Bible, 25, 153, 186, 406 
 
 Blake (not the same), 245 
 
 Blake, Ellen, 6, 7, 57 
 
 Blue-stocking, 43 
 
 Body, 335, 342, 347 
 Bond, William, 92 
 Bouchier, Catherinej 38 
 Broad Street, 95 
 Broken Love, 90, 213, 353 
 Brooke, Mrs., 43 
 Brotherhood, 329, 346 
 Bnnhill Fields, 437 
 Burial-place of Blake, 437 
 Burning, 239 
 Butts, 197 
 
 Canaan, 335 
 
 Canaanites, 180 
 
 Canterbury, 357 
 
 Canterbury PUgrims, 263 
 
 Carter, Mrs., 43 
 
 Carter Blake, Dr., 6 
 
 Cartoon of Pisa, 253 
 
 Casts, 11 
 
 Catherine Bouohier's mother, 95 
 
 Celestial mind, 332 
 
 Century, end of eighteenth, 187 
 
 Challenge, GilchrLst's, 356 
 
 Charity, 7, 185 
 
 Charles L, 17 
 
 Chatterton, 36 
 
 Child, 3 
 
 Childless, 91 
 
 Chimney-sweep, 43 
 
 Christ, 16, 329, 332, 432 
 
 Christendom, 27 
 
 Church, 153 
 
 Cities, 62 
 
 Clara Woods, 37 
 
 Cleansing, 171 
 
 CoUins's farm, 413 
 
 Colours, 84 
 
 439 
 
440 
 
 THE REAL BLAKE 
 
 Commingling, 175, 347 
 
 Composite individual, 348 
 
 Contempt, 47 
 
 Continuity, 59 
 
 Corrections, 48 
 
 Cosway, 267 
 
 Cowper, 221 
 
 Creeping Jesus, 433 
 
 Criticism, 49 
 
 Cromek, 247, 252, 258, 261, 424 
 
 Cumberland, 206, 359, 433 
 
 Cunningham, Allan, 261, 360 
 
 Curtain, 175 
 
 Dante, 194, 397, 400 
 Death, 430, 436 
 Declaration, 39 
 Descriptive Catalogue, 275 
 Devil, 360 
 Dissipation, 34 
 Divided personality, 352 
 Division, 343 
 Doubt, 34 
 
 Drawing-room fallacy, 18 
 Drawings by Mrs. Blake, 435 
 
 Earth, 401 
 Eartham, 192 
 Eden, 174, 347 
 Editing, 56 
 Edward I, 17 
 Edward HI, 34, 50 
 Effect, artistic, 59 
 Egremont, Lord, 197 
 Elate, or meek, 227 
 Electric cure, 248 
 Elias, 339 
 
 Ellen Blake, 6, 7, 57 
 Emigration, 175 
 Engagement, 40 
 English, 41 
 Engraving, 12 
 Envy, 44, 363 
 Eternity, 1 
 Europe, 178, 180 
 Everlasting Gospel, 63, 297 
 Evil, 159, 167 
 Examiner, 261, 292 
 Existence, 417 
 Ezekiel, 4 
 
 Fairies' funeral, 362 
 Father, 5, 11, 93 
 
 Felpham, 159, 187, 190, 233, 354 
 Female will, 367 
 Feminine, 102, 369 
 
 Flaxman, 41, 45, 48, 187, 189, 238, 
 241, 251, 258, 260, 267, 420 
 
 Flesh, 175 
 
 Forgiveness, 177, 215, 232, 351, 368 
 
 Form, 29, 31 
 
 Fountain Court, 405 
 
 French, 399 
 
 French Revolution, 104, 155, 157 
 
 Freshness, 153 
 
 Friends, 19, 227, 239, 243, 246, 249 
 
 Friendship, 229 
 
 Frugality, 247 
 
 Fuseli, 46, 120, 123, 233, 253, 292 
 
 Garden, 40, 422 
 Gamett, Dr., 173, 333 
 Gates of Hell, 187 
 Generalising, 179, 244 
 Genius, 32, 34 
 Ghost, his only, 171 
 Ghost of Abel, 102 
 Ghost of a Flea, 171 
 Ghost, Holy, 399 
 Giants, 62 
 Gilead, 173 
 God, 3 
 Godwin, 159 
 Gold, 156 
 Golden, 58 
 Goldsmith, 14 
 Good and Evil, 432 
 Gordon Riots, 21 
 Gothic, 16 
 
 Government, 234, 236 
 Gratitude, 238 
 Gravitation, 341 
 Great Queen Street, 13 
 Greece, 3, 203, 205 
 Greek form, 16, 210 
 Green Street, 41, 95 
 
