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THE LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE




I
I
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WILLIAM BLAKE




TOGETHER WITH A LIFE BY
FREDERICK TATHAM
EDITED FROM THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS
WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES
B3Y
ARCHIBALD G. B. RUSSELL
WITH TWELVE ILLUSTRATIONS
NEWN YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
i 906




I I
* 0




To M.




I




"LES DIEUX SONT CEUX QUI NE DOUTENT JAMAIS"
COMTE DE VILLIERS DE L'ISLE-ADAM




I




PREFACE


TH E " Life of Blake," by Frederick Tatham, now
for the first time published, has been printed
verbatim and in full from the original manuscript,
which was prefixed by its author to a coloured
copy of Blake's Jerusalem and bound up with it.
The volume is now the property of Captain Archibald
Stirling, and it is by his most courteous permission
that the editor has been able to avail himself, on
the present occasion, of this valuable biography.
The series of Blake's letters has been made as
complete as possible; and though the editor is
indeed aware of several omissions, he has some
knowledge, in almost every case, of the contents of
those which he has been unable to trace, and is
confident that, at anyrate of all those which have
been known to exist, none of any serious moment are
absent. The letters, too, have been edited, wherever
it has been possible, from the originals, and especial
attention has been given to the accuracy of the
text.  In both Life and Letters, however, the
punctuation, the spelling, and the use of capitals
ix




X


PREFACE


have (except in the case of the poems which occur
in the letters) been brought, as far as possible, into
conformity with the modern practice, as it was
felt that any attempt (even if it had been possible
to make it throughout) to reproduce the originals
in these respects would only be a source of irritation
and confusion to the majority of readers.
A certain number of letters from Blake's friends
and acquaintances have been added to the collection,
wherever they have seemed to give it greater
coherence, or to shed new light upon his life and
character; and for this purpose extracts have often
been sufficient.
The notes are intended partly to clear up any
allusions to events or persons which might present
difficulties to the reader, and partly to connect the
letters with Blake's other writings, and to explain
the ideas which they embody in reference to the
whole of his work. They have been made as brief
and serviceable as possible.
The illustrations have been carefully chosen in
regard to the text.
The editor wishes to express his most grateful
thanks to the owner of the Life, and all owners of
unpublished letters, for courteously placing them at
his disposal; and to Messrs. Macmillan & Co. for
their very kind permission (given through his friend
Mr. George A. Macmillan) to print the letters to




PREFACE                   xi
Linnell and several of those to Hayley from the
second edition of Gilchrist's Life of Blake, as well
as to all those who have so generously contributed
towards the illustrations of the book. His thanks
also are especially due to his friend Mr. W. Graham
Robertson for much kind help, and above all for his
gift of the beautiful sketch of Blake's Cottage; and
to his friend Mr. E. R. D. Maclagan for invaluable
advice.




i
I




CONTENTS
PAGE
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS..... X
INTRODUCTION. XVII
LIFE OF BLAKE BY FREDERICK TATHAM.   I
LETTERS......        51
INDEX.......  233


xiii




It




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
PORTRAIT....         Frontispiece
From a cast of Blake's head, made when he was about
fifty years old, by DEVILLE, the phrenologist.
THE ANCIENT OF DAYS, WITH THE COMPASSES, STRIKING THE FIRST CIRCLE OF THE EARTH..    34
From the example of this print (now in the Whitworth
Institute, Manchester), which was coloured by BLAKE on
his deathbed for Frederick Tatham.
CATHERINE BLAKE, WIFE OF THE ARTIST.           44
From a pencil drawing by GEORGE RICHMOND, made
after a drawing from life by FREDERICK TATHAM.
FACSIMILE OF A LETTER....    56
From Blake to George Cumberland, dated 23rd December
1796.
THE VISION OF JACOB'S LADDER...    73
From the original watercolour drawing by BLAKE, in the
possession of W. Graham Robertson, Esq.
BLAKE'S COTTAGE AT FELPHAM....    74
From a pen-and-ink drawing by W. GRAHAM ROBERTSON.
LITTLE TOM THE SAILOR....    85
From a broadside, designed and executed by BLAKE.
THOMAS BUTTS, MUSTER MASTER GENERAL, HIS WIFE,
AND SON......    90
From miniatures by BLAKE.
xv




xvi        LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
THE HORSE..                                           I84
From a print, illustrating the seventh of Hayley's Ballads
founded on Anecdotes relating to Animals (1805), designed
and engraved by BLAKE.
A VISION OF THE LAST JUDGMENT...   199
From the original watercolour drawing by BLAKE, at
Petworth.
PAOLO AND FRANCESCA, WITH THE WHIRLWIND OF
LOVERS......   29
From an engraving by BLAKE, illustrating Dante's Inferno,
C. V, 1. 142.
THE UNION OF JERUSALEM        WITH GOD...   222
From p. 99 of the coloured copy of BLAIE'S Jerusalem, in
the possession of Captain Archibald Stirling.




INTRODUCTION


L ETTERS are of two kinds, reflective and
impulsive. The writer may be concerned
with the analysis of his impressions and the choice
of words, or he may simply rely upon the sheer
intensity of his passions or emotions to carry conviction to the reader's imagination. The Letters of
William Blake are of the latter sort. That very
impatience and impetuosity which so often mars
the perfection of his achievement in other directions,
is their incomparable distinction. His personality
reveals itself in them in its most charming aspect.
They are filled with a delightful freshness and
spontaneity; and at the same time his most
intimate ideas, in regard to both religion and art,
are expressed with a clearness and simplicity
which is scarcely to be found anywhere else in
his writings.  He never tires of writing exultantly
and triumphantly of the supreme joy of the visionary
life. " He had a devil," Mr. Swinburne has said,
" and its name was faith"; and his letters are
everywhere inspired with the child-like enthusiasm
b




xviii


INTRODUCTION


and god-like energy begotten of this faith. The
union with the Divine through Art and Lovethat is the central fact of his life and work, his one
and ever-present ideal; and it is not surprising to
find it his principal topic when he is writing to hiss.
friends. The only possible redemption was, he
believed, through the imagination; he was, therefore,
continually occupied with casting out from himself
everything that was not imagination, and adjuring
others to do the same, that the same eternal life,
which he already possessed in himself, might be
theirs too. "I know of no other Christianity," he
writes in Jerusalem, "and of no other Gospel than
the liberty both of body and mind to exercise the
Divine Arts of Imagination: Imagination, the real
& eternal World of which this Vegetable Universe
is but a faint shadow, and in which we shall live in
our Eternal or Imaginative Bodies, when these
Vegetable Mortal Bodies are no more.... Is
the Holy Ghost any other than an Intellectual
Fountain?... Is God a Spirit, who must be
worshipped in Spirit & in Truth, and are not the
Gifts of the Spirit Everything to Man?... What
is Mortality but the things relating to the Body,
which Dies? What is Immortality but the things
relating to the Spirit, which Lives eternally?...
Answer this to yourselves, & expel from among you
those who pretend to despise the labours of Art




INTRODUCTION


1Xi


& Science, which alone are the labours of the
Gospel: Is not this plain & manifest to the
thought? Can you think at all, & not pronounce
heartily: That to Labour in Knowledge is to Build
up Jerusalem; and to Despise Knowledge is to
Despise Jerusalem  &  her Builders.  And remember: He who despises & mocks a Mental
Gift in another, calling it pride & selfishness &
sin, mocks Jesus the giver of every Mental Gift,
which always appear to the ignorance - loving
Hypocrite as Sins; but that which is a Sin in the
sight of cruel Man, is not so in the sight of our
kind God. Let every Christian, as much as in
him lies, engage himself openly & publicly before
all the World in some Mental pursuit for the
Building up of Jerusalem."  In such words he
sums up "the Everlasting Gospel," which he
believed himself and all other creative artists in
duty bound to deliver to humanity.
The series of letters begins with an extract
from a letter from Flaxman to Hayley (now for
the first time printed), which has some importance
if only to refute the common idea that Blake's art
found no acceptance among the artists of his own
day. This delusion has doubtless arisen from the
story of the conflict with Sir Joshua Reynolds, who
is said to have criticised adversely some of his
earliest essays in painting, and to have recommended




XX


INTRODUCTION


him "to work with less extravagance and more
simplicity, and to correct his drawing." This most
excellent advice was, however, resented by Blake,
not on its own merits but because of the lips from
which it came; for since the method of painting
adopted by Reynolds was wholly opposed to his
own ideal, which was that of Direr, Michel Angelo,
and the rest of the linear school, he not unnaturally
considered it an extreme impertinence on the part
of one who, in his opinion, was ignorant of the
very essence of the highest kind of art to criticise
work which was at anyrate conceived on right
lines. Besides Romney, Flaxman himself, Fuseli,
Lawrence-to mention the chief names onlywere enthusiastic admirers of Blake's designs. In
connection with the last of these, it is worth while
correcting an error on the part of Gilchrist, who
speaks of him, among others, as considering it
"almost giving the money" whenever he gave
Blake a commission either for a drawing or for
one of his illuminated books. That this was
certainly not the case is shown by the honour
paid by him to a replica of the beautiful watercolour (done originally for Butts) of "The Wise
and Foolish Virgins," which he had ordered from
him. I find a note in the diary of the present
owner's grandfather, who was a personal friend of
that eminent artist and collector, and purchased




INTRODUCTION


Xx


the drawing for a high price at his sale, stating
that " it was Sir Thomas's favourite drawing," and
that "he commonly kept it on his table in his
studio, as a study "-which is high praise, when
we remember that Lawrence's collection of drawings by the old masters was one of the finest that
has ever been brought together. Blake's poems
also were found worthy of honour by a tribunal
from which there can be no appeal-Wordsworth,
Coleridge, and Lamb.
About the time at which Flaxman writes,
Blake's work was beginning to appear at the Royal
Academy exhibitions. He was there for the first
time in I780 with the " Death of Earl Goodwin," for
which the sketch alone survives. In 1784 were
shown two sombre designs of a didactic tendency,
" War unchained by an Angel: Fire, Pestilence, and
Famine following," and " A Breach in a City: the
Morning after a Battle." The first of these seems
to have disappeared; but the second, of which
there are two versions still in existence (that in the
possession of Mr. Stopford Brooke being probably
the one exhibited), is amply prophetic of his later
manner and typical of the kind of work which
elicited such extravagant praise from Romney's
lips. It is the grey of early dawn. Before the
breach, among fragments of the wall, is a heap of
slain, with a woman prostrate upon one of the




xxii


INTRODUCTION


bodies, and a young woman kneeling and embracing
her dead knight.  A mourning mother and an
aged father, who is wiping away his tears with a
fold of his mantle (the latter an anticipation of the
patriarchal type so often to reappear), stand close by.
Through the breach a young woman is seen,
searching frantically for her dead lover.  High
upon the wall is a hungry bird of prey.  An
intensity of dramatic feeling which belongs to the
greatest achievements of Blake's inventive faculty
is present in the design: where the woeful state of
the fallen on the one side is vividly contrasted with
the vertical lines of the mourners and of the wall
on the other; while the dismal twilight of the
morning serves to increase the lamentable aspect
of the scene. It will appear from many of Blake's
letters that the admiration evinced by Romney was
fully reciprocated, especially in the case of the
various historical studies and cartoons which were
undertaken by the latter at this period. These
have even left a visible mark upon Blake's style.
An India-ink drawing, done about the date of this
meeting, entitled " Har and Heva bathing: Mnetha
looking on" (one of a set of twelve illustrations to
his own poem " Tiriel "), is a good example of the
Romney influence, which is clearly distinguishable
in the curves of the figures, in the breadth of the
light effects, and in the character of the forest back



INTRODUCTION


Xx*ie


ground; and from the designs of the latter from
"Shakespeare" and " Milton " it is sufficiently clear
that the gain was not on Blake's side alone. I have
even identified a sketch by Romney from Paradise
Lost bearing Blake's signature forged upon it.
In the same letter from Flaxman, just alluded
to, there is mention of another matter, which has
hitherto escaped the notice of Blake's biographers,
which is a proposal to send him to Rome.   It
is difficult to be thankful enough that this most
generous offer was never carried into effect, when
we consider the disastrous influence of the Sistine
Chapel in annihilating the very considerable ability
of such artists as Barry and Fuseli, not to mention
a host of others of inferior rank. This terrible
neo-michelangelism is responsible for many of the
worst excesses of the school to which they belonged.
As it was, the only way in which Blake was able to
become acquainted with the works of Michel Angelo
was through the medium of engravings and studies
from them, and that he made use of his opportunities
is shown by some copies (now in the Print Room
of the British Museum) executed at this period,
after Adam Ghisi's Sistine prints.
The death of his brother, Robert, in I787, may
be taken to mark the beginning of a new era in
Blake's artist career; since the publication of the
books of songs and prophecies, with which his name




xxiv


INTRODUCTION


is generally associated, is intimately connected with
this event. For it was not long before his brother
returned one night in a vision and revealed to him
the method of relief-etching, which enabled him to
print and illuminate them for an expense which his
slender means would permit. The nature of these
books is well known through the facsimiles which
have been published; and it is only necessary to
mention them here, for the reason that they are
the first decisive step in his career as a visionary
artist, and also because it was the mode of their
production which gave rise to what is in many
ways the most distinctive and characteristic section
of the whole of his artistic productions-his
Prinled Drawings; since it is reasonable to
believe that it was the satisfactory result obtained
on a small scale in these books and in certain other
small designs separately printed in a similar manner,
which led him to the idea of modifying his method
for the treatment of independent subjects on a
larger scale. The date of this further invention
is probably 1795 (or a little earlier), as this is the
year of all the dated prints known to me; and it
was upon their production that he was engaged at
the time when his correspondence with George
Cumberland begins. The "Creation of Adam" is,
from its nature, the most conspicuous of them, and
is perhaps the greatest extant monument of Blake's




INTRODUCTION


XXV


genius as an artist. The Creator, a grand and
terrific figure, ancient and winged, like some
monument of an Oriental imagination, clothed about
the body with flowing drapery, his hair streaming
behind, with all the agony of creation upon his face,
is forming Adam, who lies prostrate below him,
out of the four elements. With his left hand he
is taking up a clod of clay, and moulding his head
with his right. Adam's left arm is stretched out
towards the water beneath, with the palm of the
hand open; about one of his legs, which are as yet
only partially formed from the natural wood, are
the coils of an immense worm, the emblem of
nature and of mortality.  Behind the hovering
figure of the Almighty is a vast sun (representing
Fire), a lurid yellow and red disk surrounded
with red and black rays. Above are thick rolling
clouds (Air) of a purplish black colour. Below
Adam is the green Earth, with the dark blue
Water lapping the edge.
At the same time as he was at work upon
the Printed Drawings, Blake was engaged upon a
number of small pictures (chiefly biblical in subject),
painted in oil upon a gesso ground, which continue
down to the end of the century, when he ceased to
employ an oily vehicle. That he had not yet made
up his mind to alienate himself from the influences,
Greek, Flemish, and Venetian, which were to




ZXxv


INTRODUCTION


become so odious to him, is clearly discernible from
many of those works; even if we had not his own
explicit declaration on the point in a letter written
as late as 1799, where he says: " The purpose for
which alone I live,... is... to renew the lost
art of the Greeks," and at the same time professes
himself willing to execute "a number of cabinet
pictures, which I flatter myself will not be unworthy
of a scholar of Rembrandt and Teniers " (both soon
to be included in the same category with the
Venetians and Correggio), " whom I have studied
no less than Raphael and Michael Angelo." The
" Christ blessing little Children" and the " Flight
into Egypt," both dated I790, are the earliest of
the series known to me.    In the former of
these the Venetian feeling is strongly perceptible,
especially in a standing female figure, clothed in
bluish green, with an infant in her arms, and in
the landscape background; while the diminutive
children vividly recall some Greek reliefs of the
fifth century. Somewhat later in date is the strange
" Nativity," which is one of the artist's boldest and
most beautiful inventions. Mary, swooning in the
miraculous childbirth, is sustained by Joseph;
while the Divine Infant, clothed- with supernatural
light, leaps forth upon the air. Elizabeth holds
out her arms to receive Him; and the tiny Baptist,
upon her knees, folds his hands in adoration. The




INTRODUCTION


*x.


star of the Nativity sheds a flood of light through
a window in the stall.  A less striking but not
less beautiful work of the same type is " The Angel
appearing to Zacharias," where the sense of
solemnity pervading the whole is enhanced by the
richness of the ornaments and the jewelled colour.
The effect of light both in this and in the preceding
picture has a distinctly Rembrandtesque quality.
But perhaps the most remarkable of the whole
group is Captain Archibald Stirling's " Temptation
of Eve." Eve is a beautiful nude figure, with
luxuriant yellow hair, standing in the midst with
her right arm uplifted; her face is radiant, charmed
by the serpent whose golden yellow coils surround
her, circling upwards behind, its crested head
lifted high above her head, and holding the fruit in
its mouth. Adam lies stretched in sleep upon the
grass, by the writhing folds of the serpent's tail,
one hand resting upon a spade at his side. The
dark trunk of the Tree of Mystery stands massively
on the left, overarching the composition with its
deadly branches. In the background is a rocky
landscape, with a waterfall. Above, in the dark
blue sky of night, the moon is being eclipsed.
It was not long after the-designs for Young's
Night Thoughts had been completed (in I797)
that Blake entered upon his friendship with Butts,
who in I 799 gave him an order for fifty small




xxviii


INTRODUCTION


pictures at one guinea each. This and one or
two other commissions about the same time were
sufficient to induce him once and for all to turn
his attention seriously to the art of painting, and
for the future to make engraving, which had until
now been his principal pursuit, merely a means of
earning bread. Thomas,Butsz-remained ever a
true friend to Blake, and became the purchaser,
for small sums, of practically all his most important
works from this date until about I8IO, when
sheer lack of room on his walls prevented him
from being for the future anything more than an
occasional buyer. He was an amiable, if somewhat commonplace individual, and if the letter
to Blake, printed in the present collection, does
not point to a very high level either of humour
or intelligence, it shows him to have been greatly
attached to his protdg6, and he has certainly
earned the gratitude of all Blake-lovers in giving
to the world, through his patronage, so many of
the artist's greatest designs. He is above all to
be commended for leaving Blake an entirely free
hand in regard to the execution of all his commissions. Of the supreme benefit of this freedom,
"his just right as an artist and as a man," Blake
was ever most sensible, and his sincere thanks are
gratefully recorded in one of his letters to his friend,
where he says: "If any attempt should be made to




INTRODUCTION


xxix


refuse me this, I am inflexible, and will relinquish
any engagement of designing at all, unless altogether 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." The
greater part of the magnificent collection brought
together by this patron was dispersed, about the
middle of the last century, by his son, Thomas,
who was for a time Blake's pupil, and instructed
by him in the art of engraving. The whole of the
remainder, including many of the artist's noblest
productions, has been recently disposed of by the
present representative of the Butts family.
In September I800, Blake left London to
work for Hayley at Felpham. The prospect of
life in the country filled him with unbounded
delight. He had dreams of the beginning of a
new life, in which he has to emerge at last from
the confusion and unrest of his past existence
into a state of freedom and spiritual felicity.
With no care but art, he imagined that he would
be able, unmolested, to "converse in heaven and
walk with angels." His wife was overwhelmed
with the same enthusiasm.  " My dear and toooverjoyous woman," he wrote to Hayley just
before their departure from London, "has exhausted her strength.... Eartham will be my
first temple and altar; my wife is like a flame




XXX


INTRODUCTION


of many colours of precious jewels whenever she
hears it named." The first undertaking after his
arrival was a frieze of poet heads for his employer's
library at Felpham, whither the latter had just
removed from Eartham. The Little Tom broadsheet was also produced at the same time; and
it was not long before he was set to work by his
patron (through whom he obtained commissions
among the neighbouring gentry) upon the uncongenial task of miniature painting; and in addition to all this he was occupied with the engraving
of plates for Hayley's Life of Cowiper.  Any
time that could be spared from these labours was
devoted to the completion of his commission for
Butts. Among the drawings which he did for
the latter about this time is one entitled "The
Soldiers Casting Lots for Christ's Garment " (dated
i 8oo), which from its extraordinary qualities of
invention and energy, we may suppose to belong
to the first enthusiasm of his new life.  In the
foreground three soldiers are dicing excitedly for the
seamless coat; while several others leaning upon
the shafts of their partizans are bending over and
watching the game intently. Beyond is the crucifixion, seen from behind, with the group of holy
women, etc., at the feet of Christ. In the distance,
upon the terrace of the Temple, which rises up
with itamany pinnacles mysteriously in the back



INTRODUCTION


xxxi


ground, is a multitude of spectators, darkly suggested; many, too, are crowding up beneath a
portcullis gate, below the steep rock upon which
the crucifixion has taken place.  Of a different
character to this sombre design is the charming
and beautifully coloured drawing of " The Vision
of Jacob's Ladder," which there is good reason
to assign to the same date; indeed, it is difficult
to dissociate it from the vision of the ladder in
the song addressed to Mrs. Flaxman, and it is
for this reason that it has been reproduced here to
accompany it. The youthful Jacob, propped upon
a pillow of large stones, is stretched in sleep
upon a grassy hill-top, his shepherd's crook in
his hand. Ending by his pillow, and descending
from a vast golden sun on high, whence emanate
floods of bright yellow beams, is a white spiral
stairway or ladder, upon which countless angels
and girls and little children are passing up and
down. Foremost among them is a winged angel
bearing a basket of bread upon his head, and
followed by a damsel with a jug of wine. Others
are engaged in various delights: embracing one
another, leading little children, one carrying a
scroll, others a book, compasses, or a musical
instrument, - all joyful and beautiful.  Beneath
the rays of the sun is deep blue sky, star spangled.
Many of those for whom   the symbolism of art




* -H


INTRODUCTION


is, as it was for Blake, inseparable from its reality,
will be reminded in this lovely invention of the
striking words in The Obscure ANigAt of the Soul,
where St. John of the Cross tells of how the
Ladder of Contemplation ascends to the Sun,
which is God.
It was not destined that this new-found
happiness should remain for long unclouded. The
"brotherly affection" with which he was at first
received by his benevolent patron, soon unmasked
itself as the charity of an elder brother, or in
other words a tyranny of a peculiarly exasperating
kind; and even the mild and ever-patient Blake
could not long endure the "genteel ignorance and
polite disapprobation" which he encountered continually by reason of the visionary quality of his
inventions. How many of us have suffered from
those who "do unkind things in kindness: with
power armed to say the most irritating things in
the midst of tears and love! " as Blake afterwards
wrote in his Milton, a poem which is almost wholly
devoted to describing, under a close disguise, the
events, or the " herculean labours," as he calls
them, of his life at Felpham; and how many of
us have cried out with him: "0 God, protect me
from my friends, that they have not power over me:
Thou hast giv'n me power to protect myself
from  my bitterest enemies."  At last he could




INTRODUCTION              xxxiii
conceal the truth no more.  "He is as much
averse,' he complains of Hayley in a letter to
Butts, "to my poetry as he is to a chapter in
the Bible," and "approves of my designs as little
as he does of my poems." This attitude on the
part of his patron soon convinced him that he
was in serious danger from an enemy of his soul,
who was urging him in the name of worldly
wisdom to forsake his allegiance to Imagination,
that he might devote himself to the imitation of
nature. So after three dark years he was forced
to return to London. The experience had not,
however, been an altogether fruitless one. " One
thing," he writes, "of real consequence I have
accomplished by coming into the country, which
is to me consolation enough, namely, I have
recollected all my scattered thoughts on art, and
resumed my primitive and original ways of execution in both painting and engraving, which in
the confusion of London I had very much obliterated from my mind." And again, "My heart is
full of futurity; I perceive that the sore travail
which has been given me these three years leads
to glory and honour; I rejoice and tremble."
The clarification of ideas, and the return to those
principles of technique which were latent in his
youthful pieces, and which preceded the attempt
at eclecticism, when it was his intention to incorc




j
I


xxxiv       INTRODUCTION
porate into his work all the graces of Venice and
Flanders as well as the linear austerity of the
Florentines, and when his mind was perturbed
by a hundred conflicting doubts and fears, were
clearly things to be thankful for, and he was by
no means oblivious of his debt. The three years
at Felpham were years of retreat, during which
he was enabled to devote himself to bringing to
an end the period of mental war; and the conflict
was there fiercest because it had passed into the
ultimate world of vision. The book of Mi/Ion,
in which the story of this final struggle is
chronicled, was begun during the last days at
Felpham and finished in London. The year i804,
however, upon the title-page must be taken to
mark the completion of the composition rather
than the date of publication; since the engraving
of the poem seems to have been delayed, by
pressure of. other work, for several years; and
even in the end the original plan had to be
modified considerably, and the number of books
reduced from twelve to two. That the whole
labour of producing the book was not over at any
rate before i8o8, is shown by the following allusion to it in the Public Address belonging to
that year. "The manner in which my character
has been blasted these thirty years, both as an
artist and a man, may be seen particularly in a




INTRODUCTION


XXXV


Sunday paper called The Examiner,... 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 Felpham,
which I shall soon publish." But it seems to
have been ready not long after these words
were written, as in every copy known to me
the paper is watermarked with the year I808,
a coincidence which must, I think, fix the approximate date of its appearance. The intention of
the book is clearly stated on p. 36, 11. 21-25:
"For when Los join'd with me he took me in his firy whirlwind;
My Vegetated portion was hurried from Lambeth's shades;
He set me down in Felpham's Vale, & prepared a beautiful
Cottage for me, that in three years I might write all these visions,
To display Nature's cruel holiness: the deceits of Natural Religion."
The story of the events at Felpham having
reached the dwellers in eternity, the poet Milton
receives a heavenly command to return to earth,
with the double purpose both of redeeming his
own imagination from the state of bondage into
which it had fallen during his lifetime owing to the
detestable nature of his religion, and of delivering
Blake from   the tyranny of his oppressors.    He
comes as "the Awakener," to overthrow           "the
idiot Reasoner," who "laughs      at the   Man of
Imagination."    Visionary art is to be restored
once more, and the poetry of vision is to silence




xxxvi


xINTRODUCTIONM


for ever those "who pretend to Poetry, that they
may destroy Imagination by imitation of Nature's
Images drawn from    Remembrance."   Such an
one as Hayley, the mere " Polypus of soft affections without Thought or Vision," is no longer to
have dominion over those whose care is alone for
the things of the Spirit.
It is well to point out here that Blake's
Jerusalem, though in all probability it was not
published before about 1818, has also the date
i804 upon its title-page, and is also largely concerned with the author's sojourn at Felpham, and
has therefore a considerable amount of autobiographical interest; in fact, Blake seems to have
transferred a good deal of the material originally
intended for Milton to its pages.
We have now reached the period of Blake's
artistic maturity, following upon the elaboration
of the theory of art, which had been constructed
during these three years, and on account of which,
as has been already pointed out, in spite of the
incompatibilhity of their intelligences, he never
ceased to be grateful to his patron.  In 1804
came the visit to the Truchsessian Picture Gallery
of old masters (of which a description may be
found in Gilchrist), accompanied by a new burst
of intellectual vision. The history of mysticism
provides countless similar instances of the way in




INTRODUCTION


*xxv

which an apparently trivial circumstance may be
possessed of the highest spiritual significance: and
a reference to the letter to Hayley, of 23rd October
I804, will show that we are justified by Blake
himself in regarding this visit as a landmark in
his career, when he became able to carry out his
new code of art with all the joy and -enthusiasm
which inspired the productions of his youth.
Evidence style induces me to assign to the
beginning of the new period a water - colour
drawing entitled " The River of Life," which for
the purity and beauty of its colouring as well as
the sheer inspiration of its joyous and life-giving
qualities, rather than for any definable superiority
of design or execution, has found a number of
admirers at two recent exhibitions of Blake's work.
Its subject is Revelation xxii. I, 2. The lovely
clear blue river of water of life is flowing by a
winding course, proceeding out of the throne of
God, which is represented by a vast yellow sun
encircled by a glory of angelic figures. Upon its
banks are the tree of life, with its twelve manner
of fruits, and the many "tents and pavilions,
gardens and groves " of Paradise, " with its inhabitants walking up and down, in conversations concerning mental delights." Over the midst of the
stream is a male figure flying downwards towards
his wife, who, with her two infants, is stemming




xxxviii
* *
XXXV11


INTRODUCTION


the current towards the sources of light. Near
these, a woman in a pale yellow dress, who is
floating above the river, is bending down and
taking up water in a cup to drink. On either side
of these central figures is a beautiful female figure
piping to them. In the latter part of the year
I804, Blake began the series of drawings for
Blair's Grave, which he completed the following
year, and of which a selection were, in 80o6,
engraved by Schiavonetti.  The originals have
now almost all disappeared, and the reference to
them in the letter from Flaxman to Hayley, dated
I8th October I805, is particularly interesting, as
among those mentioned by him as being the most
striking is a drawing with the remarkable title of
"The Gambols of the Ghosts according with their
Affections previous to the Final Judgment," now
lost. A good deal of Blake's time at this period
was also taken up with the collection of materials
for Hayley's Life of Romney and the engraving
of a plate for this work, as well as of a portrait of
Romney, which was not used. He still found time,
however, for some original work as well; for in
May I805 he was able to deliver a dozen watercolours to Butts. Among them was the admirable
design of "The Wise and Foolish Virgins," of
which he afterwards executed the replica for Sir
Thomas Lawrence, already alluded to. To I806




INTRODUCTION


XXZiX


belongs the second of his designs for "The Last
Judgment," which comes nearer to that which is
described in the letter to Ozias Humphrey than
the previous one engraved by Schiavonetti for
Blair's Grave.  The subject is, however, much
less elaborately treated than in the Petworth
picture, finished two years later. A second commission from Lady Egremont was carried out
about the same time as the other; it was an
experiment picture in the fresco medium, entitled
" Satan calling up his Legions," from Paradise
Lost.  This magnificent work is still also at
Petworth. It is the "more perfect picture afterward executed for a lady of high rank," alluded
to in the Descriptive Catalogue. The scene is in
lurid darkness at the brink of the fiery lake:
everywhere sheets of flame are mounting from
gulfs and fissures, and down a sheer cliff a
torrent of molten flint is streaming, to join the
seething lava flood below.  The nude form of
Satan, with uplifted arms, stands erect on high, in
the midst, against a background of fire. Beelzebub,
a crown of gold upon his head, is reclining deep
in thought upon a rock below him. Overhead, on
either side, is a cluster of rebels pursued headlong
from heaven by flaming arrows and hail and many
lightnings. All around Satan are the leaders of
his host, princes and deities and demons, some of




xl


INTRODUCTION


them still stupefied by their fall, many of them
bound and wallowing in liquid fire. The painting
of the fire throughout is a wonderful achievement.
Some years later, after Blake's death, a third work
from his hand found its way to Petworth, being
purchased by Lord Egremont from Mrs. Blake.
It is an illustration of the characters in Spenser's
Faery Queen, and was intended to be the companion
to the famous picture of the Canterbury Pilgrimage, which is the principal item in the Descriptive
Catalogue.
From the year I809, in which the Descriptive
Catalogue was published, until the time of his
introduction to Linnell, we have no letters from
Blake's pen. It is not likely, indeed, that many
were written by him during these years, as he seems
for some time to have isolated himself from nearly
all his friends, and to have lived a solitary life.
His commissions became fewer and fewer, and it
is certain that he was sadly oppressed by poverty.
It was in i8i8 that Blake first made the
acquaintance of John Linnell the painter, through
the introduction of his old friend, George Cumberland. One of the first things which Linnell did
for. Blake was to present him to his own former
master, John Varley, who, both as astrologer and
artist, was able to take a lively interest in the
genius of his new friend. A considerable intimacy




INTRODUCTION


xli


arose between the two, and it was at Varley's
instigation that Blake embarked upon the remarkable series, alluded to by Tatham in the Life, of'
visionary portraits of historical personages and
others, which covers the years 1818-I820. The
facsimiles given in Gilchrist will be sufficient to
show the character of these productions. Two of
the finest of those which I have seen are the heads
of King John, and of Lais of Corinth, mistress of
Apelles,-the former, a noble visage with a grim
look, the head narrowing curiously above the eyes,
with a short beard, waving hair down to the neck,
and large eyes; the latter, a strangely Lionardesque
representation of a woman of very low type. About
1820, Blake took in hand his last and most elaborate
picture of " The Last Judgment," 7 feet by 5 feet in
dimensions, and containing upwards of a thousand
figures, but did not complete it until the year of
his death. It has not been seen for a good many
years, but it is said to have been sumptuously
coloured and much worked up with gold.    In
i822 he did replicas of some of his earlr Paradise
Lost designs for Linnell. About the 'same time
he was engaged upon one of, his last commissions
for Butts, a set of water-colour drawings illustrating,
the Book of Job. He had been attracted from
early days by the history of the patriarch, which
he would often parallel by the course of his own




xlii


INTRODUCTION


life; and ever since -his publication in 1793 of a
large engraving of Job in affliction, he had from
time to time turned his attention to the book. In
1823 be began to make a duplicate set of the
designs for Linnell, who had offered to publish a
book of engravings to be done from them by the
artist. For any account of these illustrations the
reader must be referred to Gilchrist's Life of
Blake; and it is only necessary to mention here
that, magnificent as the original water-colour
drawings unquestionably are, they are in every
case inferior to the final version in the engraving,
and that both they themselves and the many
existing studies for them are mainly interesting as
showing the evolution of the design in the mind of
the artist, and the marvellous certainty of judgment
that guided him in every elimination or change.
The only one of the Job designs "of this period
known to me which can in any way be compared
with the engraving, is a varnished water-colour on
panel of "Satan smiting Job with sore Boils," in
the possession of Sir Charles Dilke, in which the
effect of colour is one of the most splendid that
Blake ever attained. To 1825 belong a beautiful
series of twelve water-colour drawings from
Paradise Regained, in which the design is at once
simple and dignified, while the colour has all the
delicacy and finish which characterises his latest'




INTRODUCTION


* * -


works; for towards the end of his life he departed
in some measure from the very austere method of
colouring which he originally employed, and permitted himself a more liberal use of the subtleties
and varieties of tint of which his medium was capable.
The last great labour of his life, and one of the
most remarkable evidences of his extraordinary
genius for the invention of design, is the series
of ninety-eight illustrations which he made for the
Divine Comedy, an undertaking which occupied him
until the very end, even upon his deathbed, for
the prodigious intellectual energy which characterised his whole life, remained to the last creative;
and in a letter to Linnell, shortly before death, he
wrote: " I am too much attached to Dante to think
much of anything else." Though he did not live
long enough to bring more than a few of the whole
number to completion, yet in every instance, even
where the merest pencil outline is all that exists,
he never failed to convey all the essentials of his
idea, with a vigour and comprehension that showed
no signs of decay. Seven of the set only were
engraved by him, including the "Paolo and
Francesca, with the Whirlwind of Lovers," which
is here reproduced, and which is the most beautiful
of them. Of the remainder, which he did not
live to engrave, the most striking designs among
those which approach a finished state are " Dante




xliv


INTRODUCTION


conversing with Farinata degli Uberti among the
fiery Tombs"; "Antaeus setting down Dante and
Virgil in the last Circle," in which the giant, who
is a grandly drawn figure, clinging on to the rock
with his left hand, is bending over the precipice,
as, with his right, he puts the two down together
upon a rocky platform below; "The Ascent of the
Mountain of Purgatory"; and "Dante and Statius
sleeping, Virgil watching," with the vision of
Rachel and Leah in the moon.   The last engraving ever executed by Blake was the message
card which he did for his friend Cumberland.
It is signed "W. Blake, inv. & sc. A. AE. 70, I827."
A minutely executed allegorical design surrounds
the name "Mr. Cumberland," printed in bastard
Gothic letters, showing the punishment which
awaits cruelty to animals, and the reward of industry
and innocence.  On one side, below, are two
figures; one with a snare, the other flying two
birds at the end of strings, upon whom a reaping
angel with a sickle is descending,-the intention
being shown by some growing oats close by. On
the other side, three rejoicing angels are appearing
to an upward floating figure with a distaff. Near
them a child is bowling a hoop through the sky.
The story of how, at the very end, upon his deathbed, he finished for Tatham the illuminated print
of "The Ancient of Days striking the first Circle




INTRODUCTION


XlV


of the Earth," may be left to be told by Tatham
himself. On the I2th August i827, Blake's body
died; and we may leave his work with a few
beautiful words about the man from a letter written
by Linnell to Bernard Barton three years later:
" He was more like the ancient patterns of virtue
than I ever expected to see in this world; he
feared nothing so much as being rich, lest he
should lose his spiritual riches. He was at the same
time the most sublime in his expressions, with the
simplicity and gentleness of a child."
Frederick Tatham, author of the Life which
follows, was the son of an architect to whom Blake
had been introduced by Linnell; he was himself
a sculptor and miniature-painter. He was about
twenty years of age when he made Blake's acquaintance, only two or three years before the death of
the latter. He soon became on most intimate terms
with him, and saw him continually until the end.
He thus enjoyed unique opportunities of gathering reliable material for the Life, which, together
with the brief sketch of the early life given by
Malkin in his Father's Memoirs of His Child,
must always remain the principal contemporary
sources, outside his own writings, for the particulars of Blake's biography.  After the death
of the widow, the whole stock of drawings, en



xlvi


INTRODUCTION


gravings, etc., which still remained unsold, as well
as a good many copper plates, passed into Tatham's
hands.  He also came in for a considerable
quantity of MS. material, the greater part of which
he unhappily destroyed on conscientious grounds,
having been told by certain members of the
Catholic Apostolic Church, to which he belonged,
that many dangerous and pernicious doctrines were
contained in them. He furnished an explanation
for Gilchrist's Life of the method in which Blake's
printed drawings were executed. The accuracy of
this account was disputed by Linnell, and has been
generally doubted. My own investigations have
led me to believe it to be substantially correct;
and as Linnell seems to have had a particular dislike for Tatham, and was at the same time either
unwilling or unable to provide a more exact
description, it may be concluded that it was its
incompleteness rather than its inaccuracy which
led him to a vehement denial of its veracity.
Some experiments made by my friend Mr. Graham
Robertson, based upon a somewhat fuller account
of the process given to him by myself, have been
remarkably successful, and certainly reproduce
very closely the quality of Blake's own productions.
Owing to the very intelligible indignation aroused
among Blake-lovers by his destruction of the
MSS., Tatham's honesty has also been unjustly




INTRODUCTION               xlvii
called into question. I have even heard it said
that he was in the habit of forging Blake's signature
upon drawings of his own manufacture. This I
am in a position to deny absolutely. His act of
destruction is indeed greatly to be deplored; but
weakness and narrow-mindedness are the worst
things that he can be accused of on that account.
There can be no doubt of the genuineness of his
love and admiration of Blake, and I can see no
reason to question his sincerity in other matters.
His Life, if it is somewhat lacking in both scholarly
exactness and literary grace, is on the whole a
valuable and trustworthy document; and if it is
often marred by the false sentiment belonging to
the time at which it was written, it is also full of
fine appreciation, and contains some passages of
real feeling and beauty. The copy of Jerusalem
with which the Life is bound up, is a magnificent
one, illuminated with extreme beauty by Blake
himself; it is the only copy which he ever lived
to finish in colours. It is printed in orange, and
measures I31 x i1o inches. The portrait of Mrs.
Blake, by George Richmond, here reproduced, is
also contained in it; and it has for frontispiece two
rather uninteresting likenesses of Blake, at the
ages of twenty-eight and sixty-nine years, both
drawn by Tatham himself, the former after a sketch
from life by Mrs. Blake.




