WILLIAM HAYLEY
William Hayley, "the poet," as he delighted to call himself, enjoyed a
wide reputation as the author of _The Triumphs of Temper_, which appeared
in 1780 and was intended as a poetical and pleasing guide to young ladies
how to behave under the provocation of testy fathers and sour aunts, with
the promise of a peerless husband if their tempers were triumphant.
For us the poem is pleasantly incongruous and stirs to laughter in the
wrong places. The perfect heroine Serena, set down in the midst of
artificial society by day, is transported to infernal and supernal regions
by night. In the Inferno she sees all the wicked vices in action, and in
the Paradise the graces attending on their queen Sensibility. Hayley
humbly hoped to emulate Pope's satire in treating of Serena's days, and
Dante's sublimities in her nights. He was singularly fortunate in the
artists he found to embellish his darling offspring. Stothard and Maria
Flaxman, in turn, supplied charming designs, and even Romney was induced
to present the divine Emma as Sensibility with her pot of mimosa, to whom
Stothard had already done more than justice.
Hayley had been a close student all his life, having mastered Greek and
Latin and the more important modern languages. He had read extensively the
world's best literature. Taught by Meyer, he had taken up miniature
portrait painting till he excelled his master and his eyes failed. He
wrote plays which Garrick nearly liked, but which the undiscerning public
never liked at all. He reckoned himself not merely a connoisseur in art,
music, architecture, and sculpture, but also as one who might have
distinguished himself in any one of these difficult arts had envious time
permitted. Confident that Heaven had bestowed on him her best gift of
poetry, he felt it his duty to renounce his opportunity to excel in so
many arts and devote himself to that which all discerning people
acknowledged to be the highest.
_The Triumphs of Temper_ was his first great success, and the many highly
flattering things said to him by artists and famous literary men confirmed
him in the faith, though he had never really doubted, that he was a man of
genius. That was the opinion of elegant Mrs Opie, feeling Anna Seward,
diffident Romney, copious Hannah More, and portentously learned Edward
Gibbon. Yet time has been pitiless with the bard of Sussex, and instead of
discovering a steady or even a flickering light shining in the gross
darkness of his times, we of the twentieth century can see in him, if we
take the trouble to see at all, nothing but an amusingly solemn specimen
of a male Blue-stocking.
With so assured a position and never a shadow of self-doubt, he was able
to live with himself on most cordial terms of good temper and serenity,
and, like others of his type, extend his self-esteem to his fellows,
particularly if they were publicly admired. To these he generally effected
an acquaintance by a polite little letter of self-introduction.
His most important catch was Romney, to whom he was introduced by Meyer in
the autumn of 1776. Hayley possessed accidental advantages over Romney in
good birth and education. Romney was sufficiently impressed through
self-conscious lack of these, and when in addition he found that his
diffidence was met by Hayley's confidence, his depression by serenity, he
allowed him to gain that ascendancy over him which was out of all
proportion to his intrinsic merit, and which has irritated all biographers
of the artist against the poet. Yet if Hayley contrived to get possession
of Romney and his pictures, he also helped him for a considerable time to
fight against his melancholy. Let us in fairness remember that.
Another important friend was Cowper, whom Hayley caught considerably later
in life. Visits were exchanged, and Hayley set himself with much good will
to combat the ghastly melancholia that was getting its death-grip on him.
After Cowper's death there was some friendly wrangling between Hayley and
Lady Hesketh about who should write his Life. Hayley was easily persuaded
to undertake it, and by its accomplishment won for himself a latter rain
of gratifying applause just when his popularity seemed to be on the
decline.
Hayley lived till 1820, which was actually long enough to outlive his
public. His _Life of Romney_ was not a success. He and his works would
have died together but for his unfortunate habit of fastening himself on
to great men. His cancerian grip of them has given him vicarious
immortality, and made him obnoxious to the kicks of those who write the
lives of Romney, or Cowper, or Blake.
The particular friend of Hayley who most concerns us here was Flaxman. He
introduced Blake to Hayley from motives of pure kindness, knowing Blake's
struggle to live, and believing that Hayley was just the man to help him.
