of Hanover_, illustrated by caricatures and satires, we gather that
the favourite subjects to the artists of fun were the sans-culotte
extravagancies of the French Revolutionists; and at home the coalition
of North and Fox, the fiscal devices of Minister Pitt, the impeachment
of Warren Hastings, and the "Alarmists." It was the popular belief
that Hastings had bribed the Court of St. James's with presents of
diamonds of large size, and in great profusion, to shelter his Indian
delinquencies. Caricatures on this subject were to be seen in every
print shop. In one of these Hastings is represented as wheeling away
in a barrow the King, with his crown and sceptre, observing, "What
a man buys he may sell!" and in another, the King is represented on
his knees, with his mouth wide open. A common representation of the
King and the Queen was as "Farmer George and his wife;" his Majesty's
familiarity of manner, general somnolency, Weymouth displays, and his
prying into cottage domesticities--to wit, the memory of the seamless
apple-dumpling,--afforded unfailing hits for Peter Pindar, Sayer, and
Gilray. The dissipation of the Prince of Wales suggested his portrayal
as "The Prodigal Son," the Prince's Feathers in the mire, and the
inscription on his garter reduced to the word "honi." In one print a
Brighton party is represented, "The Jovial Crew, or Merry Beggars:"
among the Prince's guests are Mrs. Fitzherbert, Fox, Sheridan, Lord
North, and Captain Morris--"Jolly companions every one."
A scarce print of Gilray's commemorates a grand installation of knights
at Westminster Abbey, May 19th, 1788, and is called "The Installation
Supper," given at the Pantheon, in Oxford Road. It portrays the chief
notorieties of the day, in separate groups, simulating over the bottle
an obliviousness of political jealousies: Pitt and Fox hobnobbing
behind the gruff Chancellor Thurlow; Lord Shelburn is shaking hands
jesuitically with Lord Sydney; Lord Derby is hand-in-glove with Lady
Mount Edgecumbe, an antiquated _blue_, who still dreams of conquest;
the Prince is besieged by Lady Archer (of gambling notoriety) on one
side, and Lady Cecilia Johnson on the other: while Mr. Fitzherbert is
in amiable confab with the ex-patriot, Johnny Wilkes:--
"Johnny Wilkes, Johnny Wilkes,
Thou greatest of bilks,
How changed are the notes you now sing;
Your famed Forty-five
Is Prerogative,
And your blasphemy, 'God save the King.'"
SHERIDAN.
Edmund Burke always appears with long-pointed nose and spectacles. In
one large print by Gilray, he is discharging a blunderbuss at Hastings,
who is defending himself with the "shield of honour." The thin, meagre
figure of Pitt, "with his d--d iron face," was fruitful for jest as
that of his fat, slovenly opponent, Fox. An equivocal phrase of the
Prime Minister gave rise to Gilray's caricature of "The Bottomless
Pitt;" or it may have been the financial profundity of the Minister, or
the wit of his celebrated housekeeper niece:--
"William Pitt, 'tis known by many people,
Was thin as a lath, and tall as a steeple;
And so spare his behind, he was called (with some wit),
By famed Lady Hester, 'the bottomless pit.'"
Gilray, often as he struck at a minister or satirized a courtier, he
yet more often returned to the battle which he loved to wage--that
against Bonaparte. With him the Corsican was a murderer, a fanatic,
a tyrant; an invader with death's head and dripping sword; a ghoul
who loved to feast on human flesh; an incarnate fiend, a demon.
Single-handed, Gilray fed and nursed the flame of hatred which burnt so
steadily and so long in these islands against that potentate, whether
as general, first consul, or emperor. Napoleon himself perceived
it, and complained of it. His empress and generals came in for a
share of Gilray's pictorial wrath. Ministers, who at the time of the
trial of Peltier were not unwilling to conciliate the master of a
hundred legions, in vain attempted to stop Gilray. The shop-windows
still displayed the bright colours of the newest print, wherein, as
incendiary or demon, the chief person was still Napoleon Bonaparte.
