cared to unroll and decipher it by such light as we can attain or afford
may now look back across the tempest and tumult, and pass sentence,
according to their pleasure or capacity, on the message delivered from
this cloudy and noisy tabernacle. The complete and exalted figure of Blake
cannot be seen in full by those who avert their eyes, smarting and
blinking, from the frequent smoke and sudden flame. Others will see more
clearly, as they look more sharply, the radical sanity and coherence of
the mind which put forth its shoots of thought and faith in ways so
strange, at such strange times. Faith incredible and love invisible to
most men were alone the springs of this turbid and sonorous stream. In
Blake, above all other men, the moral and the imaginative senses were so
fused together as to compose the final artistic form. No man's fancy, in
that age, flew so far and so high on so sure a wing. No man's mind, in
that generation, dived so deep or gazed so long after the chance of human
redemption. To serve art and to love liberty seemed to him the two things
(if indeed they were not one thing) worth a man's life and work; and no
servant was ever trustier, no lover more constant than he. Knowing that
without liberty there can be no loyalty, he did not fear, whether in his
work or his life, to challenge and to deride the misconstruction of the
foolish and the fraudulent. It does not appear that he was ever at the
pains to refute any senseless and rootless lie that may have floated up
during his life on the muddy waters of rumour, or drifted from hand to
hand and mouth to mouth along the putrescent weed-beds of tradition. Many
such lies, I am told, were then set afloat, and have not all as yet gone
down. One at least of these may here be swept once for all out of our way.
Mr. Linnell, the truest friend of Blake's age and genius, has assured
me--and has expressed a wish that I should make public his assurance--that
the legend of Blake and his wife, sitting as Adam and Eve in their garden,
is simply a legend--to those who knew them, repulsive and absurd; based
probably, if on any foundation at all, on some rough and rapid expression
of Blake's in the heat and flush of friendly talk, to the effect (it may
be) that such a thing, if one chose to do it, would be in itself innocent
and righteous,--wrong or strange only in the eyes of a world whose views
and whose deeds were strange and wrong. So far Blake would probably have
gone; and so far his commentators need not fear to go. But one thing does
certainly seem to me loathsome and condemnable; the imputation of such a
charge as has been brought against Blake on this matter, without ground
and without excuse. The oral flux of fools, being as it is a tertian or
quotidian malady or ague of the tongue among their kind, may deserve pity
or may not, but does assuredly demand rigid medical treatment. The words
or thoughts of a free thinker and a free speaker, falling upon rather than
into the ear of a servile and supine fool, will probably in all times
bring forth such fruit as this. By way of solace or compensation for the
folly which he half perceives and half admits, the fool must be allowed
his little jest and his little lie. Only when it passes into tradition and
threatens to endure, is it worth while to set foot on it. It seems that
Blake never cared to do this good office for himself; and in effect it can
only seem worth doing on rare occasions to any workman who respects his
work. This contempt, in itself noble and rational, became injurious when
applied to the direct service of things in hand. Confidence in future
friends, and contempt of present foes, may have induced him to leave his
highest achievements impalpable and obscure. Their scope is as wide and as
high as heaven, but not as clear; clouds involve and rains inundate the
fitful and stormy space of air through which he spreads and plies an
indefatigable wing. There can be few books in the world like these; I can
remember one poet only whose work seems to me the same or similar in kind;
a poet as vast in aim, as daring in detail, as unlike others, as coherent
to himself, as strange without and as sane within. The points of contact
and sides of likeness between William Blake and Walt Whitman are so many
and so grave, as to afford some ground of reason to those who preach the
transition of souls or transfusion of spirits. The great American is not a
more passionate preacher of sexual or political freedom than the English
artist. To each the imperishable form of a possible and universal
Republic is equally requisite and adorable as the temporal and spiritual
queen of ages as of men. To each all sides and shapes of life are alike
acceptable or endurable. From the fresh free ground of either workman
nothing is excluded that is not exclusive. The words of either strike deep
and run wide and soar high. They are both full of faith and passion,
competent to love and to loathe, capable of contempt and of worship. Both
are spiritual, and both democratic; both by their works recall, even to so
untaught and tentative a student as I am, the fragments vouchsafed to us
of the Pantheistic poetry of the East. Their casual audacities of
expression or speculation are in effect wellnigh identical. Their outlooks
and theories are evidently the same on all points of intellectual and
social life. The divine devotion and selfless love which make men martyrs
and prophets are alike visible and palpable in each. It is no secret now,
but a matter of public knowledge, that both these men, being poor in the
sight and the sense of the world, have given what they had of time or of
money, of labour or of love, to comfort and support all the suffering and
sick, all the afflicted and misused, whom they had the chance or the right
to succour and to serve. The noble and gentle labours of the one are known
to those who live in his time; the similar deeds of the other deserve and
demand a late recognition. No man so poor and so obscure as Blake appeared
in the eyes of his generation ever did more good works in a more noble and
simple spirit. It seems that in each of these men at their birth pity and
passion, and relief and redress of wrong, became incarnate and innate.