Flaxman had drawn Hayley's attention to Blake in a letter written as early
as 1784, in which he quotes Romney as saying that Blake's historical
drawings rank with those of Michael Angelo. But not until 1800 did the two
men meet. Early in that year--May 6th--Blake wrote to Hayley to condole
with him on the loss of his son Thomas Alphonso, who had been studying
sculpture with Flaxman. By September it was settled that Mr and Mrs Blake
should leave Lambeth and go and settle at Felpham, where Blake would be
only a stone's-throw from Hayley, and ready to help him in his poetical
and biographical works by engraving for them suitable designs.
Blake was destined to stay three years at Felpham, and he always regarded
this period as marking a most important crisis in his life. Since the
publication of his _Poetical Sketches_ in 1783 he was conscious of being
under a cloud. His visions that had been so bright and inspired him to
songs of such divine simplicity had not vanished, but they had lost their
crystalline clearness. His cloudy vision appeared in uncertain art. It is
true that his allegiance to the linear schools never wavered, and Michael
Angelo remained the supreme master in his eyes, but for a time he was
fascinated by the luscious ornament and colour of the Venetian school, and
with his passion for uniting contraries believed that he might marry
Florence and Venice. The same uncertainty appeared in his spiritual life.
We have followed him through various stages of rebellion, and seen how his
faith in rebellion received a rude shock from the Reign of Terror. Since
then he was learning more and more to explore the riches of the past, but
he had not gone far enough to place his rebellion and to see it and that
of his rebel contemporaries in its proper historical perspective. He was
disturbed also by a restless ambition of worldly success. Many men whose
gifts were much inferior to his own were famous and rich. Sir Joshua did
all that a spiritually blind man could do, and was reckoned with the
giants. Romney, whose art Blake much preferred to Reynolds's (he was
decidedly of the Romney faction), on account of its greater simplicity and
more scrupulous regard to outline, was sufficiently famous and
remunerated; but Blake, whose gifts were rarer than any, had scant
recognition and scant money, and he still hoped that with an influential
patron he might take his place in contemporary fame, and incidentally make
enough money to relieve him of all anxiety for the future. For he was
being ground by poverty. His wants were simple enough--food, clothing,
materials of work--but when the supply falls even a little below the want,
then the grinding process begins and carries on its inexorable work until
the spirit breaks. But now friend Flaxman had introduced him to poet
Hayley, who was not only famous for his literary work, but also for a
remarkable and untiring zeal in the service of those he reckoned his
friends.
Blake's hopes rose high, and his spirits overflowed. He wrote an
enthusiastic letter to Flaxman attributing to him all his present
happiness, and enclosing lines in which he recalls his successive friends
"in the heavens"--Milton, Ezra, Isaiah, Shakespeare, Paracelsus,
Boehme--and concludes by affirming that he has seen such visions of the
American War and the French Revolution that he "could not subsist on the
earth, but by conjunction with Flaxman, who knows to forgive nervous
fear." Flaxman had studied Swedenborg, and could perfectly understand such
language.
On September 21st, 1800, Sunday morning, he writes to the "dear Sculptor
of Eternity" that he has arrived at their cottage with Mrs Blake and his
sister Catherine, and that Mr Hayley has received them with his usual
brotherly affection.
He found Felpham "a sweet place for study." The quiet, cleanness,
sweetness, and spiritual atmosphere of the place stirred his cosmic
consciousness and gave him quick access to the great memory reaching back
far beyond his mortal life, and enabled him to recall his works in
eternity that were yet to be produced in time.
And Hayley was excessively kind. Still under a cloud, shaken in
self-confidence, Blake's consequent diffidence united with his instinctive
trust of men, and for a month he believed that Hayley was a prince.
Hayley was busy decorating his "marine villa," to which he had lately come
from Eartham. Flaxman had already been drawn in to help, much as Mrs
Mathew had used him at an earlier date; and now Blake was bidden to paint
a set of heads of the poets which were to form a frieze to Hayley's
library. Hayley was at work on some ballads, _Little Tom the Sailor_ and
others, to which Blake was to contribute designs. _Little Tom_ was for the
benefit of a Widow Spicer at Folkestone and her orphans, as Blake
understood, and also for the emolument of Blake, as we learn from a letter
of Hayley's to the Reverend John Johnson.