If, according to the _dictum_ of the latter, one newspaper editor were
worse than five _corps d'armée_ acting against him, surely Gilray, with
his enormous effect on the British mind, then hardly swayed or taught
by leading articles, was worse than five editors. And if we of the
volunteer corps wish to realise the intense hatred, the indignation,
the burning passion with which most of our fathers regarded the first
Napoleon, we have only to turn over some old caricatures. How the old
times rise before us, summoned by the tricksy Ariel of art, as we look
over them.--_See a clever paper in the London Review._
One of Gilray's late prints was Dr. Burgess, of Mortimer Street, "from
Warwick Lane." The doctor was one of the last men who wore a cocked
hat and deep ruffles. What rendered his appearance more remarkable, he
walked on tiptoe.
The commercial history of the caricatures is curious. At the period of
the artist's death, the copper-plates from which they were struck were
estimated to be worth 7,000_l._ Upon the demise of the printseller, his
widow pledged the plates for 1,000_l._; but in the process of time, a
better tone of political feeling having supervened, and likewise an
improved public taste as regards art, this property, upon being put
to sale by auction, was bought in for 500_l._ Subsequently the widow
offered them to Mr. Henry Bohn, the eminent publisher, for that sum;
but the process of change adverted to still continuing, the offer
was declined. Upon her death her executors, unable to sell them as
engravings, sold them as old copper for as many pence as they were
originally worth pounds, and Mr. Bohn became the purchaser.
The early political caricatures of Gilray were generally directed
against the Government party. These he was hired to sketch, and
generally at a small price, according to the will of his employers.
He used to smoke his pipe with his early employers, and exert his
faculties more to win a bowl of punch than to gain ten pounds. For
years he occasionally smoked his pipe at the Bell, the Coal Hole, or
the Coach and Horses; and although the _convives_ whom he met at such
dingy rendezvous knew that he was Gilray who fabricated those comical
prints, yet he never sought to act the coxcomb, nor become the king of
the company. In truth, with his neighbouring shopkeepers and master
manufacturers, he passed for no greater wit than his associates.
Rowlandson, his ingenious compeer, and he sometimes met. They would,
perhaps, exchange half-a-dozen questions and answers upon the affairs
of etching, copper, and nitric acid, swear that the world was one _vast
masquerade_, and then enter into the common chat of the room, light
their cigars, drink their punch, and sometimes early, sometimes late,
shake hands at the door and depart, one for the Adelphi, the other to
St. James's Street, each to his bachelor's bed.
The facility with which Gilray composed his subjects, and the rapidity
with which he etched them, astonished those who were eye-witnesses of
his powers. Many years ago, he had an apartment in a court in Holborn.
A commercial agent for a printseller had received a commission to get a
satirical design etched by Gilray, but he had repeatedly called in his
absence. He lived at the west end of the town, and on his way to the
city waited on him again, when he happened to be at home.
"You have lost a good job and a useful patron, Gilray," said he; "but
you are always out."
"How? What--what is your object?" said the artist.
"I want this subject drawn and etched," said the agent; "but now it is
too late."
"When is it wanted?"
"Why, to-morrow."
"It shall be done."
"Impossible, Gilray!"
"Where are you going?"
"Onward to the Bank."
"When do you return?"
"At four o'clock." It was now eleven.
"I'll bet you a bowl of punch it shall be completed, etched and bitten
in, and a proof before that time."
"Done!"
The plate was finished; it contained many figures; the parties were
mutually delighted, and the affair ended with a tipsy bout, at the
Gray's Inn Coffee-house, at the employer's expense.
It was not likely that such an original would be content to sit, year
after year, over a sheet of copper, perpetuating the renown of others,
whilst possessed of a restless and ardent mind, intent on exploring
unknown regions of taste, he could open a way through the intricacies
of art, and by a short but eccentric cut reach the Temple of Fame. He
set to work, and succeeded to the astonishment of the goddess, who, one
day, beheld this new votary unceremoniously resting upon the steps of
her altar.[36]
[36] See an able paper in _Fraser's Magazine_, No. 133.
William Blake, Painter and Poet.
The life of this extraordinary man of genius has been written by Mr.
Alexander Gilchrist, with much feeling, judgment, and good taste.