I
I




THE LIFE OF
WILLIAM                   BLAKE
BY FREDERICK TATHAM
W       ILLIAM   BLAKE was born on the 20th'
of November I757, at 28 Broad Street,
Carnaby Market, London, a house now inhabited
by Mr. Russell, apothecary; he was the second
of five children. His father, James Blake, was
a hosier of respectable trade and easy habits,
and seems to have been a man well-to-do, of
moderate desires, moderate enjoyments, and of
substantial worth:   his  disposition was gentle,
and, by all accounts, his temper amiable, and was,
1 Gilchrist gives the date correctly as the 28th November. The
late Dr. Garnett wrote in his monograph on Blake (Seeley & Co.,
I895, p. 7, n.): " November 20 has been stated as the date, but the
above is shown to be correct by the horoscope drawn for November
28, 7.45 p.m., in Urania or the Astrologer's Chronicle, I825, published therefore in Blake's lifetime, and undoubtedly derived from
Varley."




2 THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE
by his son's description, a lenient and affectionate
father, always more ready to encourage than to
chide. Catherine Blake, his wife, and the mother
of the artist, has been represented as being possessed of all those endearing sympathies so
peculiar to maternal tenderness. The eldest son,
John, was the favourite of his father and mother;
and, as frequently in life, the object least worthy
is most cherished, so he, a dissolute, disreputable
youth, carried away the principal of his parent's
attachment, leaving the four others, William,
James, Catherine, and Robert, to share the interest
between them. William often remonstrated, and
was as often told to be quiet, and that he would
by and by beg his bread at John's door; but,
as is sometimes proved to parents' sorrow, their
pet will not be petted into honour nor their
darling into any other admiration than their own.
John was apprenticed to a gingerbread baker,
with an enormous premium, served his apprenticeship with reluctance, became abandoned and
miserable, and literally, contrary to his parents'
presage, sought bread at the door of William.
He lived a few reckless days, enlisted as a
soldier, and died.  James continued the business at the death of his father and mother,
and having a saving, somniferous mind, lived
a yard and a half life, pestered his brother, the




THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE 3
artist, with timid sentences of bread and cheese
advice, got together a little annuity, upon which
he supported his only sister, and, vegetating to a
moderate age, died about three years before his
brother William. Robert, the youngest son, was
the affectionate companion of William; they sympathised in their pursuits and sentiments; like
plants, planted side by side by a stream, they grew
together and entwined the luxuriant tendrils of
their expanding minds. They associated and excelled together, and, like all true lovers, delighted
in and enhanced each other's beauties.
"For they were nursed upon the self-same hill,
Fed the same flock by fountain, shade, and rill."
Robert was of amiable and docile temper, and
of a tender and affectionate mind, and like many
of those who appear born for early death, his
short life was but as the narrow porch to his
eternal lot: he died of consumption at twenty-four
years of age. Miss Catherine, the only daughter,
is still living, having survived nearly all her
relations.
William, the artist, appears to have possessed
from a child that daring, impetuous, and vigorous
temper which was in latter life so singularly
characteristic both of him and his sublime inventions. Although easily persuaded, he despised




4 THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE
restraints and rules, so much that his father dared
not send him to school. Like the Arabian horse,
he is said to have so hated a blow that his father
thought it most prudent to withhold from him the
liability of receiving punishment. He picked up
his education as well as he could. His talent for
drawing manifesting itself as spontaneously as it
was premature, he was always sketching; and, after
having drawn nearly everything around him with
considerable ability, he was sent to draw with Pars,
a drawing master in the Strand, at ten years of age.
He used also at this time to frequent Langford's,
the auctioneer, where he saw pictures and bought
prints from Raphael, Michael Angelo, Albert
Durer, Julio Romano, and others of the great
designers of the Cinquecento, and refused to buy
any others, however celebrated. Langford favoured
him by knocking down the lots he bought so
quickly, that he obtained them at a rate suited to
the pocket savings of a lad. Langford called him
his little connoisseur. Even at this time he met
with that opposition and ridicule from his contemporaries (many of whom have since become men of
note) that harassed him afterwards: they laughed at
his predilection for these great masters. His love for
art increasing, and the time of life having arrived
when it was deemed necessary to place him under
some tutor, a painter of eminence was proposed,




THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE 5
and necessary applications were made; but from the
huge premium required, he requested, with his
characteristic generosity, that his father would not
on any account spend so much money on him, as
he thought it would be an injustice to his brothers
and sisters. He therefore himself proposed engraving as being less expensive, and sufficiently eligible
for his future avocations. Of Basire, therefore, for
a premium of fifty guineas, he learnt the art of
modern engraving. The trammels of this art,
which he never till his very last days overcame, he
spent money and time to learn, and had it not been
for the circumstance of his having frequent quarrels
with his fellow apprentices, concerning matters of
intellectual argument, he would perhaps never have
handled the pencil, and would consequently have
been doomed for ever to furrow upon a copper plate
monotonous and regular lines, placed at even
distances, without genius and without form. These
quarrels existing between the three boys, Basire
thought he could not do better than to send Blake
out drawing; as he was about to engrave a work
for the Antiquarian Society, he sent him, therefore,
to Westminster Abbey. " There he found a treasure
which he knew how to value. He saw the simple
and plain road to the style of art at which he aimed,
unentangled in the intricate mazes of modern
practice. The monuments of kings and queens in




6 THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE
Westminster Abbey, which surround the Chapel of
Edward the Confessor, particularly that of Henry
the Third, the beautiful monument and figure of
Queen Eleanor, Queen Philippa, and Edward the
Third, King Richard the Second and his Queen, were
among his first studies; the heads he considered as
portraits, and all the ornaments appeared as miracles
of art." (See Malkin's life of his child,' in which
there is a short sketch of Blake, written during his
lifetime.) If all his drawings were enumerated from
Westminster Abbey, as well as many other
churches in and about London, the multitude
would no doubt astonish the calculator, for his
interest was highly excited and his industry equally
inexhaustible. These things he drew beautifully;
ever attentive to the delicacies and timorous lineaments of the Gothic handling, he felt and portrayed their beauties so well that his master considered
him an acquisition of no mean capacity. An
incident showing the suddenness of his temper is
related. The Westminster boys were then permitted to roam and loiter about the Abbey at their
leisure, and, among their jokes, they chose to interrupt the careful and young student, whose riveted
attention and absorbed thought became an object
1 A Fathers Memoirs of His Child, by Benj. Heath Malkin, Esq.
(London, i8o6), contains, at pp. xviii-xli, an account of Blake's
" early education in art, derived from his own lips."




THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE 7
of their mischievous envy. One of them is said, after
having already tormented him, to have got upon
some pinnacle on a level with his scaffold in order
better to annoy him. In the impetuosity of his
anger, worn out with interruption, he knocked him
off and precipitated him to the ground, upon which
he fell with terrific violence. The young draughtsman made a complaint to the Dean, who kindly
ordered that the door should be closed upon them,
and they have never since been allowed to extend
their tether to the interior of the Abbey. Blake
pursued his task, and his absorption gathered to
itself impressions that were never forgotten. His
imagination ever after wandered as in a cloister, or
clothing itself in the dark stole of mural sanctity, it
dwelt amidst the Druid terrors. His mind being
simplified by Gothic forms, and his fancy imbued
with the livid twilight of past days, it chose for
its quaint company such sublime but antiquated
associates as the fearful Merlin, Arthur and the
knights of his Round Table, the just and wise
Alfred, King John, and every other hero of English
history and romance. These indigenous abstractions for many of the following years occupied his
hand, and ever after tinctured his thoughts and
perceptions. The backgrounds of his pictures
nearly always exhibited Druidical stones and other
symbols of English antiquity. Albion was the hero




8 THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE
of his pictures, prints, and poems. He appeared to
be the human abstract of his mystical thoughts.
He recounted his deeds, he exhausted the incidents
of his history, and when he had accomplished this
" he then imagined new." He made him a spiritual
essence; representing the country of Britain under
this one personification, he has made him the hero
of nearly all his works. He has connected Albion
with Jerusalem,' and Jerusalem with other mysterious images of his own fancy, in such a manner as
will be difficult to unravel, but not entirely impossible, it is imagined, after reading the remainder of
his writings, which will absorb time and pains, much
indeed of both, for his pen was quite as active in
his indefatigable hand as was his graver or his
pencil; he used all with equal temerity and complete originality.
Between the age of twelve and twenty he wrote
several poems, afterward published2 by the advice
and with the assistance of Flaxman, Mrs. Matthews,
and others of his friends. They are succinct, original,
fanciful, and fiery; but, as a general criticism, it
may be said that they are more rude than refined,
more clumsy than delicate.  Two of them    are
equal to Ben Jonson.
1 Cp. Jerusalem, The Emanation of the Giant Albion, i804,
Passim.
2 Poetical Sketches, by W. B., London: Printed in the year
MDCCLXXXIII.




THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE 9
SONG1
"How sweet I roamed from field to field,
And tasted all the summer's pride,
Till I the prince of love beheld,
Who in the summer beams did glide.
He showed me lilies for my hair,
And blushing roses for my brow,
He led me thro' his gardens fair,
Where all his golden pleasures grow.
With sweet May-dew my wings were wet,
And Phoebus fired my vocal rage,
He caught me in his silken net,
And shut me in his golden cage.
He loves to sit and hear me sing,
Then laughing sports and plays with me,
And stretches out my golden wing,
And mocks my loss of liberty."
SONG2
"Love and harmony combine,
And around our souls entwine:
While thy branches mix with mine,
And our roots together join.
Joys upon our branches sit,
Chirping loud and singing sweet,
Like gentle streams beneath our feet,
Innocence and virtue meet.
Thou the golden fruit dost bear,
I am clad in flowers fair,
Thy sweet boughs perfume the air,
And the turtle buildeth there.
Poetical Sketches, p. ro. Malkin, who quotes this song, says it
was written before the age of fourteen.
2 Ibid., p. I2.




10 THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE
Then she sits and feeds her young:
Sweet I hear her mournful song;
And thy lovely leaves among,
There is love, I hear his tongue.
There his charming nest doth lay,
There he sleeps the night away,
There he sports along the day,
And doth among our branches play."
The others, although well for a lad, are but
moderate. His blank verse is prose cut in slices,
and his prose inelegant, but replete with imagery.
The following is a specimen:'
"Who is this with unerring step doth tempt the wilds, where
only nature's foot hath trod. 'Tis Contemplation, daughter of Grey
Morning. Majestical she steppeth, and with her pure quill on
every flower writeth Wisdom's name. Now lowly bending,
whispers in mine ear: O man, how great, how little art thou.
O man, slave for each moment, Lord of eternity, Seest thou
where mirth sits on the painted cheek; doth it not seem ashamed
and grow immoderate to brave it out? O what a humble garb
true joy puts on. Those who want happiness must stoop to find
it: it is a flower that grows in every vale. Vain, foolish man that
roams on lofty rocks! where, because his garments are swollen
with wind, he fancies he is grown into a giant."
The aphorism on happiness is worthy of his after
days; he seems at this time to have sighed after
something invisible, for he complains in these
words: "I     am   wrapped    in mortality, my flesh is
a prison, and my bones the bars of death." 2
About this time Blake took to painting, and


1 Poetical Sketches, p. 63.


2 Ibid., p. 64.




THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE 11
his success in it being a matter of opinion, it will
require some care to give a fair account. Oil
painting was recommended to him as the only
medium through which breadth, force, and sufficient
rapidity could be obtained. He made several
attempts, and found himself quite unequal to the
management of it. His great objections were that
the picture, after it was painted, sunk so much that
it ceased to retain the brilliancy and luxury that
he intended, and also that no definite line, no
positive end to the form could, even with the
greatest of his ingenuity, be obtained: all his lines
dwindled and his clearness melted. From these
circumstances it harassed him; he grew impatient
and rebellious, and flung it aside, tired with ill
success and tormented with doubts.  He then
attacked it with all the indignation he could collect,
and finally relinquished it to men, if not of less
minds, of less ambition. He had Michael Angelo
on his side, without doubt, and a great many of the
old genuine painters. Desiring that his colours
should be as pure and as permanent as precious
stones, he could not with oil obtain his end. The
writer of this being a sculptor, he has not had the
opportunity of collecting materials for Mr. Blake's
defence, but he has no doubt that his hatred to oil
as a vehicle was produced by some great defect in
it, as he has also no doubt, in spite of what cavillers




12 THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE
have irritated Blake to say, that he possessed too
much sound sense and judgment to be absolutely
wrong, although he might in his violence have
said more than he could prove. Blake seemed
intended for the fifteenth century, when real
energy of mind gained the appropriate 'rapidity
of hand, and when the vehicle, if not such as he
invented, was in much better command for sublime
compositions; there might have been some variation in the vehicle that was enough to make all the
difference, and that vehicle might have been such
an one as he would not have complained of. The
author has seen pictures of Blake's in the possession of Wm. Butts, Esq., Fitzroy Square, that
have appeared exactly like the old cabinet pictures
of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, where he
has touched the lights with white composed of
whiting and glue, of which material he laid the
ground of his panel. Two of these pictures are
of the most sublime composition and artistic workmanship; they are not drawings on canvas, as
some of his others, but they are superlative specimens of genuine painter-like handling and force,
and are little inferior in depth, tone, and colour to
any modern oil picture in the country.
During these paroxysms of indignation he is
said to have come in contact with Sir Joshua
Reynolds, but it is very odd that the man whose




THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE 13
pictures were already cracked and split, and likely
to be much more so, from the insufficiency or the
misuse of his vehicle, turned his deaf side to his
remarks; nay, he is said to have been quite angry
with him for scrutinising so tender a subject. Sir
Joshua Reynolds was indeed a clever painter, but
he was too fond of the comforts of life to give even
an hour a day for any other experiments but those
which would enable him to paint with greater
celerity. Sir Joshua made experiments, they say.
No doubt he did. Well, then, the least that can be
said is, that he began at the wrong end, like any
other blunderer, and concluded in making his
colours so bad that many of his pictures now
possess no other quality than those which they
still would have had if they had been always
divested of colour: bold handling, fine judgment,
able delineation of form, and great knowledge of
nature. Some of his pictures were coloured once,
but are not coloured now, for they have cracked
and split and flown worse than those of any other
painter extant.  Was he, then, the man to sneer
at what might have been an improvement if it had
been tried by more than one. It is irritating to
hear a sick man curse the salve of his sore place.
Very singular it is to know that many of the best
painters do not paint with the oil vehicle, or, if they
do, in a very small quantity. Fuseli painted with




14 THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE
very little oil, but then oil painters consider Fuseli
no colourist. What is colouring? It is a most
vague term, and is generally used in a still more
vague manner. Blake wrote thus upon it:1
"The eye that can prefer the colouring of
Titian and Corregio and Rubens ought to be
modest, and doubt its own powers. Connoisseurs
talk as if Raphael and Michael Angelo have never
seen the colouring of Titian and Corregio; they
ought to know that Corregio was born two years
before Michael Angelo, and Titian but four years
after: both Raphael and Michael Angelo knew the
Venetian, and contemned and rejected all he did
with the utmost disdain, as that which is fabricated
for the purpose of destroying art. The eyes of
stupid cunning will never be pleased with the work
any more than the look of self-devoting genius.
The quarrel of the Florentine with the Venetian is
not because he does not understand drawing, but
because he does not understand colouring. How
should he, when he does not know how to draw a
hand or 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 all
depends on form or outline, on where that is put;
where that is wrong the colouring never can be
right."
1 A Descriptive Catalogue of Pictures, Poetical and Historical
Inventions, painted by William Blake, i809: preface.




THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE 15
Fuseli was expected to paint his Witches with
the carnations of Flora and Venus, and the author
of the cavern depths of the Sistine Chapel is
deemed unworthy to hold the palette or to use the
brush.  Because Fuseli coloured a witch like a
witch, and Michael Angelo coloured a prophet like
a prophet, these men are called no colourists.
That the greatest men should colour worst is an
enigma perfectly inexplicable; but after apologising
for the digression, if the reader should want any
more light upon this obscure subject, he must ask
the picture dealers or their fry: it will of them be
learnt that nobody can colour well but those that
can draw ill, in an equivalent ratio. Blake painted
on panel or canvas covered with three or four
layers of whitening and carpenter's glue, as he said
the nature of gum was to crack; for as he used
several layers of colour to produce his depths, the
coats necessarily in the deepest parts became so
thick that they were likely to peel off. Washing
his pictures over with glue, in the manner of a
varnish, he fixed the colours, and at last varnished
with a white hard varnish of his own making. It
must, however, be confessed that his pictures mostly
are not very deep, but they have an unrivalled
tender brilliancy.  He took infinite pains with
them, coloured them very highly, and certainly,
without prejudice, either for or against, has pro



16  THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE
duced as fine works as any ancient painter. He
can be excelled by none where he is successful.
Like his thoughts, his paintings seem to be
inspired by fairies, and his colours look as if they
were the bloom dropped from the brilliant wings
of the spirits of the prism. This may appear too
much to be said of the mad Blake, as he was called
by those too grovelling and too ignorant to discern
his merits. Mr. Butts' collection is enough in all
conscience to prove this, and more, and whoever
does not perceive the beauties of this splendid
collection ought indeed to find fault with modesty
and censure with a blush.
In his twenty-fourth year he fell in love
with a young woman, who by his own account
and according to his own knowledge was no
trifler. He wanted to marry her, but she refused,
and was as obstinate as she was unkind.  He
became ill, and went to Kew, near Richmond, for a
change of air and renovation of health and spirits,
and as far as is possible to know lodged at the
house of a market gardener whose name was
Boutcher. The Boutchers appear to have been
a respectable and industrious family.  He was
relating to the daughter, a girl named Catherine,
the lamentable story of Polly Wood, his implacable
lass, upon which Catherine expressed her deep
sympathy, it is supposed, in such a tender and




THE LIFE OF WVILLIAM BLAKE 17
affectionate manner, that it quite won him. He immediately said, with the suddenness peculiar to him,
" Do you pity me?" "Yes, indeed I do," answered
she. " Then I love you," said he again. Such was
their courtship. He was impressed by her tenderness of mind, and her answer indicated her previous
feeling for him: for she has often said that upon
her mother's asking her who among her acquaintances she could fancy for a husband, she replied
that she had not yet seen the man, and she has
further been heard to say that when she first came
into the room in which Blake sat, she instantly
recognised (like Britomart in Merlin's wondrous
glass) her future partner, and was so near fainting
that she left his presence until she had recovered.
After this interview, Blake left the house, having
recruited his health and spirits, and having determined to take Catherine Boutcher to wife. He
returned to his lodgings and worked incessantly
that he might be able to accomplish this end, at
the same time resolving that he would not see her
until he succeeded. This interval, which she felt
dolefully long, was one whole year, at the expiration
of which, with the approbation and consent of his
parents, he married this interesting, beautiful, and
affectionate girl. Nimble with joy and warm with
the glow of youth, this bride was presented to her
noble bridegroom. The morning of their married
2




18 THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE
life was bright as the noon of their devoted love,
the noon as clear as the serene evening of their
mutual equanimity. Although not handsome, he
must have had a noble countenance, full of expression and animation; his hair was of a yellow
brown, and curled with the utmost crispness and
luxuriance; his locks, instead of falling down, stood
up like a curling flame, and looked at a distance
like radiations, which with his fiery eye and
expansive forehead, his dignified and cheerful
physiognomy, must have made his appearance
truly prepossessing. After his marriage he took
lodgings in Green Street, Leicester Square.
It is now necessary to mention somewhat concerning the fanciful representations that Blake
asserted were presented to his mind's eye. Difficult
as this subject is, it cannot be omitted without a
sacrifice to the memory of this great man. He
always asserted that he had the power of bringing
his imaginations before his mind's eye, so completely
organised, and so perfectly formed and evident,
that he persisted that while he copied the vision (as
he called it) upon his plate or canvas, he could not
err, and that error and defect could only arise from
the departure or inaccurate delineation of this unsubstantial scene. He said that he was the companion of spirits, who taught, rebuked, argued, and
advised with all the familiarity of personal inter



THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE 19
course. What appears more odd still, was the
power he contended he had of calling up any
personage of past days, to delineate their forms and
features, and to converse upon the topic most
incidental to the days of their own existence. How
far this is probable must be a question left either to
the credulity or the faith of each person. It is fair,
however, to say that what Blake produced from
these characters, in delineating them, was often so
curiously original, and yet so finely expressed, that
it was difficult, if prejudices were cast away, to
disbelieve totally this power. It is well known to
all inquiring men that Blake was not the only
individual who enjoyed this peculiar gift. A great
and learned German, Emanuel Swedenborg, whose
writings, as well as being so peculiar, are so interesting, saw visions of eternity, a full account of which
he gives in his voluminous writings. After having
applied himself, in early life, to the minutest studies
of philosophy, mathematics, mechanics, and every
skilful and theoretical occupation, after having been
employed by his country in the most conspicuous
and responsible offices, he suddenly (being as
suddenly called by a vision) devoted his life to the
most abstruse theological discussions and dilations,
which, after having developed in vision, he wrote.
Such things, indeed, are they, that unquestionably
could not be invented by one ever so ingenious




20 THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE
(vide Life of Swedenborg). Swedenborg was not a
madman, nor does he appear to have been considered so by his contemporaries.  His tenets after
his death propagated, and, like all religious creeds,
soon formed a sect, which sect has at some periods
been very numerous. Flaxman belonged to them, as
have many other as judicious men. Although it
would not be irrelevant, it would be tedious to
narrate Swedenborg's opinions, or rather Swedenborg's visions, for he asserted that he only gave a
detail and history of what he saw and heard. All that
is necessary to prove now is, that other men, other
sensible men, such as scarcely could be designated
as mad or stupid, did see into an immaterial life
denied to most. All that is proposed here, further,
is that it is a possible thing, that it does not require
either a madman to see or an idiot to believe that
such things are. Blake asserted, from a boy, that
he did see them; even when a child, his mother
beat him for running in and saying that he saw the
prophet Ezekiel under a tree in the fields. In this
incredulous age it is requisite, before this possibility
is admitted, even as a doubt or question, that it
should be said that he who inefficiently attempts to
defend this power, never has been accustomed to see
them, although he has known others besides Blake,
on whose veracity and sanity he could equally well
rely, who have been thus favoured. The Cock




THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE 21
Lane ghost story, the old women's tales, and the
young bravo who defies the ghost in the tap-room,
that he shudders at in his walk home, are foolishly
mixed up with Blake's visions. They are totally
different; they are mental abstractions, that are not
necessarily accompanied with fear, such as ghosts
and apparitions, which either appear to be, or are,
seen by the mortal eyes, which circumstance alone
horrifies. These visions of Blake seem to have
been more like peopled imaginations and personified
thoughts; they only horrified where they represented any scene in which horrors were depicted, as
a picture or a poem. Richard Brothers has been
classed as one possessing this power, but he was
really a decided madman; he asserted that he was
nephew to God the Father, and in a mad-house he
died, as well indeed he might. Brothers is only
classed with Swedenborg in order to ridicule
Swedenborg and bring him into contempt. Blake
and Brothers, therefore, must not be placed together.
Again, in reference to the authenticity of Blake's
visions, let anyone contemplate the designs in this
book.' Are they not only new in their method and
manner, but actually new in their class and origin?
Do they look like the localities of common circumstances, or of lower worlds? The combinations are
1 Jerusaleim, The Emanation of the Giant Albion, I804. The present
LZfe being bound up with a coloured example of this work.




22 THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE
chimerical, the forms unusual, the inventions abstract;
the poem not only abstruse, but absolutely, according
to common rules of criticism, as near ridiculous as
it is completely heterogeneous. With all that is incomprehensible in the poem, with all that might by
some be termed ridiculous in the plan, the designs
are possessed of some of the most sublime ideas,
some of the most lofty thoughts, some of the most
noble conceptions possible to the mind of man.
You may doubt, however, the means, and you may
criticise the peculiarity of the notions, but you
cannot but admire, nay, "wonder at with great
admiration,!" these expressive, these sublime, these
awful diagrams of an eternal phantasy.  Michael
Angelo, Julio Romano, or any other great man, never
surpassed Plates 25, 35, 37, 46, 5I, 76, 94, and
many of the stupendous and awful scenes with
which this laborious work is so thickly ornamented.
"Visions of glory, spare my aching sight;
Ye unborn ages, crowd not on my soul."
Even supposing the poetry to be the mere vehicle
or a mere alloy for the sake of producing or
combining these wonderful thoughts, it should at all
events be looked upon with some respect.
But to return to the biography. Blake continued to apply himself, as heretofore, to the art
he so dearly loved and so implicitly followed. He




THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE 23
removed to a house in Poland Street,l Oxford
Street, where he lived some years.  He then
changed his residence to Hercules Buildings,2
Lambeth, at which place he wrote and designed
some of his largest and most important works. It
was here that Flaxman used to come and see him,
and sit drinking tea in the garden under the shadow
of the grape vine which Mrs. Blake had very carefully trained. Mr. and Mrs. Flaxman were highly
delighted with Blake's Arcadian arbour, as well
indeed they might, for they all sat with ripe fruit
hanging in rich clusters around their heads. These
two great men had known each other from boyhood.
Flaxman was a cheerful, lively young man, was very
good company, and sang beautifully, having an
excellent and musical voice, as well as almost all
of the qualities requisite for good fellowship and
innocent convivial mirth. This house and garden
was adjoining the old Astley's Theatre, and an
anecdote showing his courage, as well as his utter
detestation of human slavery, is too interesting and
characteristic to remain untold. Blake was standing
at one of his windows, which looked into Astley's
premises (the man who established the theatre still
called by his name), and saw a boy hobbling along
with a log to his foot, such an one as is put on a
horse or ass to prevent their straying. Blake called
1 In I787.           2 In I793.




24 THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE
his wife and asked her for what reason that log
could be placed upon the boy's foot. She answered
that it must be for a punishment for some inadvertency. Blake's blood boiled, and his indignation
surpassed his forbearance. He sallied forth, and
demanded in no very quiescent terms that the boy
should be loosed, and that no Englishman should be
subjected to those miseries, which he thought were
inexcusable even towards a slave. After having
succeeded in obtaining the boy's release in some
way or other, he returned home. Astley by this
time, having heard of Blake's interference, came to
his house and demanded, in an equally peremptory
manner, by what authority he dare come athwart
his method of jurisdiction. To which Blake replied
with such warmth, that blows were very nearly the
consequence. The debate lasted long, but, like all
wise men whose anger is unavoidably raised, they
ended in mutual forgiveness and mutual respect.
Astley saw that his punishment was too degrading,
and admired Blake for his humane sensibility, and
Blake desisted from wrath when Astley was pacified.
As this is an example truly worthy of imitation to
all those whose anger is either excited by indignation or called forth by defence, it may not be out of
place to say, if all quarrels were thus settled, the time
would shortly come when the lion would lie down
with the lamb, and the little child would lead them.




THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE 25
Blake resided in Hercules Buildings in a pretty,
clean house of eight or ten rooms, and at first kept
a servant, but finding (as Mrs. Blake declared, and
as everyone else knows) the more service the more
inconvenience, she, like all sensible women who
are possessed of industry and health, and only
moderate means, relinquished this incessant tax
upon domestic comfort, did all the work herself,
kept the house clean and herself tidy, besides
printing all Blake's numerous engravings, which
was a task alone sufficient for any industrious
woman. But, however, as there is no state, or
scheme, or plan without its accompanying evil,
Blake had reason to regret his having left no one
in possession of his house during his and Mrs.
Blake's absence, for one day, paying some friendly
visit, some thieves entered it and carried away
plate to the value of ~6o and clothes to the amount
of ~40 more. Some persons may say, Had poor
Blake ever in his whole life ~6o worth of plate to
lose? Had poor half-starved Blake ever a suit of
clothes beyond the tatters on his back? Yes!!!
he enjoyed in the early part of his life not only
comforts but necessaries, and in the latter part of
his life, be it said, in vindication of a Divine Providence, that never forsakes the devout and excellent,
he always possessed such external and substantial
means of solace and happiness that, together with




26 THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE
his own contented disposition and Mrs. Blake's
excellent management, left him even in person,
although far from gross, round and comfortable, and
at one time nearly what may be called portly. By
way of contradiction to the report of Blake's poverty,
be it known that he could even find money enough
to lend; for when a certain free-thinking speculator,
the author of many elaborate philosophical treatises,
said that his children had not a dinner,' Blake lent
him ~f4~, nearly all he had at that time by him,
and had the mortification upon calling upon him -on
the following Sunday, to find that his wife, who
was a dressy and what is called a pretty woman,
had squandered some large portion of the money
upon her worthless sides. She had the audacity to
ask Mrs. Blake's opinion of a very gorgeous dress,
purchased the day following Blake's compassionate
gift: for there is little doubt so great-a difficulty as
the payment of a debt never was attempted by
such careless ones as those. Such people are a prey
upon the assiduous, and a heavy drag to the neverfailing industry of the active man, whose sagacity is
wealth, whose energy is gain, and whose labours are
ever blessed with the abundance they deserve.
Industry and frugality accompany each other
through lands fat with plenty, and meadows fed
with the streams of exuberance; they enjoy and
praise, are satisfied and rej.oice.  Idleness and




THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE 27
extravagance prowl through the deserts of want,
and where it should happen they find a repast, in
unthankfulness and ignorance they gorge and
gormandise; they then loiter during the interval
of their sloth until their wants have again returned,
and their ungrateful entrails are demanding more.
Emptiness is indeed their curse, and repletion the
utmost paradise of their vacant thoughts.
Another anecdote may be given to shew that
Blake could not have suffered much from absolute
want. About this time he taught drawing, and
was engaged for that purpose by some families of
high rank; which, by the bye, he could not have
found very profitable, for after his lesson he got
into conversation with his pupils, and was found so
entertaining and pleasant, possessing such novel
thoughts and such eccentric notions, together with
such jocose hilarity and amiable demeanour, that he
frequently found himself asked to stay to dinner, and
spend the evening in the same interesting and
lively manner in which he had consumed the
morning. Thus he stopped whole days from his
work at home; but nevertheless he continued
teaching, until a remarkable effort and kind flirt
of fortune brought this mode of livelihood to an
inevitable close. He was recommended, and nearly
obtained an appointment, to teach drawing to the
Royal Family. Blake stood aghast: not, indeed,




28 THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE
from any republican humours, not from any disaffection to his superiors, but because he would
have been drawn into a class of society superior to
his previous pursuits and habits; he would have
been expected to have lived in comparative respectability, not to say splendour-a. mode of life, as he
thought, derogatory to the simplicity of his designs
and deportment.  He had again, as about oil
painting, Michael Angelo on his side, who, though
rich, preferred living as a poor man, the habits of
whom, it must be confessed, are the most conducive
and congenial to study and application.
His friends ridiculed and blamed him by turns,
but Blake found an excuse by resigning all his
other pupils, and continued to suffice himself upon
his frugality, to find plenty in what others have
called want, and wealth in the efforts of his own
mind. Another anecdote for the same purpose.
His friend Hayley, as will afterwards be more fully
shown, begged him to take to painting miniatures,
which he could do, and had before done so beautifully.
He painted and he pleased; his connection increased
without much effort, and he obtained sufficient to
occupy the whole of his time. But, sighing after his
fancies and visionary pursuits, he rebelled and fled
fifty miles away for refuge from the lace caps and
powdered wigs of his priggish sitters, and resumed
his quaint dreams and immeasurable phantasies,




THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE 29
never more to forsake them for pelf and portraiture.
A beautiful story may be related in which
Blake's means as well as his sympathetic nature
may be further established. A young man passed
his house daily whose avocations seemed to lead
him backward and forward to some place of study,
carrying a portfolio under his arm. He looked
interesting and eager, but sickly. After some time
Blake sent Mrs. Blake to call the young man in;
he came and told them that he was studying the
arts. Blake from this took a high interest in him,
and gave him every instruction possible; but, alas!
there was a worm lying at the root, whose bite,
however, Blake was raised up to assuage. The
young man shortly after fell sick, and was laid upon
his bed; his illness was long and his sufferings
were great, during which time Mrs. Blake or Blake
never omitted visiting him daily and administering
medicine, money, or wine, and every other requisite
until death relieved their adopted of all earthly care
and pain. Every attention, every parental tenderness was exhibited by the charitable pair. Blake
could not, therefore, have been poor, or at all events
he could not possibly be in starvation, to have
been able to have rendered such timely and such
benevolent assistance to others. Besides, it is a
fact known to the writer, that Mrs. Blake's frugality




30 THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE
always kept a guinea or sovereign for any emergency,
of which Blake never knew, even to the day of his
death. This she did for years, and when a man
has always got a sovereign in his pocket, and
owes nothing, he is in this land of debt decidedly
otherwise than poor.
Through the medium of Flaxman he was introduced to Hayley, who, being much interested,
requested him to come down to Felpham,1 in
Sussex, to a cottage near his residence, to engrave
plates from his poems, and also to assist him in
gathering his materials for the life of Cowper,
afterwards published. During his stay of three
years he was thus occupied, and also in making
life-sized circular portraits of all the great poets2
for the library of Felpham House; but in consequence of Hayley's acquaintances being so desirous
to possess miniatures by him (as before mentioned)
he left for No. 3 Fountain Court3 (a house belonging
to his wife's brother), the lodging in which he lived
during the whole of his latter days, and in which
he died. Blake had in this house two good-sized
rooms and kitchens. He fixed upon these lodgings
as being more congenial to his habits, as he was
very much accustomed to get out of his bed in the
1 In I8oo.             2 See note i, p. 85.
3 On his return from Felpham, in I803, Blake took rooms at 17
South Molton Street; and it was not until some years later (I821)
that he removed to 3 Fountain Court, Strand. See p. 227.




THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE 31
night to write for hours, and return to bed for the
rest of the night after having committed to paper
pages and pages of his mysterious phantasies. He
wrote much and often, and he sometimes thought
that if he wrote less he must necessarily do more
graving and painting, and he has debarred himself
of his pen for a month or more; but upon comparison
has found by no means so much work accomplished,
and the little that was done by no means so vigorous.
He was a subject of much mental temptation
and mental suffering, and required sometimes much
soothing. He has frequently had recourse to the
following stratagem to calm the turbulence of his
thoughts. His wife being to him a very patient
woman, he fancied that while she looked on at
him as he worked, her sitting quite still by his
side, doing nothing, soothed his impetuous mind;
and he has many a time, when a strong desire
presented itself to overcome any difficulty in
his plates or drawings, in the middle of the night
risen, and requested her to get up with him and
sit by his side, in which she as cheerfully acquiesced.
When roused or annoyed he was possessed of
a violent temper; but in his passions there was
some method, for while he was engraving a large
portrait of Lavater, not being able to obtain what
he wanted, he threw the plate completely across
the room. Upon his relating this he was asked




32 THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE
whether he did not injure it, to which he replied
with his usual fun: "Oh! I took good care of
that!" He was a subject often of much internal
perturbation and over-anxiety, for he has spoilt as
much work (which every artist knows is not only
easy, but common) by over-labour as would take
some a whole life of ordinary industry to accomplish.
Mrs. Blake has been heard to say that she never
saw him, except when in conversation or reading,
with his hands idle; he scarcely ever mused upon
what he had done. Some men muse and call it
thinking, but Blake was a hard worker; his thought
was only for action, as a man plans a house, or a
general consults his map and arranges his forces
for a battle.  His mental acquirements were
incredible; he had read almost everything in whatsoever language, which language. he always taught
himself. His conversation, therefore, was highly
interesting, and never could one converse on any
subject with him, but they would gain something
quite as new as noble from his eccentric and elastic
mind. It is a remarkable fact that among the
volumes bequeathed by Mrs. Blake to the author
of this sketch, the most thumbed from use are his
Bible and those books in other languages. He
was very fond of Ovid, especially the Fasti. He
read Dante when he was past sixty, although
before he never knew a word of Italian, and




THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE 33
he drew from it a hundred such designs as
have never been done by any Englishman at
any period or by any foreigner since the fifteenth
century, and then his only competitor was Michael
Angelo.
It now becomes, from the brevity of the present
manuscript, the painful duty of the biographer to
traverse to the period to which Blake's own lines
are immediately applicable. His pilgrimage was
nearly at an end, and of such he thus spoke:
"But when once I did descry
The Immortal man that cannot die,
Thro' evening shades I haste away
To close the labours of my day."
It has been supposed his excessive labour without the exercise he used formerly to take (having
relinquished the habit of taking very long walks)
brought on the complaint which afterwards consumed him.   In his youth he and his wife would
start in the morning early, and walk out twenty
miles and dine at some pretty and sequestered inn,
and would return the same day home, having
travelled forty miles. Mrs. Blake would do this
without excessive fatigue. Blake has been known
to walk fifty miles in the day, but being told by
some physicians that such long walks were in1 For children, The Gates of Paradise, I793. Published by W.
Blake: 11. 41-44.
3




34 THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE
jurious, he discontinued them, and went so far to
the other extreme that it has been said he remained in the house so long that [it] was considered far from extraordinary his days were
shortened. About a year before he died, he was
seized with a species of ague (as it was then
termed), of which he was alternately better and
worse. He was at times very ill, but rallied and
all had hopes of him; indeed, such was his energy
that even then, though sometimes confined to his
bed, he sat up drawing his most stupendous
works.    In August he gradually grew worse and
required much more of his wife's attention; indeed, he was decaying fast.    His patience, during
his agonies of pain, is described to have been
exemplary.
Life, however, like a dying flame, flashed once
more, gave one more burst of animation, during
which he was cheerful, and free from the tortures
of his approaching end; he thought he was better,
and, as he was sure to do, asked to look at the work
over which he was occupied when seized with his
last attack.  It was a coloured print of the Ancient
of Days striking the first circle of the Earth,1 done
1 See plate, which is taken from the actual example (now in the
Whitworth Institute, Manchester), done for Tatham on the present
occasion. The original is printed in yellow, from a plate executed in
Blake's own peculiar method of relief-etching, and coloured by hand.
The colouring is vivid, but carefully put on-red, yellow, and deep




THE ANCIENT OF DAYS STRIKING THE FIRST CIRCLE,
OF THE EARTH








THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE 35
expressly by commission for the writer of this.
After he had worked upon it he exclaimed:
"There, I have done all I can!      It is the best I
have ever finished. I hope Mr. Tatham will like
it." He threw it suddenly down and said: " Kate,
you have been a good wife; I will draw          your
portrait." She sat near his bed, and he made a
drawing which, though not a likeness, is finely
touched and expressed. He then threw that down,
after having drawn for an hour, and began to sing
Hallelujahs and songs of joy and triumph which
Mrs. Blake described as being truly sublime in
music and in verse; he sang loudly and with true
ecstatic energy, and seemed so happy that he had
finished his course, that he had run his race, and
that he was shortly to arrive at the goal, to receive
the prize of his high and eternal calling. After
having answered a few questions concerning his
wife's means of living after his decease, and after
having spoken of the writer of this as a likely
person to become the manager of her affairs, his
blue above, deep blue and black below; gold is also used. The
subject is taken from Paradise Lost, book vii. 11. 225-31
"He took the golden Compasses, prepar'd
In God's Eternal store, to circumscribe
This Universe, and all created things:
One foot he center'd, and the other turn'd
Round through the vast profunditie obscure;
And said, thus farr extend, thus farr thy bounds,
This be thy just Circumference, 0 World."




36 THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE
spirit departed like the sighing of a gentle breeze,
and he slept in company with the mighty ancestors he had formerly depicted.   He - passed
from death to an immortal life on the I2th of
August 1827, being in    his sixty - ninth  year.
Such was the entertainment of the last hour
of his life. His bursts of gladness made the room
peal again. The walls rang and resounded with
the beatific symphony. It was a prelude to the
hymns of saints. It was an overture to the choir
of heaven. It was a chaunt for the response of
angels.
No taught hymns, no psalms got by rote from
any hypocritical sty of cant, no sickly sanctified
buffoonery, but the pure and clear stream of divine
fervour, enlivened by firm faith and unrelenting
hope. "By the rivers he had sat down and wept:
he had hung his harp upon the willow: for how
should he sing the Lord's song in a strange land";
but he is now on the borders of his promise, he is
tuning his strings, he is waking up his lyre, he is
lifting up the throat as the lark in the clouds of
morn. He is rising, he is on the wing: sing, ye
sons of morning: for the vapours of night are
flown, and the dews of darkness are passed away.
"There entertain him, all the saints above,
In solemn troops and sweet societies,
That sing, and singing in their glory move,
And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes."




THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE 37
He was buried on the 17th, and was followed to
the grave by Mr. Calvert of Brixton, painter and
engraver; Mr. Richmond, painter; the writer of this;
and his brother, a clergyman. He was interred in
Bunhill Fields. His complaint turned out to be
the gall mixing with the blood.
William Blake in stature was short, but well
made, and very well proportioned; so much so that
West, the great history painter, admired much the
form of his limbs; he had a large head and wide
shoulders. Elasticity and promptitude of action
were the characteristics of his contour. His motions
were rapid and energetic, betokening a mind filled
with elevated enthusiasm; his forehead was very
high and prominent over the frontals; his eye
most unusually large and glassy, with which he
appeared to look into some other world. The best
and only likeness of this glowing feature that can
be produced is Shakespeare's description of the
eye of the inspired poet in his Midsummer Nigzht's
Dream:
"The poet's eye with a fine frenzy rollingDoth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven:
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name."
In youth he surprised everyone with his vigour
and activity. In age he impressed all with his




38 THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE
unfading ardour and unabated energy. His beautiful grey locks hung upon his shoulders; and
dressing as he always did in latter years in black,
he looked, even in person, although without any
effort towards eccentricity, to be of no ordinary
character. In youth, he was nimble; in old age,
venerable. His disposition was cheerful and lively,
and was never depressed by any cares but those
springing out of his art. He was the attached
friend of all who knew him, and a favourite with
everyone but those who oppressed him, and against
such his noble and impetuous spirit boiled, and fell
upon the aggressor like a water-spout from the
troubled deep. Yet, like Moses, he was one of the
meekest of men. His patience was almost incredible:
he could be the lamb; he could plod as a camel;
he could roar as a lion. He was everything but
subtle; the serpent had no share in his nature;
secrecy was unknown to him. He would relate
those things of himself that others make it their
utmost endeavour to conceal. He was possessed
of a peculiar obstinacy, that always bristled up when
he was either unnecessarily opposed or invited out
to show like a lion or a bear. Many anecdotes
could be related in which there is sufficient evidence
to prove that many of his eccentric speeches were
thrown forth more as a piece of sarcasm upon the
inquirer than from his real opinion. If he thought




THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE 39
a question were put merely for a desire to learn,
no man could give advice more reasonably and
more kindly; but if that same question were put
for idle curiosity, he retaliated by such an eccentric
answer as left the inquirer more afield than ever.
He then made an enigma of a plain question:
hence arose many vague reports of his oddities.
He was particularly so upon religion. His writings
abounded with these sallies of independent opinion.
He detested priestcraft and religious cant.  He
wrote much upon controversial subjects, and, like
all controversies, these writings are inspired by
doubt and made up of vain conceits and whimsical
extravagances. A bad cause requires a long book.
Generally advocating one in which there is a flaw,
the greatest controversialists are the greatest
doubters. They are trembling needles between
extreme points. Irritated by hypocrisy and the
unequivocal yielding of weak and interested men,
he said and wrote unwarrantable arguments; but
unalloyed and unencumbered by opposition, he was
in all essential points orthodox in his belief. But
he put forth ramifications of doubt, that by his
vigorous and creative mind were watered into the
empty enormities of extravagant and rebellious
thoughts.
He was intimate with a great many of the most
learned and eminent men of his time, whom he




40 THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE
generally met at Johnson's, the bookseller of St.
Paul's Churchyard. It was there he met Tom
Paine, and was the cause of his escaping to America,
when the Government were seeking for him for
the punishment of his seditious and refractory
writings. Blake advised him immediately to fly,
for he said: " If you are not now sought, I am sure
you soon will be." Paine took the hint directly,
and found he had just escaped in time. In one of
his conversations, Paine said that religion was a
law and a tie to all able minds. Blake, on the
other hand, said what he was always asserting, that
the religion of Jesus was a perfect law of liberty.
Fuseli was very intimate with Blake, and Blake
was more fond of Fuseli than any other man on
earth. Blake certainly loved him, and at least
Fuseli admired Blake and learned from him, as
he himself confessed, a great deal.  Fuseli and
Flaxman both said that Blake was the greatest
man in the country, and that there would come a
time when his works would be invaluable. Before
Fuseli knew Blake, he used to fill his pictures with
all sorts of fashionable ornaments and tawdry
embellishments.  Blake's simplicity imbued the
minds of all who knew him; his life was a pattern,
and has been spoken of as such from the pulpit.
His abstraction from the world, his power of selfdenial, his detestation of hypocrisy and gain, his




THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE 41
hatred of gold and the things that perish, rendered
him indeed well able to have exclaimed:
" In innocency I have washed my hands."
His poetry (and he has written a great deal)
was mostly unintelligible, but not so much so as
the works written in the manner of the present
one. Generally speaking, he seems to have
published those most mysterious. That which
could be discerned was filled [with] imagery and
fine epithet. What but admiration can be expressed
of such poetry as this:
LONDON.1
"I wander thro' each chartered street,
Near where the winding Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
In every cry of every man,
In every infant's cry of fear,
In every voice of every ban,
The mind-forged manacles I hear.
How the chimney sweepers cry,
Every blackening church appals,
And the hapless soldier's sigh
Runs in blood down palace walls.
But most through midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlot's curse
Blasts the new-born infant's tear,
And blights with plagues the marriage hearse."
1 From Songs of Experience, I794.




42 THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE
THE TIGER.'
"Tiger, Tiger, burning bright
In the forest of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire,
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart,
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?
What the hammer, what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil, what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see,
Did He who made the lamb make thee?
Tiger, Tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?"
A beautiful stanza selected from the following
work:2
"The Rhine was red with human blood,
The Danube rolled in purple tide,
O'er the Euphrates Satan stood,
And over Asia stretched his pride."


IFrom Songs of Exfieriexce, 1794.


2 Jerusa~lem, i 8o4: P. 27.




THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE 43
Another:1
"For a tear is an intellectual thing,
And a sigh is the sword of an angel king,
And the bitter groan of a martyr's woe
Is an arrow from the Almighty's bow."
It may be well said of such poetry as this, such
thrilling lines as these, that they are " Thoughts that
breathe and words that burn." There is another,
very tender:2
THE LAMB.
"Little lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee,
Gave thee life and bid thee feed
By the stream and o'er the mead,
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing woolly light,
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Little lamb, I'll tell thee,
Little lamb, I'll tell thee,
He is called by thy name,
For He calls himself a lamb,
He is meek and He is mild,
He became a little child;
I a child and thou a lamb,
We are called by His name.
Little lamb, God bless thee,
Little lamb, God bless thee."
There is another in which is beautifully related
the tender and exquisite circumstance of a mother


1 Jerusalem, p. 52.


2 Songs of Innocence, I789.




44 THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE
looking on her sleeping infant, which he calls a
cradle song:1
"Sweet babe, in thy face
Holy image I can trace;
Sweet babe, once like thee,
Thy Maker lay and wept for me.
Wept for me, for thee, for all,
When He was an infant small;
Thou His image ever see,
Heavenly face that smiles on thee.
Smiles on thee, on me, on all,
Who became an infant small,
Infant smiles are His own smiles,
Heaven and earth to peace beguiles."
These quotations are from the Songs of Innocence and Experience, engraved on type plates, which
work the author of this is now in possession of, by
the kindness of Mr. Blake, who bequeathed them
to him, as well as all of his works that remained
unsold at his death, being writings, paintings, and
a very great number of copperplates, of whom
impressions may be obtained.
Catherine Blake, the buttress of her husband's
hopes, the stay to his thoughts, the admirer of
his genius, the companion of his solitude and the
solace of his days, was now left without the protecting hand of the most affectionate of husbands.
She grieved much, but she had a hopeful and a
1 Songs of Innocence.




11    -  1.
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9,,                          -,:  "., '. i
I, 04
ill,      -                                             - ,


I,-      ''2;.1


/ - I


CATVHERINE BLAKE








THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE 45
trustful mind in the providence of her Maker.
She endured with almost unexampled fortitude
this afflicting dispensation of Almighty Power.
No children to soothe, scarcely a relation to
console, no one with whom she had ever been
accustomed to assimilate, she thus stood with
every outward mark of widowhood. Her heaviness was great and her trial excessive; but she
was indeed a tower standing in a desert plain.
She had in the cellars of her faith an army of
courageous defenders, who, had she been ever
so encamped against, should, must, and would
have prevailed, through Him who is of the widow
the protector and to the fatherless a friend.
Always, like a true wife, leaning on her husband
for advice and for all spiritual strength, her
shaft broken and her prop dismembered, she had
been forlorn, she had been withered, she had
drooped, nay she had fallen, but for the guard
of her faithful Saviour and her pitiful Redeemer.
So let it tell against the day of fear, so let it
tell against the hour of bereavement that your
Saviour holds the salver for your tender tears.
Hear this, oh wife, cherishing your sickly partner,
dreading the hour of separation and division!
Hear this, ye children, looking at your only
parent sinking into dust!  God is a husband to
the widow and a father to those whose parents




46 THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE
are departed to H is heavenly bosom. A cry is
heard, a voice of joy is sounding in the streets.
The bereaved widow has found a husband and
the fatherless family a trustworthy friend: touch
not their little ones, trample not upon their borders,
break not down their hedges, for their friend is
a strong foe and their defender a mighty man.
She suffered the remains of her dear husband
to leave the house and went through the awful
day of separation with a fortitude nearly unprecedented and a courage by no means to be expected.
She who afterwards fretted herself, pining like
Rachel for her little ones, into a grave ere long
to be inhabited by that temple of obedience, those
hands of unwearied labour, and those limbs of
constant exercise, set out herself the refreshments
of the funeral, saw with her own eye the last
offices of concealment, and parted with him with
a smile.
The widow losing her husband so constantly
in her company, so continually by her side, was
no common circumstance in her days. She who
during a marriage of more than forty years never
parted with him, save for a period that would
make altogether about five weeks, who soothed
and in return was cherished, who waited upon
and in return was protected, found this trial too
great to be endured as a trivial calamity; it




THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE 47
consumed her body, although she maintained her
mind. Such a husband as he was a treasure, that
sweeping the house with the utmost industry
would not again restore. It was hidden, it was
lost-until it shall be again found, set in a precious
and eternal ore, to be worn upon the fair neck
of a descending Church, bedecked and jewelled
for her wedding with the Lamb.
Such was she at his death, and however needless this history may render it to inquire what
she was during his life, it is now a pleasure to
record the intrinsic worth of such a character.
Was she a woman dressed in all the frippery of
fashion? No! She was clean, but in the plainest
attire. Was she an idle drab that brings nought
but ruin and disgrace? No! Nor was she the
medium between all these things. She was the
hard-working burden-bearer to her industrious
husband. She fetched with a free will and brought
with the spirit of a willing mind the materials
with which he was to build up the fabric of his
immortal thoughts. She even laboured upon his
works, those parts of them where powers of
drawing and form were not necessary, which from
her excellent idea of colouring was of no small
use in the completion of his laborious designs.
This she did to a much greater extent than is
usually credited.




48 THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE
After the death of her husband she resided
for some time with the author of this, whose
domestic arrangements were entirely undertaken
by her, until such changes took place that rendered
it impossible for her strength to continue in this
voluntary office of sincere affection and regard.
She then returned to the lodging in which she
had lived previously to this act of maternal loveliness, in which she continued until she was decayed
by fretting and devoured with the silent worm
of grief, which, not from  any distrust of the
providence of her heavenly protector, but from
that pathetic clinging to the stem of her existence,
wasted her, and she withered only from holding
fast to those dead branches which were her former
life and shadow.  Ever since his death her
stomach had proved restless and painful, and on
the morning of the I 7th of October last she was
attacked with cramp and spasms, and after having
exhibited great patience and endured great pain
for twenty-four hours, on the following morning,
at half-past seven o'clock, being the I8th of
October I831, she yielded up the ghost, having
survived her husband only four years. Her age
not being known but by calculation, sixty-five
years were placed upon her coffin.
She was buried, according to her own directions, at Bunhill Fields, with the same funeral




THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE 49
decorations as her husband, which also was her
desire, and was followed to her grave by two
whom   she dearly loved, nay almost idolised,
whose welfare was interwoven with the chords
of her life and whose well-being was her only
solace, her only motive for exertion, her only
joy.  The news of any success to them was a
ray of sun in the dark twilight of her life. Their
cares were hers, their sorrows were her own.
To them she was as the fondest mother, as the
most affectionate sister, and as the best of friends.
These had the satisfaction of putting into her
trembling hands the last cup of moisture she
applied to her dying lips, and to them she
bequeathed her all.   But as the affectionate
remembrances would call forth as many pages
as can now be afforded in words, some future
and more lengthened praises must exhibit that
gratitude which nothing but a whole book could
expiate.
Four other friends, being Mr. Bird, painter,
Mr. Denham, sculptor, Mr. and Mrs. Richmond,
followed with them the remains of this irradiated
saint.


4




I
I
I
il-    -.                                                                                                                                                                   -     --   -1   - --                                                                                              I   




THE LETTERS OF
WILLIAM BLAKE
I.
Extract from a Letter from JOHN FLAXMAN 1
tO WILLIAM HAYLEY.2
WARDOUR STREET, SOHO,
26th April.3
I have left a pamphlet of poems4 with
Mr. Long,5 which        he will transmit to       Eartham;
1 John Flaxman (1755-I826), the celebrated sculptor and draughtsman. He was one of Blake's earliest friends and admirers, and was
the means of introducing him to Hayley. Some years later an unhappy misunderstanding put an end to their friendship.
2 William  Hayley (1745-I820), poetaster and litterateur. He
settled at Eartham in 1774. In I8oo, on his removal to a house at
Felpham, close by, he sent for Blake from London to do engraving
and other work for him.
3 The year is not given. Flaxman lived at 27 Wardour Street
from his marriage in 1782 until his departure for Rome in August
1787. He became acquainted with Hayley very soon after the
first of these events; and as Poetical Sketches came out in 1783, it
seems reasonable to ascribe the letter to that or the following year.
4 Poetical Sketches, by W. B. London: Printed in the year
MDCCLXXXIII; produced at the expense of Flaxman and another,
who presented the whole edition to the author.
6 William Long (I747-1818), eminent surgeon, one of the most
51




52 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
they are the writings of a Mr. Blake you have
heard me mention: his education will plead
sufficient excuse to your liberal mind for the
defects of his work, and there are few so able to
distinguish and set a right value on the beauties
as yourself.  I have before mentioned that Mr.
Romney' thinks his historical drawings rank with
those of Michael Angelo.    He is at present
employed as an engraver, in which his encouragement is not extraordinary.   Mr. Hawkins, a
Cornish gentleman, has shown his taste and
liberality in ordering Blake to make several
drawings for him; and is so convinced of his
uncommon talents that he is now endeavouring
to raise a subscription to send him to finish
studies in Rome:2 if this can be at all, it will
be determined on before the ioth of May next,
at which time Mr. Hawkins is going out of
England. His generosity is such that he would
be at the whole charge of Blake's travels; but
he is only a younger brother, and can therefore
only bear a large proportion of the expense.
intimate friends of the painter, Romney: a member of the
Unincreasable Club, to which Hayley also belonged.
1 The painter.
2 This plan was never carried into effect.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 53
2.
To GEORGE CUMBERLAND.1
LAMBETH,2 6tk December 1795.
DEAR     SIR,-I    congratulate    you, not on      any
achievement, because I know that the genius that
produces the designs can execute them in any
manner, notwithstanding the pretended philosophy
which teaches that execution is the power of one
and invention of another.3 Locke says it is the
same faculty that invents judges, and I say he who
can invent can execute.
1 The letter is addressed to Bishopsgate, near Egham, Surrey.
It is not known when Cumberland first became acquainted with
Blake, but it is certain that he remained until the last the truest
and most generous of friends. He was the means of introducing
him to several of his best patrons, particularly John Linnell. He had
a fine taste and a keen enthusiasm in regard to matters of art. He
learned from Blake the art of engraving, and with his help published,
in I796, his Thoughts on Outline, embellished with twenty-four
designs of classical subjects. He seems, later, to have resided at
Bristol, and only to have seen Blake from time to time. Almost the
last piece of work that Blake ever did was a message card for his
friend, inscribed W. Blake inv. S& sc. A. E. 70, 1827 (see note 3,
p. 223).
2 Blake moved to I3 Hercules Buildings, Lambeth, in 1793, and
remained there until his departure to Felpham in 1800.
3 c" Invention," he points out elsewhere, " depends altogether upon
execution or organisation; as that is right or wrong, so is the
invention perfect or imperfect:"-" Execution is the chariot of
genius"; and in the Public Address (see Gilchrist, I880, vol. ii.
p. i68): "Execution is only the result of invention."




54 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
As to laying on the wax, it is as follows:
Take a cake of virgin wax (I don't know what
animal produces it), and stroke it regularly over
the surface of a warm plate (the plate must be
warm enough to melt the wax as it passes over),
then immediately draw a feather over it, and you
will get an even surface which, when cold, will
receive any impression minutely.
NOTE. —  The danger is in not covering the
plate all over. Now you will, I hope, show all
the family of antique borers, that peace and plenty
and domestic happiness is the source of sublime
art, and prove to the abstract philosophers that
enjoyment and    not abstinence2 is the food of
intellect.-Yours sincerely,      WILL BLAKE.
Health to Mrs. Cumberland and family.
The pressure necessary to roll off the lines is
the same as when you print, or not quite so great.
I have not been able to send a proof of the bath,
though I have done the corrections, my paper not
being in order.
1 The directions, which follow, have to do with the transference
of a drawing to a metal plate for engraving. The plates in question
are, doubtless, those of the Thoughts on Outline which appeared the
next year.
2 cp. "Abstinence sows sand all over
The ruddy limbs & flaming hair,
But Desire Gratified
Plants fruits of life & beauty there."-Rossetti MS.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 55
3.
Extract from a Letter from RICHARD COSWAY'
to GEORGE CUMBERLAND.
27/A December 1795.
I have contemplated with pleasure the
outline you was so good as to leave with Mrs.
C. of the picture of Leonardo, and do not hesitate
to pronounce it one of the most beautiful compositions I ever beheld of that great man. I hope it
will not be long before I shall be able to request
a sight of the picture. Why do you not get Blake
to make an engraving of it?2 I should think he
would be delighted to undertake such a work, and
it would certainly Lay him very well for whatever
time and pains he may bestow upon such a plate,
as we have so veryfew of Leonardo's works well
engraved, and the composition of this picture is
so very graceful and pleasing, I am convinced he
might put almost any price on the print and assure
himself of a very extensive sale..


1 The celebrated miniaturist.
2 As far as I know, Blake never did so.




56 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
\ 4.
To GEORGE CUMBERLAND.
LAMBETH, 23rd December I796.
DEAR CUMBERLAND, -I have lately had some
pricks of conscience on account of not acknowledging your friendship to me immediately on the
receipt of your beautiful book.' I have likewise
had by me all the summer six plates which you
desired me to get made for you. They have laid
on my shelf, without speaking to tell me whose
they were, or that they were at all, and it was
some time (when I found them) before I could
divine whence they came or whither they were
bound, or whether they were to lie there to
eternity. I have now sent them to you to be
transmuted, thou real alchymist!
Go on! Go on! Such works as yours Nature
and Providence, the eternal parents, demand from
their children. How few produce them in such
perfection! How nature smiles on them; how
Providence rewards them; how all your brethren
say: "The sound of his harp and his flute heard
from his secret forest cheers us to the labours
of life, and we plow and reap, forgetting our
labour."
1 Thouagits on Outline (see note I, p. 53).




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 57
Let us see you sometimes as well as sometimes
hear from you, and let us often see your works.
Compliments to Mrs. Cumberland and family.
-Yours in head and heart,             WILL BLAKE.
A merry Christmas.
5.
To the Revd. Dr. TRUSLER.'
HERCULES BUILDINGS, LAMBETH,
I6th August I799.
REVD. SIR,-I find more and more that my
style of designing is a species by itself, and in
this which I send you have been compelled by
my Genius or Angel to follow where he led; if
I were to act otherwise it would not fulfil the
purpose for which alone I live, which is, in conjunction with such men as my friend Cumberland,
to renew the lost art of the Greeks.2
1 John Trusler (1735-1820), divine, compiler of Zogarth
Moralized, author of The Way to be Rich and Respectable, and many
other works. He was living at Englefield Green, Egham, Surrey,
close to George Cumberland.
2 At a later time Blake freely criticised the art of the Greeks,
mainly on account of their supposed use of a canon of proportion for
the human figure, which he condemned as being founded upon
memory rather than upon imagination. This is the meaning of the
remark (among those which surround his print of the " Laocoon "), the
Gods of Greece"... were mathematical diagrams."




58 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
I attempted every morning for a fortnight
together to follow your dictate, but when I found
my attempts were in vain, resolved to show an
independence which I know will please an author
better than slavishly following the track of another,
however admirable that track may be. At any
rate, my excuse must be-I could not do otherwise; it was out of my power!
I know I begged of you to give me your
ideas, and promised to build     on  them.    Here
I counted without my host.        I now   find  my
mistake!
The design I have sent is:
A father, taking leave of his wife and child,
is watched by two fiends incarnate, with intention
that when his back is turned they will murder the
mother and her infant. If this is not Malevolence
with a vengeance, I have never seen it on earth;
and if you approve of this, I have no doubt of
giving you Benevolence with equal vigour, as
also Pride and Humility, but cannot previously
describe in words what I mean to design, for fear
I should evaporate the spirit of my invention.
1 The watercolour drawing described here was formerly in the
possession of Mrs. Alexander Gilchrist, and now belongs to her
daughter, Mrs. Frend. The scene is a cave mouth by the side of a
lake, on a moonlight night. A young traveller, staff in hand, is
parting from his wife and infant. Two assassins (a man and a
woman) of hideous aspect, with daggers in their hands, are crouched
behind rocks at the mouth of the cave.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 59
But I hope that none of my designs will be
destitute of infinite particulars'1 which will present
themselves to the contemplator. And though I
call them mine, I know that they are not mine,
being of the same opinion with Milton when he
says2 that the Muse visits his slumbers and
awakes and governs his song when morn purples
the east, and being also in the predicament of
that prophet who says: " I cannot go beyond
the command of the Lord, to speak good or
bad."3
If you approve of my manner, and it is agreeable to you, I would rather paint pictures in oil4
of the same dimensions than make drawings, and
on the same terms. By this means you will have
a number of cabinet pictures, which I flatter myself
1 The importance which Blake attached to " minute particulars "
will be well known to readers of the "prophetical books": cp.
Jerusalem, p. 55,11. 6o-64: " He who would do good to another, must
do it in Minute Particulars, I General Good is the plea of the
scoundrel, hypocrite, & flatterer: I For Art & Science cannot exist
but in minutely organised Particulars, | And not in generalising
Demonstrations of the Rational Power. [ The Infinite alone resides
in Definite &  Determinate Identity"; A   Vision of the Last
Judgment (see Gilchrist, i880, vol ii. p. 193): "General knowledge is
remote knowledge: it is in particulars that wisdom consists "; and the
Public Address (Gilchrist, i880, vol. ii. p. i68): "Ideas cannot be
given but in their minutely appropriate words, nor can a design be
made without its minutely appropriate execution."
2 Paradise Lost, book vii. 11. 29, 30.
3 Numbers xxiv. 13.
4 Blake afterwards abandoned the oily vehicle, finding a species
of tempera, which he invented, more suitable to his purpose.




60 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
will not be unworthy of a scholar of Rembrandt'
and Teniers, whom I have studied no less than
Raphael and Michael Angelo. Please to send
me your orders respecting this, and in my next
effort I promise more expedition.-I am, revd. sir,
your very humble servant,
WILLM. BLAKE.
6.
To the Rev. Dr. TRUSLER.
13 HERCULES BUILDINGS, LAMBETH,
23rd August 1799.
REVD. SIR,-I really am sorry that you are fallen
out with the spiritual world, especially if I should
have to answer for it. I feel very sorry that your
ideas and mine on moral painting differ so much as
to have made you angry with my method of study.
If I am wrong, I am wrong in good company. I
had hoped your plan comprehended all species of
this art, and especially that you would not regret
that species which gives existence to every other,
namely, visions of eternity.  You say that I
want somebody to elucidate my ideas. But you
1 In the Descriptive Catalogue and elsewhere Blake roundly
denounces the methods of Rembrandt; and, in the notes to Reynolds's
Discourses, writes: "Rembrandt was a generaliser," and to generalise
" is to be an idiot."




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 61
ought to know that what is grand is necessarily
obscure to weak men. That which can be made
explicit to the idiot is not worth my care. The
wisest of the ancients considered what is not too
explicit as the fittest for instruction, because it rouses
the faculties to act.  I name Moses, Solomon,
Esop, Homer, Plato.
But as you have favoured me with your remarks
on my design, permit me in return to defend it
against a mistaken one, which is, that I have
supposed Malevolence without a cause. Is not
merit in one a cause of envy in another, and
serenity and happiness and beauty a cause of
malevolence? But want of money and the distress
of a thief can never be alleged as the cause of his
thieving, for many honest people endure greater
hardships with fortitude. We must therefore seek
the cause elsewhere than in want of money, for
that is the miser's passion, not the thiefs.
I have therefore proved your reasonings illproportioned, which you can never prove my figures
to be.   They are those of Michael Angelo,
Raphael and the antique, and of the best living
models. I perceive that your eye is perverted by
caricature prints, which ought not to abound so
much as they do. Fun I love, but too much fun
is of all things the most loathsome. Mirth is
better than fun, and happiness is better than




62 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
mirth.   I feel that a man may be happy in this
world, and I know that this world is a world of
imagination and vision.' I see everything I paint
in this world, but everybody does not see alike.
To the eyes of a miser a guinea is far more
beautiful than the sun, and a bag worn with the
use of money has more beautiful proportions than
a vine filled with grapes. The tree which moves
some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only
a green thing which stands in the way.2           Some
see Nature all ridicule and deformity, and by
these I shall not regulate my proportions; and
some scarce see Nature at all. But to the eyes
of the man of imagination, Nature is Imagination
itself.3 As a man is, so he sees. As the eye is
formed, such     are  its   powers.     You   certainly
mistake, when you say that the visions of fancy
are not to be found in this world4         To me this
world is all one continued vision of fancy or
imagination, and I feel flattered when I am told
so. What is it sets Homer, Virgil, and Milton in
1 " The nature of my work is visionary, or imaginative," Blake
wrote, many years later, in A Vision of the Last Judgment (see
Gilchrist, 1880, vol. ii. p. I86).
2 "A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees " (Blake's
Marriage of Heaven and Hell).
3 The significance of these words is accurately defined by a
sentence referring to the prophetical books in Dr. Rudolf Kassner's
brilliant essay on Blake: "Die Worte des Dichters k6nnen nicht
nur das bedeuten, was er mit ihnen sagen will, sondern sie sind
es auch."




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 63
so high a rank of art? Why is the Bible more
entertaining and instructive than any other book?
Is it not because they are addressed to the
imagination, which is spiritual sensation, and but
mediately to the understanding or reason? Such
is true painting, and such was alone valued by
the Greeks and the best modern artists. Consider
what Lord Bacon says: "Sense sends over to
imagination before reason have judged, and reason
sends over to imagination before the decree can
be acted." (See Advancement of Learning, part
ii. p. 47 of first edition.)
But I am happy to find a great majority of
fellow-mortals who can elucidate my visions, and
particularly they have been elucidated by children,
who have taken a greater delight in contemplating
my pictures than I even hoped. Neither youth nor
childhood is folly or incapacity. Some children
are fools, and so are some old men. But there is a
vast majority on the side of imagination or spiritual
sensation.
To engrave after another painter is infinitely
more laborious than to engrave one's own inventions. And of the size you require my price has
been thirty guineas, and I cannot afford to do it for
less. I had twelve for the head I sent you as a
specimen; but after my own designs I could do at
least six times the quantity of labour in the same




64 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
time, which will account for the difference of price,
as also that chalk engraving is at least six times as
laborious as aqua tinta. I have no objection to
engraving after another artist. Engraving is the
profession I was apprenticed to, and should never
have attempted to live by anything else, if orders
had not come in for my designs and paintings,
which I have the pleasure to tell you are increasing
every day. Thus if I am a painter it is not to be
attributed to seeking after. But I am contented
whether I live by painting or engraving.-I am,
revd. sir, your very obedient servant,
WILLIAM BLAKE.
Marked by the recipient: "Blake, dim'd with
superstition."
7.
To GEORGE CUMBERLAND.
HERCULES BUILDINGS, LAMBETH,
26hk August 1799.
DEAR CUMBERLAND,-I ought long ago to have
written to you to thank you for your kind recommendation to Dr. Trusler, which, though it has
failed of success, is not the less to be remembered
by me with gratitude.
I have made him a drawing in my best manner;




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 65
he has sent it back with a letter full of criticisms,
in which he says it accords not with his intentions,
which are to reject all fancy from his work. How
far he expects to please, I cannot tell. But as I
cannot paint dirty rags and old shoes when I ought
to plan naked beauty' or simple ornament, I
despair of ever pleasing one class of man. Unfortunately our authors of books are among this
class; how soon we shall have a change for the
better I cannot prophesy.   Dr. Trusler says:
" Yourfancy, from what I have seen of it, and I
have seen a variety at Mr. Cumberland's, seems to
be in the other world, or the world of spirits, which
accords not with my intentions, which, whilst living
in this world, wish to follow the nature of it." I
could not help smiling at the difference between
the doctrines of Dr. Trusler and those of Christ.
But, however, for his own sake I am sorry that
a man should be so enamoured of Rowlandson's
caricatures as to call them copies from life and
manners, or fit things for a clergyman to write
upon.
Pray let me entreat you to persevere in your
designing; it is the only source of pleasure. All
your other pleasures depend upon it: it is the tree;
your pleasures are the fruit. Your inventions of
1 "Art can never exist without Naked Beauty displayed" (one of
the "Laocoon" sentences).
5




66 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
intellectual visions are the stamina of everything
you value. Go on, if not for your own sake, yet
for ours, who love and admire your works; but,
above all, for the sake of the arts. Do not throw
aside for any long time the honour intended you by
nature to revive the Greek workmanship. I study
your outlines' as usual, just as if they were
antiques.
As to myself, about whom you are so kindly
interested, I live by miracle. I am painting small
pictures from the Bible. For as to engraving, in
which art I cannot reproach myself with any
neglect, yet I am     laid by in a corner as if I did
not exist, and since my Young's Night Thoughts 2
have been published, even Johnson3 and             Fuseli4
1 i.e. in the Thoughts on Outline.
2 The Comnlaint and the Consolation; or, Night Thoughts, by
Edward Young. London: Printed for R. Edwards, I797: folio, with
43 illustrations designed and engraved by Blake.
3 Joseph Johnson (1738-I809), bookseller and publisher in St.
Paul's Churchyard. He commissioned engravings from Blake on
several occasions, and in 1791 published for him, anonymously, The
French Revolution: a Poem in seven Books, Book the First; and
again, in 1793, in conjunction with Blake himself, The Gates of
Paradise.
4 Henry Fuseli (I74I-1825), painter, was a native of Zurich. He
came to England as a young man, and, with the exception of ten
years spent in Italy, remained there for the rest of his life. In the
year in which this letter was written he succeeded Barry as Professor
of Painting to the Royal Academy, in which capacity he delivered
a remarkable series of lectures on painting. Though a great deal
of his work is mannered and unpleasant, he was nevertheless a
powerful and imaginative draughtsman. The beautiful " Titania and




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 67
have discarded my graver. But as I know that he
who works and has his health cannot starve, I
laugh at fortune, and go on and on. I think I
foresee better things than I have ever seen. My
work pleases my employer,' and I have an order
for fifty small pictures at one guinea each, which is
something better than mere copying after another
artist. But above all, I feel happy and contented.
Having passed now nearly twenty years in ups and
downs, I am used to them, and perhaps a little
practice in them may turn out to benefit. It is now
exactly twenty years since I was upon the ocean of
business,2 and, though laugh at fortune, I am         persuaded that she alone is the governor of worldly
riches, and when it is fit she will call upon me.
Till then I wait with patience, in hopes that she is
Bottom," in the National Gallery, is one of the finest of his oil paintings.
It is, however, in some of his small sketches and studies, many of
them in water-colours, that his ability really asserts itself.
He is likely to have made Blake's acquaintance in 1780, when
he returned from Italy and settled down in Broad Street, Carnaby
Market, close to Blake's own home. It was under Blake's influence
that his imaginative quality first began to develop itself, and that his
style underwent a change in the direction of restraint and refinement.
He remained Blake's constant friend and admirer. He is said to
have been the author of the Advertisement of the designs to Young's
Night Thoughts, and he afterwards composed the prospectus of the
illustrations of Blair's Grave. Several of his designs were engraved
by Blake's hand.
1 Thomas Butts.
2 In I778, Blake left Basire for the Royal Academy school, and
two years later exhibited for the first time at the Royal Academy
exhibition.