Hayley always loved to teach his friends. He had been anxious to improve
Romney's epistolary style; and now it occurred to him that he might teach
Blake miniature portrait painting. As usual, his purpose was thoroughly
kind. He did not think that Blake's work had much marketable value; but he
believed that if he proved an apt pupil he could procure him plenty of
sitters from among his neighbours who would pay well, and thus Blake would
become a real success.
In this Hayley showed himself a wise child of this world, but hardly a
child of light. Blake's genius did not lie in drawing portraits. A face
for him immediately became a symbol, and lost its time traits as it gained
in eternal significance. It is often said that Enitharmon was Mrs Blake;
but if this were so, she was Mrs Blake as no one but Blake could ever see
her. In reality he possessed the faculty which was pre-eminent in the
authors of the Book of Genesis and St John's Gospel. As the characters of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, of Peter, James, and John were seen and
portrayed in an eternal light, so likewise Blake would have striven to
present his opulent sitters, but the result would not have been that for
which they would have been willing to pay their money.
Blake took kindly and without question to the new task. "Miniature," he
says, "has become a goddess in my eyes.... I have a great many orders, and
they multiply." Hayley was glowing with satisfaction. But Blake, in one
little month, after repeated efforts of self-deception, could no longer
hide from himself that he saw Hayley as he really was. He was learned, of
course, and genteel, and kind, and admired with gush what it was correct
to admire. But of insight there was none. He was born under a watery sign
and not a fiery. He was really a crab ambling around his enclosed garden
with his lame leg, and getting his claws into the tender skin of those
who, he had been told, were really men of fire.
Blake's disappointment was bitter. His patron was blind to his real
genius, to which he must at all costs be faithful. Hayley was, and
continued to be, very much a corporeal friend, but he was a spiritual
enemy. Blake's fond hopes were dashed. He tottered on the verge of a
horror of great darkness, and escaped the darkness only by falling into a
mild and pleasant slumber, lulled by Hayley's amazing amiability,
mildness, and crooning serenity. From this slumber he might--who
knows?--never have awakened, but for the discernment of his real
friends--Flaxman and Butts--whose faith finally aroused him and drew him
away from the enchanted ground.
But though he saw, he said nothing. His spiritual friends (on the other
side) commanded him "to bear all and be silent, and to go through all
without murmuring, and, in fine, hope, till his three years shall be
accomplished." When Hayley was more than usually exasperating, Blake
vented himself in an epigram, and, much relieved, went on quietly.
Thus, when Blake was convinced that Providence did not mean him to paint
miniatures, he wrote:
"When Hayley finds out what you cannot do,
That is the very thing he'll set you to do."
Again, Blake discovered that Hayley's virtues and faults were both of the
feminine order. It was a feminine instinct that had prompted him to write
_The Triumphs of Temper_ and the _Essay on Old Maids_. A brilliant epigram
of Blake's accounts for this odd psychic twist, and flashes Hayley before
us:
"Of Hayley's birth this was the happy lot:
His mother on his father him begot."
That was the true state of affairs. But Blake obeyed his spiritual
friends, and for a long time no sign appeared in his letters that there
was anything the matter.
Hayley was also anxious to teach Blake Greek. Like most men of his times,
he believed that no man could attain to the highest degree of excellence
who had not mastered Greek and Latin. He probably thought that a knowledge
of Greek would at least correct some of Blake's vagaries. Blake was quick
at languages, and soon Hayley was able to write to Johnson: "Blake is just
become a Grecian, and literally learning the language.... The new Grecian
greets you affectionately."
Blake, however, never attained to his teacher's proficiency; he learnt
just enough to be able to formulate to himself the nature of the Greek
genius, and to see it in relation to his own. "The Muses were the
Daughters of Memory." The inspiration of the Bible was from a higher
source than Memory. Memory is the indelible record of experience.
Inspiration is always a breaking into experience to the creation of
something new. Then only is the new creation handed over to Memory. Thus
Inspiration feeds Memory, but is not its fruit. Imagination is the true
instrument of Inspiration. When Blake saw all this clearly, he wrote in
the Preface to _Milton_: "We do not want either Greek or Roman Models if
we are just and true to our own Imaginations." Greek and Latin have their
abiding place in Memory, and Blake was about to write fine things about
Memory, which he calls the Halls of Los; but for himself they did not
stimulate his imagination. To master them would add to his culture; but
mere culture is always barren.