Wordsworth was more interested with what he terms Blake's "madness"
than with the sanity of Lord Byron and Walter Scott. Fuseli and Flaxman
predicted a day when the drawings of Blake should be as much sought
after and treasured by artists as those of Michael Angelo. Hayley
admired and befriended Blake. He was a true poet, though, as Gilchrist
says, "he neither wrote nor drew for the many, hardly for workyday men
at all; rather for children and angels--himself a divine child, whose
play-things were sun, moon, and stars, the heavens, and the earth."
Blake was born in 1757, at No. 28, Broad Street, Carnaby Market, where
his father carried on the business of a hosier. When a boy he began to
dream. When eight or ten years of age, he brought home from Peckham
Rye a tale of a tree filled with angels, for doing which his father
threatened to thrash him.
In 1767 he was sent to the drawing-school of Mr. Pars, in the Strand,
and taught to copy plaster casts after the antique, while his father
made a collection of prints for him to study. He had already, too,
begun to write poetry. At the age of fourteen he was placed with James
Basire, the engraver. His father intended to apprentice him to Ryland,
a more famous engraver than Basire. The boy Blake, however, raised an
unexpected scruple. "The sequel," says Mr. Gilchrist, "shows it to
have been a singular instance, if not of absolute prophetic gift or
second sight, at all events of natural intuition into character and
power of forecasting the future, from such as is often the endowment of
temperament like his. In after-life this involuntary faculty of reading
hidden writing continued to be a characteristic. 'Father,' said the
strange boy, after the two had left Ryland's studio, 'I do not like
the man's face; _it looks as if he lived to be hanged!_' Appearances
were at this time utterly against the probability of such an event."
But, twelve years after this interview, the unfortunate Ryland got into
embarrassment, committed a forgery on the East India Company, and the
prophecy was fulfilled.
By 1773 Blake had begun to draw his own dreams, such as one of Joseph
of Arimathea, described by him as "one of the Gothic artists who
built the cathedrals in what we call the Dark Ages, wandering about
in sheepskins and goatskins." In 1783 Blake published, by the help of
friends, a small volume of _Poetical Sketches_, of which here is a
specimen:--
"Memory, hither come,
And tune your merry notes;
And, while upon the wind
Your music floats,
I'll pore upon the stream
Where sighing lovers dream,
And fish for fancies as they pass
Within the watery glass.
"I'll drink of the clear stream,
And hear the linnet's song;
And there I'll lie and dream
The day along:
And, when night comes, I'll go
To places fit for woe;
Walking along the darkened valley
With silent Melancholy."
We pass over Blake's progress in his art, but may remark, from his
biographer, that although he drew the Antique with great care, he
thus early conceived a distaste for the study as pursued in Academies
of Art. "Already 'life,'" says Mr. Gilchrist, "in so factitious,
monotonous an aspect of it as that presented by a model artificially
_posed_ to enact an artificial part--to maintain in painful rigidity
some fleeting gesture of spontaneous Nature's--became, as it continued,
'hateful,' looking to him, laden with thick-coming fancies, 'more like
death' than life; nay (singular to say), 'smelling of mortality'--to
an imaginative mind! 'Practice and opportunity,' he used afterwards to
declare, 'very soon teach the language of art;' as much, that is, as
Blake ever acquired, not a despicable if imperfect quantum. 'Its spirit
and poetry, centred in the imagination alone, never can be taught; and
these make the artist:' a truism, the fervid poet already began to hold
too exclusively in view. Even at their best--as the vision-seer and
instinctive Platonist tells us in one of the very last years of his
life (_MS. notes to Wordsworth_)--mere 'Natural objects _always did and
do_ weaken, deaden, and obliterate imagination in me!'"
Blake wrote many songs, to which he also composed tunes, sometimes
singularly beautiful; these he would occasionally sing to his friends.
His later verse, which he attached to his plates, was very enigmatical.
Though he did not for forty years attend any place of divine worship,
yet he was not a Freethinker nor irreligious, as has been scandalously
represented. The Bible was everything with him. How he reverenced the
Almighty, the following conclusion of his address to the Deity will
show:--
"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."