That may well be said of the one which was said of the other: that "he
looks like a man." And in externals and details the work of these two
constantly and inevitably coheres and coincides. A sound as of a sweeping
wind; a prospect as over dawning continents at the fiery instant of a
sudden sunrise; a splendour now of stars and now of storms; an expanse and
exultation of wing across strange spaces of air and above shoreless
stretches of sea; a resolute and reflective love of liberty in all times
and in all things where it should be; a depth of sympathy and a height of
scorn which complete and explain each other, as tender and as bitter as
Dante's; a power, intense and infallible, of pictorial concentration and
absorption, most rare when combined with the sense and the enjoyment of
the widest and the highest things; an exquisite and lyrical excellence of
form when the subject is well in keeping with the poet's tone of spirit; a
strength and security of touch in small sweet sketches of colour and
outline, which bring before the eyes of their student a clear glimpse of
the thing designed--some little inlet of sky lighted by moon or star, some
dim reach of windy water or gentle growth of meadow-land or wood; these
are qualities common to the work of either. Had we place or time or wish
to touch on their shortcomings and errors, it might be shown that these
too are nearly akin; that their poetry has at once the melody and the
laxity of a fitful storm-wind; that, being oceanic, it is troubled with
violent groundswells and sudden perils of ebb and reflux, of shoal and
reef, perplexing to the swimmer or the sailor; in a word, that it partakes
the powers and the faults of elemental and eternal things; that it is at
times noisy and barren and loose, rootless and fruitless and informal; and
is in the main fruitful and delightful and noble, a necessary part of the
divine mechanism of things. Any work or art of which this cannot be said
is superfluous and perishable, whatever of grace or charm it may possess
or assume. Whitman has seldom struck a note of thought and speech so just
and so profound as Blake has now and then touched upon; but his work is
generally more frank and fresh, smelling of sweeter air, and readier to
expound or expose its message, than this of the prophetic books. Nor is
there among these any poem or passage of equal length so faultless and so
noble as his "Voice out of the Sea," or as his dirge over President
Lincoln--the most sweet and sonorous nocturn ever chanted in the church of
the world. But in breadth of outline and charm of colour, these poems
recall the work of Blake; and to neither poet can a higher tribute of
honest praise be paid than this.
We have now done what in us lay to help the works of a great man on their
way towards that due appreciation and that high honour of which in the end
they will not fail. Much, it need not be repeated, has been done for them
of late, and admirably done; much also we have found to do, and have been
compelled to leave undone still more. If it should now appear to any
reader that too much has been made of slight things, or too little said of
grave errors, this must be taken well into account: that praise enough has
not as yet been given, and blame enough can always be had for the asking;
that when full honour has been done and full thanks rendered to those who
have done great things, then and then only will it be no longer an
untimely and unseemly labour to map out and mark down their shortcomings
for the profit or the pleasure of their inferiors and our own; that
however pleasant for common palates and feeble fingers it may be to nibble
and pick holes, it is not only more profitable but should be more
delightful for all who desire or who strive after any excellence of mind
or of achievement to do homage wherever it may be due; to let nothing
great pass unsaluted or unenjoyed; but as often as we look backwards among
past days and dead generations, with glad and ready reverence to answer
the noble summons--"Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers who were
before us." Those who refuse them that are none of their sons; and among
all these "famous men, and our fathers," no names seem to demand our
praise so loudly as theirs who while alive had to dispense with the
thanksgiving of men. To them doubtless, it may be said, this is now more
than ever indifferent; but to us it had better not be so. And especially
in the works and in the life of Blake there is so strong and special a
charm for those to whom the higher ways of work are not sealed ways that
none will fear to be too grudging of blame or too liberal of praise. A
more noble memory is hardly left us; and it is not for his sake that we
should contend to do him honour.
THE END.
BRADBURY, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Gilchrist's "Life of Blake."
[2] It may be as well set down here as at any further stage of our
business, that the date of Blake's birth appears, from good MS. authority,
to have been the 20th of November (1757), not the 28th; that he was the
second of five children, not four; James, the hosier in Broad Street,
being his junior, not, as the biography states, his senior by a year and a
half. The eldest son was John, a favourite child who came to small good,
enlisted, and died it seems in comparative youth; of him Mr. Gilchrist
evidently had not heard. In some verses of the Felpham period (written in
1801, printed in vol. ii. p. 189 of the "Life and Selections") Blake makes
mention, hitherto unexplained, of "my brother John the evil one," which
may now be comprehensible enough.