Hayley's last attempt to teach Blake was in March 1805, the month in which
Klopstock died. He translated parts of Klopstock's _Messiah_ aloud for
Blake's benefit. Certain lines by Blake with big gaps have been preserved,
which are hard for us to understand. The only thing we are quite sure
about them is that they were written "after _too much_ Klopstock."
There was one great name that held Hayley and Blake alike at this time. We
know that Blake had always admired Milton's superb gifts, while he
disliked his theology. Blake's special friends had also been preoccupied
with Milton. Fuseli, for example, not only disagreed with Dr Johnson's
strictures on the poet, but he had been inspired by his ardent imagination
to paint a series of pictures illustrating the poet's works, and these had
been on public view at a Milton Gallery opened on May 20th, 1799, and
reopened March 21st, 1800.
While Blake was with Hayley he naturally heard much of Milton from his
latest biographer; and again their united interest in Cowper led them back
to Milton, because of Cowper's cherished desire to edit Milton, with notes
and translations.
In 1790, when Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery was a success, "bookseller"
Johnson was fired with the idea of bringing out a magnificent Milton
Gallery, "surpassing any work that had appeared in England." It was to
contain Cowper's notes and translations and Fuseli's illustrations, for
which the best engravers were to be found. The services of Sharpe and
Bartolozzi were enlisted, and Blake was asked to engrave _Adam and Eve
observed by Satan_. The project fell through owing to Cowper's mental
indisposition; but when Hayley was engaged on the _Life of Cowper_ and
Blake on its engravings, Cowper's _Milton_ came uppermost again in their
minds, and it occurred to Hayley that it would be a good plan to bring out
a fine edition of the delayed work, with engravings after designs by
Romney, Flaxman, and Blake. The profits of the work were "to be
appropriated to erect a monument to the memory of Cowper in St Paul's or
Westminster Abbey." To this work was to be added Hayley's _Life of
Milton_, so that the whole necessarily would spread out to three quarto
volumes. The project was abandoned. Instead of the three volumes, one
volume with Cowper's notes finally appeared in 1808, and instead of the
proceeds going to a monument in St Paul's, they were given for the
emolument of an orphan godson of the Sussex Bard.
Thus Blake's thought and time were fully occupied. Besides the designs for
Hayley's ballads, engravings were required for the Cowper _Life_. Butts
was to be kept supplied with a fresh picture as fast as Blake could paint
it; and his own more secret thought was ruminating over Milton, and his
stay at Felpham, and his dreams for the future. These were to take form in
his longest poetical works--_Milton_, _The Four Zoas_, and _Jerusalem_;
but as they are of extreme importance for understanding Blake, they must
be kept over to another chapter.
Blake was thoroughly interested in this work, for he admired Cowper, and
considered that his letters were "the very best letters that were ever
published." It is necessary to remember his reverence for Cowper, as also
for Wesley and Whitefield, because in the poems there are many vigorous
attacks made on religion, and some of Blake's modern imitators follow him
in the attack. The moderns for the most part are irreligious, but Blake
professed to love true religion and true science. What he hated above all
things was religion divorced from life and art. Such religion becomes very
intense, as in the Pharisees, and when great decisions are called for, as
in the trial of Christ, it invariably utters its voice on the wrong side.
Blake's engravings for the Cowper _Life_ were after designs by other
artists, the most important being the head of Cowper by Romney. To engrave
after another is irksome, and there was further irritation when he
found that Hayley was as ready to instruct him how to engrave as to paint
miniatures.
[Illustration: MIRTH AND HER COMPANIONS.]
Since Hayley could never disguise his inmost thoughts, Blake soon
perceived that he intended to keep him strictly to the graver, as he had
no opinion of his original works, whether in poetry or design. Blake found
relief in painting for Thomas Butts, who was his friend and patron for
over thirty years, and to whom he sent exquisite pictures, and some
letters priceless for their revelation of the writer.