And in his _Address to the Christians_:--
"I give you the end of a golden string,
Only wind it into a ball,
It will lead you in at Heaven's gate,
Built in Jerusalem's wall."
Blake was a diligent and enthusiastic student. The day he devoted to
the graver and the night to poetry; he was utterly indifferent to the
goods of this life, and used to say: "My business is not to gather
gold, but to make glorious shapes expressing god-like sentiments."
When Blake was twenty-six years of age, he married Catherine Boutcher,
who lived near his father's house, and was noticed by Blake for the
whiteness of her hands, the brightness of her eyes, and a slim and
handsome shape, corresponding with his own notions of sylphs and
naiads. His marriage proved a mutually happy one. She had not learned
to write, but Blake instructed his "beloved," as he most frequently
called her, and allowed her till the last moments of his practice to
take off his proof impressions and print his works, which she did
most carefully, and ever delighted in the task; nay, she became a
draughtswoman. And as a convincing proof that she and her husband were
born for each other's comfort, she not only cheerfully entered into
his views, but, what is curious, possessed a similar power of imbibing
ideas, and produced drawings equally original, and in some respects,
interesting. She almost rivalled him in all things, save in the power
of seeing visions of any individual living or dead, whenever he chose
to see them. Yet, she joined him in other extravagances. The painter
and Mrs. Blake one day received a guest in their arbour in a state of
nakedness, to whom they calmly declared that they were Adam and Eve!
In his thirtieth year, Blake annotated the Aphorisms of Lavater, and
illustrated his own poems, _The Songs of Innocence and of Experience_.
These, with the illustrations to _Blair's Grave_, to the _Book of Job_,
and the plate of the _Canterbury Pilgrimage_--are the works of Blake
by which he is best known. He was his own printer and publisher. His
deceased brother and pupil, Robert Blake, disclosed to him in a dream
by what manner of process his purpose could be brought to pass and the
last half-crown he possessed was spent by Mrs. Blake to procure the
materials. Their manner of manipulation was revealed to him by "Joseph,
the sacred carpenter."
One of the most touching and popular of _The Songs of Innocence_ was
"The Chimney Sweeper:"
"When my mother died I was very young
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry--weep! weep! weep!
So your chimneys I clean and in soot I sleep.
"There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head
That curl'd like a lamb's back, was shaved; so I said,
Hush, Tom, never mind it, for when your head's bare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.
"And so he was quiet--and on that very night,
As Tommy was sleeping, he had such a sight;
There thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,
Were all of them locked up in coffins of black;
"And by came an Angel, who had a bright key,
He opened the coffins and set them all free;
Then down a green vale, leaping, laughing they run,
And wash in a river, and shine like the sun.
"Then, naked and white, all their bags left behind,
They rise up on pure clouds and sport in the wind:
And the Angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,
He'd have God for his father and never want joy.
"And so Tommy awoke and we rose in the dark,
And got with our bags and our brushes to work;
Though the morning was cold, he was happy and warm,
So, if all do their duty, they need not fear harm."
In 1800, the Blakes were invited by Hayley to visit him at Felpham,
in Sussex, under the idea of providing the artist with occupation and
emolument. Upon this occasion Blake wrote thus to Flaxman:--
"Dear Sculptor of Eternity,--We are safe arrived at our cottage, which
is more beautiful than I thought it, and more convenient. It is a
perfect 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 men. 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
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 more
distinctly heard, and their forms more distinctly seen; and my cottage
is also a shadow of their houses. My wife and sister are both well,
courting Neptune for an embrace.
* * * * *
"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 riches or the 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 is our dwelling-place. I
look back into the regions of reminiscence, and behold our ancient
days before this earth appeared in its vegetated 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. 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."
This association at Felpham lasted four years, when the Blakes left by
mutual consent. Yet the painter wrote upon his host these sarcastic
epigrams:--
"_To Hayley._
"Thy friendship oft has made my heart to ache:
Do be my enemy, for friendship's sake!"
"_On H. [Hayley], the Pickthank._
"I write the rascal thanks; till he and I
With thanks and compliments are quite drawn dry."