[3] Our greatest poet of the later days may be cited as a third witness.
Through the marvellous last book of the _Contemplations_ the breath and
sound of the sea is blown upon every verse; when he heard as it were the
thunder and saw as it were the splendour of revelation, it was amid the
murmur and above the motion of the Channel;
pres du dolmen qui domine Rozel,
A l'endroit ou le cap se prolonge en presqu'ile.
[4] W. B. Scott. The few and great words cited above occur, it will be
observed, in a poem affording throughout no inapt allegory of Blake's life
and works. More accurate and more admirable expression was never given to
a theme so pregnant and so great. The whole "fable" may be well applied by
students of the matter in hand to the history of Blake's relations with
minor men of more turn for success; which, as Victor Hugo has noted in his
royal manner, is so often "a rather hideous thing."
[5] It appears that some effort, laudable if wholly sincere, and not
condemnable if partly coloured by personal feeling, has been made to rebut
the charges brought against Stothard and Cromek by the biographer of
Blake. What has been written in the text is of course based upon the
assumption that Mr. Gilchrist has given an account of the matter as full
and as fair as it was assuredly his desire to make it. As junior counsel
(so to speak) on behalf of Blake, I have followed the lead of his
biographer; for me in fact nothing remained but to revise and restate,
with such clearness and brevity as I could, the case as laid down by him.
This, finding on the face of it nothing incoherent or incredible, I have
done; whether any man can disprove it remains to be seen. Meantime we are
not left to our own choice in the matter of epithets. There is but one
kind of phrase that will express such things and the doers of such things.
Against Stothard no grave charge has been brought; none therefore can be
refuted. Any reference to subsequent doings or sufferings of his must be
unspeakably irrelevant to the matter in hand. Against Cromek a
sufficiently heavy indictment has been laid; one which cannot be in the
least degree lightened by countercharges of rash violence on Blake's part
or blind hastiness on Mr. Gilchrist's. One thing alone can avail him in
the way of whitewash. He is charged with theft; prove that he did not
steal. He is charged with breach of contract; prove that his contract was
never broken. He is charged with denying a commission given by him; prove
that he did not deny it. For no man, it is to be feared, will now believe
that Blake, sleeping or waking, forged the story of the commission or
trumped up the story of the contract. That point of the defence the
counsel for Cromek had best give up with all convenient speed; had better
indeed not dream at all of entering upon it. Again: he is charged, as
above, with adding to his apparent perfidy a superfetation of insolence,
an accretion or excrescence of insult. Prove that he did not write the
letter published by Mr. Cunningham in 1852. It is undoubtedly deplorable
that any one now living should in any way have to suffer for the misdoings
of a man, whom, were it just or even possible, one would be willing to
overlook and to forget. But time is logical and equable; and this is but
one among many inevitable penalties which time is certain to bring upon
such wrong-doers in the end; penalties, or rather simple results of the
thing done. Had this man either dealt honestly or while dealing
dishonestly been but at the pains to keep clear of Walter Scott and
William Blake, no writer would have had to disturb his memory. But now,
however strong or sincere may be our just sense of pity for all to whom it
may give pain, truth must be spoken; and the truth is that, unless the
authorities cited can be utterly upset and broken down by some palpable
proof in his favour, Cromek was what has been stated. Mr. Gilchrist also,
in the course of his fair and lucid narrative, speaks once of "pity." Pity
may be good, but proof is better. Until such proof come, the best that can
be done for Cromek is to let well alone. Less could not have been said of
him than equitable biography has here been compelled to say; no more need
be said now and for ever, if counsel will have the wisdom to let sleeping
dogs lie. This advice, if they cannot refute what is set down without more
words, we must give them; [Greek: me kinei Kamarinan]. The waters are
muddy enough without that. Vague and vain clamour of deprecation or appeal
may be plaintive but is not conclusive. As to any talk of cruelty or
indelicacy shown in digging up the dead misdeeds of dead men, it is simply
pitiable. Were not reason wasted on such reasoners it might be profitable
(which too evidently it is not) to reply that such an argument cuts right
and left at once. Suppress a truth, and you suggest a lie; and a lie so
suggested is the most "indelicate" of cruelties possible to inflict on the
dead. If, for pity's sake or contempt's or for any other reason, the
biographer had explained away the charges against Cromek which lay ready
to his hand, he must have left upon the memory of Scott and upon the
memory of Blake the stain of a charge as grave as this: if Cromek was
honest, they were calumniators. To one or two the good name of a private
man may be valuable; to all men the good name of a great man must be
precious. This difference of value must not be allowed to weigh with us
while considering the evidence; but the fact seems to be that no evidence
in disproof of the main charges has been put forward which can be
seriously thought worth sifting for a moment. This then being the sad
case, to inveigh against Blake's biographer is utterly idle and hardly
honest. If the stories are not true, any man's commentary which assumes
their truth must be infinitely unimportant. If the stories are true, no
remark annexed to the narrative can now blacken the accused further. Those
alone who are responsible for the accusation brought can be convicted of
unfairness in bringing it; Mr. Gilchrist, it must be repeated, found every
one of the charges which we now find in his book, given under the hand and
seal of honourable men. These he found it, as I do now, necessary to
transcribe in a concise form; adding, as I have done, any brief remarks he
saw fit to make in the interest of justice and for the sake of
explanation. Let there be no more heard of appeal against this exercise of
a patent right, of invective against this discharge of an evident duty.
Disproof is the one thing that will now avail; and to anything short of
that no one should again for an instant listen.
[6] It is to be regretted that the share taken in this matter by Flaxman,
who defended Stothard from the charge of collusion with Cromek, appears to
have alienated Blake from one of his first friends. Throughout the MS. so
often cited by his biographer, he couples their names together for attack.
In one of his rough epigrams, formless and pointless for the most part,
but not without value for the sudden broken gleams of light they cast upon
Blake's character and history, he reproaches both sculptor and painter
with benefits conferred by himself and disowned by them: and the
blundering stumbling verses thus jotted down to relieve a minute's fit of
private anger are valuable as evidence for his sincere sense of injury.
To F. AND S.
"I found them blind: I taught them how to see;
And now they know neither themselves nor me.
'Tis excellent to turn a thorn to a pin,
A fool to a bolt, a knave to a glass of gin."
Whether or not he had in fact thus utilized his rivals by making the most
out of their several qualities, may be questionable. If so, we must say he
managed to scratch his own fingers with the pin, to miss his shot with the
bolt, and to spill the liquor extracted from the essence of knavery. The
following dialogue has equal virulence and somewhat more sureness of aim.
MR. STOTHARD TO MR. CROMEK.
"For fortune's favour you your riches bring;
But fortune says she gave you no such thing.
Why should you prove ungrateful to your friends,
Sneaking, and backbiting, and odds-and-ends?"
MR. CROMEK TO MR. STOTHARD.
"Fortune favours the brave, old proverbs say;
But not with money; that is not the way:
Turn back, turn back; you travel all in vain;
Turn through the iron gate down Sneaking Lane."
For the "iron gate" of money-making the brazen-browed speaker was no unfit
porter. The crudity of these rough notes for some unfinished satire is
not, let it be remembered, a fair sample of Blake's capacity for epigram;
and it would indeed be unfair to cite them but for their value as to the
matter in hand.
[7] Since writing the lines above I have been told by Mr. Seymour Kirkup
that one picture at least among those exhibited at this time was the very
noblest of all Blake's works; the "Ancient Britons." It appears to have
dropped out of sight, but must be still hidden somewhere. Against the
judgment of Mr. Kirkup there can be no appeal. The saviour of Giotto, the
redeemer of Dante, has power to pronounce on the work of Blake. I allow
what I said to stand as I said it at first, only that I may not miss the
chance of calling attention to the loss and paying tribute to the critic.
[8] Written in 1863. Mr. Landor died Sept. 17th, 1864.
[9] Since the lines above were written, I have been informed by a
surviving friend of Blake, celebrated throughout Italy as over England, in
a time nearer our own, as (among other things) the discoverer of Giotto's
fresco in the Chapel of the Podesta, that after Blake's death a gift of
L100 was sent to his widow by the Princess Sophia, who must not lose the
exceptional honour due to her for a display of sense and liberality so
foreign to her blood. At whose suggestion it was made is not known, and
worth knowing. Mrs. Blake sent back the money with all due thanks, not
liking to take or keep what (as it seemed to her) she could dispense with,
while many to whom no chance or choice was given might have been kept
alive by the gift; and, as readers of the "Life" know, fell to work in her
old age by preference. One complaint only she was ever known to make
during her husband's life, and that gently. "Mr. Blake" was so little with
her, though in the body they were never separated; for he was incessantly
away "in Paradise"; which would not seem to have been far off. Mr. Kirkup
also speaks of the courtesy with which, on occasion, Blake would waive the
question of his spiritual life, if the subject seemed at all
incomprehensible or offensive to the friend with him: he would no more
obtrude than suppress his faith, and would practically accept and act upon
the dissent or distaste of his companions without visible vexation or the
rudeness of a thwarted fanatic. It was in the time of this intimacy (see
note at p. 58) that Mr. Kirkup also saw, what seems long since to have
dropped out of human sight, the picture of _The Ancient Britons_; which,
himself also an artist, he thought and thinks the finest work of the
painter: remembering well the fury and splendour of energy there
contrasted with the serene ardour of simply beautiful courage; the violent
life of the design, and the fierce distance of fluctuating battle.