From these we learn the nature of Blake's spiritual crisis at Felpham.
Miniature portrait painting drove home to him the vast difference between
historical designing and portrait painting. Portrait requires nature
before the painter's eye, historical designing depends on imagination.
Nature and imagination were as antithetical in Blake's eye as nature and
grace in the theologian's, and just here he kept as far away from
pantheism as he could in his obstinate determination to keep nature and
imagination as separate as the sheep and the goats. While agreeing with
Blake in keeping them apart, I suppose most of us would say that the
finest portrait painting depended on imagination no less than historical
designing.
The atmosphere of Felpham induced in Blake long fits of abstraction and
brooding, and he pushed his thoughts on miniature forwards to the
recollecting of all his scattered thoughts on art. He determined to
discontinue all attempts at eclecticism. Venetian _finesse_ and Flemish
_picturesque_ were "excellencies of an inferior order" and "incompatible
with the grand style." He was convinced that the reverse of
this--uniformity of colour and long continuation of lines--produces
grandeur. So said Sir Joshua, who did not always practise what he
preached in his discourses; so said Michael Angelo, whose profession and
practice were one; so said Blake, who was decided, while adhering to the
principles of the great Florentine, to be true to his own genius, so that
his work should be as distinct from Michael Angelo's as Caracci's from
Correggio's, or Correggio's from Raphael's.
Here was strength for Blake in knowing his own mind about his art and
methods, and following it. It helped him out of his paralysing diffidence,
which Hayley fostered, and made more clear the real issue between him and
his patron. He strove to see the situation in the largest light possible.
The old question of God's providence exercised him. Did God bring him to
Felpham? Did God keep him there? If so, it must be because it was not fit
for him at present to be employed in greater things. That thought kept him
patient. When it is proper his talents will be properly exercised in
public. But God guides by cleansing man's understanding and pushing him
forwards to a decision. He understood his art, yet Hayley objected to his
doing anything but the mere drudgery of business. He trusted his art, and
he saw how he must work. Let him trust himself, and then? He saw all
clearly now, as he had seen it in the first month, although he had stifled
his apprehensions. God had given him a great talent. It would be affected
humility to deny it. If he stayed with Hayley he would paint miniatures,
make money, and make his beloved Kate comfortable for life; but he would
sell his divine birthright. If he obeyed God by following the gifts He had
bestowed on him, then farewell to Hayley and lovely Felpham: he must
return without delay to London, and once more he and Kate together must
face the grinding life of poverty. Anyone who knows Blake must know what
decision he would make. He made it silently, irrevocably. By the
beginning of October 1803 he and Kate were back again in London, lodging
in South Molton Street, with a sense of escape and liberty which more than
compensated for the uncertain prospect of the future.
Blake had not quite finished with Felpham. Before leaving he had had a
disagreeable affair with a private in Captain Leathe's troop of 1st or
Royal Dragoons. From a letter of Blake's to Mr Butts, dated August 16th,
1803, we learn that this man was found by him in the garden, invited to
assist by the gardener without his knowledge. He desired him politely to
go away; and on his refusal, again repeated his request. The man then
threatened to knock out his eyes, and made some contemptuous remarks about
his person. Blake thereupon, his pride being affronted, took the man by
the elbows and pushed him before him down the road for about fifty yards.
In revenge, the soldier charged Blake with uttering sedition and damning
the King. Blake had no difficulties in gathering witnesses for his
defence. He was summoned before a bench of justices at Chichester and
forced to find bail. Hayley kindly came forward with L50, Mr Seagrave,
printer at Chichester, and protege of Hayley's, with another L50, and
himself bound in L100 for his appearance at the Quarter Sessions after
Michaelmas. The trial came off at Chichester on January 11th, 1804. The
Duke of Richmond presided as magistrate. Hayley had procured for the
defence Samuel Rose (Cowper's friend), and between them they had no
difficulty in releasing Blake.
There would have been no need to repeat this story, except that the event
made a deep impression on Blake. Skofield, the soldier's name, became in
his mind an abiding symbol, and the soldier's contempt for his person
decided him to change his deportment.
Blake's humble birth and childlike trust of his fellows had united to
produce in him a too passive and docile manner. There was plenty of fire
within, and the lamb knew how to roar; but he judged that his roar need
not be provoked if his appearance somehow warded people off from taking a
liberty with him. Diffidence is not a virtue. Blake's too passive
deportment changed as he gradually became more self-confident. Hence the
Skofield episode left a lasting mark on both his mind and body.
Blake's decisive step in leaving Hayley and following his own will
immediately preceded the noonday glory of his genius. Hayley must have
thought that Blake was extremely ungrateful after the invariable kindness
that he had shown him; and if Hayley liked to call his neighbouring
friends around him and put his case to them, probably all, without a
single dissentient voice, would have agreed that he had shown himself a
Christian and a gentleman, and that charity itself could not demand of him
to trouble himself any further about such a crazed visionary as Blake.
Blake not only thought otherwise, but turning to the Gospel as he was wont
to do, he found a word of Christ that convinced him that Christ was on his
side. "He who is not with me is against me." There were a thousand
evidences that Hayley was not with the real Blake that was striving to
manifest himself in time, and therefore he was against him, and an enemy
to his genius. Blake went to Felpham shaken in himself and diffident. When
there is diffidence (dispersal of faith) there is a lamentable waste of
precious energy. Blake left Felpham reassured that the light he had seen
in his youth was the true light, and confident (confidence is
concentration of faith) that if he remained faithful to his real self, he
would also be found on the side of Christ, and that this true
self-confidence must result in beautiful work of the creative order. That
was the supreme hour in his life. The full vision must come. Like
Habakkuk, he was on his tower, assured that though it tarry it would come
and not tarry. He was not impatient. "The just shall live by his faith."
Blake had faith, and he asked no more; but he gained a thousandfold more,
and the full vision came to him in a way that must seem odd to a child of
the world, but wonderfully appropriate to one who understands what is the
nature of the fire that sustains and consumes the artist's soul.
During the months of 1803-4 a certain Count Truchsess, who owned a
valuable collection of pictures, exhibited them at a gallery in the New
Road, opposite Portland Place, London. The pictures were by German, Dutch,
Flemish, Italian, Spanish, and French masters. The masters included Albert
Duerer, Hans Holbein senior, Breughel, Vandyck, Michael Angelo, Leonardo da
Vinci, Bourdon, Watteau.
Blake went to see the pictures, and must have been unusually excited and
thrilled at seeing works by Michael Angelo and Albert Duerer directly, and
not through the blurred medium of poor engravings. The divine frenzy
stirred in his soul. The next day, suddenly, he was enlightened with the
light he enjoyed in his youth. The cloud that had hung over him for twenty
years vanished, the grim spectre (reason) who had haunted his ways and
checked his inspiration fled with the cloud. Blake was drunk with
intellectual vision, and in his drunken hilarity came to himself, knew
what was his proper work, and once for all gave himself with passionate
surrender to that which his whole and undivided being saw to be good.
It will take us the rest of our time gathering some of the fruits of
Blake's richly matured genius.
Blake wrote an enthusiastic account of his mystic experience to Hayley, of
all men--Hayley who had so exasperated him, and made him sore, and, in his
soreness, say biting things. Now he was thoroughly at peace with himself,
and could regard Hayley with the kindness and tolerance that before had
been impossible. For a while he continued to correspond with him while he
was occupied with his _Life of Romney_. Blake engraved a portrait of the
artist for the frontispiece which never appeared, and a fine engraving of
Romney's _Shipwreck_, which appeared along with the other engravings by
Caroline Watson. The _Life of Romney_ was a dreary performance. Like the
_Life of Cowper_, it revealed its subject only when it gave his letters.
For the rest, it abounds in a welter of elegant eighteenth-century words
and phrases which assure us that "the poet" never saw even Romney and
Cowper as they really were, and therefore it is not surprising that he saw
in Blake merely a mild and harmless visionary who might do paying work if
only he would listen to the wise counsel that he was always ready to give.
Peace be with Hayley! Among those that appear before Peter's Gate, we
cannot help thinking that he will be more readily admitted than the vast
crowd of eighteenth-century squires who will knock at the gate, and stamp
and fume if it is not opened to them on the instant.