He had already written:--
"My title as a genius thus is proved,--
Not praised by Hayley, nor by Flaxman loved."
About this time, Blake's mind was confirmed in that extraordinary state
which many suppose to have been a species of chronic insanity. He was
so exclusively occupied with his own ideas, that he at last persuaded
himself that his imaginations were spiritual realities. He thought that
he conversed with the spirits of the long-departed great--of Homer,
Moses, Pindar, Virgil, Dante, Milton, and many others. Some of these
spirits sat to him for their portraits.
Dr. de Boismont, among his _Hallucinations involving Insanity_, thus
describes him as a lunatic, of the name of Blake, who was called the
Seer. There was nothing of the impostor about him; he seemed to be
thoroughly in earnest.
"This man constituted himself the painter of spirits. On the table
before him were pencils and brushes ready for his use, that he might
depict the countenances and attitudes of his heroes, whom he said
he did not summon before him, but who came of their own accord, and
entreated him to take their portraits. Visitors might examine large
volumes filled with these drawings: amongst others were the portraits
of the devil and his mother. When I entered his cell," says the author
of this notice, "he was drawing the likeness of a girl whose spectre he
pretended had appeared to him."
"Edward III. was one of his most constant visitors, and in
acknowledgment of the monarch's condescension, Blake had drawn his
portrait in oils in three sittings. I put such questions as were likely
to have embarrassed him; but he answered them in the most unaffected
manner, and without any hesitation.
"'Do these persons have themselves announced, or do they send in their
cards?'--'No; but I recognise them when they appear. I did not expect
to see Marc Antony last night, but I knew the Roman the moment he set
foot in my house.'--'At what hour do these illustrious dead visit
you?'--'At one o'clock: sometimes their visits are long, sometimes
short. The day before yesterday I saw the unfortunate Job, but he would
not stay more than two minutes; I had hardly time to make a sketch
of him, which I afterwards engraved----but silence! Here is Richard
III.!'--'Where do you see him?'--'Opposite to you, on the other side of
the table: it is his first visit.'--'How do you know his name?'--'My
spirit recognizes him, but I cannot tell you how.'--'What is he
like?'--'Stern, but handsome: at present I only see his profile; now I
have the three-quarter face; ah! now he turns to me, he is terrible to
behold.'--'Could you ask him any questions?'--'Certainly. What would
you like me to ask him?'--'If he pretends to justify the murders he
committed during his life?'--'Your question is already known to him. We
converse mind to mind by intuition and by magnetism. We have no need
of words.'--'What is his Majesty's reply?'--'This; only it is somewhat
longer than he gave it to me, for you would not understand the language
of spirits. He says what you call murder and carnage is all nothing;
that in slaughtering fifteen or twenty thousand men you do no wrong;
for what is immortal of them is not only preserved, but passes into
a better world, and the man who reproaches his assassin is guilty of
ingratitude, for it is by his means he enters into a happier and more
perfect state of existence. But do not interrupt me; he is now in a
very good position, and if you say anything more, he will go.'"
"Visions, such as are said to arise in the sight of those who indulge
in opium," says Allan Cunningham, "were frequently present to Blake;
nevertheless, he sometimes desired to see a spirit in vain. 'For many
years,' said he, 'I longed to see Satan--I never could believe that
he was the vulgar fiend which our legends represent him--I imagined
him a classic spirit, such as he appeared to him of Uz, with some
of his original splendour about him. At last I saw him. I was going
upstairs in the dark, when suddenly a light came streaming amongst
my feet; I turned round and there he was looking fiercely at me
through the iron grating of my staircase window. I called for my
things--Katherine thought the fit of song was on me, and brought me
pen and ink--I said hush!--never mind--this will do--as he appeared so
I drew him--there he is.' Upon this Blake took out a piece of paper
with a grated window sketched on it, while through the bars glared the
most frightful phantom that ever man imagined. Its eyes were large
and like live coals--its teeth as long as those of a harrow, and the
claws seemed such as might appear in the distempered dream of a clerk
in the Heralds' office. 'It is the Gothic fiend of our legends,' said
Blake--'the true devil--all else are apocryphal.'