 Hands, 423 
 Holy Ghost, 399 
 Humphry, Ozias, 315 
 Hunt, Leigh, 261, 295 
 
 Illness, 199, 207, 411 
 Imagination, 325 
 Improvement, 49 
 In, 331, 349 
 Incarnation, 219 
 Inconsistency, 422 
 Individual, 349 
 Influx, 165 
 Inheritance, 94 
 Innocent, 88 
 Inspiration, £6 
 Intellectual powers, 24 
 Interpretation, 328 
 Is, 332, 334 
 Island in the Moon, 67 
 
INDEX 
 
 441 
 
 James, 3, 4, 97, 103, 266 
 
 Jealousy, 38 
 
 Jerusalem, 4, 58, 161, 217, 224, 345 
 
 Jesus, 327, 332 
 
 Jews, 356 
 
 Job, 32, 405, 408 
 
 Jocund, 57 
 
 John, 3, 4, 7 
 
 Johnson, 155, 233 
 
 Joseph of Arimathea, 22 
 
 Joseph and his brethren, 97 
 
 Keats, 57 
 
 King, 363 
 
 Klrkup, 235, 270, 272 
 
 Kitty, 37 
 
 Kiwi, 104 
 
 Lafayette, 104, 155 
 
 Lamb, Charles, 271 
 
 Language, 351 
 
 Laoooon, 348, 364, 366 
 
 Last Judgment, 271, 313, 318, 340 
 
 Latin, 153 
 
 Lawi-enoe, Sir Thomas, 423 
 
 Leading ideas, 341 
 
 Leonardo da Vinci, 418 
 
 Liberty, 120, 155, 162 
 
 Likeness-taker, 245 
 
 Linnell, 359 
 
 Linnell, James, 424 
 
 Locke, 63 
 
 London, 1, 11, 345 
 
 Lord's Prayer, 365 
 
 Lost words, 419 
 
 Lourdes, 346 
 
 Love, 430 
 
 Luvah, 216 
 
 Madness, 221,243,268, 414 
 
 Magic, 27, 267 
 
 Malkin, Dr., 28, 253, 294 
 
 Manuscript Book, 2, 155, 299 
 
 Marriage, Blake's, 41 
 
 Ma/rriage ofBeaven and Hell, 103, 152, 
 
 171 
 Mary, 86 
 
 Mary WoUstonecraft, 120 
 Mathews, 42, 46, 95, 104 
 Masters, Old, 7, 9, 179 
 Memory, 333 
 Mercy, 417 
 Metals, 15^6 
 Metre, 36 
 
 Michael Angelo, 419 
 Michael Angelo's Sonnet, 418 
 Milton, 202, 210, 220, 239, 298, 350, 
 
 352, 354, 868, 399 
 Mind, 28, 341 
 
 Model (himself), 31 
 
 Modesty, 90, 168, 369 
 
 Money, 7, 95, 262 
 
 Montagu, Mrs., 43 
 
 Monthly Magazine, 269 
 
 Monthly Review, 43 
 
 Moods, 61 
 
 Moon, 155 
 
 Morality, 357, 369 
 
 Morning {ov Qlad Day, Jocund Day),Z\ 
 
 Moser, 32 
 
 Mother, 4, 5, 165 
 
 Mundane Shell, 336, 339 
 
 Murder, 151 
 
 Myers, 349 
 
 Mystery, 63 
 
 Myth, 61 
 
 Naked, 32 
 Names, 108 
 Namesake, 423 
 National Gallery, 206 
 Nature, 32 
 Natural events, 171 
 Natural morality, 159 
 Natural objects, 418 
 Nerves, 243, 261 
 Newgate, 21 
 Newton, 63, 341 
 Nineveh, 63 
 Nirvana, 421 
 Noah, 65 
 Nude, 30 
 
 Og, 171 
 
 Old Masters, 179 
 Ololon, 331, 337 
 O'Neil, 5, 6, 20 
 Oothoon, 167 
 Ork, 215 
 Ossian, 37 
 
 Paine, Tom, 162 
 
 Palamabron, 205 
 
 Palmer, Samuel, 426 
 
 Panic, 346 
 
 Pantheism, 166 
 
 Parker, 95, 103 
 
 Parr's Life School, 9 
 
 Passions, The, 44, 61 
 
 Paul, St. 397 
 
 Peace of God, 421 
 
 Phillips, 241 
 
 Pity, 249 
 
 Plot, 60 
 
 Poetical Sketches, 17, 33, 36, 46 
 
 Points, cardinal, 357 
 
 Poison, 338 
 
 Poland Street, 103, 163 
 
442 
 
 THE EEAL BLAKE 
 
 Polypus, 331, 337, 342 
 Pope, the, 420 
 Portraits, Abbey tombs, 18 
 Presentiment, 186 
 Prices, 2, 267, 433 
 Pride, 48, 61, 64 
 Print-Room, 245 
 Prophetic power, 212 
 Prospectus, 181 
 Public Address, 302 
 