68 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
busied among my friends.-With mine and my
wife's best compliments to Mrs. Cumberland, I
remain, yours sincerely,          WILLIAM    BLAKE.
8.
To WILLIAM      HAYLEY.'
LAMBETH, 6th May I 8oo.
DEAR SIR,-I am very sorry for your immense
loss,2 which is a repetition of what all feel in this
valley of misery and happiness mixed. I send the
shadow of the departed angel,3 and hope the likeness is improved. The lips I have again lessened
as you advise, 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,4 and with his spirit I converse daily and
1 See note 2, p. 5 I.
2 Alludes to the death of his illegitimate son, Thomas Alphonso
Hayley, born 5th October I780, pupil of Flaxman, who executed a
memorial of him in Eartham Church.
3 The reference may be to a carefully finished pencil drawing
of Thomas Hayley, by Blake, subsequently bound up in a volume
of miscellaneous Blake items, now in the possession of B. B.
MacGeorge, Esq.; or, as is more likely, to an engraving which Blake
did of the youth after a medallion by Flaxman, published I4th June
1800, in the father's Essay on Sculpture.
4 Robert Blake died February 1787. Not long after his death he
returned one night in a vision and revealed to his brother the method
of relief etching employed in the illuminated books.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 69
hourly in the spirit, and see him in my remembrance,
in the regions 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 to me 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" 1 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, dear Sir, your
humble servant,                  WILLIAM BLAKE.
9.
Extract from   a Letter to GEORGE CUMBERLAND.2
LAMBETH, 2nd July I800.
I have to congratulate you on your plan
for a National Gallery being put into execution. All
1 "Pericles," from a bust in the possession of Charles Townley,
Esq., published I4th June 800o, by Cadell & Davis, Strand.
It is the frontispiece to An Essay on Sculpture, in a series of Epistles
[in verse] to John Flaxman, by William Hayley, I8oo.
2 The original autograph (2P pp. 4to) of this letter was sold at
Sotheby's, IIth April 1893. I have been unable to trace its present
whereabouts, and so print so much of it as is given in the sale
catalogue.




70 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
your wishes shall in due time be fulfilled. The
immense flood of Grecian light and glory which
is coming on Europe will more than realise our
warmest wishes...  I begin to emerge from a deep
pit of melancholy,-melancholy without any real
reason,-a disease which God keep you from. Our
artists of all ranks praise your outlines and wish for
more. Flaxman is very warm in your commendation. Mr. Hayley has lately mentioned your work
on outline in notes to an Essay on Sculpture...
Poor Fuseli, sore from the lash of envious tongues,
praises you and dispraises with the same breath..  I am still employed in making designs and
little pictures, with now and then an engraving,
and find that in future to live will not be so difficult
as it has been.
I0.
To JOHN FLAXMAN.3
2t/ Sepbember i 800.
MY DEAREST FRIEND,-It is to you I owe all my
present happiness.4 It is to you I owe perhaps the
1 See note I, p. 53.
2 Published in I8oo, with three engravings by Blake (see note i,
p. 69).
3 See note I, p. 51.
4 Flaxman had been the means of introducing him to Hayley,
and thus of his going to Felpham.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 71


principal happiness of my life. I have presumed
on your friendship in staying so long away and not
calling to know of your welfare, but hope now
everything is nearly completed for our removal to
Felpham, that I shall see you on Sunday, as we
have appointed Sunday afternoon to call on Mrs.
Flaxman at Hampstead.          I send you a few lines,
which I hope you will excuse. And as the time is
arrived when men shall again converse in Heaven
and walk with angels, I know you will be pleased
with the intention, and hope you will forgive the
poetry.
-TO MY DEAREST FRIEND, JOHN FLAXMAN, THESE
LINES:
I bless thee, O Father of Heaven and Earth, that ever I saw
Flaxman's face.1
Angels stand round my Spirit in Heaven, the blessed of Heaven
are my friends upon earth.
When Flaxman was taken to Italy, Fuseli was-given to me for
a season,
And now Flaxman hath given me Hayley his friend to be mine,
such my lot upon Earth.
Now my lot in the Heavens is this, Milton2 lov'd me in childhood and shew'd me his face.
Ezra came with Isaah3 the Prophet, but Shakespeare in riper
years gave me his hand,
1 Flaxman met Blake, through Stothard, about I780. In 1787
he went to Italy, and remained there until I794.
2 Milton is several times alluded to in the Marriage of Heaven
and Hell (1790), and afterwards gave his name to one of the prophetical books, dated I804.
3 See Marriage of Heaven and Hell.




72 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
Paracelsus and Behmen1 appeared to me, terrors appeared in
the Heavens above,
And in Hell beneath, and a mighty and awful change threatened
the Earth.2
The American war3 began. All its dark horrors passed before my
face
Across the Atlantic to France.  Then the French Revolution4
commenc'd in thick clouds,
And my Angels have told me that seeing such visions I could
not subsist on the Earth,
But by my conjunction with Flaxman, who knows to forgive
nervous fear.
I remain, for ever yours,
WILLIAM     BLAKE.
II.
From    Mrs. BLAKE to      Mrs. FLAXMAN.
H[ERCULES] B[UILDINGS], LAMBETH,
141h September 1800.
MY DEAREST FRIEND,-I hope you will not think
could forget your services to us, or anyway neglect
to love and remember with affection even the hem
1 " Any man of mechanical talents may, from the writings of
Paracelsus or Jacob Behmen, produce ten thousand volumes of
equal value with Swedenborg's, and from those of Dante or
Shakespeare, an infinite number" (Marriage of Heaven and Hell).
Crabb Robinson tells us that Blake particularly admired the designs
to Law's edition of Behmen.
2 See Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
3 See America: a Prophecy. Blake, I793.
4 The French Revolution: a Poem in Seven Books. Book the
First, published anonymously for Blake by J. Johnson in I79I. No
example of this work is at present forthcoming.




I




THE VISION OF JACOB'S,LADDER




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 73
of your garment.    We indeed presume on your
kindness in neglecting to have called on you since
my husband's first return from Felpham. We have
been incessantly busy in our great removal; but
can never think of going without first paying our
proper duty to you and Mr. Flaxman. We intend
to call on Sunday afternoon in Hampstead, to take
farewell; all things being now nearly completed for
our setting forth on Tuesday morning.    It is only
sixty miles, and Lambeth one hundred; for the
terrible desert of London was between. My
husband has been obliged to finish several things
necessary to be finished before our migration. The
swallows call us, fleeting past our window at this
moment. Oh! how we delight in talking of the
pleasure we shall have in preparing you a summer
bower at Felpham. And we not only talk, but
behold! the angels of our journey have inspired a
song to you:
TO MY DEAR FRIEND, MRS. ANNA FLAXMAN.
This song to the flower of Flaxman's joy;
To the blossom of hope, for a sweet decoy;
Do all that you can and all that you may,
To entice him to Felpham and far away.
Away to sweet Felpham, for Heaven is there;
The Ladder of Angels descends through the air;1
1 The lovely water-colour of Jacob's Dream, here reproduced,
is surely inspired by the vision told in this song. It is at anyrate of
about the same date.




74 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
On the Turretl its spiral does softly descend,
Through the village then winds, at my cot it does end.
You stand in the village and look up to Heaven;
The precious stones glitter on flights2 seventy-seven;
And my brother is there, and my Friend and Thine,
Descend and ascend with the Bread and the Wine.
The Bread of sweet thought and the Wine of delight
Feed the village of Felpham by day and by night;
And at his own door the bless'd hermit3 does stand,
Dispensing, unceasing, to all the wide land.
W. BLAKE.
Receive my and my husband's love and affection,
and believe me to be yours affectionately,
CATHERINE BLAKE.
12.
To JOHN FLAXMAN.
FELPHAM,
2 Ist September I8oo, Sunday morning.
DEAR SCULPTOR OF ETERNITY,-We are                safe
arrived at our cottage,4 which is more beautiful than
I thought it, and more convenient. It is a perfect
1 The turret of Hayley's house.
2 All editions have hitherto read flight, which makes nonsense of
this line. The plural of the MS. makes the sense quite clear: since
it is natural to suppose the use of a symbolical number in the construction of a heavenly ladder.
3 Hayley, often called the Hermit of Eartham, or the Hermit of
the Turret, by himself and his friends.
4 See Plate.




I
ft/


I




J -,,z          I        i.r.;p,I-ZVk -.U.
4
-    -     " -- t,  k Q
- A —.-  I 'K...2  -,



1


CR. o904.


m  ---..


BLAKE'S COTTAGE AT FELPHAM








LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 75
model for cottages, and I think for palaces of
magnificence, only enlarging, not altering its proportions, and adding ornaments and not principles.
Nothing can be more grand than its simplicity and
usefulness. Simple without intricacy, it seems to
be the spontaneous expression of humanity, congenial to the wants of man. No other formed
house can ever please me so well; nor shall I ever
be persuaded, I believe, that it can be improved
either in beauty or use.
Mr. Hayley 1 received us with his usual brotherly
affection. I have begun to work. 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 most
distinctly heard, and their forms more distinctly
seen; and my cottage is also a shadow of their
houses. My wife and sister2 are both well,
courting Neptune for an embrace.
Our journey was very pleasant; and though we
had a great deal of luggage, no grumbling. All
was cheerfulness and good humour on the road,
and yet we could not arrive at our cottage before
half-past eleven at night, owing to the necessary
shifting of our luggage from one chaise to another;
for we had seven different chaises, and as many


1See note 2, P. 5 Iv


2 Catherine.




76 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
different drivers. We set out between six and
seven in the morning of Thursday, with sixteen
heavy boxes and portfolios full of prints.
i And now begins a new life, because another
covering of earth is shaken off. I am more famed
in Heaven for my works than I could well conceive.
In my brain are studies and chambers filled with
books and pictures of old, which I wrote and
painted in ages of eternity before my mortal life;
and those works 'are the delight and study of
archangels. Why, then, should I be anxious about
the riches or fame of mortality? The Lord our
Father will do for us and with us according to His
divine will for our good.
You, O dear Flaxman! are a sublime archangel,
-my friend and companion from eternity. In the
Divine bosom in our dwelling place, I look
back into the regions of reminiscence, and behold
our ancient days before this earth appeared in its
vegetated1 mortality to my mortal vegetated eyes.
I see our houses of eternity, which can never be
separated, though our mortal vehicles should stand
at the remotest corners of heaven from each other.
Farewell, my best friend!. Remember me and
my wife in love and friendship to our dear Mrs.
1 For Blake's use of the word, cp. Jerusalem, p. 77: " Imagination,
the real and eternal World of which this Vegetable Universe is but
a faint shadow, and in which we shall live in our Eternal or Imaginative Bodies, when these Vegetable Mortal Bodies are no more."




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 77
Flaxman, whom we ardently desire to entertain
beneath our thatched roof of rusted gold.-And
believe me for ever to remain your grateful and
affectionate,             WILLIAM BLAKE.
I3.
To THOMAS BUTTS.1
23r-d September i 8oo.
DEAR FRIEND OF MY ANGELS,- We are safe
arrived at our cottage without accident or hindrance,
though it was between eleven and twelve o'clock at
night before we could get home, owing to the
necessary shifting of our boxes and portfolios from
one chaise to another. We had seven different
chaises and as many different drivers. All upon
the road was cheerfulness and welcome. Though
our luggage was very heavy there was no grumbling
at all. We travelled through a most beautiful
country on a most glorious day. Our cottage is
more beautiful than I thought it, and also more convenient, for though small it is well proportioned, and
if I should ever build a palace it would only be my
cottage enlarged. Please to tell Mrs. Butts that
we have dedicated a chamber for her service, and
1Thomas Butts (I759-i846), Muster Master General. Blake's
friend for over thirty years, and a continual buyer of his productions.




78 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
that it has a very fine view of the sea. Mr. Hayley
received me with     his  usual brotherly affection.
My wife and sister are both very well, and courting
Neptune for an embrace, whose terrors this morning
made them afraid, but whose mildness is often
equal to his terrors. The villagers of Felpham are
not mere rustics; they are polite and modest.
Meat is cheaper than in London; but the sweet air
and the voices of winds, trees, and birds, and the
odours of the happy ground, make it a dwelling for
immortals. Work will go on here with God-speed.
A roller and two harrows lie before my window. I
met a plough 1 on my first going out at my gate the
first morning after my arrival, and the ploughboy
said to the ploughman, " Father, the gate is open."
I have begun to work, and find that I can work
with greater pleasure than ever. Hoping soon to
give you a proof that Felpham is propitious to the
arts.
God bless    you!   I shall wish    for you    on
Tuesday evening as usual. Pray give my and my
wife's and sister's love and respects to Mrs. Butts.
1 The symbolical use of the plough and the harrow in Milton and
Jerusalem show how easily natural incidents translate themselves
with Blake into visionary experience, cp. Milton, p. 4, 11. I2, 13:
"...the instruments I of Harvest: the Plow and Harrow to pass
over the Nations"; ibid. p. 3*, 1. I: "... the Plow of Rintrah and
the Harrow of the Almighty"; Jerusalem, p. 46, 11. 14, 15: "Till the
Plow of Jehovah, and the Harrow of Shaddai, I Have passed over
the Dead, to awake the Dead to Judgment."




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 79
Accept them yourself, and believe me, for ever, your
affectionate and obliged friend,
WILLIAM BLAKE.
My sister will be in town in a week, and bring
with her your account, and whatever else I can
finish.
Direct to me: Blake, Felpham, near Chichester,
Sussex.
14.
Extract from a Letter from THOMAS BUTTS
to BLAKE.
DEAR SIR,-...I am well pleased with your
pleasures, feeling no small interest in your happiness; and it cannot fail to be highly gratifying to
me and my affectionate partner to know that a
corner of your mansion of peace is asylumed to her,
and when invalided and rendered unfit for service,
who shall say she may not be quartered on your
cot. But for the present she is for active duty, and
satisfied with requesting that if there is a snug berth
unoccupied in any chamber of your heart, her
portrait may be suspended there-at the same time
well aware that you, like me, prefer the original to
the copy. Your good wife will permit, and I hope
may benefit from the embraces of Neptune, but she




80 LETTERS OF WILLIAMT BLAKE
will presently distinguish betwixt the warmth of his
and yours, and court the former with caution. I
suppose you do not admit of a third in that concern,
or I would offer her mine even at this distance.
Who, alas! of us, my good friend, could have
thought that so virtuous a woman would ever have
exchanged Hercules Buildings for Neptune's bed?So virtuous a woman would ever have fled
From Hercules Buildings to Neptune's bed?
*.. I have much to congratulate you on: Meat
cheap, music for nothing, a command of the sea, and
brotherly affection fluttering around ye. The Arts
have promised to be propitious, and the Graces will
courtesy to your wishes.
Happy, happy, happy pair,
On earth, in sea, or eke in air,
In morn, at noon, and thro' the night
From visions fair receiving light.
Long may ye live, your Guardian's care,
And when ye die may not a hair
Fall to the lot of demons black,
Be singed by fire or heard to crack.
But may your faithful spirit upward bear
Your gentle souls to Him whose care
Is ever sure and ever nigh
Those who on Providence rely.
I have no more nonsense for you just now, but
must assure you that I shall always sincerely devote
myself to your service when my humble endeavours
may be useful. Mrs. Butts greets your wife and




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 81
charming sister' with a holy kiss, and I with old
Neptune bestow my embraces there also for yourself. I commend you to the protection of your
Guard,2 and am, dear sir, yours most cordially
and faithfully.
I5.
To THOMAS BUTTS.
FELPHAM, 2nd October I 8oo.
FRIEND OF RELIGION AND ORDER,-I thank you
for your very beautiful and encouraging verses,
which I account a crown of laurels, and I also
thank you for your reprehension of follies by me
fostered. Your prediction will, I hope, be fulfilled
in me, and in future I am the determined advocate
of religion and humility-the two bands of society.
Having been so full of the business of settling the
sticks and feathers of my nest, I have not got any
forwarder with "The Three Maries "1 or with any
other of your commissions; but hope, now I have
commenced a new life of industry, to do credit to
that new life by improved works. Receive from me
I Catherine.
2 An allusion to the opening paragraph of the letter, which,
commenting upon Blake's apostrophe: "Dear friend of my angels,"
states the writer's uncertainty as to the nature of the angels.-" On
the whole... I have considered you more immediately under the
protection of the black-guard."
3 See note 3, iii. p. Ix8.
6




82 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
a return of verses, such as Felpham produces by me,
though not such as she produces by her eldest son.1
However, such as they are, I cannot resist the
temptation to send them to you.
To my Friend Butts I write
My first Vision of Light,
On the yellow sands sitting.
The Sun was Emitting
His Glorious beams
From Heaven's high Streams.
Over Sea, over Land,
My Eyes did Expand
Into regions of air,
Away from all Care;
Into regions of fire,
Remote from Desire;
The Light of the Morning,
Heaven's Mountains adorning:
In particles bright,
The jewels of Light
Distinct shone & clear.
Amaz'd, and in fear,
I each particle gazed,
Astonish'd, Amazed;
For each was a Man
Human-form'd. Swift I ran,
For they beckon'd to me
Remote by the Sea,
Saying: "Each grain of sand,2
Every Stone on the Land,
Each rock & each hill,
Each fountain & rill,
Each herb & each tree,
Mountain, hill, earth, and sea,
1Hayley.
2 The phenomenal world, which is the Human Imagination
"petrified into rock and sand " by the stony eye of Reason, clothes
itself again in the mind of the visionary with the human shape and
infinite existence proper to its original state.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 83
Cloud, Meteor, and Star,
Are Men seen Afar."
I stood in the Streams
Of Heaven's bright beams,
And saw Felpham sweet
Beneath my bright feet,
In soft Female charms;
And in her fair arms
My Shadow' I knew,
And my wife's Shadow too,
And My sister, & Friend.
We like Infants descend
In our Shadows on Earth,
Like a weak mortal birth.
My Eyes, more & more,
Like a Sea without shore,
Continue Expanding,
The Heavens commanding,
Till the Jewels of Light,
Heavenly Men beaming bright,
Appear'd as One Man,
Who complacent began
My limbs to infold
In his beams of bright gold;
Like dross purg'd away,
All my mire & my clay.
Soft consum'd in delight,
In his bosom Sun-bright
I remain'd. Soft he smil'd,
And I heard his voice Mild,
Saying: "This is my Fold,
O thou Ram, horn'd with gold,
Who awakest from Sleep
On the Sides of the Deep.
On the Mountains around
The roarings resound
Of the lion & wolf,
The loud Sea and deep gulf.
These are guards of my Fold,
O thou Ram horn'd with gold!"
1 The body.




84 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
And the voice faded mild,
I remain'd as a Child;
All I ever had known
Before me bright Shone!
I saw you & your wife
By the fountains of Life.
Such the Vision to me
Appear'd on the sea.
Mrs. Butts will, I hope, excuse my not having
finished the portrait.' I wait for less hurried
moments. Our cottage looks more and more
beautiful. And though the weather is wet, the air
is very mild, much milder than it was in London
when we came away. Chichester is a very handsome city, seven miles from us. We can get most
conveniences there. The country is not so destitute
of accommodations to our wants as I expected it
would be. We have had but little time for viewing the country, but what we have seen is most
beautiful; and the people are genuine Saxons,
handsomer than the people about London. Mrs.
Butts will excuse the following lines:
TO MRS. BUTTS.
Wife of the Friend of those I most revere,
Receive this tribute from a Harp sincere;
Go on in Virtuous Seed sowing on Mold
Of Human Vegetation,2 & Behold
Your Harvest springing to Eternal Life,
Parent of Youthful Minds, & happy Wife!-W. B.
I am for ever yours,            WILLIAM BLAKE.
1 A miniature of her husband. See note I, p. 90, and Plate.
2 See note I, p. 76.




I




LITTLE TOM THE SAILOR




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 85
i6.
To WILLIAM HAYLEY.
FELPHAM, 26th November I800.
DEAR SIR,-Absorbed by the poets' Milton,
Homer, Camoens, Ercilla, Ariosto, and Spenser,
whose physiognomies have been my delightful
study, Little Tom2 has been of late unattended
1 Blake was at work upon a series of heads of the poets, to be a
frieze for Hayley's new library at Felpham. On the IIth September
I80o he writes again: "Mr. Hayley's library... is still unfinished,
but is in a finishing way and looks well." Within twenty years of
Hayley's death, the villa was sold and the heads were taken down
and dispersed.  Eighteen of them  subsequently came into the
possession of William Russell, who lent four of them to the
Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition (1876). I have been unable
to trace their present whereabouts, and it is even rumoured that they
have perished by fire. They are said to have been painted in oil (or
possibly " fresco ") upon canvas. They were nearly life-size and almost
colourless, resembling sculptural busts: each, however, was accompanied by illustrative accessories in colour. When Gilchrist wrote
they were blistered and cracked, and injured by exposure to dust and
gas. The heads of Ercilla and Ariosto were not among those which
formerly belonged to William Russell.
2 Little Tom the Sailor, a broadsheet, Printed for & Sold by the
Widow Spicer of Folkstone for the benefit of her Orphans: October
5, I800.  Four plates were used: one for each of the designs
(measuring-upper, 4 x 6] in.: lower, 41 x 6J in.); one for the Ballad
(8Ix4; in.); and one for the imprint (I X49 in.). The Ballad
and imprint are executed in the ordinary method of relief-etching
employed by Blake in the engraved books. The designs are
examples of what Blake called wood-cutting on pewter: for which
process his own receipt is noted down by him in the Rossetti MS.
(now the property of Mr. W. A. White of Brooklyn, U.S.A.):
" To wood-cut on pewter: Lay a ground on the plate, and smoke it
as for etching. Then trace your outlines, and, beginning with the




86 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
to, and my wife's illness not being quite gone'
off, she has not printed any more since you went
to London. But we can muster a few in colours
and some in black, which I hope will be no less
favoured, though      they   are   rough   like   rough
sailors. We mean to begin printing again tomorrow. Time flies very fast and very merrily.
I sometimes try to be miserable that I may do
more work, but find it is a foolish experiment.
Happinesses have wings and wheels; miseries are
leaden-legged, and their whole employment is to
clip the wings and to take off the wheels of our
chariots. We determine, therefore, to be happy
and do all that we can, though not all that we
would.    Our dear friend Flaxman        is the theme
of my emulation in this of industry, as well as
in  other virtues and merits.       Gladly   I hear of
his full health   and   spirits.  Happy    son   of the
immortal Phidias, his lot is truly glorious, and
mine no less happy in his friendship and in that
of his friends. Our cottage is surrounded by the
spots of light on each object, with an oval-pointed needle scrape off
the ground, as a direction for your graver. Then proceed to graving,
with the ground on the plate; being as careful as possible not to
hurt the ground, because it, being black, will show perfectly what is
wanted." Some examples of the print were issued plain, and some
were coloured by hand; the former are generally preferable. The
Ballad was written by Hayley, 22nd September I8oo, for the
widowed mother of a Folkstone sailor boy, named Tom Spicer, who
had been drowned.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 87
same guardians you left with us; they keep off
every wind. We hear the west howl at a distance,
the south bounds on high over our thatch, and
smiling on our cottage says: "You lay too low
for my anger to injure."      As to the east and
north, I believe they cannot get past the Turret.'
My wife joins with me in duty and affection to
you.   Please to remember us both in love to
Mr. and Mrs. Flaxman, and believe me to
be  your affectionate, enthusiastic, hope-fostered
visionary,                    WILLIAM    BLAKE.
I7.
Extract from a Letter from WILLIAM HAYLEY
to GEORGE ROMNEY.
3rd February 180.. I have taught him     [Blake], he says, to
paint in miniature, and in truth he has made a
very creditable copy from your admirable portrait
of the dear departed bard, from which he will
also make an engraving.2...
1 Of Hayley's house.
2 The original drawing was executed by Romney while on
a visit to Hayley at Eartham in I792, and was the inspiration of
Cowper's sonnet To George Romney, Esq.; it has recently passed
from the possession of Bertram Vaughan Johnson, Esq., into the
National Portrait Gallery.  It was engraved by Blake, and
appears as the frontispiece of the first volume of Hayley's Life of




88 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
i8.
To THOMAS BUTTS.
FELPHAM, iot/ May i8oi.
MY DEAR SIR,-The necessary application to
my duty, as well to my old as new friends, has
prevented me from that respect I owe in particular
to you. And your accustomed forgiveness of my
want of dexterity in certain points emboldens me
to hope that forgiveness to be continued to me
a little longer, when I shall be enabled to throw
off all obstructions to success.
Mr. Hayley      acts  like  a   prince.    I am    at
complete    ease.    But   I wish    to  do   my   duty,
especially to you, who were the precursor of
my   present fortune.      I never will send      you a
picture unworthy     of my    present proficiency.      I
soon shall send you several. My present engagements are in miniature-painting.' Miniature has
Cowfier, inscribed: From a Portrait in Crayons Drawn from
the Life by Romney in I792: Engraved by W. Blake, 1802.
Blake's miniature is now in the possession of Canon Cowper
Johnson.
1 Six miniatures from Blake's hand are all that are at present known
about. These are likenesses of Cowper (see note 2, p. 87), Thomas
Butts, senior (see note I, p. 90, and Plate), the Rev. John Johnson
(see note 2, p. 92), Romney (see p. i67), Mrs. Butts, his patron's wife
(dated I 809, see Plate), and Thomas Butts, Junior (? c. i 8 io, see Plate).
We are ignorant even of the names of the rest of his sitters, except
that members of the Egremont, Bathurst, and other households in the




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 89
become a goddess in my eyes, and my friends in
Sussex say that I excel in the pursuit. I have
a great many orders, and they multiply.           Now,
let me entreat you to give me orders to furnish
every accommodation in my power to receive you
and Mrs. Butts. I know my cottage is too narrow
for your ease and comfort. We have 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 offer 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
vicinity of Felpham are likely to have been among their number.
It is curious to see that in the report of the proceedings of his trial
on the charge of sedition in August I803, Blake is described as a
Miniature Painter; and that he himself in the course of his own
defence remarks that Scholfield had called him a Military Painter,
" I suppose mistaking the words Miniature Painter, which he might
have heard me called." There are, doubtless, a fair number of
Blake's miniatures in existence remaining for an industrious collector
to unearth. The specimens with which I am acquainted, if they lack
the delicacy and grace of the finest, compare favourably enough with
ordinary work of the period.




90 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
desires her kindest love to Mrs. Butts and yourself. Accept mine also, and believe me to remain
your devoted                  WILLIAM   BLAKE.
I9.
To THOMAS BUTTS.
I I t September  80 I.
MY DEAR SIR,-I hope you will continue to
excuse my want of steady perseverance, by which
want I am still your debtor, and you so much
my creditor; but such as I can be, I will. I
can be grateful, and I can soon send some of
your designs which I have nearly completed. In
the meantime, by my sister's hands, I transmit
to Mrs. Butts an attempt at your likeness,' which
I hope she, who is the best judge, will think like.
Time flies faster (as 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
1 Gilchrist (I880) vol. ii. p. 212, No. 39. In the possession of
Mrs. Butts, at Parkstone. Bust: full face, slightly turned to left:
powdered, curly hair: blue uniform, with gold buttons and
shoulder piece, a red collar: holding a book in his right hand
(see Plate).




MARS. BUTTS


THOMAS BUTTS
THOMAS BUTTS (JUNIOR)




I
i.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 91
spectres of the dead1 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; for I,
so far from being bound down, take the world
with me in my flights, and often it seems lighter
than a ball of wool rolled by the windj Bacon
and Newton2 would prescribe ways of making the
world heavier to me, and Pitt-3 would prescribe
1 cp. Milton, p. 3 (invocation): " Daughters of Beulah! Muses
who inspire the Poet's Song I... Come into my hand I By your
mild power; descending down the Nerves of my right arm i From
out the Portals of my Brain, where by your ministry I The Eternal
Great Humanity Divine planted his Paradise, I And in it caus'd
the Spectres of the Dead to take sweet form I In likeness of himself."
2 Types of rational philosophy and empirical science, both enemies
of Imagination. cp. Jerusalem, p. 54, 11. I5-18: " But the Spectre
like a hoar frost & a Mildew rose over Albion, f Saying, I am God,
o Sons of Men! I am your Rational Power! | Am I not Bacon &
Newton & Locke who teach Humility to Man? I Who teach Doubt
and Experiment "; Milton, p. 43, 11. i-8: " To bathe in the waters of
Life: to wash off the Not Human. I come in Self-annihilation &
the grandeur of Inspiration, I To cast off Rational Demonstration by
Faith in the Saviour, I To cast off the rotten rags of Memory by
Inspiration, I To cast off Bacon, Locke & Newton from Albion's
covering, I To take off his filthy garments & clothe him with
Imagination, I To cast aside from Poetry, all that is not Inspiration I
That it shall no longer dare to mock with the aspersion of Madness,
cast on the Inspired"; and the remark quoted by Crabb Robinson
in his journal (Gilchrist, i88o, vol. i. p. 384): "Bacon, Locke and
Newton are the three great teachers of atheism, or Satan's doctrine."
The subject of one of Blake's "printed drawings" is Newton overshadowed by utter darkness, drawing a geometrical figure with
compasses on a scroll upon the earth.
3 The promoter of war. cp. " The Spiritual Form of Pitt guiding
Behemoth," in the National Gallery: Behemoth representing war by
land.




92 LETTERS OF VILLIAM BLAKE
distress for a medicinal potion. But as none on
earth can give me mental distress, and I know
all distress inflicted by Heaven is a mercy, a fig
for all corporeal! Such distress is my mock and
scorn. Alas! wretched, happy, ineffectual labourer
of Time's moments that I am! who shall deliver
me from this spirit of abstraction and improvidence? Such, my dear Sir, is the truth of my
state, and I tell it you in palliation of my seeming
neglect of your most pleasant orders.   But I
have not neglected them; and yet a year is rolled
over, and only now I approach the prospect of
sending you some, which you may expect soon.
I should have sent them by my sister; but, as
the coach goes three times a week to London,
and they will arrive as safe as with her, I shall
have an opportunity of enclosing several together
which are not yet completed. I thank you again
and again for your generous forbearance, of which
I have need; and now I must express my wishes
to see you at Felpham, and to show you Mr.
Hayley's library,' which is still unfinished, but is
in a finishing way and looks well. I ought also
to mention my extreme disappointment at Mr.
Johnson's2 forgetfulness, who appointed to call
1 See note i, p. 85.
2 Rector of Yaxham with Welborne, Norfolk: cousin and friend
of Cowper. Blake made a miniature of him when he was on a visit to




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 93
on you but did not. He is also a happy abstract,
known by all his friends as the most innocent
forgetter of his own interests. He is nephew to
the late Mr. Cowper the poet. You would like
him much., I continue painting miniatures, and
I improve more and more, as all my friends tell
me.    But my principal labour        at this time is
engraving plates for Cowper's Life,1 a work of
magnitude, which Mr. Hayley is now labouring at
with all his matchless industry, and which will
be a most valuable acquisition to literature, not
only on account of Mr. Hayley's composition,
but also as it will contain letters of Cowper to
his friends-perhaps, or rather certainly, the very
best letters that were ever published.
My wife joins with me in love to you and
Mrs. Butts, hoping that her joy is now increased,
and yours also, in an increase of family and of
health and happiness.-I remain, dear Sir, ever
yours sincerely,                 WILLIAM    BLAKE.
Hayley in 1802 (see note i, p. 88): the Johnson family are unable to
say what has become of this likeness.
1 The Life and Posthumous Writings of William Cowter...
by William Hayley... 1803 [-1804]. 3 vols. 4to. Contains the
following plates by Blake: i. Portrait of Cowper, after Romney;
ii. Portrait of Mrs. Cowper, mother of the poet, after D. Heins;
iii. Portrait of Cowper, after Lawrence; iv. The Pheasant's Nest,
Cowper's tame Hares; v. A View of St. Edmund's Chapel, in
the Church of East Dereham, containing the Grave of William
Cowper; vi. A Sketch of the Monument Erected in the Church
of East Dereham in Norfolk, In Memory of William Cowper.




94 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE


20.
To THOMAS BUTTS.
FELPHAM COTTAGE (of cottages the prettiest),
I It September I80I.
Next time I have the happiness to see you, I
am determined to paint another portrait of you
from life in my best manner, for memory will not
do in such minute operations; for I have now
discovered that without nature before the painter's
eye, he can never produce anything in the walks
of  natural painting.     Historical  designing  is
one thing, and portrait - painting another: and
they are as distinct as any two arts can be.
Happy would that man be who could unite
them!
P.S.-Please to remember our best respects to
Mr. Birch,' and tell him that Felpham men are the
mildest of the human race. If it is the will of
Providence, they shall be the wisest. We hope
that he will, next summer, joke us face to face.
God bless you all!
1 John Birch (I745-I815), surgeon: chiefly remarkable for his
enthusiastic advocacy of electrical treatment. He attended Mrs.
Blake several times, and is mentioned more than once again in the
Letters.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 95
21.
To JOHN FLAXMAN.
I9 th October 80 I.
DEAR FLAXMAN,-I rejoice to hear that your
great work is accomplished. Peace1 opens the
way to greater still. IThe kingdoms of this world
are now become the kingdoms of God and His
Christ, and we shall reign with Him for ever and
ever. The reign of literature and the arts commences. Blessed are those who are found studious
of literature and human and polite accomplishments.
Such have their lamps burning and such shall
shine as the stars.
Mr. Thomas, your friend to whom you was so
kind as to make honourable mention of me, has
been at Felpham and did me the favour to call on
me. I have promised him to send my designs for
Comus2 when I have done them, directed to you.
Now I hope to see the great works of art, as
they are so near to Felpham: Paris being scarce
1 Buonaparte opened negotiations of peace at the close of
I80o, and the Peace of Amiens was concluded in the following
March.
2 There are two sets of eight drawings each for Comus, one of
them formerly in the collection of Alfred Aspland, the other, from
J. C. Strange's collection, now in the Boston Museum of Fine Artsneither of them of extraordinary merit. It is uncertain which of the
two is the one mentioned here.




96 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
farther off than London. But I hope that France
and England will henceforth be as one country and
their arts one, and that you will ere long be erecting
monuments in Paris-emblems of peace.
My wife joins with me in love to you and Mrs.
Flaxman.-I remain, yours sincerely,
WILLIAM BLAKE.
I have just seen Weller. All your friends in
the south are willing to await your leisure for
works of marble, but Weller says it would soothe
and comfort the good sister and the upright Mr.
D. to see a little sketch from your hand. Adio.
22.
To THOMAS BUTTS.
Ioth January 1802.
DEAR SIR,-Your very kind and affectionate
letter, and the many kind things you have said in
it, called upon me for an immediate answer; but
it found my wife and myself so ill, and my wife so
very ill, that till now I have not been able to do
this duty. The ague and rheumatism have been
almost constant enemies, which she has combated
in vain almost ever since we have been here; and
her sickness is always my sorrow, of course. But




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 97
what you tell me about your sight afflicted me not
a little, and that about your health, in another part
of your letter, makes me entreat you to take due
care of both. It is a part of our duty to God and
man to take due 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.
When I came down here, I was more sanguine
than I am at present; but it was because I was
ignorant of many things which have since occurred,
and chiefly the unhealthiness of the place. Yet I
do not repent of coming on a thousand accounts;
and Mr. H[ayley], I doubt not, will do ultimately all
that both he and I wish-that is, to lift me out of
difficulty. But this is no easy matter to a man
who, having spiritual enemies of such formidable
magnitude, cannot expect to want natural hidden
ones.
Your approbation of my pictures is a multitude
to me, and I doubt not that all your kind wishes in
my behalf shall 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 purpose here. Our expenses are small,
and our income, from our incessant labour, fully
adequate to them at present. I am now engaged
in engraving six small plates for a new edition of
7




98 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
Mr. Hayley's Triumphs of Temper,' from drawings
by Maria Flaxman, sister to my friend the sculptor.
And it seems that other things will follow in course,
if I do but copy these well. But patience! If
great things do not turn out, it is because such
things depend on the spiritual and not on the
natural world; and if it was fit for me, I doubt not
that I should be employed in greater things; and
when it is proper, my talents shall be properly
exercised in public, and hope they are now in
private. For, till then, I leave no stone unturned,
and no path unexplored that leads to improvement
in my beloved arts. One thing of real consequence
I have accomplished by coming into the country,
which is to me consolation enough: namely, I
have recollected all my scattered thoughts on art,
and resumed my primitive and original ways of
execution,2 in both painting and engraving, which
in the confusion of London I had very much lost
and   obliterated  from  my mind.      But whatever
1 The Triunphs of Temier. A Poem: In Six Cantos. By
William Hayley, Esq. The Twelfth Edition, Corrected. With New
Original Designs, by Maria Flaxman, 1803. I2mo, with six plates,
engraved by Blake.
2 For some time past Blake had been endeavouring to incorporate
into his work all the graces of Venice and Flanders as well as the
linear austerity of the Florentines. There is about this date a distinct
return to those principles of technique which are latent in his youthful
pieces and precede this attempt at eclecticism; that is to say, to that
uniformity of colour and long continuation of lines to which he
alludes in Letter 23.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 99
becomes of my labours, I would rather that they
should be preserved in your greenhouse (not, as
you mistakenly call it, dunghill) than in the cold
gallery of fashion. The sun may yet shine, and
then they will be brought into open air.
But you have so generously and openly desired
that I will divide 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 explored too narrowly, might hurt my pecuniary
circumstances; as my dependence is on engraving
at present, and particularly on the engravings I
have in hand for Mr. H[ayley]: and I find on all
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. You will understand
by this the source of all my uneasiness. This from
Johnson and Fuseli brought me down here, and
this from Mr. H. will bring me back again. 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 should be made an objection to me, while
drunkenness, lewdness, gluttony, and even idleness
itself, do not hurt other men, let Satan himself
explain. The thing I have most at heart-more
1 See notes 3 and 4, p. 66.




100 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
than life, or all that seems to make life comfortable
without-is the interest of true religion and science.
And whenever anything appears to affect that
interest (especially if I myself omit any duty to my
station as a soldier of Christ), it gives me the
greatest of torments. I am not ashamed, afraid,
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, 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
1 cp. Milton, p. I4, 11. 39, 40: "The Sea of Time &
Space thunder'd aloud I Against the rock [the death-couch of
Albion]."




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 101
dismal torments of such a state! I too well remember the threats I heard!-"If you, who are
organised by Divine Providence for spiritual communion, 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.
Everyone in eternity will leave you, aghast at
the man who was crowned with glory and honour
by his brethren, and betrayed their cause to their
enemies. You will be called the base Judas who
betrayed his friend! " Such words would make
any stout man tremble, and how then could I be
at ease? But I am now no longer in that state,
and now go on again with my task, fearless, though
my path is difficult. I have no fear of stumbling
while I keep it.
My wife desires her kindest love to Mrs. Butts,
and I have permitted her to send it to you also.
We often wish that we could unite again in society,
and hope that the time is not 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 must not stay,
I see a Hand you cannot see, that beckons me away.
Naked we came here-naked of natural thingsand naked we shall return; but while clothed with




102 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
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,                WILLIAM BLAKE.
P.S.-Your obliging proposal of exhibiting my
two pictures likewise calls for my thanks; I will
finish the others, and then we shall judge of the
matter with certainty.
23.
To THOMAS BUTTS.
FELPHAM, 22nd November 1802.
DEAR SIR,-My brother1 tells me that he fears
you are offended with me. I fear so too, because
there appears some reason why you might be so;
but when you have heard me out, you will not be
so. I have now given two years to the intense
study of those parts of the art which relate to light
and shade and colour, and am convinced that
either my understanding is incapable of comprehending the beauties of colouring, or the pictures
which I painted for you are equal in every part.of the art, and superior in one, to anything that
has been done since the age of Raphael. All
1 James.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 103
Sir J. Reynolds' Discourses to the Royal Academy
will show that the Venetian finesse in art can never
be united with the majesty of colouring necessary
to historical beauty; and in a letter to the Rev.
Mr. Gilpin, author of a work on picturesque
scenery, he says thus:1 "It may be worth consideration whether the epithet picturesque is not
applicable to the excellences of the inferior schools
rather than to the higher. The works of Michael
Angelo, Raphael, etc., appear to me to have
nothing of it; whereas Rubens and the Venetian
painters may almost be said to have nothing else.
Perhaps picturesque is somewhat synonymous to
the word taste, which we should think improperly
applied to Homer or Milton, but very well to Prior
or Pope. I suspect that the application of these
words is to excellences of an inferior order, and
which are incompatible with the grand style. You
are certainly right in saying that variety of tints
and forms is picturesque; but it must be remembered, on the other hand, that the reverse of this
(uniformity of colour and a long continuation of
lines2) produces grandeur." So says Sir Joshua,
and so say I; for I have now proved that the
parts of the art which I neglected to display, in
1 Three Essays on Picturesque Beauty, by William Gilpin, 1792.
The words quoted will be found on p. 35.
2 Both of these are characteristic of Blake's formed style.




104  LETTERS OF WILLIAM         BLAKE
those little pictures and drawings which I had the
pleasure and profit to do for you, are incompatible
with the designs. There is nothing in the art
which our painters do that I can confess myself
ignorant of. I also know and understand, and can
assuredly affirm, that the works I have done for
you are equal to the Caracci or Raphael (and I
am now some years older than Raphael was when
he died). I say they are equal to Caracci or
Raphael, or else I am blind, stupid, ignorant, and
incapable, in two years' study; to understand those
things which a boarding-school miss can comprehend in a fortnight. Be assured, my dear friend,
that there is not one touch in those drawings and
pictures but what came from my head and my
heart in unison; that I am proud of being their
author, and grateful to you my employer; and
that I look upon you as the chief of my friends,
whom I would endeavour to please, because you,
among all men, have enabled me to produce these
things. I would not send you a drawing or a
picture till I had again reconsidered my notions
of art, and had put myself back as if I was a
learner. I have proved that I am right, and shall
now go on with the vigour I was, in my childhood, famous for. But I do not pretend to be
perfect: yet, if my works have faults, Caracci's,
Correggio's, and Raphael's have faults also. Let




LETTERS OF WILLIAM         BLAKE     105
me observe that the yellow-leather flesh of old
men, the ill-drawn and ugly old women, and, above
all, the daubed black-and-yellow shadows that are
found in most fine, ay, and the finest pictures,
I altogether reject as ruinous to effect, though
connoisseurs may think otherwise.
Let me also notice that Caracci's pictures are
not like Correggio's, nor Correggio's like Raphael's;
and, if neither of them was to be encouraged till
he did like any of the others, he must die without
encouragement. My pictures are unlike any of
these painters, and I would have them to be so.
I think the manner I adopt more perfect than
any other. No doubt they thought the same of
theirs. You will be tempted to think that, as I
improve, the pictures, etc., that I did for you are
not what I would now wish them to be. On this
I beg to say that they are what I intended them,
and that I know I never shall do better; for, if I
were to do them over again, they would lose as
much as they gained, because they were done in
the heat of my spirits.
But you will justly inquire why I have not
written all this time to you. I answer I have been
very unhappy, and could not think of troubling
you about it, or any of my real friends. (I have
written many letters to you which I burned and
did not send.) And why I have not before now




106 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
finished the miniature' I promised to Mrs. Butts.
I answer I have not, till now, in any degree
pleased myself, and now I must entreat you to
excuse faults, for portrait-painting is the direct
contrary to designing and historical painting, in
every respect.  If you have not nature before
you for every touch, you cannot paint portrait;
and if you have nature before you at all, you
cannot paint history. It was Michael Angelo's
opinion, and is mine. Pray give my wife's love
with mine to Mrs. Butts.  Assure her that it
cannot be long before I have the pleasure of
painting from you in person, and then she may
expect a likeness. But now I have done all I
could, and know she will forgive any failure in
consideration of the endeavour. And now let me
finish with 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.
'See note i, p. 90.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 107
I now send two pictures, and hope you will
approve of them. I have enclosed the account of
money received and work done, which I ought
long ago to have sent you. Pray forgive errors
in omissions of this kind.  I am incapable of
many attentions which it is my duty to observe
towards you, through multitude of employment,
and through hope of soon seeing you again. I
often omit to inquire of you, but pray let me
now hear how you do, and of the welfare of your
family. Accept my sincere love and respect.-I
remain yours sincerely,    WILLM. BLAKE.
A piece of seaweed serves for barometer, and
gets wet and dry as the weather gets so.
24.
To THOMAS BUTTS.
22nd November i 802.
DEAR SIR,-After I had finished my letter, I
found that I had not said half what I intended
to say, and in particular I wish to ask you what
subject you choose to be painted on the remaining
canvas which I brought down with me (for there
were three), and to tell you that several of the
drawings were in great forwardness.  You will




108 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
see by the enclosed account that the remaining
number of drawings which you gave me orders
for is eighteen. I will finish these with all possible
expedition, if indeed I have not tired you, or, as
it is politely called, bored you too much already;
or, if you would rather cry out: "Enough, off,
off!" Tell me in a letter of forgiveness if you
were offended, and of accustomed friendship if
you were not. But I will bore you more with
some verses which my wife desires me to copy
out and send you with her kind love and respect.
They were composed above a twelvemonth ago,
while walking from Felpham to Lavant, to meet
my sister:
With happiness stretch'd across the hills,
In a cloud that dewy sweetness distills,
With a blue sky spread over with wings,1
And a mild sun that mounts & sings;
With trees & fields, full of Fairy elves,
And little devils who fight for themselvesRemembering the Verses that Hayley sung
When my heart knock'd against the root of my tongueWith Angels planted in Hawthorn bowers,
And God Himself in the passing hours;
With Silver Angels across my way,
And Golden demons that none can stay;
With my Father hovering upon the wind,
And my Brother Robert2 just behind,
And my Brother John,3 the evil one,
In a black cloud making his mone;
1 cp. Jerusalem, p. 19,1. 44.
2 See note 4, p. 68; and Life, p. 3.
3 See Life, p. 2.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 109
Tho' dead, they appear upon my path,
Notwithstanding my terrible wrath:
They beg, they entreat, they drop their tears,
Fill'd full of hopes, fill'd full of fearsWith a thousand Angels upon the Wind,
Pouring disconsolate from behind
To drive them off, & before my way
A frowning Thistle1 implores my stay.
What to others a trifle appears
Fills me full of smiles or tears;
For double the vision my eyes do see,
And a double vision2 is always with me.
With my inward eye, 'tis an old Man grey;
With my outward, a Thistle across my way.
"If thou goest back," the thistle said,
"Thou art to endless woe betray'd;
For here does Theotormon3 lower,
And here is Enitharmon's 4 bower;
1 cp. Milton, p. 24, 11. 26, 27: "The indignant Thistle, whose
bitterness is bred in his milk, I Who feeds on the contempt of his
neighbours."
2 cp. "The Everlasting Gospel" (The Poetical Works of William,ltake, ed. John Sampson, 1905: pp. 254-5, 11. 10I-I04): "This
life's Five Windows of the Soul I Distorts the Heavens from Pole to
Pole, I And leads you to Believe a Lie ( When you see with, not
through, the Eye."
8 Theotormon, together with Rintrah, Palamahon, and Bromion,
were "the Four Sons of Jerusalem that never were Generated"
(Jerusalem, p. 71, 1. 5I), that is to say, never descended to corporeal
existence. They remain in the Visionary World, and so are the
children of Prophecy, or of Los, who is the Spirit of Prophecy.
They are the guardians of the spiritual life, and labour at the
furnaces of Los, continually building the great City of Art, called
Golgonooza, where " the stars are created & the seeds of all things
planted" (Milton, p. 24,1. 53). (cp. also, Visions of the Daughters of
Albion, passim; Milton, p. 23, 1. 12 and passim; Jerusalem, p. I6,
1. 8; p. 72, 1. I I; p. 73, 1. 5; Vala, book viii. 1. 352.)
4 Enitharmon is the Emanation and wife of Los: and where he
appears under the aspect of Time, she is Space (cp. Milton, p. 23,
1. 68).




110 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
And Los1 the terrible thus hath sworn,
Because thou backward dost return,
Poverty, Envy, old age, and fear,
Shall bring thy Wife upon a bier;
And Butts shall give what Fuseli gave,
A dark black Rock, and a gloomy Cave."2
I struck the Thistle with my foot,
And broke him up from his delving root.
"Must the duties of life each other cross?
Must every joy be dung and dross?
Must my dear Butts feel cold neglect
Because I give Hayley his due respect?
Must Flaxman look upon me as wild,
And all my friends be with doubts beguil'd?
Must my Wife live in my Sister's bane,
Or my Sister survive on my Love's pain?
The curses of Los, the terrible shade,
And his dismal terrors make me afraid."
1 Los, the Spirit of Prophecy (Jerusalem, p. 44,1. 3I) is symbolised
in the natural world by the Sun (the name itself being a transposition of the word Sol); and just as the Sun, as light, is the vehicle,
and so in a certain sense the creator of phenomenal life: so Los
is the vehicle and creator of inspiration, in the human brain.
cp. Milton, p. 23, 11. 68-76: " Los is nam'd Time, Enitharmon is
nam'd Space: But they depict him bald & aged, who is in
eternal youth, I All powerful, and his looks flourish like the brows of
morning: He is the Spirit of Prophecy, the ever apparent Elias.
I'Time is the mercy of Eternity; without Time's swiftness, I which
is the swiftest of all things, all were eternal torment. I All the Gods
of the Kingdoms of Earth labour in Los's Halls: I Every one is a
fallen son of the Spirit of Prophecy: 1 He is the Fourth Zoa
that stood around the Throne Divine" (cp. also Milton, p. 20,
11. 6-25).
2 The Cave and the Rock are always, with Blake, evil and
gloomy symbols: they represent the dark, hard, and contracted
life of Reason-" For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things
through the narrow chinks of his cavern " (Marriage of Heaven and
Hell). (cp. Jerusalem, p. 3, 1. 6: ".Caves of solitude and dark despair";
p. 43, 1. 60: "I see a Cave, a Rock, a Tree deadly and poisonous,
unimaginative.")




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 111
So I spoke, and struck in my wrath
The old man weltering upon my path.
Then Los appear'd in all his power:
In the sun he appear'd, descending before
My face in fierce flames; in my double sight,
'Twas outward a Sun, inward Los in his might.
"My hands are labour'd day and night,
And Ease comes never in my sight.
My Wife has no indulgence given,
Except what comes to her from heaven.
We eat little, we drink less;
This Earth breeds not our happiness.
Another Sun 1 feeds our life's streams,We are not warmnd with thy beams;
Thou measurest not the Time to me,
Nor yet the space that I do see;
My Mind is not with thy light array'd,
Thy terrors shall not make me afraid."
When I had my Defiance given,
The Sun stood trembling in heaven;
The Moon, that glow'd remote below,
Became leprous & white as snow;
And every soul of man on the Earth
Felt affliction, & sorrow, & sickness, & death.
Los flam'd in my path, and the sun was hot
With the bows of my Mind and the Arrows2 of ThoughtMy bowstring fierce with Ardour breathes,
My arrows glow in their golden sheaves;
My brother & father march before;
The heavens drop with human gore.
Now I a fourfold vision see,
And a fourfold vision is given to me;
i.e. Los in his spiritual and not in his temporal aspect.
2 cp. Milton, p. 2: " Bring me my Bow of burning gold! I Bring
me my arrows of desire!"
3 The state of fourfold vision occurs when the whole visible
creation is transfigured before the visionary, who has put off "the
rotten rags of" sense and "memory" and put on Imagination,
uncorrupted: when the symbol becomes the reality and nature is
Imagination itself. In it are produced those " sublime " works of art




112 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE                                     N
'Tis fourfold in my supreme delight,
And threefold in soft Beulah's night,
And twofold Always May God us keep
From Single vision, & Newton's sleep!
I also enclose you some ballads by Mr. Hayley,
with prints to them by your humble servant.' I
should have sent them before now, but could not
get anything done for you to please myself; for I
which are "addressed to the intellectual powers," while they are
" altogether hidden from the corporeal understanding:" that is to say,
where the appeal is directly to Imagination and not through the
senses. This state, generally called Eden by Blake, is the one
to which he held that all art should aspire. But, not unnaturally,
the critics "trembled exceedingly...... and wept, | crying with
one voice: Give us a habitation & a place | In which we may be
hidden..... For if we, who are but for a time & who pass away
in winter, | Behold these wonders of Eternity we shall consume '
(Milton, p. 30, 11. 21-27); accordingly, a second state or threefold
vision was "given in mercy to those who sleep" (Vala, book i. 1. i99),
that is to say, those who have spiritual aspirations indeed, but who
are continually deceived by the apparent solidity of the external world
and endowing it with a material existence. It is the state in which
imaginative creation is usually found, where the purity of the inspiration is obscured and contaminated by numberless delusions of a
corporeal nature. It is the atmosphere through which those who are
not strong enough to bear the naked Light become recipients of the
divine proceeding. Its name is Beulah. The third state, called in
Jerusalem, Generation, "the image of regeneration," is the normal,
uncreative state, in which those who have any imagination at all
commonly reside.  The last, named Ulro, is "a self-devouring
monstrous Human Death " (Milton, p. 34, 1. 26), and embraces those
whose bosoms are "opake against the Divine Vision" (Milton, p. 7,
1. 30), either through the soul-destroying influences of Science and
Reason, or, worst of all, through " the cruel and hypocritic holiness"
of Puritanism.
1 A Series of Ballads (about animals): Chichester: Printed by
J. Seagrave for W. Blake, Felpham, I802; 4to, issued in four parts,
in blue paper covers, with 14 engravings (including head and tailpieces) by Blake from his own designs.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 113
do assure you that I have truly studied the two
little pictures I now send, and do not repent of the
time I have spent upon them. God bless you.Yours,                             W. B.
P.S.-I have taken the liberty to trouble you
with a letter to my brother,l which you may be so
kind as to send, or give him, and oblige yours,
W. B.
25.
To THOMAS BUTTS.
FELPHAM, 25th April 1803.
MY DEAR SIR,-I write in haste, having
received a pressing letter from my brother.  I
intended to have sent the picture of the " Riposo," 2
which is nearly finished-much to my satisfaction,
but not quite. You shall have it soon. I now
said the four numbers3 for Mr. Birch, with best
respects to him. The reason the Ballads have
been suspended is the pressure of other business,
but they will go on again soon.
Accept of my thanks for your kind and heartening letter. You have faith in the endeavours of
me, your weak brother and fellow-disciple; how
1 James.      2 See note I, p. 117.
8 Of the Ballads alluded to in the last letter.
8




114 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
great must be your faith in our Divine Master!
You are to me a lesson of humility, while you exalt
me by such distinguishing commendations. I know
that you see certain merits in me, which, by God's
grace, shall be made fully apparent and perfect in
eternity. In the meantime I must not bury the
talents in the earth, but do my endeavour to live to
the glory of our Lord and Saviour; and I am also
grateful to the kind hand that endeavours to lift me
out of despondency, even if it lifts me too high.
And now, my dear sir, congratulate me on my
return to London, with the full approbation of Mr.
Hayley and with promise. But, alas! now I may
say to you-what perhaps I should not dare to say
to anyone 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, and prophesy and speak
parables unobserved, and at liberty from the doubts
of other mortals; perhaps doubts proceeding from
kindness; but doubts are always pernicious, especially when we doubt our friends. Christ is very
decided on 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 1; but the man may be the friend of
1 cp. Milton, p. 3*, 1. 26: " Corporeal Friends are Spiritual Enemies."




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 115
my spiritual life while he seems the enemy of my
corporeal, though not vice versa.
What is very pleasant, every one who hears of
my going to London again applauds it as the only
course for the interest of all concerned in my works;
observing that I ought not to be away from the
opportunities London affords of seeing fine pictures,
and the various improvements in works of art going
on in London.
But none can know the spiritual acts of my
three years' slumber on the banks of ocean, unless
he has seen them in the spirit, or unless he should
read my long poem       descriptive of those acts; for
I have in these years composed an immense number
of verses on one grand theme, similar to Homer's
Iliad or Milton's Paradise Lost; the persons and
machinery entirely new to the inhabitants of earth
(some of the persons excepted).         I have written
this poem from immediate dictation, twelve or
sometimes twenty or thirty lines at a time, without
1 The Milton (dated I804, but not given to the world until about
I808) deals especially with the acts at Felpham: cp. Public Address
(Gilchrist, I88o, vol. ii. p. 175), "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 Felpham, which I shall soon publish"(he is speaking of the attack made upon him in The Examiner).
From the title-page we learn that Blake's original'intention was to
publish twelve books of this poem. Two only, however, were engraved;
and a good deal of the material seems to have been transferred to
Jerusalem. The latter is also dated 1804, but seems not to have
been ready for publication until about I8I8 (see note I, p. 223).




116 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
premeditation, and even against my will. The time
it has taken in writing was thus rendered nonexistent, and an immense poem exists which seems
to be the labour of a long life, all produced without
labour or study. I mention this to show you what
I think the grand reason of my being brought down
here.
I have a thousand and ten thousand things to
say to you. My heart is full of futurity. I perceive
that the sore travail which has been given me these
three years leads to glory and honour. I rejoice and
tremble: " I am fearfully and wonderfully made."
I had been reading the cxxxix. Psalm a little before
your letter arrived. I take your advice. I see the
face of my Heavenly Father. He lays His hand
upon my head, and gives a blessing to all my work.
Why should I be troubled? Why should my
heart and flesh cry out? I will go on in the
strength of the Lord; through Hell will I sing forth
His praises; that the dragons of the deep may praise
Him, and that those who dwell in darkness and in
the sea coasts may be gathered into His kingdom.
Excuse my, perhaps, too great enthusiasm. Please
to accept of and give our loves to Mrs. Butts and
your amiable family, and believe me, ever yours
affectionately,              WILL. BLAKE.




- LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 117
26.
To THOMAS BUTTS.
FELPHAM, 6th July 1 803.
DEAR SIR,-I send you the " Riposo,"' which
I hope you will think my best picture, in many
respects. It represents the Holy Family in Egypt,
guarded in their repose from those fiends the
Egyptian gods.2 And though not directly taken
from a poem of Milton's (for till I had designed it
Milton's poem did not come jnto my thoughts), yet
it is very similar to his " Hymn on the Nativity,"
which you will find among his smaller poems, and
will read with great delight. I have given, in the
1 The picture has, unhappily, disappeared. It may probably be
identified with afresco until recently in the Butts collection, but which
has now perished, together with a number of others (said to have
been devoured by rats!). The latter is thus described in Gilchrist
(i 880 ed., vol. ii. p. 238, No. i 6I): i  Tempera. The Holy Family are
within a tent; an angel at its entrance; the donkey outside. Very
dark by decay of the surface, and otherwise injured" (see, also,
Gilchrist, vol. ii. p. 213, No. 43).
2 The symbolical significance of the Egyptian gods is made clear
by the following sentences (among those which surround Blake's
print of the " Laocoon "):
" The Gods of... Egypt were Mathematical diagrams"
(alluding to the supposed use of a canon of proportion for the human
figure by the Egyptian artists).
" Egypt... whose Gods are the Powers of this World: Goddess,
Nature; who first spoil and then destroy Imaginative Art. For
their Glory is War and Dominion."
" Spiritual war. Israel delivered from Egypt is Art delivered
from Nature and Imitation."




118 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
background, a building, which may be supposed the
ruin of a part of Nimrod's tower,1 which I conjecture to have spread over many countries; for he
ought to be reckoned of the giant brood.2
I have now on the stocks the following drawings
for you: i. "Jephthah sacrificing his Daughter";
1Nimrod was the traditional builder of the Tower of Babel
(cp. Dante, Inf. c. xxxi, 46-8I). The typical warrior and huntsman, he
is with Blake the personification of violence, tyranny, and cruel
religion. His war and hunting are of a corporeal nature, and
utterly opposed to mental strife and the pursuit of spiritual sustenance.
The building of the tower 'is symbolical of the state of those people
who pretend to reach heaven by natural means.
2 The giants are the representatives of brutish and sensual
existence.
8 i. Gilchrist (I880), vol. ii. p. 213, No. 48. Now in the possession
of W. Graham Robertson, Esq. Water-colour, I4 X I22 inches. The
maiden is kneeling naked, with folded hands, upon the altar, between
two curtains of cloud, one bluish and the other dark brown. Her
lute and tambourine lie at her side. Jephthah kneels below with
outspread arms, and gazes up at her. Two virgins in white stand on
either side.
ii. G. ii. p. 214, No. 50. Blake's Descriptive Catalogue (I809),
No. xv. Now in the possession of W. Graham Robertson, Esq.
Water-colour, I31 x I2j inches. Ruth, who is a tall slender figure, with
long yellow hair and clothed in white, is embracing Naomi, who is
dressed in blue. Orpah, a very tall figure clothed in pink, turns
away along a road, winding by a river among trees and mountains.
Pale in colour, and of a greyish tone.
iii. G. ii. p. 213, No. 45. Now in the possession of W. Graham
Robertson, Esq. Water-colour, I4~ x I5 inches. The angel (1.) in
shining white raiment, floats forth, on shadowy wings, from the
doorway of the tomb, his left arm uplifted and pointing upwards.
The three women, clothed in dark grey-blue robes, stand in a row (r.),
each with a vase of spices. They cling together with expressions of
bewilderment and fear. A dark grey hill, with a building upon it,
and, above, a pale grey and blue sky, make the background.
iv. G. ii. p. 213, No. 27. Now in the possession of W. Graham




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 119
2   "Ruth    and   her Mother-in-Law        and   Sister";
3.   "The     Three     Maries    at   the   Sepulchre";
4. "The     Death    of Joseph";      5. "The Death of
the Virgin Mary"; 6. "St. Paul Preaching"; and
7. "The Angel of the          Divine Presence clothing
Adam and Eve with Coats of Skin."
These are all in great forwardness, and I am
satisfied that I improve very much, and shall
continue to do so while I live, which is a blessing I
can never be too thankful for both to God and man.
We    look    forward    every   day   with   pleasure
toward our meeting again in London with those
Robertson, Esq. Water-colour, I4i x I3~ inches. Joseph, on the point
of death, lies, clothed in white, with clasped hands, his head resting
on Our Lady's knees, upon a bed covered with a purple coverlet.
Our Lord, white-robed, bends anxiously over him. Above is a bright
rainbow, in which many angelic heads appear.
v. G. ii. p. 213, No. 46. Now in the possession of W. Graham
Robertson, Esq. Water-colour, I4i X 14 inches. Companion and
similar in design to the preceding. Two white-robed angels kneel
at Our Lady's head and two at her feet. St. John, also in white
raiment, stands over her with clasped hands.
vi. G. ii. p. 213, No. 44. Sold by Thomas Butts (Junior) at
Sotheby's, 26th March 1852.  Subsequently in the possession of
Mrs. de Putron; present whereabouts unknown. Water-colour.
vii. G. ii. p. 214, No. 49. Now in the possession of W. Graham
Robertson, Esq. Water-colour, 5 x I I inches. The Angel of the
Divine Presence, an ancient figure of great stature, with white hair
and beard, and robed in white, encircles Adam and Eve with his
arms, as they stand before him, girt about with sheep skins, their
heads reverently bended and their hands clasped. A flaming altar
stands on either side, and two palms by each of these overarch the
central figures with their green fronds.
All of the above (with the possible exception of No. 6, which I
have not seen) are signed and dated 'W. B. inv. I803.'




120 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
whom we have learned to value by absence no less
perhaps than we did by presence; for recollection
often surpasses everything.  Indeed the prospect
of returning to our friends is supremely delightful.
Then, I am determined that Mr. Butts shall have
a good likeness of you, if I have hands and eyes
left; for 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, all likenesses from memory being necessarily
very, very defective. But nature and fancy are two
things, and can never be joined; neither ought any
one to attempt it, for it is idolatry,1 and destroys
the soul.
I ought to tell you that Mr. H[ayley] is quite
agreeable to our return, and that there is all the
appearance in the world of our being fully employed
in engraving for his projected works, particularly
Cowper's Millon-a work now on foot by subscription, and I understand that the subscription goes on
briskly. This work is to be a very elegant one,
and to consist of all Milton's Poems, with Cowper's
Notes, and translations by Cowper from Milton's
Latin and Italian Poems.2 These works will
1 Blake used to reproach Wordsworth for his worship of nature;
in his view, equivalent to atheism (see Crabb Robinson's Journal.
Gilchrist, I88o, vol. i. p. 387).
2 Latin and Italian Poems of Milton translated into English Verse,
and a Fragment of a Commentary on "Paradise Lost," by the late




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 121
be ornamented with engravings from designs by
Romney, Flaxman, and your humble servant,
and to be engraved also by the last-mentioned.
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. Addington and Mr.
Pitt are both among the subscribers, which are
already numerous and of the first rank.  The
price of the work is six guineas. Thus I hope
that all our three years' trouble ends in good luck
at last, and shall be forgot by my affections, 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.1 I may
praise it, since I dare not pretend to be any
other than the secretary; the authors are in
eternity. I consider it as the grandest poem that
this world contains. Allegory addressed to the
intellectual powers, while it is altogether hidden
from the corporeal understanding, is my definition
of the most sublime poetry.2 f It is also somewhat
in the same manner defined by Plato. This poem
shall, by Divine assistance, be progressively printed
William Cowper, I808: edited by Hayley, with two plates engraved by
Raimbach after Flaxman.
1 See note I, p. 115.     2 See note 3, p. III.




122 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
and ornamented with prints, and given to the
Public. But of this work I take care to say little
to Mr. Hayley, 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. 9) against their faces, and my forehead against
their foreheads.
As to Mr. H., I feel myself at liberty to say
as follows upon this ticklish subject: I regard
fashion in poetry as little as I do in painting; so,
if both poets and painters should alternately dislike
(but I know the majority of them will 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; for I am determined to
be no longer pestered with his genteel ignorance
and polite disapprobation. I know myself both
poet and painter, and it is not his affected contempt
that can move to anything but a more assiduous
pursuit of both arts. Indeed, by my late firmness
I have brought down his affected loftiness, and he




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 123
begins to think I have some genius: as if 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 shall 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
all and be silent, and to go through all without
murmuring, and, in fine, hope, till my three years
shall be almost accomplished; at which time I was
set at liberty to remonstrate against former conduct,
and to demand justice and truth; which I have
done in so effectual a manner that my antagonist is
silenced completely, and I have compelled what
should have been of freedom-my just right as an
artist and as a man. And if any attempt should
be made to refuse me this, I am inflexible, and will
relinquish any engagement of designing at all,
unless altogether 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




124 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
my conduct and the conduct of others towards me,
and you will see that I have laboured hard indeed,
and have been borne on angel's wings. Till we
meet I beg of God our Saviour to be with you and
me, and yours and mine.-Pray give my and my
wife's love to Mrs. Butts and family, and believe me
to remain, yours in truth and sincerity,
WILL. BLAKE.
27.
To MR. BUTTS.
FELPHAM, i6th August 1803.
DEAR SIR,-I send seven drawings,l which I
hope will please you.  This, I believe, about
balances our account. Our return to London
draws on apace.   Our. expectation of meeting
again with you is 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 in 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
1 See note 3, p. 118.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 125
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 numerous kindnesses I
have received from 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 peace in Chichester, which was taken
out against me by a private in Captain Leathe's
troop of ist or Royal Dragoons, for an assault and
seditious words. The wretched man Jas terribly
perjured himself, as has his comrade; for, as to
sedition, not one word relating to the king or
government was spoken by either him or me.
His enmity arises from my having turned him 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 answer. I insisted on
his leaving the garden; he refused. I still persisted
in desiring his departure. He then threatened to




126 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
knock out my eyes, with many abominable imprecations, and with some contempt 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 into 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 by 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 outline. I have for witnesses: the
gardener, who is hostler at the Fox, and who
1 The inn still flourishes.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 127
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 of the dragoons.
This was the woman's own remark, and 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
and daughter, will 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
my 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 at Chichester
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 fabricated perjury.
I have been forced to find bail. Mr. Hayley was




128 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
kind enough to come forward, and Mr. Seagrave,'
printer at Chichester; Mr. H. in ~50, and Mr.
S. in ~50; and myself am    bound in /ioo for
my appearance at the quarter-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 everyone 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
all the villages round. 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.  Everyone 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 content, I
murmur 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.2
Perhaps it will be in your power to learn somewhat
I Printer of Hayley's Ballads, The Life of Cowfier, The TrHnuzfhs
of Teinjier, etc. etc.
2 The name past in Blake's mythology, and occurs frequently in
Jeru~salem, and once in Milton.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 129
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 well 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
whom I doubted to clear themselves of all imputation. If a man offends me ignorantly, and not
designedly, surely I ought to consider 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, had 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.
O why was I born with a different 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, & lose every Friend.
9




130 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
Then my verse I dishonour, My pictures despise;
My person degrade, & my temper chastise;
And the pen is my terror, the pencil my shame;
All my Talents I bury, & dead is my Fame.
I am either too low or too highly priz'd;
When elate I am envy'd, When Meek I'm despis'd.
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 family.
I again take the liberty to beg of you to cause the
inclosed letter to be delivered to my brother, and
remain sincerely and affectionately yours,
WILLIAM BLAKE.
28.
To WILLIAM     HAYLEY.
SOUTH MOLTON STREET,1
26th October 1803.
DEAR SIR,-I hasten to write to you by the
favour of Mr. Edwards. I have been with Mr.
Sanders, who has now in his possession all Mr.
1 Blake took lodgings at 17 South Molton Street on his return to
London in x803, and remained there until his removal to 3 Fountain
Court, Strand, in I821.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 131
Romney's1 pictures that remained after the sale
at Hampstead; I saw " Milton and his Daughters," 2
and "'Twas where the Seas were Roaring," 3 and a
beautiful Female     Head.      He   has promised     to
write a list of all that he has in his possession,
and of all that he remembers of Mr. Romney's
paintings, with notices where they now are, so
far as his recollection will serve. The picture of
"Christ in the Desert" he supposes to be one of
those which he has rolled on large rollers. He
will take them down and unroll them, but cannot
do it easily, as they are so large as to occupy the
whole length of his workshop, and are laid across
beams at the top.
Mr. Flaxman is now out of town. When he
returns I will lose no time in setting him to work
on the same object.
I have got to work after Fuseli for a little
Shakespeare.4     Mr. Johnson, the bookseller, tells
1 The inquiries in regard to Romney, upon which Blake was
engaged about this time, have to do with The Life of Romney, published
by Hayley in 1809.
2 A picture representing Milton-blind-dictating to his daughters.
Canvas square, 6 ft. 9 in. each way. At Southhill (S. H. Whitbread,
Esq.) (see Romney, by Humphry Ward and W. Roberts, I904, vol.
ii. p. I63).
3 Susan, a scene from the ballad When the Seas were Roaring:
a despondent female, seated on a rock, overpowered with grief, unfinished (see Ward and Roberts' Romney, vol. ii. p. 202).
4 Blake engraved two plates after Fuseli for Alexander Chalmers's
Shakespeare, 1805; they are-" Queen Katherine's Dream" (vol. 7,
facingp. 235), and " Romeo and the Apothecary " (vol. Io, facing p. 107).




132 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
me that there is no want of work. So far you
will be rejoiced with me, and your words, " Do not
fear you can want employment!" were verified the
morning after I received your kind letter; but I
go on finishing Romney' with spirit, and for the
relief of variety shall engage in other little works
as they arise.
I called on Mr. Evans,2 who gives small hopes
of our Ballads; he says he has sold but fifteen
numbers at the most, and that going on would be
a certain loss of almost all the expenses. I then
proposed to him to take a part with me in publishing
them on a smaller scale, which he declined, on
account of its being out of his line of business to
publish, and a line in which he is determined
never to engage, attaching himself wholly to the
sale of fine editions of authors and curious books
in general. He advises that some publisher should
be spoken to who would purchase the copyright:
and, so far as I can judge of the nature of publication, no chance is left to one out of the trade.
Thus the case stands at present: God send better
times! Everybody complains, yet all go on cheerfully and with spirit.  The   shops in London
1 Blake engraved a portrait of Romney, but it was not used for
The Life.
2 The name of R. H. Evans (bookseller), Pall Mall, London,
appears on the title-page of the quarto edition of Hayley's Ballads, as
having the book on sale (see note I, p. 112).




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 133
improve; everything is elegant, clean, and neat;
the streets are widened where they were narrow;
even Snow Hill 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.
My wife continues poorly, but fancies she is
better in health here than by the seaside. We
both sincerely pray for the health of Miss Poole,
and for all our friends in Sussex, and remain, dear
sir, your sincere and devoted servants,
W. and C. BLAKE.
29.
From JOHN FLAXMAN to WILLIAM HAYLEY.
BUCKINGHAM STREET, FITZROY SQUARE,
2ndJanuary 1804.
DEAR AND KIND FRIEND,-Mr. Blake's opinion
that the drawing sent from Norfolk may be advantageously engraved for the ensuing volume of
Cowper's Life, as an agreeable perspective of the
situation, seems very just, whilst the Monument
itself may be represented on a larger scale in a
vignette,1 and for the materials on this subject, he
1 See Hayley's Life of Cowh5er (1803-1804), (i) vol. iii. Frontispiece. "A View of St. Edmund's Chapel in the Church of East




134 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
will be at no loss. I sincerely wish with you that
the trial was over, that our poor friend's peace
of mind might be restored; although I have no
doubt from what I have heard of the soldier's
character and the merits of the case, that the bill
will at least be thrown out by the Court as groundless and vexatious. Blake's irritability, as well as
the association and arrangement of his ideas, do
not seem likely to be soothed or more advantageously disposed by any power inferior to That
by which man is originally endowed with his
faculties.  I wish all our defects were fewer;
certainly my own among the rest. But if we really
are desirous this should come to pass, we are told
to whom and by what means we should apply.
I wonder, my good friend, as you admired the
genius of Romney so much, that you do not
remember the whole catalogue of his chalk
cartoons; as I think it was your opinion, in
common with other sufficient judges, that they
were the noblest of his studies. Besides, they were
but few in number. The following were the subjects:
" A Lapland Witch raising a Storm "; " Charity and
her Children "; " Pliny and his Mother flying from
Dereham, containing the Grave of William Cowper, Esq." Francis
Stone, del.; W. Blake, sculpt. (2) Plate facing p. 4i6, "A Sketch of
the Monument Erected in the Church of East Dereham in Norfolk,
in Memory of William Cowper, Esqre." Etch'd by W. Blake from
the original Model by John Flaxman.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 135
the eruption of Vesuvius"; the following from.Eschylus: "Raising      the   Ghost of Darius"';
" Atossa's Dream" 2; C" The Furies."      I hope they
exist in a perfect state; and if they do, they are all
well worth etching in a bold manner, which I think
Blake is likely to do with great success, and
perhaps at an expense that will not be burthensome.   But, at any rate, give him    one to do first
for a trial. The exhibition of a painter's noblest
sentiments and grandest thoughts must certainly
become as striking and interesting in his life as
their several poems in the lives of Milton, Homer,
or Virgil. I am glad you are satisfied with the
introduction; in this you have had the success of
a friend both zealous and skilful.    I confess, great
as my regard was for the man, to write his life
and speak the truth without offence seems attended
with  considerable   difficulty.  I  am    not at all
surprised that many passages in this eminent
man's letters were truly eloquent and beautiful.
Indeed I should have been confounded had they
not been so; because whatever advantages educa1 This fine cartoon is now in the Roscoe collection at Liverpool.
The crowned head and outstretched arms of the aged Darius arise
from a cloud in the midst. Atossa stands (r.) with amazed look. Three
bowed and kneeling figures in front are very Blake-like in character,
and, in the light of the extract printed on p. 52, are not improbably
due to his influence. The date of the cartoon is about I780.
2 A fine cartoon, of the same date as the preceding, also in the
Roscoe collection at Liverpool.




136 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
tion can bestow, they are but so many modifications
of the light of the understanding and the feelings
and affections of the heart. I am sure Romney's
memory will want no grace or decoration which
your pen cannot give, and therefore any effort of
mine would be comparatively poor and tedious,
like "the shuffling gait of a tired nag." Yet I am
not so churlish that I would not lend an endeavour,
however weak, to honour a departed friend; but
even this must be independent, and not comparative. I do not remember Mr. Robinson, but I
rejoice in his success and the inspiration of his
son. The works I am employed on at present
are Earl Howe and Captain Montague. I have
troubled you, by Mr. Blake, with a short tract
written for Dr. Rees's Cyclopfedia, on "Basso
Relievo," with one of the prints referred to at the
end of the article; the rest are not yet engraven.1
I do not send it from the vanity of giving
information to you, because I daresay you are well
acquainted with all it contains: but because I
would not publish anything of this kind without
sending a copy, even though it should not be
worth your notice.  A  happy release from his
afflictions to poor Blake; and to you, my dear
friend, many happy years unclouded by misfortune
1 Four engravings from Blake's hand ultimately appeared with
the article.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 137
or sorrow.-I have the honour to remain, your
ever affectionate and much obliged,
JOHN FLAXMAN.
I thank kindly for the remembrance of I.
Denman: he is not my nephew, he is whole
brother to Maria and half-brother to my wife.
30.
To WILLIAM HAYLEY.
LONDON, I 4/h January I 804.
DEAR SIR,-I write immediately on my arrival,
not merely to inform you that in a conversation
with an old soldier, who came in the coach with
me, I learned that no one, not even the 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 learned with some alarm, and heard also what the
soldier said confirmed by another person in the
coach. I therefore, as it is my duty, beg and
entreat you never to mount that wretched horse
again, nor again trust to one who has been so




138 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
educated. God, our Saviour, watch over you and
preserve you.
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, bookseller, this afternoon.  My poor
wife has been near the gate of death, as was
supposed by our kind and attentive fellow inhabitant, the young and very amiable Mrs. Enoch,
who gave 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 again 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
towards eternal life, and conjunction with spirits
of just men made perfect by love and gratitude,



LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 139
the two angels who stand at heaven's gate, ever
open, ever inviting guests to the marriage. 0
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 PoQle; accept them yourself.
-Yours in sincerity,        WILLIAM BLAKE.
3I.
To WILLIAM HAYLEY.
27th January 1804.
DEAR SIR,-Your eager expectation of hearing
from me compels me to write immediately, though
I have not done half the business I wished, owing
to a violent cold which confined me to my bed
three days and to my chamber a week. I am now
so well, thank God, as to get out, and have
accordingly been to Mr. Walker,1 who is not in
town, being at Birmingham, where he will remain
six weeks or two months. I took my portrait of
Romney as you desired, to show him. His son
1 Adam Walker (1730 or 1731-1821), distinguished inventor,
astronomer, and lecturer on philosophy; an old friend of Romney,
and one of the few with whom the artist was really intimate (see
Romney, by Humphry Ward and W. Roberts, 1904, vol. ii. p. 163).




140 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
was likewise not at home, but I will again call on
Mr. Walker, Jun., and beg him       to show  me the
pictures and make every inquiry of him, if you
think best. Mr. Sanders has one or two large
cartoons. The subject he does not know. They
are folded up on the top of his workshop: the rest
he packed up and sent into the north. I showed
your letter to Mr. John Romney 1 to Mr. Flaxman,
who was perfectly satisfied with it. I sealed and
sent it immediately, as directed by Mr. Sanders, to
Kendall, Westmoreland.     Mr. Sanders expects Mr.
Romney in town soon.      Note, your letter to Mr. J.
Romney; I sent off the money after I received it
from you, being then in health. I have taken your
noble present to Mr. Rose,2 and left it with charge,
to the servant, of great care. The writing looks
very pretty. I was fortunate in doing it myself,
and hit it off excellently. I have not seen Mr.
Rose, though he is in town.      Mr. Flaxman is not
at all acquainted with Sir Alan Chambre;3 recommends me to inquire concerning him of Mr. Rose.
My brother says he believes Sir Alan is a Master
1 I758-I832, only surviving son of the painter; quarrelled with
Hayley, and in I830 published a Life of his father, in which Hayley is
bitterly attacked.
2 Samuel Rose, who defended Blake on his trial for sedition.
3 Sir Alan Chambre (I739-I823), Recorder of Lancaster; Baron
of the Exchequer, 2nd July I799; succeeded Sir Francis Buller at
the Court of Common Pleas; resigned I815. He was painted by
Romney (see Ward and Roberts' Romney, vol. ii. p. 27).




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 141
in  Chancery.     Though    I  have   called  on  Mr.
Edwards twice for Lady Hamilton's' direction,
was so unfortunate as to find him out both times.
I will repeat my call on him to-morrow morning.
My dear sir, I wish now to satisfy you that all is in
a good train; I am going on briskly with the
plates,2 find everything promising; work in abundance; and, if God blesses me with health, doubt not
yet to make a figure in the great dance of life that
shall amuse the spectators in the sky. I thank you
for my "Demosthenes,"3 which has now become a
noble subject. My wife gets better every day.
Hope earnestly that you have escaped the brush of
my evil star, which I believe is now for ever fallen
into the abyss. God bless and preserve you and
our good Lady Paulina with the good things both
of this life and of eternity. And with you, my
much admired and respected Edward,4 the bard of
Oxford, whose verses still sound upon my ear like
1 Emma Hart, Lady Hamilton, Nelson's mistress and Romney's
most frequent sitter.
2 See note I, p. I33.
3 Probably "The Death of Demosthenes," engraved by Blake after
Thomas Hayley, in William Hayley's Essay on Sculfpture, published
in I800.
4 See Gilchrist (I88o), vol. i. p. 203: ' Diligent research as to who
'Edward the Bard of Oxford' might be, yields no other suggestion
than that he was a certain young Mr. Edward Marsh, of Oriel
College, who, when visiting Hayley while Blake was also his frequent
guest and fellow-labourer, had been wont to read aloud to them the
Hermit's own compositions in a singularly melodious voice."




142 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
the distant approach of things mighty and magnificent, like the sound of harps which I hear before
the sun's rising, like the remembrance of Felpham's
waves and of the glorious and far-beaming Turret,
like the villa of Lavant,' blessed and blessing.
Amen. God bless you all, 0 people of Sussex,
around your hermit and     bard.   So prays the
emulator of both his and your mild and happy
temper of soul.-Your devoted
WILL. BLAKE.
32.
To WILLIAM HAYLEY.
23rd February 1804.
I called yesterday on Mr. Braithwaite,2 as you
desired, and found him quite as cheerful as you
describe him, and by his appearance should not
have supposed him to be near sixty, notwithstanding he was shaded by a green shade over his eyes.
He gives a very spirited assurance of Mr. John
Romney's interesting himself in the great object of
1 i.e. Miss Poole's villa.
2 Daniel Braithwaite, for many years controller of the Foreign
department of the Post Office, was Romney's earliest patron, when
the latter came up to London in 1762; and it was to him that
Hayley dedicated his Life of Romney (see Romney, by Humphry
Ward and W. Roberts, 1904, vol. ii. p. 17).




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 143
his father's fame, and thinks that he must be proud
of such a work in such hands. As to the picture
from Sterne,' which you desired him to procure for
you, he has not yet found where it is; supposes
that it may be in the north, and that he may learn
from Mr. Romney, who will be in town soon. Mr.
B[raithwaite] desires I will present his compliments
to you, and write you that he has spoken with Mr.
Read concerning the Life of Romney. He interests
himself in it, and has promised to procure dates of
premiums, pictures, etc., Mr. Read having a number
of articles relating to Romney, either written or
printed, which he promises to copy out for your
use, as also the Catalogue of Hampstead sale. He
showed me a very fine portrait of Mrs. Siddons,2
by Romney, as the Tragic Muse; half-length, that
is, the head and hands, and in his best style. He
also desires me to express to you his wish that you
would give the public an engraving of that medallion
by your son's matchless hand,3 which is placed over
1 Probably this is " The Introduction of Dr. Slop into the Parlour
of Mr. Shandy," a scene from Tristram Shandy, painted c. 1757
(canvas, 30 in. x 26 in.), which was engraved for the Life of Romney
by W. Haines. It was then in the possession of Sir Alan Chambr6
(see Ward and Roberts' Romney, vol. ii. p. 200).
2 Mrs. Sarah Siddons, the great tragic actress; to waist, leaning
on her hand, wreath in her hair. Canvas, 30 in. X 25 in. Painted
in 1783, and presented to Daniel Braithwaithe (see Ward and
Robert's Romney, vol. ii. p. 200).
3 The medallion of Romney by Thomas Hayley was engraved for
the Life by Caroline Watson.




144 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
his chimney-piece between two pretty little pictures,
correct and enlarged copies from antique gems, of
which the centre ornament is worthy. He says
that it is by far, in his opinion, the most exact
resemblance of Romney he ever saw. I have,
furthermore, the pleasure of informing you that he
knew immediately my portrait of Romney, and
assured me that he thought it a very great
likeness.
I wish I could give you a pleasant account of
our beloved Counsellor;1 he, alas! was ill in bed
when I called yesterday at about 12 o'clock; the
servant said that he remains very ill indeed.
Mr. Walker, I have been so unfortunate as not
to find at home, but I will call again in a day or
two.  Neither Mr. Flaxman nor Mr. Edwards
know Lady Hamilton's address. The house which
Sir William lived in, in Piccadilly, she left some
time ago. Mr. Edwards will procure her address
for you, and I will send it immediately. I have
enclosed for you the twenty-two numbers of Fuseli's
Shakespeare2 that are out, and the book of Italian
Letters from Mrs. Flaxman, who with her admirable husband present their best compliments to
you. He is so busy that I believe I shall never
see him again but when I call on him, for he has


1 Samuel Rose (see note 2, p. 140).
2See note 4, p. 131.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 145
never yet, since my return to London, had the
time or grace to call on me. Mrs. Flaxman and
her sister give also their testimony to my likeness
of Romney. Mr. Flaxman I have not yet had an
opportunity of consulting about it, but soon will.
I enclose likewise the academical Correspondence
of Mr. Hoare1 the painter, whose note to me I also
enclose. For I did but express to him my desire of
sending you a copy of his work, and the day after I
received it, with the note expressing his pleasure in
your wish to see it. You would be much delighted
with the man, as I assure myself you will be with
his work.
The plates of Cowper's monument 2 are both in
great forwardness, and you shall have proofs in
another week. I assure you that I will not spare
pains, and am myself very much satisfied that I
shall do my duty and produce two elegant plates.
There is, however, a great deal of work on them
that must and will have time.
"Busy, busy, busy, I bustle along,
Mounted upon warm Phoebus' ray,
Thro' the heavenly throng."
1Prince Hoare, painter, studied in Rome under Mengs in
I776, with Fuseli and Northcote for companions. The book alluded
to is the Extracts from a Correspondence with the Academies of
Vienna and St. Petersburg on the Cultivation of Painting, Sculpture,
and Architecture, published when he was made Foreign Secretary
of the Royal Academy in 1799 (see Gilchrist (i880), vol. i. p. 205).
2 See note I, p. 133.
Io




146 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
But I hastened to write to you about Mr.
Braithwaite. Hope when I send my proofs to
give as good an account of Mr. Walker.
My wife joins me in respects and love to you,
and desires with mine to present hers to Miss
Poole.
33.
To WILLIAM HAYLEY.
121h March I804.
DEAR SIR,-I begin with the latter end of your
letter, and grieve more for Miss Poole's ill-health
than for my failure in sending the proofs, though I
am very sorry that I cannot send before Saturday's
coach. Engraving is eternal work. The two
plates' are almost finished. You will receive
proofs of them from Lady Hesketh,2 whose copy of
Cowper's Letters ought to be printed in letters of
gold and ornamented with jewels of Heaven,
Havillah, Eden, and all the countries where jewels
abound. I curse and bless engraving alternately,
because it takes so much time and is so intractable,
though capable of such beauty and perfection.
My wife desires me to express her love to you,
I See note I, p. 133.
2 Cousin of Cowper, and the intimate friend of his latter days.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 147
praying for Miss Poole's perfect recovery, and we
both remain, your affectionate,
WILL. BLAKE.
34.
To WILLIAM HAYLEY.
2ndApril I804.
Mr. Flaxman advises that the drawing of Mr.
Romney's which shall be chosen instead of "The
Witch" (if that cannot be recovered), be " Hecate,"
the figure with the torch and snake, which he
thinks one of the finest drawings. The twelve
impressions of each of the plates which I now send
ought to be unrolled immediately that you receive
them and put under somewhat to press them flat.
You should have had fifteen of each, but I had not
paper enough in proper order for printing. There
is now in hand a new edition of Flaxman's Homer,
with additional designs, two of which I am now
engraving. I am uneasy at not hearing from Mr.
Dally, to whom I enclosed ' I5 in a letter a fortnight ago, by his desire. I write to him by this
post to inquire about it. Money in these times is
not to be trifled with. I have now cleared the way
to Romney, in whose service I now enter again
with great pleasure, and hope soon to show you my
zeal with good effect. Am in hopes that Miss




148 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
Poole is recovered, as you are silent on that most
alarming and interesting topic in both your last
letters. God be with you in all things. My wife
joins me in this prayer.-I am, dear Sir, yours
sincerely affectionate,       WILLM. BLAKE.
35.
To WILLIAM HAYLEY.
7/h April 1804.
DEAR SIR,-You can have no idea, unless you
were in London as I am, how much your name is
loved and respected. I have the extreme pleasure
of transmitting to you one proof of the respect,
which you will be pleased with, and I hope will
adopt and embrace. It comes through Mr. Hoare,
from Mr. Phillips1 of St. Paul's Churchyard. It
is, as yet, an entire secret between Mr. P[hillips],
Mr. H[oare], and myself, and will remain so till you
have given your decision. Mr. Phillips is a man
of vast spirit and enterprise, with a solidity of
character which few have; he is the man who
applied to Cowper for that sonnet in favour of a
prisoner at Leicester, which I believe you thought
1 Richard Phillips, bookseller, publisher of the i80o5 edition of
Hayley's Ballads with Blake's plates; editor of the Monthly Magazine.
For further particulars see Gilchrist (i880), vol. i. p. 206. The scheme
here broached was never carried out.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 149
fit not to print; so you see he is spiritually
adjoined  to  us.  His connection  throughout
England, and indeed Europe and America, enable
him to circulate publications to an immense extent,
and he told Mr. Hoare that on the present work,
which he proposes to commence with your assistance, he can afford to expend ~2000 a year. Mr.
Phillips considers you as the great leading
character in literature, and his terms to others will
amount to only one quarter of what he proposes to
you. I send, enclosed, his terms, as Mr. Hoare,
by my desire, has given them to me in writing.
Knowing your aversion to reviews and reviewing,
I consider the present proposal as peculiarly
adapted to your ideas. It may be called a defence
of literature against those pests of the press, and a
bulwark for genius, which shall, with your good
assistance, disperse those rebellious spirits of envy
and malignity. In short, if you see it as I see it,
you will embrace this proposal on the score of
parental duty. Literature is your child. She calls
for your assistance! You, who never refuse to
assist any, how remote soever, will certainly hear
her voice. Your answer to the proposal you will,
if you think fit, direct to Mr. Hoare, who is
worthy of every confidence you can place in him.
I am, dear Sir, your anxiously devoted,
WILL. BLAKE.




150 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
36.
To WILLIAM HAYLEY.
27fh April I804.
DEAR SIR,-I have at length seen Mr. Hoare,
after having repeatedly called on him every day
and not finding him. I now understand that he
received your reply to P[hillips']s proposal at
Brighton, where he has a residence, from whence he
sent it to London to Mr. Phillips; he has not seen
P. since his return, and therefore cannot tell me
how he understood your answer. Mr. H. appears
to me to consider it as a rejection of the proposal
altogether. I took the liberty to tell him that I
could not consider it so, but that as I understood
you, you had accepted the spirit of P's intention,
which was to leave the whole conduct of the affair
to you, and that you had accordingly nominated
one of your friends and agreed to nominate others.
But if P[hillips] meant that you should yourself
take on you the drudgery of the ordinary business
of a review, his proposal was by no means a
generous one. Mr. H[oare] has promised to see
Mr. Phillips immediately, and to know what his
intentions are; but he says perhaps Mr. P. may
not yet have seen your letter to him, and that his
multiplicity of business may very well account for




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 151
the delay. I have seen our excellent Flaxman
lately. He is well in health, but has had such a
burn on his hand as you had once, which has
hindered his working for a fortnight; it is now
better. He desires to be most affectionately remembered to you; he began a letter to you a week
ago; perhaps by this time you have received it;
but he is also a laborious votary of endless work.
Engraving is of so slow process, I must beg of you
to give me the earliest possible notice of what
engraving is to be done for the Life of Romney.
Endless work is the true title of engraving, as I
find by the things I have in hand day and night.
We feel much easier to hear that you have parted
with your horse. Hope soon to hear that you
have a living one of brass, a Pegasus of Corinthian
metal; and that Miss Poole is again in such health
as when she first mounted me on my beloved
Bruno. I forgot to mention that Mr. Hoare
desires his most respectful compliments to you.
Speaks of taking a ride across the country to
Felpham, as he always keeps a horse at Brighton.
My wife joins me in love to you.-I remain, yours
sincerely,                 WILLIAM BLAKE.




152 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
37.
To WILLIAM HAYLEY.
4th May 1804.
DEAR SIR,-I thank you sincerely for Falconer,'
an admirable poet, and the admirable prints to it
by Fittler. 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. I have seen the elder
Mr. Walker. He knew and admired without any
preface my print of Romney, and when his daughter
came in he gave the print into her hand without a
word, and she immediately said, "Ah! Romney!
younger than I knew him, but very like indeed."
Mr. Walker showed me Romney's first attempt at oil
painting; it is a copy from a Dutch picture-" Dutch
Boor Smoking"; on the back is written, "This
was the first attempt at oil painting by G. Romney."
He shewed me also the last performance of Romney.
It is of Mr. Walker and family,2 the draperies put
1 The Shipwreck, a poem by William Falconer, I804, contains
three plates and five vignettes engraved in line by J. Fittler, A.R.A.,
after N. Pocock. Blake's plate of "The Shipwreck" has certainly
some traces of Fittler's manner of engraving.
2 Adam Walker, his wife and daughter, sitting at a table; the
three sons standing in the background; the father explaining a
diagram; landscape background. Canvas, 65 x 53 in. Now in the
National Portrait Gallery (see Romney, by Humphry Ward and
W. Roberts, I904, vol. ii. p. i63).




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 153
in by somebody else. It is a very excellent picture,
but unfinished. The figures as large as life, half
length; Mr. W., three sons, and, I believe, two
daughters, with maps, instruments, etc. Mr. Walker
also showed me a portrait of himself (W.), whole
length, on a canvas about two feet by one and a
half; it is the first portrait Romney ever painted.
But above all, a picture of " Lear and Cordelia,"'
when he awakes and knows her,-an incomparable
production, which Mr. W. bought for five shillings
at a broker's shop. It is about five feet by four,
and exquisite for expression; indeed, it is most
pathetic. The heads of Lear and Cordelia can never
be surpassed, and Kent and the other attendant
are admirable. The picture is very highly finished.
Other things I saw of Romney's first works: two
copies, perhaps from   Borgognone, of battles; and
Mr. Walker promises to collect all he can of information for you. I much admired his mild and
gentle benevolent manners; it seems as if all
Romney's intimate friends were truly amiable and
feeling like himself.
I have also seen Alderman Boydell,2 who has
1 " King Lear awakened by his Daughter Cordelia." Canvas, 52 x
42 in. Romney's wife sat for Cordelia (see Ward and Roberts'
Romney, vol ii. p. I96).
2 John Boydell, Alderman, Sheriff, and Lord Mayor of London;
engraver and printseller, organiser of the Shakespeare Gallery "of
pictures purposely painted by the first artists," and afterwards
engraved to the number of one hundred.




154 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
promised to get the number and prices of all
Romney's prints as you desired. He has sent a
catalogue of all his collection, and a scheme of his
lottery. Desires his compliments to you; says he
laments your absence from London, as your advice
would be acceptable at all times, but especially at
the present. He is very thin and decayed, and
but the shadow of what he was; so he is now a
shadow's shadow;-but how can we expect a very
stout man at eighty-five, which age he tells me he
has now reached? You would have been pleased
to see his eyes light up at the mention of your
name.
Mr. Flaxman agrees with me that somewhat
more than outline is necessary to the execution of
Romney's designs, because his merit is eminent in
the art of massing his lights and shades. I should
propose to etch them in a rapid but firm manner,
somewhat, perhaps, as I did the " Head of Euler";
the price I receive for engraving Flaxman's outlines
of Homer is five guineas each. I send the
" Domenichino," which is very neatly done. His
merit was but little in light and shade; outline
was his element, and yet these outlines give but a
faint idea of the finished prints from his works,
several of the best of which I have. I send also
the French Monuments, and inclose with them a
Catalogue of Bell's Gallery, and another of the




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 155
Exhibition, which I have not yet seen. I mentioned
the pictures from Sterne to Mr. Walker. He says
that there were several; one, a garden scene, with
Uncle Toby and Obadiah planting in the garden;
but that of " Le Fevre's Death"1 he speaks of as
incomparable, but cannot tell where it now is, as
they were scattered abroad, being disposed of by
means of a raffle. He supposes it is in Westmoreland; promises to make every inquiry about it.
Accept, also, of my thanks for Cowfier's third volume,
which I got, as you directed, of Mr. Johnson. I
have seen Mr. Rose; he looks, though not so well
as I have seen him, yet tolerably, considering the
terrible storm he has been through! He says that
the last session was a severe labour; indeed it must
be so to a man just out of so dreadful a fever. I
also thank you for your very beautiful little poem
on the king's recovery; it is one of the prettiest
things I ever read, and I hope the king will live
to fulfil the prophecy and die in peace: but at
present, poor man, I understand he is poorly
indeed, and times threaten worse than ever. I
must now express my sorrow and my hopes for our
good Miss Poole, and so take my leave for the
present, with the joint love of my good woman,
1"The Death of Le F~vre " (see Whard and Roberts' Romney,
vol. ii. p. 200, where Adam Walker's own description of the picture
is quoted).




156 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
who is still stiff-kneed but well in other respects.I am, dear Sir, yours most sincerely,
WILLIAM BLAKE.
38.
To WILLIAM HAYLEY.
28th May 1804.
DEAR SIR,-I thank you heartily for your
kind offer of reading, etc.; I have read the book
through attentively and was much entertained and
instructed, but have not yet come to the Life of
Washington. I suppose an American would tell
me that Washington did all that was done before
he was born, as the French now adore Bonaparte
and the English our poor George; so the
Americans will consider Washington as their
god. This is only Grecian, or rather Trojan,1
worship, and perhaps will be revised in an age
or two. In the meantime I have the happiness of
seeing the Divine countenance in such men as
Cowper and Milton more distinctly than in any
prince or hero. Mr. Phillips has sent a small poem;
he would not tell the author's name, but desired me
to inclose it for you with Washington's Life.
Mr. Carr called on me, and I, as you desired,
cp. Milton, p. 20, 11. 53, 54: p. 25, 1. 49; Jerusalem, p. 52:
p. 98,1. 46.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 157
gave him a history of the reviewing business, as
far as I am acquainted with it.  He desires me
to express to you that he would heartily devote
himself to the business in all its laborious parts,
if you would take on you the direction; and he
thinks it might be done with very little trouble
to you. He is now going to Russia; hopes that
the negotiations for this business are not wholly
at an end, but that on his return he may still
perform his best, as your assistant in it. I have
delivered the letter to Mr. Edwards, who will
give it immediately to Lady Hamilton.      Mr.
Walker I have again seen; he promises to collect
numerous particulars concerning Romney, and send
them to you; wonders he has not had a line from
you; desires me to assure you of his wish to give
every information in his power.   Says that I
shall have "Lear and Cordelia''1 to copy if you
desire it should be done. Supposes that Romney
was about eighteen when he painted it; it is
therefore doubly interesting. Mr. Walker is truly
an amiable man; spoke of Mr. Greene2 as the
oldest friend of Romney, who knew most concerning him of anyone; lamented the little differ1 See note I, p- 153.
2 Thomas Greene, of Slyne, Lancaster (1737-I810), solicitor; a
friend of Romney from childhood. Romney painted several portraits
of him (see Romney, by Humphry Ward and W. Roberts, 1904,
vol. ii. p. 64).




158 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
ence that subsisted between you, speaking of you
both with great affection. Mr. Flaxman has also
promised to write all he knows or can collect
concerning Romney, and send to    you.  Mr.
Sanders has promised to write to Mr. J. Romney
immediately, desiring him to give us liberty to
copy any of his father's designs that Mr. Flaxman
may select for that purpose; doubts not at all
of Mr. Romney's readiness to send any of the
cartoons to London you desire; if this can be
done it will be all that could be wished. I spoke
to Mr. Flaxman about choosing out proper subjects
for our purpose; he has promised to do so. I
hope soon to send you Flaxman's advice upon
this article. When I repeated to Mr. Phillips
your intention of taking the books you want from
his shop, he made a reply to the following purpose:
"I shall be very proud to have Mr. Hayley's name
in my books, but please to express to him my hope
that he will consider me as the sincere friend of
Mr. Johnson, who is (I have every reason to say)
both the most generous and honest man I ever
knew, and with whose interest I should be so
averse to interfere, that I should wish him to
have the refusal first of anything before it should
be offered to me, as I know the value of Mr.
Hayley's connection too well to interfere between
my best friend and him." This Phillips spoke




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 159
with real affection, and I know you will love him
for it, and will also respect Johnson the more
for such testimony; but to balance all this I must,
in duty to my friend Seagravel tell you that Mr.
Rose repeated to me his great opinion of Mr.
Johnson's integrity, while we were talking concerning Seagrave's printing.  It is but justice,
therefore, to tell you that I perceive a determination in the London booksellers to injure Seagrave
in your opinion, if possible.  Johnson may be
very honest and very generous, too, where his
own interest is concerned; but I must say that
he leaves no stone unturned to serve that interest,
and often (I think) unfairly. He always has taken
care, when I have seen him, to rail against
Seagrave, and I perceive that he does the same
by Mr. Rose. Mr. Phillips took care to repeat
Johnson's railing to me, and to say that the
country printers could not do anything of consequence.  Luckily he found fault with the paper
which Cowper's Life is printed on, not knowing
that it was furnished by Johnson. I let him run
on so far as to say that it was scandalous and
unfit for such a work; here I cut him short by
asking if he knew who furnished the paper. He
answered: " I hope Mr. J. did not." I assured
him that he did, and here he left off, desiring
1 See note I, p. 128.




160 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
me to tell you that the Life of Washington was
not put to press till the 3rd of this month (May),
and on the i3th he had delivered a dozen copies
at Stationer's Hall, and by the i6th five hundred
were out. This is swift work if literally true,
but I am not apt to believe literally what booksellers say; and on comparing Cowper with
Washington, must assert that, exce/ tatper (which
is Johnson's fault), Cowpier is far the best, both
as to type and printing. Pray look at Washington
as far as page 177. You will find that the type
is smaller than from I77 to 308, the whole middle
of the book being printed with a larger and
better type than the two extremities; also it is
carefully hot-pressed.  I say thus much, being
urged thereto by Mr. Rose's observing some
defects in Seagrave's work, which I conceive
were urged upon him by Johnson; and as to the
time the booksellers would take to execute any
work, I need only refer to the little job which
Mr. Johnson was to get done for our friend
Dally. He promised it in a fortnight, and it is
now three months and is not yet completed. I
could not avoid saying thus much in justice to
our good Seagrave, whose reply to Mr. Johnson's
aggravating letters have been represented to Mr.
Rose in an unfair light, as I have no doubt;
because Mr. Johnson has, at times, written such




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 161
letters to me as would have called for the sceptre
of Agamemnon rather than the tongue of Ulysses,
and I will venture to give it as my settled opinion
that if you suffer yourself to be persuaded to
print in London you will be cheated every way;
but, however, as some little excuse, 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. This makes your
lot truly enviable, and the country is not only
more beautiful on account of its expanded
meadows, but also on account of its benevolent
minds. My wife joins with me in the hearty wish
that you may long enjoy your beautiful retirement.
I am, with best respects to Miss Poole, for
whose health we constantly send wishes to our
spiritual friends, yours sincerely,
WILLIAM BLAKE.
P.S.-Mr. Walker says that Mr. Cumberland
is right in his reckonings of Romney's age.'
Mr. W. says Romney was two years older than
himself, consequently was born I734.
1 Romney was born I5th December 1734; died, I5th November
1802. He went to Italy 2oth March I773, and returned to London
Ist July 1775.
II




162 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
Mr. Flaxman told me that Mr. Romney was
three years in Italy; that he returned twentyeight years since. Mr. Humphrey,' the painter,
was in Italy the same time with Mr. Romney.
Mr. Romney lodged at Mr. Richter's, Great
Newport Street, before he went; took the house
in Cavendish Square immediately on his return;
but as Flaxman has promised to put pen to paper,
you may expect a full account of all he can collect.
Mr. Sanders does not know the time when Mr.
R. took or left Cavendish Square house.
39.
To WILLIAM HAYLEY.
SOUTH MOLTON STREET,
22nd June 1804.
DEAR SIR,-I have got the three sublime designs of Romney now in my lodgings, and find
them all too grand as well as too undefined for
mere outlines; and indeed it is not only my opinion
but that of Mr. Flaxman and Mr. Parker,2 both of
whom I have consulted, that to give a true idea
of Romney's genius, nothing less than some finished
1 Ozias Humphrey, miniaturist (see note i, p. I98).
2 James Parker, one of Blake's fellow-apprentices with Basire;
was in partnership with Blake, as printseller and engraver, from
1784-87.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 163
engravings will do, as outline entirely omits his
chief beauties; but there are some which may be
executed in a slighter manner than others, and Mr.
Parker, whose eminence as an engraver makes his
opinion deserve notice, has advised that four should
be done in the highly finished manner, and four in
a less finished; and on my desiring him to tell me
for what he would undertake to engrave one in
each manner, the size to be about 7 inches by
54, which is the size of a quarto printed page, he
answered: "Thirty guineas the finished, and half
the sum for the less finished; but as you tell me
that they will be wanted in November, I am of
opinion that if eight different engravers are employed, the eight plates will not be done by that
time; as for myself" (note Parker now speaks), " I
have to-day turned away a plate of four hundred
guineas because I am too full of work to undertake
it, and I know that all the good engravers are so
engaged that they will be hardly prevailed upon to
undertake more than one of the plates on so short
a notice."  This is Mr. Parker's account of the
matter, and perhaps may discourage you from the
pursuit of so expensive an undertaking.  It is
certain that the pictures deserve to be engraved
by the hands of angels, and must not by any
means be done in a careless or too hasty manner.
The price Mr. Parker has affixed to each is exactly




164 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
what I myself had before concluded upon. Judging
as he did that if the Fuseli Shakespeare' is worth
twenty-five guineas, these will be at least worth
thirty, and that the inferior ones cannot be done
at any rate under fifteen. Mr. Flaxman advises
that the best engravers should be engaged in the
work, as its magnitude demands all the talents that
can be procured.
Mr. Flaxman named the following eight as
proper subjects for prints 2
i. "The Vision of Atossa from     IEschylus."
ii. "Apparition of Darius."
iii. " Black-eyed Susan," a figure on the seashore
embracing a corse.
iv. "The Shipwreck," with the man on horseback, and which I have.
v. " Hecate": a very fine thing indeed, which
I have.
vi. "Pliny":    very fine, but very     unfinished,
which I have.
vii. "Lear and     Cordelia,"   belonging   to  Mr.
Walker.
1 See note 4, p. 131.
2 i. See note 2, p. 135; ii. See note I, p. 135; iii. Probably the same
as "'Twas when the Seas were Roaring," above: see note 3, p. 131;
iv. An oil sketch, illustrating a story told in the travels of Thunberg,
of a horseman, named Woltemad, at the Cape of Good Hope, rescuing from the sea the sufferers in a shipwreck; engraved by Blake in line,
for the Life ofRomney; v. See pp. 147 and 176, a figure with a torch and
snake; vi. See pp. 134 and 176; vii. See note I, p. 153; viii. See p. 134.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 165
viii. One other which I omitted to write down
and have forgot, but think that it was a figure with
children, which he called a " Charity."
I write immediately on receiving the above
information, because no time should be lost in this
truly interesting business.
Richardson is not yet published. My " Head of
Romney" 1 is in very great forwardness. Parker
commends it highly. Flaxman has not yet seen
it, but shall soon, and then you shall have a proof
of it for your remarks also. I hope by this time
Flaxman has written to you, and that you will
soon receive such documents as will enable you
to decide on what is to be done in our desirable
and arduous task of doing justice to our admired,
sublime Romney. I have not yet been able to
meet Mr. Braithwaite2 at home, but intend very
soon to call again, and (as you wish) to write all I
can collect from him. Be so good as to give me
your earliest decision on what would be safe and
not too venturesome in the number of projected
engravings, that I may put it into a brain to be
properly executed.
We both rejoice in the generous Paulina's3
return, with recovered strength, to her delightful
villa; please to present our sincerest affections to
1 It was not used for the Life.
2 See note 2, p. 142.     3 Miss Poole.




166 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
her. My wife continues to get better, and joins
me in my warmest love and acknowledgments to
you, as do my brother and sister.-I am, dear Sir,
yours sincerely,            WILLIAM BLAKE.
40.
To WILLIAM HAYLEY.
20th September I804.
DEAR SIR,-I hope you will excuse my delay
in sending the books which I have had some time,
but kept them back till I could send a proof of " The
Shipwreck," 1 which I hope will please. It yet wants
all its last and finishing touches, but I hope you
will be enabled by it to judge of the pathos of the
picture. I send Washington's second volume, five
numbers of Fuseli's Shakespeare,2 and two volumes
with a letter from Mr. Spilsbury,3 with whom I
accidentally met in the Strand. He says that he
relinquished painting as a profession, for which I
think he is to be applauded: but I conceive that
he may be a much better painter if he practises
secretly and for amusement, than he could ever be
if employed in the drudgery of fashionable daubing
1 See note 2, iv. p. i64.   2 See note 4, p. 131.
3 Probably this is Jonathan Spilsbury (brother of John Spilsbury,
the engraver), who exhibited portraits at the Royal Academy from
1776-I807.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 167
for a poor pittance of money in return for the
sacrifice of art and genius. He says he never will
leave to practise the art, because he loves it, and
this alone will pay its labour by success, if not of
money, yet of true art, which is all. I had the
pleasure of a call from Mrs. Chetwynd' and her
brother, a giant in body, mild and polite in soul,
as I have, in general, found great bodies to be;
they were much pleased with Romney's designs.
Mrs. C[hetwynd] sent to me the two articles for
you, and for the safety of which by the coach I
had some fear, till Mr. Meyer2 obligingly undertook to convey them safe. He is now, I suppose,
enjoying the delights of the Turret of lovely
Felpham; please to give my affectionate      compliments to him.    I cannot help suggesting an
idea which has struck me very forcibly, that the
"Tobit and Tobias"3 in your bedchamber would
make a very beautiful engraving, done in the same
manner'as the " Head of Cowper," 4 after Lawrence;
the heads to be finished, and the figures to be
left exactly in imitation of the first strokes of the
painter. The expression of those truly pathetic
1 A Mr. Chetwynd was among Romney's sitters.
2 William Meyer, son of the miniaturist, who was Romney's friend.
3 Painted at Eartham in the autumn of 1797; Hayley and his son
are the models (see Ward and Roberts's Romney, vol ii. p. 202).
4 See note I, p. 93; a chalk engraving by Blake in the second
volume of Hayley's Life of Cowper:-T. Lawrence, R.A.: ad vivum
del., 793. W. Blake, sculp. 1802.




168 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
heads would then be transmitted to the public, a
singular monument of Romney's genius in that
slightest branch of art. I must now tell my wants,
and beg the favour of some more of the needful.
The favour of ten pounds more will carry me
through this plate and the " Head of Romney," for
which I am already paid. You shall soon see a
proof of him in a very advanced state. I have
not yet proved it, but shall soon, when I will send
you one. I rejoice to hear from Mr. Meyer of
Miss Poole's continued recovery. My wife desires
with me her respects to you, and her, and to all
whom we love, that is, to all Sussex.-I remain,
your sincere and obliged humble servant,
WILL. BLAKE.
4I.
To WILLIAM HAYLEY.
23rd October i804.
DEAR SIR,-I received your kind letter with the
note to Mr. Payne, and have had the cash from
him. I should have returned my thanks immediately on receipt of it, but hoped to be able to send,
before now, proofs of the two plates, the " Head of
R[omney] " and "The Shipwreck," which you shall
soon see in a much more perfect state. I write




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 169
immediately because you wish I should do so,
to satisfy you that I have received your kind
favour.
I take the extreme pleasure of expressing my
joy at our good Lady of Lavant's' continued
recovery: but with a mixture of sincere sorrow
on account of the beloved Counsellor.2   My wife
returns her heartfelt thanks for your kind inquiry
concerning her health.    She is surprisingly recovered. Electricity is the wonderful cause; the
swelling of her legs and knees is entirely reduced.
She is very near as free from rheumatism as she
was five years ago, and we have the greatest
confidence in her perfect recovery.
The pleasure of seeing another poem from your
hands has truly set me longing (my wife says I
ought to have said us) with desire and curiosity;
but, however, " Christmas is a-coming."
Our good and kind friend Hawkins 3 is not yet
in town-hope soon to have the pleasure of seeing
him, with the courage of conscious industry,
worthy of his former kindness to me.    For now!
0 Glory! and 0 Delight! I have entirely reduced
that spectrous fiend4 to his station, whose annoy1 Miss Poole.
2 Samuel Rose (see note 2, p. 140).  3 See p. 52.
4 The Spectre, in Blake's writings, is the reasoning power in man,
whichb ifn-ot kept in proper subjection, is continually restraining his
imagination and assailing it with doubts and fears; it is the author




170 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
ance has been the ruin of my labours for the last
passed twenty years of my life. He is the enemy
of conjugal love, and is the Jupiter of the Greeks,
an iron-hearted tyrant, 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
mill2 among 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. 0 lovely
Felpham, parent of immortal friendship, to thee
I am eternally indebted for my three years' rest
of the philosophy which militates against faith; it is the introducer
of the tyranny of law and dogma (which, in his opinion, was the
ruin of ancient Greek thought); its commonest, as well as its
most deadly, manifestation is education; in art it is the academic
rule.
1 The outcast monarch is the subject of one of Blake's " printed
drawings ": a terrible picture of wild insanity, used paradoxically by
Blake to symbolise the bestial existence of man under the domination
of Reason.
2 Cp. a line which is found engraved beneath some examples of
Blake's print of " Glad Day": "Albion rose from where he labour'd at
the Mill with Slaves,...." The mill is, in art, the mechanical
method pursued by those who believe that genius can be acquired by
taking pains, who "turn that which is soul and life into a mill or
machine" (Public Address, Gilchrist, I880, vol. ii. p. I69); in
philosophy, it is logic:-cp. Marriage of Heaven and Hell: " I in my
hand brought the skeleton of a body, which in the mill was Aristotle's
Analytics."




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 171
from perturbation and the strength I now enjoy.
Suddenly, on the day after visiting the Truchsessian
Gallery1 of pictures, I was again enlightened with
the light I enjoyed in my youth, and which has for
exactly twenty years2 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 on 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 undergone, and
my poor wife with me: incessantly labouring and
incessantly spoiling what I had done well. Every
one of my friends was astonished at my faults, and
could not assign a reason; they knew my industry
and abstinence from every pleasure for the sake of
study, and yet-and yet-and yet there 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, and as I have not been for
1 A collection of pictures by old masters exhibited in London by
one Joseph, Count Truchsess. For full particulars, see Gilchrist
(880) vol. i. pp. 216-I8.
2 See note 2, p. 67.




172 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
twenty dark, but very profitable, years. I thank
God that I courageously pursued my course through
darkness. In a short time I shall make my assertion good that I am become suddenly 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.
If our excellent and manly friend Meyer is yet
with you, please to make my wife's and my own
most respectful and affectionate compliments to
him, also to our kind friend at Lavant.-I remain,
with my wife's joint affection, your sincere and
obliged servant,             WILL. BLAKE.
42.
To WILLIAM HAYLEY.
I8kh December i804.
DEAR SIR, - I send, with some confidence,
proofs of my two plates, having had the assistance
and approbation of our good friend Flaxman. He
approves much (I cannot help telling you so much)
of" The Shipwreck." 2 Mrs. Flaxman also, who is a
1 See note 2, p. 98.       2 See note 2, p. i64.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 173
good connoisseur in engraving, has given her warm
approbation, and to the plate of "The Portrait,"'
though not yet in so high finished a state. I am
sure (mark my confidence), with Flaxman's advice,
which he gives with all the warmth of friendship
both to you and me, it must be soon a highly
finished and properly finished print; but yet I
must solicit for a supply of money, and hope you
will be convinced that the labour I have used on
the 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 before it can be
properly called finished, though Flaxman has
already pronounced it so. I beg your remarks
also on both my performances, as in their present
state they will be capable of very much improvement from a few lucky or well-advised touches.
I cannot omit observing that the price Mr. Johnson
gives for the plates of Fuseli's Shakespeare2 (the
concluding numbers of which I now send) is
twenty-five guineas each.  On comparing them
with mine of " The Shipwreck," you will perceive
that I have done my duty, and put forth my
whole strength.
Your beautiful and elegant daughter Venusea


1Of Romney (see note I, p. i65).


2 See note 4, P. 131.




174 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
grows in our estimation on a second and third
perusal. I have not yet received the History of
Chichester. I mention this not because I would
hasten its arrival before it is convenient, but fancy
it may have miscarried.  My wife joins me in
wishing you a merry Christmas. Remembering
our happy Christmas at lovely Felpham, our
spirits seem still to hover round our sweet cottage
and round the beautiful Turret. I have said 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 mind, 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 sincere and
obliged                    WILLIAM BLAKE.
43.
To WILLIAM HAYLEY.
SOUTH MOLTON STREET,
28th December 1804.
DEAR SIR,-The death of so excellent a man
as my generous advocate1 is a public loss, which
1 Samuel Rose (see note 2, p. 140).




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 175
those who knew him can best estimate, and to those
who have an affection for him like yours, is a loss
that only can be repaired in eternity, where it will
indeed with such abundant felicity, in the meeting
him a glorified saint who was a suffering mortal,
that our sorrow is swallowed up in hope. Such
consolations are alone to be found in religion, the
sun and the moon of our journey; and such sweet
verses as yours in your last beautiful poem must
now afford you their full reward.
Farewell, Sweet Rose! Thou hast got before me
into the celestial city. I also have but a few more
mountains to pass: for I hear the bells ring and
the trumpets sound to welcome thy arrival among
Cowper's glorified band of spirits of just men made
perfect.
Now, my dear Sir, I will thank you for the
transmission of ten pounds to the dreamer over his
own fortunes: for I certainly am that dreamer; but
though I dream over my own fortunes, I ought not
to dream over those of other men, and accordingly
have given a look over my account book, in which
I have regularly written down every sum I have
received from you; and though I never can balance
the account of obligations with you, I ought to do
my best at all times and in all circumstances. I find
that you was right in supposing that I had been
paid for all I have done; but when I wrote last re



176 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
questing ten pounds, I thought it was due on " The
Shipwreck" (which it was), but I did not advert to
the twelve guineas which you lent me when I made
up thirty pounds to pay our worthy Seagrave1 in
part of his account. I am therefore that twelve
guineas in your debt, which if I had considered, I
should have used more consideration, and more
ceremony also, in so serious an affair as the calling
on you for more money; but, however, your kind
answer to my request makes me doubly thank you.
The two cartoons which I have of " Hecate " and
"Pliny" are very unequal in point of finishing: the
"Pliny "2 in a sketch, though admirably contrived for
an effect equal to Rembrandt. But the " Hecate " is
a finished production, which will call for all the engraver's nicest attention. Indeed it is more finished
than " The Shipwreck "; it is everbody['s] favourite
who have seen it, and they regularly prefer it to "The
Shipwreck" as a work of genius. As to the price
of the plates, Flaxman declares to me that he will
not pretend to set a price upon engraving. I think
it can only be done by some engraver. I consulted
Mr. Parker on the subject, before I decided on " The
Shipwreck," and it was his opinion, and he says it
still is so, that a print of that size cannot be done
under thirty guineas, if finished, and, if a sketch,
fifteen guineas; as, therefore, " Hecate" must be a
l See note I, p. I28.  2 See pp. 134 and I64.  3 See p. I47.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 177
finished plate, I consider thirty guineas as its price,
and the " Pliny " fifteen guineas.
Our dear friend Hawkins1 is out of town, and
will not return till April. I have sent to him,
by a parcel from Col. Sibthorpe's, your desirable
poetical present for Mrs. Hawkins. His address
is this: To John Hawkins, Esq., Dallington,
near Northampton. Mr. Edwards is out of town
likewise.
I am very far from showing the portrait of
Romney as a finished proof. Be assured that with
our good Flaxman's good help, and with your
remarks on it in addition, I hope to make it a
"supernaculum."  "The Shipwreck," also, will be
infinitely better the next proof. I feel very much
gratified at your approval of my "Queen Catherine":2
beg to observe that the print of " Romeo and the
Apothecary " 3 annexed to your copy is a shamefully
worn-out impression, but it was the only one I could
get at Johnson's. I left a good impression of it
when I left Felpham last in one of Heath's
Shakespeare: you will see that it is not like the
same plate with the worn-out impression. My wife
joins me in love and in rejoicing in Miss Poole's
continued health.-I am, dear Sir, yours sincerely,
WILL. BLAKE.
'See pp. 52 and 169.
2, 3 The two prints engraved by Blake after Fuseli for Chalmers'
Shakespeare.
12




178 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
P.S.-I made a very high finished drawing of
Romney as a companion to my drawing of the " Head
of Cowper "1 (you remember), with which Flaxman
is very much satisfied, and says that when my print
is like that I need wish it no better, and I am
determined to make it so at least.  W. B.
44.
To WILLIAM HAYLEY.
22ndJanuary 1805.
DEAR SIR,-I hope this letter will outstrip MIr.
Phillips's,2 as I sit down to write immediately on
returning from his house. He says he is agreeable
to every proposal you have made, and will himself
immediately reply to you. I should have supposed
him mad if he had not: for such clear and generous
proposals as yours to him he will not easily meet
from anyone else. He will, of course, inform you
what his sentiments are of the proposal concerning
the three dramas. I found it unnecessary to mention
anything relating to the purposed application of the
profits, as he, on reading your letter, expressed his
wish that you should yourself set a price, and that
he would, in his letter to you, explain his reasons
for wishing it. The idea of publishing one volume
1 See note 2, p. 87.       2 See note I, p. I48.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 179
a year he considers as impolitic, and that a handsome general edition of your works would be more
productive. He likewise objects to any periodical
mode of publishing any of your works, as he thinks
it somewhat derogatory, as well as unprofitable. I
must now express my thanks for your generous
manner of proposing the Ballads to him on my
account, and inform you of his advice concerning
them; and he thinks that they should be published
all together in a volume the size of the small edition
of the Triumnphs of Temper, with six or seven
plates.' That one thousand copies should be the
first edition, and, if we choose, we might add to the
number of plates in a second edition. And he will
go equal shares with me in the expense and the
profits, and that Seagrave is to be the printer.
That we must consider all that has been printed as
lost, and begin anew, unless we can apply some of
the plates to the new edition. I consider myself
as only put in trust with this work, and that the
copyright is for ever yours.   I therefore beg that
you will not suffer it to be injured by my ignorance,
or that it should in any way be separated from the
1 Ballads, by William Hayley, Esq., founded on Anecdotes
relating to Animals, with Prints designed and engraved by William
Blake. Chichester: printed by J. Seagrave, for Richard Phillips,
Bridge Street, Blackfriars, London, I805o: contains five plates, all by
Blake. For the quarto edition, which has different plates, see note I,
p. 112.




180 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
grand bulk of your literary property. Truly proud
I am to be in possession of this beautiful little
estate; for that it will be highly productive, I have
no doubt, in the way now proposed; and I shall
consider myself a robber to retain any more than
you at any time please to grant. In short, I am
tenant at will, and may write over my door, as the
poor barber did, " Money for live here."
I entreat your immediate advice what I am
to do, for I would not for the world injure this
beautiful work, and cannot answer for P.'s proposal
till I have your directions and commands concerning it; for he wishes to set about it immediately,
and has desired that I will give him my proposal
concerning it in writing. -I remain, dear Sir, your
obliged and affectionate    WILL. BLAKE.
45.
To WILLIAMi HAYLEY.
25/k April I805.
DEAR SIR,-This morning I have been with
Mr. Phillips, and have entirely settled with him
the plan of engraving for the new edition of the
Ballads.  The prints, five in number, I have
engaged to finish by 28th May. They are to be
as highly finished as I can do them, the size the




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 181
same as the seven plates, the price twenty guineas
each, half to be prepaid by P. The subjects I
cannot do better than those already chosen, as
they are the most eminent among animals, viz.:
the Lion, the Eagle, the Horse, the Dog. Of the
dog species, the two ballads are so pre-eminent,
and my designs for them please me so well, that I
have chosen that design in our last number, of the
dog and crocodile, and that of the dog defending
his dead master from the vultures. Of these five
I am making little high finished pictures,' the size
the engravings are to be, and I am hard at it to
accomplish in time what I intend. Mr. P. says he
will send Mr. Seagrave the paper directly.
The journeymen printers throughout London
are at war with their masters, and are likely to get
the better. Each party meets to consult against
the other. Nothing can be greater than the violence
on both sides; printing is suspended in London,
except at private presses. I hope this will become
a source of advantage to our friend Seagrave.
The idea of seeing an engraving of Cowper by
the hand of Caroline Watson2 is, I assure you, a
1 The original sketch, in india ink, for the " Ballad of the Eagle " is
in the collection of W. Graham Robertson, Esq.: the remainder have
disappeared.
2 Romney's crayon portrait of Cowper, engraved by Blake for the
first edition of Hayley's Life of Cowper, was re-engraved by Caroline
Watson, in I805, for the frontispiece of the 8vo edition.




182 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
pleasing one to me. It will be highly gratifying to
see another copy by another hand, and not only
gratifying, but improving, which is much better.
The town is mad: young Roscius,l like all
prodigies, is the talk of everyone. I have not
seen him, and perhaps never may. I have no
curiosity to see him, as I well know what is within
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,2 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' death. He died at the age of seventyfive, of a paralytic stroke: and I conceive Flaxman
stands without a competitor in sculpture.
I must not omit to tell you that, on leaving Mr.
Phillips, I asked if he had any message to you, as
I meant to write immediately. He said: "Give
my best respects, and tell Mr. Hayley that I wish
very much to be at work for him." But perhaps I
ought to tell you what he said to me previous to
this, in the course of our conversation. His words
were: " I feel somewhat embarrassed at the idea of
setting a value on any works of Mr. Hayley, and
fear that he will wish me to do so." I asked him


1 Master Betty.
2 Thomas Banks, the sculptor, died 2nd February i8o5.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 183
how a value was set on any literary work. He
answered the probable sale of the work would be
the measure of estimating the profits, and that
would lead to a valuation of the copyright. This
may be of no consequence; but I could not omit
telling you.
My wife continues in health, and desires to
join me in every grateful wish to you and to our
dear respected Miss Poole.-I remain, yours with
sincerity,                 WILLIAM BLAKE.
P.S.-Your desire that I should write a little
advertisement at the beginning of the Ba//ads has
set my brains to work, and at length produced the
following.  Simplicity, as you desire, has been
my first object. I send it for your correction or
condemnation, begging you to supply its deficiency
or to new create it according to your wish:1
ine public ougIit to b.informed that the
Ba//ads were the effusions of friendship to countenance what their author is kindly pleased to call
talents for designing and to relieve my more
laborious engagement of engraving those portraits
which accompany the Life of Cowper. Out of a
number of designs, I have selected five, and hope
that the public will approve of my rather giving a
few highly laboured plates than a greater number
1 The words were never used for the purpose intended.




184 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
and less finished. If I have succeeded in these,
more may be added at pleasure."
WILL. BLAKE.
46.
To WILLIAM HAYLEY.
4/h June I805.
DEAR SIR,-I have fortunately, I ought to say
providentially, discovered that I have engraved
one of the plates for that ballad of " The Horse "1
which is omitted in the new edition; time enough
to save the extreme loss and disappointment which
I should have suffered had the work been completed
without that ballad's insertion. I write to entreat
that you would contrive so as that my plate may
come into the work, as its omission would be to
me a loss that I could not now sustain, as it would
cut off ten guineas from my next demand on
Phillips, which sum I am in absolute want of; as
well as that I should lose all the labour I have
been at on that plate, which I consider as one of
my best; I know it has cost me immense labour.
The way in which I discovered this mistake is odd
enough.  Mr. Phillips objects altogether to the
1 It appears as the last plate of the 12mo edition of the Ballads
(I8o5).  See Plate.




4 "I-/ I   / / C
0. l^/  f   'yi/


/   'l/   i9t t/ /.  're /l"s APk27h6 iit rb /.t '/rd   f/   Ir..
7C P.
oQI








LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 185
insertion of my Advertisement, calling it an appeal
to charity, and says it will hurt the sale of the
work; and he sent to me the last sheet by the
penny (that is, the twopenny) post, desiring that I
would forward it to Mr. Seagrave. But I have
enclosed it to you, as you ought and must see it.
I am no judge in these matters, and leave all to
your decision, as I know that you will do what is
right on all hands. Pray accept my and my wife's
sincerest love and gratitude.         WILL. BLAKE.
47.
Extract from a Letter from JOHN FLAXMAN to
WILLIAM HAYLEY.
BUCKINGHAM STREET,
i8th October 1805.... Mr. Cromek'1 has employed        Blake to
make a set of forty drawings from Blair's poem of
The Grave, twenty of which he proposes to have
1 This is the beginning of a disgraceful business, in which Blake
fell a too easy victim to this astute rascal. The whole story is too
well known to be repeated. The upshot of it was that in the end
Cromek only accepted twelve designs, for which he paid the trivial
sum of twenty guineas, on the express understanding that the artist
was to engrave them himself and receive additional remuneration for
the work; this promise was afterwards repudiated, and.L. Schiavonetti
was employed to do the engraving. The illustrations appeared in
i808 and were well received: "a success," writes Mr. Swinburne,




186 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
engraved by the designer and to publish them,
with the hope of rendering service to the artist.
Several members of the Royal Academy have been
highly pleased with the specimens, and mean to
encourage the work. I have seen several compositions; the most striking are: "The Gambols of
Ghosts according with their affections previous to
the final Judgment";1 "A Widow        embracing the
turf which covers her Husband's Grave ";2    Wicked
Strong Man Dying";3 " The Good Old Man's Soul
received by Angels."4
48.
Extract from a Letter from JOHN FLAXMAN to
WILLIAM HAYLEY.
I4th November 1805.... you will be glad to hear that Blake has
his hands full of work for a considerable time to
" on which the shameful soul of Cromek fed exultingly and fattened
scandalously." Blake has several epigrams on Cromek, such as:
"A petty sneaking knave I knewOh! Mr. Cromek, how do ye do?"
See Gilchrist (1880), pp. 246-90; Swinburne's William Blake, new
edition (1906), pp. 52-63. See also pp. 193-7 and 202-3 of the Letters.
1 Lost: was not engraved.
2 Gilchrist (i880), vol. ii. p. 217, No. 8i. Now in the possession
of Miss Louisa Salaman. Was not engraved.
3, 4 These two were engraved.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 187
come, and if he will only condescend to give that
attention to his worldly concerns which everyone
does that prefers living to starving, he is now in a
way to do well..
49.
To WILLIAM HAYLEY.
SOUTH MOLTON STREET,
I th December 18o5.
DEAR SIR,-I cannot omit to return you my
sincere and grateful acknowledgments for the kind
reception you have given my new projected work.1
It bids fair to set me above the difficulties I have
hitherto encountered. But my fate has been so
uncommon that I expect nothing. I was alive and
in health and with the same talents I now have all
the time of Boydell's, Machlin's, Bowyer's, and
other great wors. I was known to them and was
looked upon by them as incapable of employment
in those works; it may turn out so again, notwithstanding appearances; I am prepared for it, but
at the same time sincerely grateful to those whose
kindness and good opinion has supported me
through all hitherto.; You, dear Sir, are one
who has my particular gratitude, having conducted
me through three that would have been the
1 The designs for Blair's Grave.




188 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
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
to spirits good and evil, but not known to men
on earth. It is the passage through these three
years that has brought me into my present state,
and I know 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 sufferings2 to the
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 till 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. Oh! 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
1 cp. the opening words of Jerusalem: "After my three years'
slumber on the banks of the ocean."
2 See note i, p. I




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 189
other's spiritual labours, each according to its rank,
and that they would know that receiving 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 and despised the
meekness of true art (and such, I find, have been
the situation of our beautiful, 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, dear Sir, following His cross: let us
take it up daily, persisting in spiritual 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 kindness 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. Sanders the three works
of Romney, as Mrs. Lambert told me you wished
to have them.   A  very few touches will finish
1 Compare the whole of this passage with the introduction (prose)
to the fourth chapter of Jerusalem (ed. Maclagan & Russell, Bullen,
1904, pp. 92, 93).




190 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
" 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 Sussex a merry and
happy Christmas, I remain ever your affectionate,
WILL. BLAKE and his wife CATHERINE BLAKE.
50.
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.l
SIR,-My indignation was exceedingly moved
at reading a criticism  in Bell's Weekly Messenger
(25th May) on the picture of Count Ugolino, by
Mr. Fuseli,2 in the Royal Academy Exhibition; and
your magazine being as extensive in its circulation
as that paper, and as it also must, from its nature,
be more permanent, I take the advantageous
opportunity to counteract the widely diffused malice
which has for many years, under the pretence of
admiration of the arts, been assiduously sown and
1 Sir Richard Phillips. See note I, p. 148.
2 See note 4, p. 66. Blake was always an enthusiastic admirer
of Fuseli's work, and was also on the most friendly terms with the
artist himself; an epigram which he wrote on him is amusing enough
to be worth quoting:
"The only Man that e'er I knew
Who did not make me almost spew
Was Fuseli: he was both Turk and JewAnd so, dear Christian Friends, how do you do?"




LETTERS OF WILLIAM         BLAKE     191
planted among the English public against true art,
such as it existed in the days of Michael Angelo and
Raphael. 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, now 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 wretches 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 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 who 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




192 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
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 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 pictures imported from Flanders
and Holland; consequently our countrymen are
easily brow-beat on the subject of painting; and
hence it is so common to hear a man say: " I am
no judge of pictures." But oh, 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, or the reputation of his country,
will refrain from disgracing either by such ill-judged
criticisms in future.-Yours,
WM. BLAKE.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 193


From R. H. CROMEK to BLAKE.
64 NEWMAN STREET, May I807.
SIR,-I received, not without great surprise,
your letter demanding four guineas for the sketched
vignette dedicated to the Queen.1 I have returned
the drawing with this note, and I will briefly state
my reasons for so doing.  In the first place I
do not think it merits the price you affix to it,
under any circumstances. In the next place, I
never had the remotest suspicions that you would
for a moment entertain the idea of writing me to
supply money to create an honour in which I
cannot possibly participate. The Queen allowed
you, not me, to dedicate the work to her! The
honour would have been yours exclusively; but
that you might not be deprived of any advantage
likely to contribute to your reputation, I was
willing to pay Mr. Schiavonetti ten guineas for
etching a plate from the drawing in question.
Another reason for returning the sketch is,
that I can do without it, having already engaged
to give a greater number of etchings than the
price of the book will warrant; and I neither have,
1 Now in the Print Room of the British Museum.
I3




194 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
nor ever had, any encouragement from you to
place you before the public in a more favourable
point of view than that which I have already
chosen. You charge me with imposing upon 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 upon you, several present
themselves in which I have imposed upon myself.
Take two or three that press upon me.
When I first called on you, I found you without
reputation; I imposed on myself the labour, and
a herculean one it has been, to create and establish
a reputation for you. I say the labour was herculean, because I had not only to contend with,
but I had to battle with a man who had predetermined not to be served. What public repu'"i. tation you have, the reputation of eccentricity
excepted, I have acquired for you; -and I can
{    honestly and conscientiously assert, that if you
" had laboured through life for yourself as zealously
and as earnestly as I have done for you, your
t     reputation as an artist would not only have been
enviable, but it would have put it out of the
power of an individual as obscure as myself either


C4
IA( '




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 195
to add to or take from it. I also imposed on
myselywhen I -believed what you so often have
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,
and for no more.
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 already produced you orders that I verily
believe you otherwise would not have received.
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 cause it to produce good things, it is




196 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
absolutely necessary to starve it; indeed, 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 be obliged to
live on half a guinea a week!
Before I conclude this letter, it will be necessary to remark, 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 proportion 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. Perhaps
you have friends and admirers who can appreciate
their merit and worth as much as I do. I am
decidedly of opinion that the twelve for The
Grave should sell at least for sixty guineas. If
you can meet with any gentleman who will give
you this sum for them, I will deliver them into
his hands on the publication of the poem. I will
deduct the twenty guineas I have paid you from
that sum, and the remainder forty ditto shall be
at your disposal.
I will not detain you more than one minute.
Why did you so furiously rage at the success of
the little picture of "The Pilgrimage"? Three
thousand people have now seen it and have




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 197
approved of it.   Believe me, yours is "the voice
of one crying in the wilderness!"
You say the subject is low and contemptibly
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:
"Very well know,
Both my subject and verse is 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.
52.
To RICHARD PHILLIPS.1
17 SOUTH MOLTON STREET,
I 4th October 1807.
SIR,-A circumstance has occurred which has
again raised my indignation.
1 Editor of the Monthly Magazine (see note I, p. 148). The
letter is marked by the recipient: "Recd. 27th October 1807, with
no p."




198 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
I read in The Oracle and True Briton of
I3th October, I807, that a Mr. Blair, a surgeon,
has, with the cold fury of Robespierre, caused the
police to seize upon the person and goods or
property of an astrologer and to commit him to
prison. The man who can read the stars often
is oppressed by their influence, no less than the
Newtonian who reads not and cannot read is
oppressed by his own reasonings and experiments.
We are all subject to error: who shall say, except
the natural religionists that we are not all subject
to crime.
My desire is that you would inquire into this
affair, and that you would publish this in your
Monthly Magazine.    I do not pay the postage of
this letter, because you, as Sheriff, are bound to
attend to it.                WILLIAM BLAKE.
53.
To OZIAS HUMPHREY.1
I8th February 1808.
The design of "The Last Judgment,"2 which I
have completed, by your recommendation, for the
Countess of Egremont, it is necessary to give
1 Ozias Humphrey, R.A. (I742-1810), miniature painter.
2 See Gilchrist (I880), vol. ii. p. 218, No. 89. The picture is still
at Petworth House, its original home. It is a water-colour drawing,
I91 x 15 in.; signed " W. Blake, inv. & del., I8o8." A similar design,




A VISION OF 1Ti4,lE LAST J NIJIDilFENT




a




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 199
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 consumed in the fires of angels, who descend with the
four trumpets sounding to the four winds.
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; and above his
cavern, on the earth's surface, is the Harlot, seized
and bound by two angels with chains, while her
palaces are falling into ruins, and her counsellors
and warriors are descending into the abyss, in
wailing and despair.
Hell opens beneath the Harlot's seat on the
left hand, into which the wicked are descending.
The right hand of the design is appropriated
to the resurrection of the just; the left hand of
less elaborately executed, is in the possession of Sir John Stirling
Maxwell, Bart., M.P.; it is dated i806. Cp. also the engraving of "The
Last Judgment" in Blair's Grave (i 808). Afresco of the same subject,
containing about a thousand figures and measuring about 7 feet by
5 feet, was finished by Blake during the last years of his life; this
picture, which has now disappeared, is probably the one described in
the "Vision of the Last Judgment," printed in Gilchrist (i880), vol. ii.
pp. 185-200, with which the present description should be compared.
Cp. also the description printed in Blair's Grave. A fair number of
slight sketches in pencil, etc., for the subject are in existence.




200 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
the design is appropriated to the resurrection and
fall of the wicked.
Immediately before the throne of Christ are
Adam and Eve, kneeling in humiliation, as representatives of the whole human race. Abraham
and Moses kneel on each side beneath them.
From the cloud on which Eve kneels, is seen Satan,
wound round by the serpent, and falling headlong. 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 on clouds by two Angels. Many groups
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. Many
figures, chained and bound together, and in
various attitudes of despair and horror, fall through
the air, and some are scourged by spirits with
flames of fire into the abyss of Hell which opens
beneath, on the left hand of the Harlot's seat;
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.
Before the throne of Christ on the right hand,
the just, in humiliation and in exultation, rise
through the air with their children and families,




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE              201
some of whom are bowing before the Book of Life,
which is opened on clouds by two angels. 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. Green hills appear beneath
with 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 with power and great glory.
The whole upper part of the design is a view
of Heaven opened, around the throne of Christ.
In the clouds, which roll away, are the 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 which, by its rolling away,
displays the opening seats of the blessed; on the
right and the left of which are seen the four-andtwenty elders seated on thrones to judge the dead.
Behind the seat and throne of Christ appear
the Tabernacle with its veil opened, the Candlestick on the right, the Table with the Shew



202 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
bread on the left, and, in the midst, the cross in
place of the Ark, the Cherubim bowing over it.
On the right hand of the throne of Christ is
Baptism, on His left is the Lord's Supper-the two
introducers into eternal life. Women with infants
approach the figure of an apostle, which 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, 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.
54.
Extract from a Letter from R. H. CROMEK to
GEORGE CUMBERLAND.
I4/h August I808...Through the d-d carelessness of my
printer your name is omitted in the list1; a mis1 Of the subscribers to Blair's Grave (a presentation copy of the
book accompanied the letter.)




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 203
fortune that I deplored, and almost raved about
for three days and three nights.
You are the only person in Bristol who
thoroughly understand the inventions of Blake.
Your name has also some influence, and consequently the affair is to the last degree unlucky.
However, it is past.
Your packet went to Blake. I sent him two
copies, but he has not had the common politeness
to thank me for them.
55.
From GEORGE CUMBERLAND to BLAKE.
CULWORTH, i8/k December i8o8.
DEAR BLAKE,-A gentleman of my acquaintance, to whom I was showing your incomparable
etchings last night, was so charmed with them that
he requested me to get a complete set of all you
have published in the way of books coloured as
mine are; and at the same time he wishes to
know what will be the price of as many as you can
spare him; if all are not to be had, being willing
to wait your own time in order to have them as
those of mine are. With regard to the money,
I will take care that it shall be received and sent
to you through my son as fast as they are procured.




204 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
I find by a letter from my son that the picture
you sent he asked you for, which I do not approve,
as I certainly had no such thing in contemplation
when I sent you those very slight sketches from
Raphael. I am, however, very glad that you found
them acceptable, and shall certainly send you a
few more as soon as I can light upon them among
my papers. The "Holy Family" is, like all your
designs, full of genius and originality. I shall give
it a handsome frame and show it to all who come
to my house. When you answer this, pray tell
me if you have been able to do anything with
the bookseller. Something of that kind would be
no bad thing, and might turn out a great one, if
a competition could be raised among the genuine
qymehars1 [?] of talents of every sort. You talked
also of publishing your new method of engraving.
Send it to me, and I will do my best to prepare it
for the press. Perhaps when done you might,
with a few specimens of plates, make a little work
for subscribers of it, as Du Crow did of his Aqua
Tinta, selling about six pages for a guinea to nonsubscribers. But if you do not choose this method,
we might insert it in Nickleson's Journal or The
Monthly Magazine, with reference to you for
explanations.
1 Seems to be a fictitious word; at anyrate it is not easy to make
anything else out of it from the MS.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 205
With best regards to you and yours, I am
always, your sincere friend,  G. CUMBERLAND.
[Note by writer]. Your line, dear George, is
at the end of the sheet.
DEAR GEORGE,1-Go, on receipt of this, to Black
Friars, and when you have been to Sir R. Phillips
to know if he got my twenty-four pages of
biography, sent by Fromont's coach, carriage paid,
and booked on Wednesday last, take the above to
Mr. Blake, and get him to answer it directly on the
sheet of paper on which you write your answer as
to the receipt of the Biography of Grigzon, but say
nothing to his brother as to where I publish it as
yet. I shall return his papers. All well, and all
desire love, etc.-Yours,            G. C.
P.S.-If you have my letter through Sir R.
Phillips-it is come safe.
56.
To GEORGE CUMBERLAND.
I 9tA December i 808.
DEAR CUMBERLAND,-I am very much obliged
by your kind ardour in my cause, and should
1 His son.




206 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
immediately engage in reviewing my former
pursuits of painting if I had not so long been
turned out of the old channel into a new one, that
it is impossible for me to return to it without
destroying my present course. New varieties, or
rather new pleasures, occupy my thoughts; new
profits seem to arise before me so tempting that I
have already involved myself in engagements that
preclude all possibility of promising anything. I
have, however, the satisfaction to inform you that I
have myself begun to print an account of my various
inventions in Art, for which I have procured a
publisher,1 and am determined to pursue the plan
of publishing, that I may get printed without
disarranging my time, which in future must alone
be designing and painting. When I have got my
work printed I will send it you first of anybody.
In the meantime, believe me to be your sincere
friend,                             WILL. BLAKE.
1 The scheme seems to have fallen through. He alludes to it again
in the prospectus issued 15th May I809, where, speaking of the art of
fresco-painting, he says: " The art has been lost: I have recovered it.
How this was done, will be told, together with the whole process, in a
work on Art, now in the press." In the Descriptive Catalogue (I809),
again, he promises a discussion upon the question of the introduction
of oil-painting "in another work on painting." The latter work
appears to have taken the place of the proposed treatise.]




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 207
57.
To DAWSON TURNER.1
17 SOUTH MOLTON STREET, 9th June I818.
SIR,-I send you a list2 of the different works
you have done me the honour to inquire after.
They are unprofitable enough to me, though
expensive to the buyer. Those I printed for Mr.
Humphry 3 are a selection from the different books
of such as could be printed without the writing,
though to the loss of some of the best things; for
they, when printed perfect, accompany poetical
personifications and acts, without which poems they
never could have been executed.
~ s. d.
America...    I8 prints folio..    5 5 o
Europe...    I7  do. folio..    5 5 o
Visions...     8  do. folio..    3 3 o
Thel...    6   do. quarto..    2 2 0
Songs of Innocence   28   do. octavo..    3 3 o
Songs of Experience   26  do. octavo..    3 3 o
Urizen...    28  do. quarto..      5 5 o
Milton...    50  do. quarto..   10 10 0
12 large prints,4 size of each about 2 ft. by I~ ft.,
historical and poetical, printed in colours. Each 5 5 0
1 (775-I858), born at Great Yarmouth; botanist and antiquary,
patron of art, and especially of the Norwich School of water-colour
drawing.
2 See p. 223, and Gilchrist (I88o), vol. ii. p. 286.
8 Probably Ozias Humphrey, the miniaturist.
4 These are the prints which may best be described as Printed
Drawings; in which first the outline and then the colours were




208 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
These last twelve prints are unaccompanied by
any writing.  The few I have printed and sold are
sufficient to have gained me great reputation as an
artist, which was the chiefLhing intended.  But I
have never been     able to  produce a sufficient
number for generalsale.-byy.neans. _o of. regular
publisher.  It is therefore necessary to me that any
person wishing to have any or all of them should
send me their order to print them on the above
terms, and I will take care that they shall be done
at least as well as any I have yet produced.-I am,
sir, with many thanks for your very polite approbation of my works, your most obedient servant,
WILLIAM BLAKE.
58.
I Ith October 1819, Monday Evening.
DEAR SIR,1-I will have the pleasure of meeting
you on Thursday at 12 o'clock; it is quite as convenient to me as any other day. It appears to me
that neither time nor place can make any real
difference as to perfect independence of judgment,
stamped off from a mill-board on to the drawing paper-the pigment
being tempered with a mixture of copal varnish and glue. The most
famous of them is the " Creation of Adam."
1 It is uncertain to whom this note was addressed. It is most
likely to have been John Linnell, whose acquaintance Blake had made
the year before.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 209
and if it is more convenient to Mr. Heaphy        for us
to meet at his house, let us accommodate him in what
is indifferent, but not at all in what is of weight
and moment to our decision.-Hoping that I may
meet you again in perfect health and happiness,
I remain, dear Sir, yours truly,
WILLIAM BLAKE.
59.
To MRS. LINNELL.2
i ih October 1825.
DEAR MADAM,-I have had the pleasure to see
Mr. Linnell3 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
1 Probably Thomas Heaphy (I775-I835), engraver and watercolour artist.
2 Addressed to Collins' Farm, North End, Hampstead.
3 John Linnell (I792-I882), portrait and landscape painter:
pupil of John Varley and fellow-pupil of Mulready. He was
introduced to Blake by George Cumberland (see note I, p. 53) in
18I8, and remained until the end a generous patron and friend. He
commissioned both the illustrations of the Book of Job and the
designs from the Divina Commedia, as well as a series of watercolour drawings from Paradise Regained and a number of other
designs.
I4




210 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
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. Hence I am now
enabled to tell you that I hope to see you on
Sunday morning as usual, which I could not have
done if they had taken me to Gloucester.-I am,
dear Madam, yours sincerely,
WILLIAM BLAKE.
60.
TO JOHN LINNELL.1
FOUNTAIN COURT, STRAND,
Ioth November 1825, Thursday Evening.
DEAR SIR,-I have, I believe, done nearly all
that we agreed on. And if you should put on your
considering cap, just as you did last time we met,
I have no doubt that the plates2 would be all the
better for it. I cannot get well, and am now in
bed, but seem as if I should be better to-morrow.
Rest 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
Addressed to Cirencester Place, Fitzroy Square.
2 For the illustrations of the Book ofJob. Invented and engraved
by William Blake, I825.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 211
hope a few more days will bring us to a conclusion.
-I am, dear Sir, yours sincerely,
WILLIAM BLAKE.
6I.
To JOHN LINNELL.
Ist February 1826.
DEAR SIR,-I am forced to write, because I
cannot come to you. And this on two accounts.
First, I omitted to desire you would come and take
a mutton chop with us the day you go to Cheltenham, and I will go with you to the coach. Also, I
will go to Hampstead to see Mrs. Linnell on
Sunday, but will return before dinner (I mean if
you set off before that). And second, I wish to
have a copy of Job to show to Mr. Chantrey.1
For I am again laid up by a cold in my
stomach. The Hampstead air, as it always did,
so I fear it always will do this, except it be the
morning air; and that, in my cousin's time, I found
I could bear with safety, and perhaps benefit. I
believe my constitution to be a good one, but it
has many peculiarities that no one but myself can
know. When I was young, Hampstead, Highgate,
1Francis Legatt Chantrey, R.A. (178I-I842), sculptor; knighted
in 1835; founder of the Chantrey Bequest.




212 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
Hornsey, Muswell Hill, and even Islington,' and
all places north of London, always laid me up the
day after, and sometimes two or three days, with
precisely the same complaint, and the same torment
of the stomach; easily removed, but excruciating
while it lasts, and enfeebling for some time after.
Sir Francis Bacon would say, it is want of
discipline in mountainous places.  Sir Francis
Bacon is a liar: no discipline will turn one man
into another, even in the least particle; and such
discipline I call presumption and folly. I have
tried it too much not to know this, and am very
sorry for all those who may be led to such ostentatious exertions against their eternal existence
itself; because it is a mental rebellion against the
Holy Spirit, and fit only for a soldier of Satan to
perform.
Though I hope in a morning or two to call on
you in Cirencester Place, I feared you might be
gone, or I might be too ill to let you know how
I am, and what I wish.-I am, dear Sir, yours
sincerely,                 WILLIAM BLAKE.
1 These names (with the exception of Hornsey) acquired a
symbolic significance in the prophetical books: cp. Jerusalem,
p. i6, 1. i.; ibid. p. 27; etc. etc.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 213


62.
To JOHN LINNELL.
Tuesday Nigh t.
DEAR SIR,-I return you thanks for the two
pounds you now send me. As to Sir Thomas
Lawrence,2 I have not heard from     him  as yet, and
hope that he has a good opinion of my willingness to
appear grateful, though not able, on account of this
abominable ague, or whatever it is.     I ain_ bed,
and at work.    My health I cannot speak of, for if it
was not for the cold weather I think I should soon
getabout again. Great men die equally with the
little. I am sorry for Ld. Ls.-he is a man of
very singular abilities-as also for the D. of C.;
but perhaps-and I verily believe it-every death
is an improvement of the s.tateof-the._depa.rted.   I. e
can draw as well in bed as up, and perhaps better;
but I cannot engrave. I am going on with Dante,3
and please myself.-I am, dear Sir, yours sincerely,
WILLIAM    BLAKE.
The letter is not dated, but seems to belong to the early part of
1826.
2 Sir Thomas Lawrence (the painter) was a great admirer of
Blake's work, and purchased several drawings from him to add to his
magnificent collection.
3 The last days of Blake's life were occupied with a series of
water-colour drawings (for Linnell) from the Divina Commedia; the
volume containing them is still in the possession of the Linnell




214 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE


63.



1 '
VrNl


TO JOHN LINNELL.
I9th May 1826, Friday Evening.


I"

DEAR SIR, - I have had another desperate
shivering fit. It came on yesterday afternoonafter as good a morning as I ever experienced.
It began by a gnawing pain in the stomach, and
soon spread a deadly feel all over the limbs, which
brings on the shivering fit; when I am forced to
go to bed, where I contrive to get into a little
perspiration, which takes it quite away. It was
night when it left me, so I did not get up. But
just as I was going to rise this morning, the shivering fit attacked me again and the pain, with the
accompanying deathly feel. I got again into a
perspiration, and was well again, but so much
weakened that I am still in bed. This entirely
prevents me froth the pleasure of seeing you on
Sunday at Hampstead, as I fear the attack again
when I am away from home.-I am, dear Sir,
yours sincerely,              WILLIAM   BLAKE.
family; they number ninety-eight in all, and are in various stages of
completeness; the greater part being the merest suggestions in
pencil. Seven of them were engraved by the artist (see note i,
p. 2I9).




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 215
64.
To JOHN LINNELL.
2ndJuly 1826.
MY DEAREST FRIEND, - This sudden     cold
weather has cut up all my hopes by the roots.
Everyone who knows of our intended flight into
your delightful country concurs in saying: " Do not
venture till summer appears again."  I also feel
myself weaker than I was aware, being not able,
as yet, to sit up longer than six hours at a time;
and also feel the cold too much to dare venture
beyond my present precincts. My heartiest thanks
for your care in my accommodation, and the trouble
you will yet have with me. But I get better and
stronger every day, though weaker in muscle and
bone than I supposed.   As to pleasantness of
prospect, it is all pleasant prospect at North End.
Mrs. Hurd's1 I should like as well as any; but
think of the expense, and how it may be spared,
and never mind appearances.
I intend to bring with me, besides our necessary
change of apparel, only my book of drawings from
Dante, and one plate shut up in the book. All
will go very well in the coach, which, at present,
would be a rumble I fear I could not go through.
1 Linnell's lodgings, before he went to Collins' Farm.




216 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
So that I conclude another week must pass before
I dare venture upon what I ardently desire-the
seeing you with your happy family once again, and
that for a longer period than I had ever hoped in
my healthful hours.-I am, dear Sir, yours most
gratefully,
WILLIAM BLAKE.
65.
To JOHN LINNELL.
5h July I826.
DEAR SIR,-I thank you for the receipt of five
pounds this morning, and congratulate you on the
receipt of another fine boy. Am glad to hear of
Mrs. Linnell's health and safety. I am getting
better every hour. My plan is diet only; but if
the machine is capable of it, shall make an old man
yet. I go on just as if perfectly well, which indeed
I am, except in those paroxysms, which I now
believe will never more 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.-Believe me to remain, dear Sir, yours
sincerely,
WILLIAM BLAKE.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 217
66.
TO JOHN LINNELL.
i6th July 1826, Sunday Afternoon.
DEAR SIR,-I have been, ever since taking Dr.
Young's addition to Mr. Fincham's prescription for
me (the addition is dandelion), in a species of
delirium, and in pain too much for thought. It is
now past: as I hope. But the moment I got ease
of body, began pain of mind, and that not a small
one. It is about the name of the child,1 which
certainly ought to be Thomas, after Mrs. Linnell's
father. It will be brutal, not to say worse, in my
opinion and on my part. Pray reconsider it, if it is
not too late. It very much troubles me, as a crime
in which I shall be the principal. Pray excuse this
hearty expostulation, and believe me to be, yours
sincerely,                WILLIAM BLAKE.
P.S.-Fincham is a pupil of Abernethy's. This
is what gives me great pleasure. I did not know
it before yesterday-from Mr. Fincham.
1 It was in the end called James: the next being given Blake's
name of William.




218 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
67.
To JOHN LINNELL.
Ist August I826.
DEAR SIR,-If this notice should be too short
for your convenience, please to let me know. But
finding myself well enough to come, I propose to
set out from here as soon after ten as we can on
Thursday morning. Our carriage will be a cabriolet.
For though getting better and stronger, I am still
incapable of riding in the stage, and shall be, I fear,
for some time; being only bones and sinews, all
strings and bobbins like a weaver's loom. Walking
to and from the stage would be, to me, impossible;
though I seem well, being entirely free both from
pain and from that sickness to which there is no
name. Thank God! I feel no more of it, and have
great hopes that the disease is gone.-I am, dear
Sir, yours sincerely,     WILLIAM BLAKE.
68.
To JOHN LINNELL.
February I827.
DEAR SIR,-I thank you for the five pounds
received to-day. Am getting better every morn



I




-;p  - -
r-11, - 10






- kA




PAOLO AND FRANCESCA,




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 219


ing, but slowly, as I am still feeble and tottering;
though all the symptoms of my complaint seem
almost gone. The fine weather is very beneficial
and comfortable to me. I go on, as I think, improving my engravings of Dante more and more;
and shall soon get proofs of these four which I
have; and beg the favour of you to send me the
two plates of Dante which you have, that I may
finish them sufficiently to make show of colour and
strength.
I have thought and thought of the removal. I
cannot get my mind out of a state of terrible fear
at such a step. The more I think, the more I feel/ tp '
terror at what I wished at first, and thought a thing jU~ ---of benefit and good hope. You will attribute it to-  -, / -;7
its right cause-intellectual peculiarity, that must
be myself alone shut up in myself, or reduced to k.C  r,
nothing. I could tell you of visions and dreams 'I 1 7,  '
upon the subject. I have asked and entreated l''
Divine help; but fe.ar continues upon me, and I,
must relinquish the step that I had wished to take,
and still wish, but in vain.


1 Blake was at work upon seven engravings from the Dante
series: they were published in I827, in the unfinished state in which
he left them at his death. The subjects are all taken from the
Inferno. The finest of the set is the " Paolo and Francesca," here
reproduced; it is an illustration of the last line of the fifth canto:
" e'caddi, come corpo morto cade "; where Dante swoons with pity at
the story of the one and the tears of the other, while the two are
rejoining the whirlwind.of lovers.




220 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
Your success in your profession is, above all
things to me, most gratifying. May it go on to
the perfection you wish, and more. So wishes
also yours sincerely,
WILLIAM BLAKE.
69.
To JOHN LINNELL.
15th March 1827.
DEAR SIR, - This is to thank you for two
pounds, now by me received on account. I have
received a letter from Mr. Cumberland, in which
he says he will take one copy of Job for himself,
but cannot, as yet, find a customer for one; but
hopes to do somewhat by perseverance in his
endeavours.  He tells me that it is too much
finished, or over-laboured, for his Bristol friends,
as they think. I saw Mr. Tatham,1 senior, yesterday. He sat with me above one hour, and looked
over the Dante. He expressed himself very much
pleased with the designs as well as the engravings,
and hopes soon to get proofs of what I am doing.
-I am, dear Sir, yours sincerely,
WILLIAM BLAKE.
1 Father of the author of the Life.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 221


70.
TO JOHN LINNELL.1
DEAR SIR,-I am still far from recovered, and
dare not get out in the cold air. Yet I lose nothing
by it. Dante goes on the better, which is all I care
about.
Mr. Butts is to have a proof copy for three
guineas; this is his own decision, quite in character.
He called on me this week.-Yours sincerely,
WILLIAM BLAKE.
7I.
To GEORGE CUMBERLAND.
I2/h April 1827.   j        -
I have been very near the gates of death, and
have returned very weak, and an old man, feeble
and tottering, but not in spirit and life, not in the)
real man, the imagination, which liveth for ever.)J -i-t<py;
Inithat 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's2
1 The letter is undated.
2 Newton is continually alluded to by Blake as the type of
materialistic science and abstract philosophy (see note 2, p. 91).




222 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
doctrine of the fluxions of an atom, a thing which
does not exist. These are politicians, and think
that republican art is inimical to their atom, for a
line or a lineament is not formed by chance.    A
line is a line in its minutest subdivisions, straight
or crooked.   It is itself, not intermeasurable by
anything else.    Such  is Job.    But since   the
French Revolution Englishmen are all intermeasurable by one another: certainly a happy
state of agreement, in which I for one do not
agree. God keep you and me from the divinity
of yes, and no too-the yea, nay, creeping Jesus1
-from supposing up and down to be the same
thing, as all experimentalists must suppose.
You are desirous, I know, to dispose of some
of my works, but having none remaining of all I
have printed, I cannot print more except at a
great loss.   I am   now  painting a   set of the
Songs of Innocence and Experience for a friend
at ten guineas.    The last work I produced is
a poem entitled Jerusalem, the Emanation of the
Giant Albion, but find that to print it will cost my
1 cp. "Everlasting Gospel" (Sampson's ed. of the Poems, p. 250,
11. 21, 22):
"If he had been Antichrist, creeping Jesus,
He'd have done anything to please us:
Gone sneaking into the synagogues
And not used -the Elders & Priests like Dogs.
Humble toward God, Haughty toward Man,
This is the Race that Jesus ran."




,


J  -1! /,tS eie  PAe,2A A tm Ea ra.  &Saec      -
1;~d?, U~e  i2/~75- Ies o
C6


~ ~  I:_-~- ~-....


THE UNION OF JERUSALEAI WITH GOD








LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 223
time the amount of twenty guineas. One I have
finished, but it is not likely I shall find a customer
for it.'
As you wish me to send you a list with the
prices, they are as follows:2
~ s. d.
America......   6 6 o
Europe......   6 6 o
Visions, etc......    5 5 0
Thel......    3 3 0
Songs of Innocence and Experience..  1010 0
Urizen......   6 6 o
The little card3 I will do as soon as possible.
1 Jerusalem, the Emanation of the Giant Albion, I804. Printed
by W. Blake, Sth. Molton St. First edition in ordinary type, edited
by Maclagan & Russell, and published by A. H. Bullen, 1904. The
actual copy referred to in this letter, the only one finished (i.e. both
printed and illuminated) during Blake's lifetime, is that which
subsequently passed into the hands of Frederick Tatham and with
which his MS. Life of Blake, here printed for the first time, is bound
up. It is printed in orange, and coloured, with extreme beauty, by
hand. The volume is now the property of Captain Archibald
Stirling, by whose courtesy the Life and the portrait of Mrs. Blake
by George Richmond contained in it are able to appear in the
present book. The approximate date of the printing of this copy of
Jerusalem is given by the date of the water-mark, 1820. The
paper of the example in the British Museum (Print Room) has
the date i8I8, which may, I suspect, be taken as about the
date of the completion of the work.    The British Museum
copy and the only other copy of which I know (in America)
are both printed in black and white, and uncoloured.   The
Crewe copy, so much admired by Gilchrist, is water-marked I830
(three years after Blake's death) and printed in chocolate colour.
2 cp. p. 207.
3 Engraving on copper, measuring iX 3-%, in. A minutely
executed allegorical design surrounds the name Mr. Cumberland.
It is reproduced in Gilchrist (1880), vol. i. p. 399. The following




224 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE


Flaxman is gone,1 and we must soon follow,,' J'   every one to his own eternal house, leaving the
i      delusions of Goddess Nature and her laws to get
into freedom   from  all the laws of the numbers —
into the mind, in which everyone is king and priest
s             in his own house.   God grant it on earth, as it is
in heaven.
72.
To JOHN LINNELL.
25/ April I827.
DEAR SIR,-I am going on better every day, as
I think, both in health and in work. I thank you
for the ten pounds which I received from you this
day, which shall be put to the best use; as also
for the prospect of Mr. Ottley's2 advantageous
acquaintance. 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
note, in Cumberland's handwriting, appears on the blank sheet
of the letter: "My little Message card was the last thing
he executed, and he dated it thus: W. Blake, inv. &- sc. E.
70, 1827; the widow charged me ~3, 3s. for it, and ~3, 3s. for the
Job."
1 Died 7th December I826.
2 Author of a History of Engraving, sometime Keeper of the
Print Room of the British Museum (see Gilchrist (I880), vol. i.
p. 400).




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 225
to an artist such as I am. As to Ugolino,' etc.,
I never supposed that I should sell them. My
wife alone is answerable for their having existed
in any finished state. I am too much attached
to Dante to think much of anything else. I have
proved the six plates, and reduced the fighting
devils ready for the copper.2   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 to you.-I am,
sincerely yours,            WILLIAM BLAKE.
73.
To JOHN LINNELL.
3rd July 1827.
DEAR SIR,-I thank you for the ten pounds
you are so kind as to send me at this time. My
journey to Hampstead on Sunday brought on a
relapse which has lasted till now. I find I am
not so well as I thought; I must not go on in
a youthful style.   However, I am     upon the
1 Probably the varnished water-colour on panel of "Ugolino with
his Sons and Grandsons in Prison," now in the possession of Mrs.
Graham Smith.
2 "The Devils mauling each other" (Inferno, canto xxii. 1. 136),
one of the seven Dante engravings.
I5




226 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
mending hand to-day, and hope soon to look as
I did; for I have been yellow, accompanied by
all the old symptoms. -I am, dear Sir, yours
sincerely,                WILLIAM BLAKE.
(74.
From JOHN LINNELL to BERNARD BARTON.1
PORCHESTER TERRACE, BAYSWATER,
3rd April I830.
DEAR SIR,-I thank you sincerely for the very
beautiful sonnet, but as it is not applicable to me
I hope you will not, upon any account, publish it
with my name, or with any hint that it is intended
for me; for I assure you I have not the least claim
to it, and even if I had I should equally dislike
it: for if ever I have the happiness to be of any
service to a friend I should avoid the public praise
of men, that the Pharisee's reward might not be my
lot. I do not see, however, why the sonnet may
not be published without the name of Mr. Blake
or myself, but simply addressed to the friend of
neglected genius, or something like that.  I am
1 Bernard Barton (1784-I849), the quaker poet, friend of
Charles Lamb and Edward Fitzgerald. He lived at Woodbridge,
Suffolk.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 227
very glad you were so kind as to send me a
copy before publication, because it gives me the
opportunity of correcting a mistake (which is a
sufficient reason why the names should not be
mentioned): it is that Mr. Blake never was
reduced to live in a garret, as asserted in the
Memoir; and I am sorry Mr. Cunningham did
not avail himself of the information I offered
him, as he might have made his very interesting
Memoir1 still more instructive, and far more
creditable to  Mr. Blake by the alteration of
some things and the addition of others with
which I could have furnished him.
When I first became acquainted with Mr.
Blake2 he lived in a first floor in South Molton
Street, and upon his landlord's leaving off business
and retiring to France, he moved to Fountain
Court, Strand,3 where he died. Here he occupied
the first floor; it was a private house kept by Mr.
Banes, whose wife was sister to Mrs. Blake. It
was here that he began to feel the want of employment, and before I knew his distress he had sold
all his collection of old prints to Messrs. Colnaghi
& Co. After that I represented his case to Sir
1 The Lives of the most eminent British Painters, Scultors, and
Architects, by Allan Cunningham, 1830: vol. PPii. pp. 142-179.
2 Linnell was introduced to Blake, by George Cumberland, in
i8i8.
3 In 1821.




228  LETTERS OF WILLIAM         BLAKE
Thos. Lawrence, Mr. Collins, R.A.,1 and some
other members of the Royal Academy, who kindly
brought it before the Council, and they voted him
a donation of ~25, which was sent to him through
my hands, and for which he expressed great thankfulness. This, however, was not enough to afford
him permanent support, and it was in hopes of
obtaining a profit sufficient to supply his future
wants that the publication of Job was begun at
my suggestion and expense; but as I had also
the expectation, and have still of remuneration
(the plates being my property), I have no claim
to any notice upon that account; and though we
were both disappointed in our expectations as to
the extent of sale, yet the few buyers of the work
being among the most distinguished for taste and
learning, we were sufficiently encouraged to commence another work, which Mr. Blake did not
live to complete; it was the illustrating of Dante.
He made one hundred folio drawings, some of
which are highly finished, and began seven plates
(all in my possession).  This work, however,
answered the purpose of furnishing him with
the means of comfortable subsistence to his
death.
I have thought this would not be uninteresting
to you, and could add much more; but I am not
] (I788-I847), subject painter.




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 229
able to write long. There is one thing I must
mention: I never in all my conversations with
him could for a moment feel there was the least
justice in calling him insane; he could always
explain his paradoxes satisfactorily when he pleased,
but to many he spoke so that "hearing they might
not hear."  He  asiore lithe ancie     atterns
of virtue -than ---I- -ever ----xpected to see in this
world; he feared nothing   so much as being
rich, lest he should lose his spiritual riches. He
was at the same time the most sublime in his
expressions, with the simplicity and gentleness of
a child, though never wanting in energy when
called for.
If you are in London and will favour me with
a visit, I shall be most glad to show you his works
in my possession, and communicate what I know
respecting him.-I am, dear Sir, yours respectfully,
JOHN LINNELL.
P.S.-I have sent a plain copy of the Job for
your inspection.  The price to you will be the
same as the trade price-   2, i 2S. 6d.
The print you are so good as to offer me I
must decline. I do not collect modern prints, and
indeed I have left off buying any, as my family
is large and the work of Job not having yet paid
its expenses.




230 LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE
You are welcome to keep the book for a
fortnight. Perhaps some friend may like to have
it if you do not purchase it; at anyrate, you are
perfectly welcome to the perusal of it.
75.
To WILLIAM HAYLEY.1
SOUTH MOLTON STREET,
31St March 1804.
DEAR SIR,-I did not receive your letter till
Monday: of course could not have got them printed
to send by Tuesday's coach. But there is a real
reason equally good why I have not yet sent. I
hope you will believe me when I say that my
solicitude to bring them to perfection has caused
this delay, as also not being quite sure that you
had copies ready for them. I could not think of
delivering the twelve copies without giving the
last touches,. which are always the best. I have
now, I hope, given them, and we directly go to
printing. Consequently it will be by Tuesday's
coach that you will receive twelve of each. If
you do not wish any more done before I deliver,
1 For permission to print the above letter, which reached me too
late for insertion in its proper order, I am indebted to the kindness
of Mr. H. Buxton Forman, C.B., in whose hands the copyright is
reserved..,
114^
t,s t




LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 231
then pray favour me with a line, that I may send
the plates to Johnson, who wants them to set the
printer to work upon.-I remain, in engraver's
hurry, which is the worst and most unprofitable of
hurries, your sincere and affectionate,
WILL. BLAKE.




I




INDEX


Albion, 7.
Aspland, Alfred, 95.
Astley, 23, 24.
Bacon, Lord, 63, 91, 212.
Banes, Mr., 227.
Banks, Thomas, 182.
Barry, xxiii.
Barton, Bernard, xlv.
Letter to, 226.
Basire, 5, 67.
Behmen, 72.
Bell's Weekly Messenger, 190.
Beulah, I 2.
Birch, John, 94, 113, 174.
Bird (Painter), 49.
Blair's Grave, xxxviii, xxxix,
67, 185, I86, 187, I93 -I97, I99, 202, 203.
Blake,   Catherine   (Blake's
mother), 2.
Catherine (Blake's sister),
2, 3, 8i.
Catherine (Blake's wife),
xl, xlvii, I6, 17, 35,
44-49 -Letter from, 72.
James (Blake's brother),
2, 102, 113.
James (Blake's father). i.
John, 2, Io8.


Blake, Robert, xxiii, 2, 3, 68,
io8.
William, Engravings by,
xxx, xliv, 31, 34, 53, 68,
69, 85, I31, 132, 139,
I4I, I45, I52, 154, I65,
i66, 167, i68, 170, 17I,
172, I73, 177, I8I, I86,
I87, 190, 223.
Paintings and drawings
by, xx, xxi, xxii, xxiv,
xxvi, xxvii, xxx, xxxi,
xxxvii, xxxviii, xxxix,
xl, xli, xlii, xliii, xliv,
58, 73, 8i, 84, 85, 87,
88, 90, 91, 95, 113, I7,
118, II9, 120, 170, I78,
i86, I87, I93, 198-202,
204, 207, 208, 209, 225.
Writings of, xviii, xix,
xxii,  xxxii,   xxxiv,
xxxvi, xxxix, xl, xlvii,
8, 9, I0, I4, 21, 41, 42,
43, 44, 51, 53, 54, 59,
6o, 62, 65, 66, 7I, 72,
76, 77, 78, 85, 91, o00,
109, II0, III, 112, 114,
115, 117, I2I, 128, 156,
I69, I70, I88, 189, 206,
207, 212, 222, 223.
Boston Museum of Fine Arts,
95 -



238




234


INDEX


Boydell, John, 153, I87.
Braithwaite, Daniel, I42, I43,
i65.
British Museum, xxiii, 193,
223.
Brooke, Stopford, xxi.
Butts, Thomas, xx, xxvii,
xxviii,  xxix,   xxx,
xxxviii, xli, 12, 67, 77,
82, 88, Io.
Letters to, 77, 81, 88, 90,
94, 96, I02, 107, 113,
117, 124.
Letter from, 79.
Thomas (Junior), xxix,
88.
Calvert, Edward, 37.
Caracci, 104, 105.
Carr, Mr., 156.
Chambre, Sir Alan, 140.
Chantrey, Francis (Sir), 211.
Chetwynd, Mr., 167.
Mrs., 167.
Coleridge, xxi.
Collins, Mr. (R.A.), 228.
Colnaghi & Co., Messrs., 227.
Correggio, I04, Io5.
Cosway, Richard, 55.
Letter from, 55.
Cowper, William, 88, 92, 93,
120, I2I, 146, 148, 156,
I75.
Hayley's Life of, xxx, 30,
87, 93, I33, I45, 146,
155, I60, 18I, I83 -Cromek, R. H., 185, I86.
Letters from, 193, 202.
Cumberland, George, xxiv, xl,
xliv, 53, I61, 209, 220,
223, 227.


Cumberland, George, Letters
to, 53, 55, 56, 64, 69,
202, 205, 221.
Letter from, 203.
Cunningham, Allan, 227.
Dally, Mr., I47, i6o.
Dante, 32, I91.
(Illustrations to), 209, 213,
215, 219, 220, 221, 225,
228.
Denham, J., 49, I37.
Dilke, Sir Charles, xlii.
Du Crow, 204.
Diirer, xx, 4.
Eartham, xxix, 51, 68.
Edward (the bard of Oxford),
141.
Edwards, Mr., 130, 144, 157,
I77.
Egremont, Lady, xxxix, 198.
Lord, xl, 88.
Egypt, 17.
Enitharmon, 109.
Esop, 6I.
Evans, R. H., 132.
Examiner, The, xxxv, I 5.
Ezekiel, 20.
Ezra, 71.
Falconer, 152.
Felpham, xxix, xxx, xxxiv,
xxxv, xxxvi, 30, 70,
73, 74, 75, 78, 83, 85,
89, 92, Io8.
Fittler, J., 152.




INDEX                         235
Flaxman, John, xix, xx, xxiii, Hayley, William, xix, xxix,xxx,
xxxviii, 8, 20, 23, 30,       xxxiii, xxxvi, xxxvii,
40, 5I, 68, 70, 7I, 72,      xxxviii, 28, 30, 5I, 70,
76, 86, I1o, I2I, I3I,       71, 74, 75, 78, 85, 93,
136, 138, 147, I54, I58,     97, 98, IIO, II4, I20,
I62, I64, 172, I76, 177,      122, 128, 158, 182.
182, 224.                  Letters to, 5I, 68, 85, 130,
Letters to, 70, 74, 95.         133, I37, 139, I42, 146,
Letters from, 5I, I33,          147, 148, 150, 152, I56,
I85, i86.                     162, I66, I68, 172, I74,
Mrs. John, Letter to, 72.       178, i8o, I84, 185, i86,
Maria, 98.                      I87.
Flemish   Art,  xxv,  xxxiv,      Letter from, 87.
192.                   Hayley's Ballads (4to), I I2,
Florentine Art, xxxiv.             I13, 132.
Fox Inn, The, I26.                (i2mo), I79, I8o, i8I,
Fuseli, xx, xxiii, 13, 15, 40,      183, 184, 185, I89.
66, 70, 71, 99, Io, 131,   Essay  on Sculpture, 68,
182, I90, I9I, I92.          69, 70, I41.
Fuseli's Shakespeare, I31, 144,   Triumphs of Temper, 98,
I64, i66, 173, I77.           I79.
Heaphy, Thomas, 209.
Hesketh, Lady, I46.
Garnett, Dr. Richard, I.     Hoare, Prince, I45, 148, I49,
Ghisi, Adam, xxiii.                 150, 15 I
Gilchrist's Life of Blake, xx, Homer, 6I, 62, 85, 115.
xxxvi, xli, xlii, xlvi, Humphrey, Ozias, xxxix, T62,
I, 85, II7, Ii8, II9,         I98, 207.
141, 148, i86, 198, 223,   Letter to, I98.
224.
Gilpin, William, 103.
Gothic architecture, 6, 7.   Isaiah, 7I.
Greek Art, xxv, xxvi, 57, 63,
66, 70, 156, I70.
Greene, Thomas, I57.          Job, Book of (illustrations to),
209, 210, 211, 221, 222,
229.
Hamilton, Lady, 141, 144, Johnson, Rev. John, 88, 92.
I57.                   Johnson, Joseph, 40, 66, 99,
Hawkins, John, 52, I6Q, I77.        131, 138, 158, 159, i6o,
Hayley, Thomas Alphonso, 68,        231.
I43.                   Julio Romano, 4.




236


INDEX


Kassner, Dr. Rudolf, 62.
Lamb, Charles, xxi.
Lambert, Mr., 138, I89.
Langford, 4.
Lawrence, Sir Thomas, xx, xxi,
xxxviii, I67, 213, 228.
Leathe, Captain, 125.
Linnell, John, xl, xli, xlii, xliii,
xlv, xlvi, 208, 209.
Letter from, 226.
Letters to, 2o8(?), 210,
2I I, 2I3, 214, 215, 2i6,
217, 2I8 (2), 220, 221,
224, 225.
Mrs., Letter to, 209.
Lionardo da Vinci, 55.
Locke, John, 53, 91.
Long, William, 5 i.
Los, I09,  0, I I I.
Malkin, xiv, 6.
Matthews, Mrs., 8.
Meyer, William, 167, I68, 172.
Michelangelo, x  xxxxiii, 4, I,
15, 60, 6i, 103, io6,
191, I95.
Milton, xxiii, xxxv, 35, 59, 62,
71, 85, II5, II7, I56.
Mulready, 209.
Nebuchadnezzar, I70.
Newton, Sir Isaac, 9I, 198, 221.
Nickleson's Journal, 204.
Nimrod, I I8.
Ottley, Mr., 224.
Ovid, 32.


Paine, Tom, 40.
Paracelsus, 72.
Paris, 95.
Parker, James, i62,
I76.


163,


Pars, 4.
Payne, Mr., i68.
Petworth, xxxix, xl, I98.
Phillips, Richard (Sir), I48,
I49, I50, I56, I158, I159,
178, i8o, i8i, 182, I84,
190, 197, 205.
Letters to, 190, 197.
Pitt, William, 91, 12I.
Plato, 6I, I21.
Poole, Miss, I38, I42, I46,
I65, I69.
Raphael, 4, 60, 6i, 103, 104,
I05, I9I, I95.
Read, Mr., I43.
Rees, Dr., Cyclopaedia, 136.
Rembrandt, xxvi, 60, 176.
Reynolds, xix, xx, 12, I3,
I03.
Richardson, i65.
Richmond, George, xlvii, 37,
49, 223.
Robertson, W. Graham, xlvi,
118, 119.
Robinson, Mr., 136.
Crabb, 91.
Rome, xxiii, 52.
Romney, George, xx, xxi,
xxii, 52, 87, 88, i2i,
I3I, I34, I42, i6i, i62,
i68.
Designs by, I3I, 134, 135,
143, I47, 152, 153, 155,
157, 164, 165, I67, 176,
I89.




INDEX


237


Romney, George, Hayley's Life
of, xxxviii, 131, I43, I47,
I5I, 164.
Letter to, 87.
Portrait of, 132, I39, I45.
John, 140, 158.
Rose, Samuel, 140, 144, 155,
159, i6o, 169, 174, 175.
Rowlandson, 65.
Rubens, 103.
Russell, William, 85.
Saint John of the Cross, xxxii.
Salaman, Miss Louisa, 186.
Sanders, Mr., 130, 140, 158,
162, 189.
Schiavonetti, xxxviii, xxxix,
I93.
Scholfield, John, 89, 128.
Seagrave, J., 128, 159, i6o,
179, i8i, 185, I89.
Shakespeare, xxiii, 7r.
Sibthorpe, Colonel, I77.
Sistine Chapel, xxiii.
Spenser, 85.
Spilsbury, Jonathan, I66.
Stirling, Captain  Archibald,
223.
Stothard, 71, 196, 197.
Strange, J. C., 95.
Swedenborg, 19, 20, 2I.
Swinburne, xvii, xix, I86.


Tatham, Frederick, xli, xliv,
xlv, xlvi, xlvii, 35, 37.
Teniers, xxvi, 60.
Theotormon, 0o9.
Thomas, Mr., 95.
Trojan, 156.
Truchsessian picture gallery,
xxxvi, 171.
Trusler, John, 57, 64, 65.
Letters to, 57, 60.
Turner, Dawson, Letter to, 207.
Urania, or the   Astrologer's
Chronicle, I.
Varley, John, xl, xli, i, 209.
Venetian Art, xxv, xxvi,
xxxiv, 103.
Virgil, 62.
Walker, Adam, 139, 144, 146,
152, 153, I55, 157, 16i.
Washington, Life of, 156, i6o,
I66.
Watson, Caroline, 143, i8I.
Weller, Mr., 96.
Westminster Abbey, 5, 6, 7.
White, W. A., 85.
Wood, Polly, 16.
Wordsworth, xxi, 120.




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