 Qualities, 357 
 Quaritch edition, 356 
 Quietism, 421 
 
 Rahab, 160 
 Raphael, 10, 244 
 Rathbone Place, 48, 86, 88 
 Rationalism, 176 
 Reading Blake, Preface, 349 
 Redemption, 213 
 Re-incarnation, 333 
 Represent, 40, 349 
 ~^Reynqlds, Sir Joshua, 179, 245 
 Richmond, Sir William, 6 
 Robert, 94, 100, 116 
 Robinson, Crabb, 3, 400, 419 
 Roman Catholic, 64, 331 
 Rooms, 423 
 Rose, 248 
 Rossetti, 56, 295 
 Royal Academy, 29, 408 
 Royal Family, 184 
 Royalty, 41, 234 
 Russell and Maolagan, 333 
 Eye, Peckham, 4 
 Ryland, 10 
 
 Sanity, 241 
 
 Salvation, 320, 368 
 
 Satan, 347, 356, 359, 360, 368, 402, 
 
 432 
 Paviour, 239, 250, 368 
 Schiavonetti, 257 
 Scholfleld, 225, 350 
 Sorewmuch, 299 
 Self, 351, 368 
 Shakespeare, 17, 328 
 Shawn O'NeU, 20 
 " Sibylline leaves," 205, 210 
 Silver, 156, 185 
 Sin, 345 
 
 Sister, 5, 8, 91, 198 
 Smetham, 297 
 Snowdon, 174 
 Socrates, 332 
 Song of Liberty, 120 
 ^^Songs of Irmocence, 82, 104, 152 
 
 Sons and daughters, 343 
 
 Sophia, Princess, 235 
 
 South Molton Street, 1, 233 
 
 Spectre, 214, 273 
 
 Spirit, 434 
 
 States, 349 
 
 Stolen fruit, 175 
 
 Stothard, 41, 252, 264 
 
 Strand, 234 
 
 Style, 119, 159, 243 
 
 Sun, 401 
 
 Swedenborg, 11, 24, 102, 106, 367, 
 
 400, 403 
 Swinburne, 231 
 
 Tatham, 4, 364, 419 
 
 Teachability, 245 
 
 Thames, 175 
 
 Tharmas, 166 
 
 TM, 103, 153, 157, 165, 175 
 
 Thirty shillings a week, 97 
 
 Thornton, Dr., 363, 368 
 
 Tiger's Forehead, 84 
 
 Time, 417 
 
 Tvriel, 93, 165, 157, 166 
 
 Trial, 235 
 
 Truchsessian Gallery, 242 
 
 Truth, 401, 422 
 
 Twelve Gods, 367 
 
 Tyre, 63 
 
 Ugolino, 269 
 Unzen, 215 
 Urthona, 215 
 
 Vacuum, 402 
 
 Vala, 54, 159, 161, 203, 208, 215, 
 
 217, 411 
 Varley, 361 
 Vesey, Mrs., 43 
 Village dog, 168 
 Virgil's Pastorals, 363 
 Vision, 3, 33, 84, 202, 398 
 Visionary art, 33 
 Visionary Christian, Bible of, 431 
 Visionary heads, 361 
 Visionary lambs, 362 
 Void, 417 
 Voltaire, 399, 400 
 
 Wainewright, 407 
 
 War, 229 
 
 Watson, Caroline, 251, 258, 261 
 
 West, 160, 209 
 
 Western gate, 107, 176, 209 
 
 Westminster Abbey, 14 
 
 Widow, 437 
 
 Wife and emanation, 102 
 
 Wilkinson, Garth, 436 
 
Will, 330, 367 
 Woods, Polly, 37 
 WooUett, 13 
 Wordsworth, 418 
 Work done, 96 
 Worm, 1S6 
 Wrath, 20 
 
 INDEX 
 
 443 
 
 Year of probation, 40 
 
 Yeats, W. B., 6, 27, 293, 356 
 
 York, 357 
 
 Young's Night Thoughts, 182 
 
 Zoas, 212, 345 
 Zodiac, 215 
 
 THE END 
 
 Printed by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh