PART II: RECORDS FROM CONTEMPORARY SOURCES

(I.) EXTRACTS FROM THE DIARY, LETTERS, AND REMINISCENCES OF HENRY CRABB

ROBINSON, TRANSCRIBED FROM THE ORIGINAL MSS. IN DR. WILLIAMS'S LIBRARY,

1810-1852

'Of all the records of these his latter years,' says Mr. Swinburne in

his book on Blake, 'the most valuable, perhaps, are those furnished by

Mr. Crabb Robinson, whose cautious and vivid transcription of Blake's

actual speech is worth more than much vague remark, or than any

commentary now possible to give.' Through the kind permission of the

Librarian of Dr. Williams's Library, where the Crabb Robinson MSS. are

preserved, I am able to give, for the first time, an accurate and complete

text of every reference to Blake in the _Diary, Letters_, and

_Reminiscences_, which have hitherto been printed only in

part, and with changes as well as omissions. In an entry in his Diary

for May 13, 1848, Crabb Robinson says: 'It is strange that I, who have

no imagination, nor any power beyond that of a logical understanding,

should yet have great respect for the mystics.' This respect for the

mystics, to which we owe the notes on Blake, was part of an inexhaustible

curiosity in human things, and in things of the mind, which made of

Crabb Robinson the most searching and significant reporter of the

nineteenth century. Others may have understood Blake better than

he did, but no one else was so attentive to his speech, and thus so

faithful an interpreter of his meaning.

In copying from the MS. I have followed the spelling, not however

preserving abbreviations such as 'Bl:' for 'Blake,' due merely to haste,

and I have modified the punctuation and added commas of quotation

only when the writer's carelessness in these matters was likely to be

confusing. Otherwise the transcript is literal and verbatim, and I have

added in footnotes any readings of possible interest which have been

crossed out in the manuscript.

(1) FROM CRABB ROBINSON'S DIARY

1825

_December_

10 ... Dined with Aders. A very remarkable and interesting evening.

The party _Blake_ the painter and Linnell--also a painter

and engraver--to dinner. In the evening came Miss Denman

and Miss Flaxman.

10_th December_ 1825

BLAKE

I will put down as they occur to me without method all I can

recollect of the conversation of this remarkable man. Shall I call

him Artist or Genius--or Mystic--or Madman? Probably he

is all. He has a most interesting appearance. He is now old--pale

with a Socratic countenance, and an expression of great sweetness, but

bordering on weakness--except when his features are animated

by[1] expression, and then he has an air of inspiration about

him. The conversation was on art, and on poetry, and on religion;

but it was my object, and I was successful, in drawing him out,

and in so getting from him an avowal of his _peculiar_ sentiments.

I was aware before of the nature of his impressions, or I should

at times have been at a loss to understand him. He was shewn

soon after he entered the room some compositions of Mrs. Aders

which he cordially praised. And he brought with him an engraving

of his Canterbury Pilgrims for Aders. One of the figures resembled

one in one of Aders's pictures. 'They say I stole it from this

picture, but I did it 20 years before I knew of the picture--however,

in my youth I was always studying this kind of paintings. No

wonder there is a resemblance.' In this he seemed to explain

_humanly_ what he had done, but he at another time spoke of

his paintings as being what he had seen in his visions. And

when he said _my visions_ it was in the ordinary unemphatic

tone in which we speak of trivial matters that every one understands

and cares nothing about. In the same tone he said repeatedly,

the 'Spirit told me.' I took occasion to say--You use the same

word as Socrates used. What resemblance do you suppose is there

between your spirit and the spirit of Socrates? 'The same as

between our countenance.' He paused and added--'I was Socrates.'

And then, as if correcting himself, 'A sort of brother. I must

have had conversations with him. So I had with Jesus Christ.

I have an obscure recollection of having been with both of them.'

It was before this, that I had suggested on very obvious philosophical

grounds the _impossibility_ of supposing an immortal being

created--an eternity _a parte post_ without an eternity

_a parte ante._ This is an obvious truth I have been many (perhaps

30) years fully aware of. His eye brightened on my saying this,

and he eagerly concurred--'To be sure it is impossible. We are

all co-existent with God--members of the Divine body. We are

all partakers of the Divine nature.' In this, by the bye, Blake has but

adopted an ancient Greek idea--query of Plato? As connected

with this idea I will mention here (though it formed part of our talk,

walking homeward) that on my asking in what light he viewed

the great question concerning the Divinity of Jesus Christ, he

said_--'He is the only God_.' But then he added--'And so am I

and so are you.' Now he had just before (and this occasioned

my question) been speaking of the errors of Jesus Christ--He

was wrong in suffering Himself to be crucified. He should not have

attacked the Government. He had no business with such matters.

On my inquiring how he reconciled this with the sanctity and divine

qualities of Jesus, he said He was not then become the Father.

Connecting as well as one can these fragmentary sentiments, it

would be hard to give Blake's station between Christianity, Platonism,

and Spinosism. Yet he professes to be very hostile to Plato, and

reproaches Wordsworth with being not a Christian but a Platonist.

It is one of the subtle remarks of Hume on certain religious

speculations that the tendency of them is to make men indifferent

to whatever takes place by destroying all ideas of good and evil. I

took occasion to apply this remark to something Blake said. If so,

I said, there is no use in discipline or education, no difference

between good and evil. He hastily broke in on me--'There is

no use in education. I hold it wrong. It is the great sin.[2]

It is eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That was

the fault of Plato--he knew of nothing but of the virtues and vices

and good and evil There is nothing in all that. Every thing is good

in God's eyes.' On my putting the obvious question--Is there

nothing absolutely evil in what men do? 'I am no judge of that.

Perhaps not in God's Eyes.' Though on this and other occasions he

spoke as if he denied altogether the existence of evil, and as if we

had nothing to do with right and wrong. It being sufficient to consider

all things as alike the work of God. [I interposed with the German

word objectively, which he approved of.] Yet at other times he spoke

of error as being in heaven. I asked about the _moral_ character

of Dante in writing his Vision: was he pure? '_Pure_' said Blake.

'Do you think there is any purity in God's eyes? The angels in heaven

are no more so than we--"he chargeth his angels with folly."'

He afterwards extended this to the Supreme Being--he is

liable to error too. Did he not repent him that he had made Nineveh?

It is easier to repeat the personal remarks of Blake than these

metaphysical speculations so nearly allied to the most opposite

systems. He spoke with seeming complacency of himself--said

he acted by command. The spirit said to him, 'Blake, be an artist

and nothing else.' In this there is felicity. His eye glistened while

he spoke of the joy of devoting himself solely to divine art. 'Art is

inspiration. When Michael Angelo or Raphael or Mr. Flaxman does

any of his fine things, he does them in the spirit.' Blake said, 'I

should be sorry if I had any earthly fame, for whatever natural

glory a man has is so much detracted from his spiritual glory. I

wish to do nothing for profit. I wish to live for art. I want nothing

whatever. I am quite happy.'

Among the[3] unintelligible sentiments which he

was continually expressing is his distinction between the natural

and the spiritual world. The natural world must be consumed. Incidentally

_Swedenborg_ was spoken of. He was a divine teacher--he

has done much good, and will do much good--he has corrected

many errors of Popery, and also of Luther and Calvin. Yet he

also said that _Swedenborg_ was wrong in endeavoring to explain

to the _rational_ faculty what the reason cannot comprehend: he

should have left that. As Blake mentioned _Swedenborg_ and

_Dante_ together I wished to know whether he considered their

visions of the same kind. As far as I could collect, he does. _Dante_

he said was the greater _poet._ He had _political_ objects.

Yet this, though wrong, does not appear in Blake's mind to affect the

truth of the vision. Strangely inconsistent with this was the language

of Blake about Wordsworth. Wordsworth he thinks is no Christian but a

Platonist. He asked me, 'Does he believe in the Scriptures?' On my

answering in the affirmative he said he had been much pained by

reading the introduction to the Excursion. It brought on a fit of illness.

The passage was produced and read:

'Jehovah--with his thunder, and the choir

Of shouting Angels, and the empyreal thrones,

I _pass_ them unalarmed.'

This _pass them unalarmed_ greatly offended Blake. 'Does

Mr. Wordsworth think his mind can _surpass_ Jehovah?' I tried

to twist this passage into a sense corresponding with Blake's own

theories, but filled [_sic_= failed], and Wordsworth was finally

set down as a pagan. But still with great praise as the greatest poet

of the age.

Jacob Boehmen was spoken of as a divinely inspired man. Blake

praised, too, the figures in Law's translation as being very beautiful.

Michael Angelo could not have done better. Though he spoke of his

happiness, he spoke of past sufferings, and of sufferings as necessary.

'There is suffering in heaven, for where there is the capacity of

enjoyment, there is the capacity of pain.'

I have been interrupted by a call from Talfourd in writing this

account--and I can not now recollect any distinct remarks--but

as Blake has invited me to go and see him I shall possibly have an

opportunity again of noting what he says, and I may be able hereafter

to throw connection, if not system, into what I have written above.

I feel great admiration and respect for him--he is certainly

a most amiable man--a good creature--and of his poetical

and pictorial genius there is no doubt, I believe, in the minds of judges.

Wordsworth and Lamb like his poems, and the Aders his paintings.

A few other detached thoughts occur to me. _Bacon_, _Locke_,

and _Newton_ are the three great teachers of Atheism or of Satan's

doctrine. Every thing is _Atheism_ which assumes the reality of the

natural and unspiritual world. _Irving._ He is a highly gifted

man--he is a sent man--but they who are sent sometimes[4]

go further than they ought.

_Dante_ saw Devils where I see none. I see only good. I saw

nothing but good in _Calvin's_ house--better than in Luther's;

he had harlots.

_Swedenborg._ Parts of his scheme are dangerous. His sexual

religion is dangerous.

I do not believe that the world is round. I believe it is quite flat.

I objected the circumnavigation. We were called to dinner at the

moment, and I lost the reply.

The _Sun._ 'I have conversed with the Spiritual Sun--I saw

him on Primrose-hill. He said, "Do you take me for the Greek Apollo?"

"No," I said, "that," [and Blake pointed to the sky] "that is the Greek

Apollo. He is Satan."'

'I know what is true by internal conviction. A doctrine is told

me--my heart says it must be true.' I corroborated this by

remarking on the impossibility of the unlearned man judging of

what are called the _external_ evidences of religion, in

which he heartily concurred.

I regret that I have been unable to do more than set down these

seeming idle and rambling sentences. The tone and manner are

incommunicable. There is a natural sweetness and gentility about

Blake which are delightful. And when he is not referring to his

Visions he talks sensibly and acutely.

His friend Linnel seems a great admirer.

Perhaps the best thing he said was his comparison of moral

with natural evil. 'Who shall say what God thinks evil? That is a wise

tale of the Mahometans--of the Angel of the Lord that murdered

the infant' [alluding to the Hermit of Parnel, I suppose]. 'Is not every

infant that dies of disease in effect murdered by an angel?'

17_th December._ For the sake of connection I will here

insert a minute of a short call I this morning made on Blake. He

dwells in Fountain Court in the Strand. I found him in a small

room, which seems to be both a working-room and a bedroom. Nothing

could exceed the squalid air both of the apartment and his dress,

but in spite of dirt--I might say filth--an air of natural

gentility is diffused over him. And his wife, notwithstanding the same

offensive character of her dress and appearance, has a good expression

of countenance, so that I shall have a pleasure in calling on and

conversing with these worthy people.

But I fear I shall not make any progress in ascertaining his opinions

and feelings--that there being really no system or connection in

his mind, all his future conversation will be but varieties of wildness

and incongruity.

I found [_sic_] at work on Dante. The book (Cary) and his

sketches both before him. He shewed me his designs, of which I

have nothing to say but that they evince a power of grouping and

of throwing grace and interest over conceptions most monstrous and

disgusting, which I should not have anticipated.

Our conversation began about Dante. 'He was an "Atheist," a

mere politician busied about this world as Milton was, till in his old

age he returned back to God whom he had had in his childhood.'

I tried to get out from Blake that he meant this charge only in

a higher sense, and not using the word Atheism in its popular

meaning. But he would not allow this. Though when he in like

manner charged Locke with Atheism and I remarked that Locke

wrote on the evidences of piety and lived a virtuous life, he had

nothing to reply to me nor reiterated the charge of willful deception.

I admitted that Locke's doctrine leads to Atheism, and this seemed

to satisfy him. From this subject we passed over to that of good

and evil, in which he repeated his former assertions more decidedly.

He allowed, indeed, that there is error, mistake, etc., and if these

be evil--then there is evil, but these are only negations.

Nor would he admit that any education should be attempted except

that of cultivation of the imagination and fine arts. 'What are called

the vices in the natural world are the highest sublimities in the

spiritual world.' When I asked whether if he had been a father he

would not have grieved if his child had become vicious or a great

criminal, he answered, 'I must not regard when I am endeavoring

to think rightly my own any more than other people's weaknesses.'

And when I again remarked that this doctrine puts an end to all

exertion or even wish to change anything, he had no reply. We

spoke of the Devil, and I observed that when a child I thought the

Manichaean doctrine or that of the two principles a rational one.

He assented to this, and in confirmation asserted that he did

not believe in the _omnipotence_ of God. 'The language of

the Bible on that subject is only poetical or allegorical.' Yet soon

after he denied that the natural world is anything. 'It is all nothing,

and Satan's empire is the empire of nothing.'

He reverted soon to his favorite expression, my Visions. 'I

saw Milton in imagination, and he told me to beware of being

misled by his Paradise Lost. In particular he wished me to show

the falsehood of his doctrine that the pleasures of _sex_

arose from the fall. The fall could not produce any pleasure.' I

answered, the fall produced a state of _evil_ in which there

was a mixture of good or pleasure. And in that sense the fall

may be said to produce the pleasure. But he replied that the

fall produced only generation and death. And then he went off

upon a rambling state of a union of sexes in man as in Ovid,

an androgynous state, in which I could not follow him.

As he spoke of Miltons appearing to him, I asked whether he

resembled the prints of him. He answered, 'All.' Of what age did

he appear to be? 'Various ages--sometimes a very old man.'

He spoke of Milton as being at one time a sort of classical Atheist,

and of Dante as being now with God.

Of the faculty of Vision, he spoke as one he has had from early

infancy. He thinks all men partake of it, but it is lost by not being

cultivated. And he eagerly assented to a remark I made, that all men

have all faculties to a greater or less degree. I am to renew my visits,

and to read Wordsworth to him, of whom he seems to entertain a high idea.

[Here B. has added _vide_ p. 174, _i.e._ Dec. 24,

below.]

_Sunday_ 11_th._ The greater part of the forenoon

was spent in writing the preceding account of my interview with Blake

in which I was interrupted by a call from Talfourd....

17_th._ Made a visit to Blake of which I have written fully

in a preceding page.

20_th_... Hundleby took coffee with me _tête à tête._

We talked of his personal concerns, of Wordsworth, whom I can't make

him properly enjoy; of Blake, whose peculiarities he can as little

relish....

_Saturday_ 24_th._ A call on _Blake._ My third

interview. I read him Wordsworth's incomparable ode, which he heartily

enjoyed. The same half crazy crotchets about the two worlds--the

eternal repetition of what must in time become tiresome. Again he

repeated to day, 'I fear Wordsworth loves Nature--and Nature

is the work of the Devil. The Devil is in us, as far as we are Nature.'

On my enquiring whether the Devil would not be destroyed by God

as being of less power, he denied that God has any power--asserted

that the Devil is eternally created not by God, but by God's permission.

And when I objected that permission implies power to prevent, he did

not seem to understand me. It was remarked that the parts of Wordworth's

ode which he most enjoyed were the most obscure and those I the least

like and comprehend....

_January_ 1826

6_th._ A call on Blake. I hardly feel it worth while to write

down his conversation, it is so much a repetition of his former talk.

He was very cordial to-day. I had procured him two subscriptions

for his Job from Geo. Procter and Bas. Montague. I paid £1 on each.

This, probably, put him in spirits, more than he was aware of--he

spoke of his being richer than ever on having learned to know me,

and he told Mrs. A. he and I were nearly of an opinion. Yet I have

practized no deception intentionally, unless silence be so. He

renewed his complaints, blended with his admiration of Wordsworth.

The oddest thing he said was that he had been commanded to do certain

things, that is, to write about Milton, and that he was applauded for

refusing--he struggled with the Angels and was victor. His

wife joined in the conversation....

8_th._ ... Then took tea with Basil Montague, Mrs. M.

there. A short chat about Coleridge, Irving, etc. She admires

Blake_--Encore une excellence là de plus._...

_February_

18_th._ Jos. Wedd breakfasted with me. Then called on

_Blake._ An amusing chat with him, but still no novelty.

The same round of extravagant and mad doctrines, which I shall

not now repeat, but merely notice their application.

He gave me, copied out by himself, Wordsworth's preface to

his Excursion. At the end he has added this note:--

'Solomon, when he married Pharaoh's daughter, became a convert

to the Heathen Mythology, talked exactly in this way of Jehovah

as a very inferior object of man's contemplations; he also passed him

by unalarmed, and was permitted. Jehovah dropped a tear and followed

him by his Spirit into the abstract void. It is called the divine Mercy.

Satan dwells in it, but mercy does not dwell in him.'

Of Wordsworth he talked as before. Some of his writings proceed

from the Holy Ghost, but then others are the work of the Devil.

However, I found on this subject Blake's language more in conformity

with Orthodox Christianity than before. He talked of the being under

the direction of _Self_; and of _Reason_ as the creature

of man and opposed to God's grace. And warmly declared that all he

knew was in the Bible, but then he understands by the Bible the spiritual

sense. For as to the natural sense, that Voltaire was commissioned by

God to expose. 'I have had much intercourse with Voltaire, and he

said to me I blasphemed the Son of Man, and it shall be forgiven

me. But they (the enemies of Voltaire) blasphemed the Holy Ghost

in me, and it shall not be forgiven them.' I asked in what language

Voltaire spoke--he gave an ingenious answer. 'To my sensation

it was English. It was like the touch of a musical key. He touched it

probably French, but to my ear it became English.' I spoke again of

the _form_ of the persons who appear to him. Asked why he did

not _draw_ them, 'It is not worth while. There are so many, the

labour would be too great. Besides there would be no use. As to

Shakespeare, he is exactly like the _old_ engraving--which

is called a bad one. I think it very good.'

I enquired about his writings. 'I have written more than Voltaire

or Rousseau--six or seven epic poems as long as Homer, and

20 tragedies as long as Macbeth.' He showed me his Vision (for so it

may be called) of Genesis--'as understood by a Christian

Visionary,' in which in a style resembling the Bible the spirit is given.

He read a passage at random. It was striking. He will not print any

more.[5] 'I write,' he says, 'when commanded by the spirits,

and the moment I have written I see the words fly about the

room in all directions. It is then published, and the spirits

can read. My MSS. of no further use. I have been tempted to

burn my MSS., but my wife won't let me.' She is right, said

I--and you have written these, not from yourself, but by a higher

order. The MSS. are theirs and your property. You cannot tell

what purpose they may answer--unforeseen to you. He liked this,

and said he would not destroy them. His philosophy he repeated--denying

causation, asserting everything to be the work of God or the

Devil--that there is a constant falling off from God--angels

becoming devils. Every man has a devil in him, and the conflict

is eternal between a man's self and God, etc. etc. etc. He told

me my copy of his songs would be 5 guineas, and was pleased

by my manner of receiving this information. He spoke of his

horror of money--of his turning pale when money had been

offered him, etc. etc. etc.

_May_

_Thursday_ 11_th._ Calls this morning on Blake, on

Thornton [etc.] ...

12_th._ ... Tea and supper at home. The Flaxmans, Masqueriers

(a Miss Forbes), Blake, and Sutton Sharpe.

On the whole the evening went off tolerably. Masquerier not

precisely the man to enjoy Blake, who was, however, not in an

_exalted_ state. Allusions only to his particular notions

while Masquerier commented on his opinions as if they were those

of a man of ordinary notions. Blake asserted that the oldest painter

poets were the best. Do you deny all progression? says Masquerier. 'Oh

yes!' I doubt whether Flaxman sufficiently tolerates Blake. But Blake

appreciates Flaxman as he ought. Blake relished my Stone drawings.

They staid till eleven.

Blake is more and more convinced that Wordsworth worships

_nature_ and is not a Bible Christian. I have sent him the

Sketches. We shall see whether they convert him.

_June_

13_th._ Another idle day. Called early on Blake. He was

as wild as ever, with no great novelty, except that he confessed

a _practical_ notion which would do him more injury than any

other I have heard from him. He says that from the Bible he

has learned that _eine Gemeinschaft der Frauen statt finden

sollte._ When I objected that _Ehestand_ seems to be a divine

institution, he referred to the Bible--'that from the beginning

it was not so.' He talked as usual of the spirits, asserted

that he had committed many murders, that reason is the only evil

or sin, and that careless, gay people are better than those who

think, etc. etc. etc.

_December_

_Thursday_ 7_th._ I sent Britt, to enquire after Mr.

Flaxman's health, etc., and was engaged looking over the Term

Reports while he was gone. On his return, he brought the melancholy

intelligence of his death early in the morning!!! The country has lost

one of its greatest and best of men. As an artist he has spread the

fame of the country beyond any others of his age. As a man he exhibited

a rare specimen of Christian and moral excellence.

I walked out and called at Mr. Soane's. He was from home. I then

called on Blake, desirous to see how, with his peculiar feelings

and opinions, he would receive the intelligence. It was much

as I expected--he had himself been very ill during the summer,

and his first observation was with a smile--'I thought I

should have gone first.' He then said, 'I cannot consider death

as anything but[6] a removing from one room to another.' One

thing led to another, and he fell into his wild rambling way

of talk. 'Men are born with a devil and an angel,' but this

he himself interpreted body and soul. Of the Old Testament he

seemed to think not favorably. 'Christ,' said he, 'took much

after his mother (the law), and in that respect was one of the

worst of men.' On my requiring an explanation, he said, 'There

was his turning the money changers out of the Temple. He had

no right to do that.' Blake then declared against those who

sat in judgement on others. 'I have never known a very bad man

who had not something very good about him.' He spoke of the

Atonement. Said, 'It is a horrible doctrine. If another man pay your

debt, I do not forgive it,' etc. etc. etc. He produced _Sintram_

by Fouqué--'This is better than my things.'

1827

_February_

_Friday_, 2_nd._ Götzenberger, the young painter from

Germany, called on me, and I accompanied him to Blake. We looked

over Blake's Dante. Götzenberger seemed highly gratified by the designs,

and Mrs. Aders says Götzenberger considers Blake, as the first

and Flaxman as the second man he had seen in England. The conversation

was slight--I was interpreter between them. And nothing

remarkable was said by Blake--he was interested apparently by

Götzenberger....

1828

_January_

8_th._ Breakfasted with Shott--Talfourd and B. Field

there. Walked with Field to Mrs. Blake. The poor old lady was more

affected than I expected, yet she spoke of her husband as dying

like an angel. She is the housekeeper of Linnell the painter and

engraver, and at present her services might well pay for her hoard.

A few of her husband's works are all her property. We found that

the Job is Linnell's property, and the print of Chaucer's pilgrimage

hers. Therefore Field bought a proof and I two prints at 2 1/2 guineas

each. I mean one for Lamb. Mrs. Blake is to look out some engravings

for me hereafter....

[Footnote 1: 'Any' crossed out.]

[Footnote 2: 'By which evil' crossed out.]

[Footnote 3: 'More remarkable' crossed out.]

[Footnote 4: 'Exceed their commission' crossed out.]

[Footnote 5: 'For the writer' crossed out.]

[Footnote 6: 'A passage from' crossed out.]

(2) FROM A LETTER OF CRABB ROBINSON TO DOROTHY WORDSWORTH

In a letter to Dorothy Wordsworth, not dated, but bearing the

postmark of February 20, 1826, there is the following reference to

Blake. No earlier reference to him occurs in the letter, in spite of

the sentence which follows:--

'I have above mentioned _Blake._ I forget whether I ever

mentioned to you this very interesting man, with whom I am now

become acquainted. Were the "Memorials" at my hand, I should quote

a fine passage in the Sonnet on the Cologne Cathedral as applicable

to the contemplation of this singular being.'

'I gave your brother some poems in MS. by him, and they interested

him--as well they might, for there is an affinity between them,

as there is between the regulated imagination of a wise poet and the

incoherent dreams of a poet. Blake is an engraver by trade, a

painter and a poet also, whose works have been subject of derision

to men in general; but he has a few admirers, and some of eminence

have eulogized his designs. He has lived in obscurity and poverty,

to which the constant hallucinations in which he lives have doomed

him. I do not mean to give you a detailed account of him. A few

words will suffice to inform you of what class he is. He is not so

much a disciple of Jacob Böhmen and Swedenborg as a fellow Visionary.

He lives, as they did, in a world of his own, enjoying constant

intercourse with the world of spirits. He receives visits from

Shakespeare, Milton, Dante, Voltaire, etc. etc. etc., and has given

me repeatedly their very words in their conversations. His paintings

are copies of what he saw in his Visions. His books (and his MSS.

are immense in quantity) are dictations from the spirits. He told

me yesterday that when he writes it is for the spirits only; he sees

the words fly about the room the moment he has put them on paper,

and his book is then published. A man so favoured, of course, has

sources of wisdom and truth peculiar to himself. I will not pretend to

give you an account of his religious and philosophical opinions.

They are a strange compound of Christianity, Spinozism, and

Platonism. I must confine myself to what he has said about your

brother's works, and[1] I fear this may lead me far enough to

fatigue you in following me. After what I have said, Mr. W.

will not be flattered by knowing that Blake deems him the _only

poet_ of the age, nor much alarmed by hearing that, like Muley

Moloch, Blake thinks that he is often in his works an _Atheist._

Now, according to Blake, Atheism consists in worshipping the

natural world, which same natural world, properly speaking, is

nothing real, but a mere illusion produced by Satan. Milton

was for a great part of his life an Atheist, and therefore has

fatal errors in his Paradise Lost, which he has often begged

Blake to confute. Dante (though now with God) lived and died

an Atheist. He was the slave of the world and time. But Dante

and Wordsworth, in spite of their Atheism, were inspired by the

Holy Ghost. Indeed, all real poetry is the work of the Holy Ghost,

and Wordsworth's poems (a large proportion, at least) are the

work of divine inspiration. Unhappily he is left by God to his own

illusions, and then the Atheism is apparent. I had the pleasure of

reading to Blake in my best style (and you know I am vain on

that point, and think I read W.'s poems particularly well) the Ode

on Immortality. I never witnessed greater delight in any listener;

and in general Blake loves the poems. What appears to have disturbed

his mind, on the other hand, is the Preface to the Excursion.

He told me six months ago that it caused him a bowel complaint

which nearly killed him. I have in his hand a copy of the extract

[with the][2] following note at the end: "Solomon, when he

married Pharaoh's daughter and became a convert to the Heathen

Mythology, talked exactly in this way of Jehovah as a very inferior

object of man's contemplation; he also passed him by unalarmed,

and was permitted. Jehovah dropped a tear, and followed him by

his Spirit into the abstract void. It is called the divine mercy. Satan

dwells in it, but Mercy does not dwell in him, he knows not to forgive."

When I first saw Blake at Mrs. Aders's he very earnestly asked me,

"Is Mr. W. a sincere real Christian?" In reply to my answer he said,

"If so, what does he mean by 'the worlds to which the heaven of

heavens is but a veil,' and who is he that shall 'pass Jehovah

unalarmed'?" It is since then that I have lent Blake all the works

which he but imperfectly knew. I doubt whether what I have written

will excite your and Mr. W.'s curiosity; but there is something

so delightful about the man--though in great poverty, he

is so perfect a gentleman, with such genuine dignity and independence,

scorning presents, and of such native delicacy in words, etc.

etc. etc., that I have not scrupled promising introducing him

and Mr. W. together. He expressed his thanks strongly, saying,

"You do me honor, Mr. W. is a great man. Besides, he may convince

me I am wrong about him. I have been wrong before now," etc.

Coleridge has visited Blake, and, I am told, talks finely about

him. That I might not encroach on a third sheet I have compressed

what I had to say about Blake. You must _see_ him one of

these days and he will interest you at all events, whatever

character you give to his mind.'

The main part of the letter is concerned with Wordsworth's

arrangement of his poems, which Crabb Robinson says that he

agrees with Lamb in disliking. He then says: 'It is a sort of intellectual

suicide in your brother not to have continued his admirable series

of poems "dedicated to liberty," he might add, "and public virtue." I

assure you it gives me real pain when I think that some future

commentator may possibly hereafter write, "This great poet survived

to the fifth decenary of the nineteenth century, but he appears to

have dyed in the year 1814 as far as life consisted in an active

sympathy with the temporary welfare of his fellow-creatures...."

[More follows, and then] 'I had no intention, I assure you, to

make so long a parenthesis or indeed to advert to such a subject.

And I wish you not to read any part of this letter which might

be thought impertinent.... In favor of my affectionate attachment

to your brother's fame, do forgive me this digression, and, as I

said above, keep it to yourself.'

[At the end he says] 'My best remembrances to Mr. W. And

recollect again that you are not to read _all_ this letter to

any one if it will offend, and you are yourself to forgive it as coming

from one who is affly your friend,

H. C. R.'

On April 6, Wordsworth answers the letter from Rydal Mount,

saying: 'My sister had taken flight for Herefordshire when your

letter, for such we guessed it to be, arrived--it was broken

open--(pray forgive the offense) and your charges of concealment

and reserve frustrated. We are all, at all times, so glad to hear

from you that we could not resist the temptation to purchase

the pleasure at the expense of the peccadillo, for which we beg

pardon with united voices. You are kind enough to mention my

poems.'

[All the rest of the letter is taken up with them, and it ends,

with no mention of Blake] 'I can write no more. T. Clarkson is

going. Your supposed Biography entertained me much. I could

give you the other side. Farewell.'

[There is no signature.]

[Footnote 1: 'And as I am requested to copy what he has written for

the purpose' crossed out.]

[Footnote 2: The MS. is here torn.]

(3) FROM CRABB ROBINSON'S REMINISCENCES

1810

I was amusing myself this spring by writing an account of the

insane poet, painter, and engraver, _Blake._ Perthes of Hamburg

had written to me asking me to send him an article for a new German

magazine, entitled Vaterländische Annalen, which he was about to

set up, and Dr. _Malkin_ having in his Memoirs of his son

given an account of this extraordinary genius with specimens of

his poems, I resolved out of these to compile a paper. And this I did,[1]

and the paper was translated by Dr. Julius, who, many years

afterwards, introduced himself to me as my translator. It appears

in the single number of the second volume of the Vaterländische

Annalen. For it was at this time that Buonaparte united Hamburg to

the French Empire, on which Perthes manfully gave up the magazine,

saying, as he had no longer a Vaterland, there could be no Vaterländische

Annalen. But before I drew up the paper, I went to see a gallery of

Blake's paintings, which were exhibited by his brother, a hosier in

Carnaby Market. The entrance was 2s. 6d., catalogue included. I was

deeply interested by the catalogue as well as the pictures. I took

4--telling the brother I hoped he would let me come in again.

He said, 'Oh! as often as you please.' I dare say such a thing had never

happened before or did afterwards. I afterwards became acquainted

with Blake, and will postpone till hereafter what I have to say of this

extraordinary character, whose life has since been written very

inadequately by Allan Cunningham in his _Lives of the English

Artists._

[At the side is written]--_N. B_. What I have written

about Blake will appear at the end of the year 1825.

1825

WILLIAM BLAKE

19/02/52

It was at the latter end of the year 1825 that I put in writing

my recollections of this most remarkable man. The larger portions

are under the date of the 18th of December. He died in the year

1827. I have therefore now revised what I wrote on the 10th of

December and afterwards, and without any attempt to reduce to

order, or make consistent the wild and strange rhapsodies uttered

by this insane man of genius, thinking it better to put down what

I find as it occurs, though I am aware of the objection that may

justly be made to the recording the ravings of insanity in which it

may be said there can be found no principle, as there is no

ascertainable law of mental association which is obeyed; and from

which therefore nothing can be learned.

This would be perfectly true of _mere_ madness--but does not

apply to that form of insanity ordinarily called monomania,

and may be disregarded in a case like the present in which the

subject of the remark was unquestionably what a German would

call a _Verunglückter Genie_, whose theosophic dreams bear a

close resemblance to those of _Swedenborg_--whose genius as

an artist was praised by no less men than _Flaxman_ and _Fuseli_--and

whose poems were thought worthy republication by the biographer

of _Swedenborg_ (_Wilkinson_), and of which Wordsworth said

after reading a number--they were the 'Songs of Innocence and

Experience showing the two opposite sides of the human soul'--'There

is no doubt this poor man was mad, but there is something in

the madness of this man which interests me more than the sanity

of Lord Byron and Walter Scott!' The German painter _Götzenberger_

(a man indeed who ought not to be named _after the others_ as

an authority for my writing about Blake) said, on his returning

to Germany about the time at which I am now arrived, 'I saw in

England many men of talents, but only three men of genius, Coleridge,

Flaxman, and Blake, and of these Blake was the greatest.' I do

not mean to intimate my assent to this opinion, nor to do more

than supply such materials as my intercourse with him furnish

to an uncritical narrative to which I shall confine myself. I

have written a few sentences in these reminiscences already,

those of the year 1810. I had not then begun the regular journal

which I afterwards kept. I will therefore go over the ground

again and introduce these recollections of 1825 by a reference to

the slight knowledge I had of him before, and what occasioned my

taking an interest in him, not caring to repeat what Cunningham has

recorded of him in the volume of his _Lives of the British Painters_,

etc. etc., except thus much. It appears that he was born...

[The page ends here.]

_Dr. Malkin_, our Bury Grammar School Headmaster, published

in the year 1806 a Memoir of a very precocious child who died... years

old, and he prefixed to the Memoir an account of Blake, and in the

volume he gave an account of Blake as a painter and poet, and printed

some specimens of his poems, viz. 'The Tyger,' and ballads and mystical

lyrical poems, all of a wild character, and M. gave an account of Visions

which Blake related to his acquaintance. I knew that Flaxman thought

highly of him, and though he did not venture to extol him as a genuine

seer, yet he did not join in the ordinary derision of him as a madman.

Without having seen him, yet I had already conceived a high opinion

of him, and thought he would furnish matter for a paper interesting

to Germans, and therefore when _Fred. Perthes_, the patriotic

publisher at Hamburg, wrote to me in 1810 requesting me to give him an

article for his Patriotische Annalen, I thought I could do no better than

send him a paper on Blake, which was translated into German by _Dr.

Julius_, filling, with a few small poems copied and translated, 24

pages. These appeared in the first and last No. of volume 2 of the

Annals. The high-minded editor boldly declared that as the Emperor

of France had annexed Hamburg to France he had no longer a country,

and there could no longer be any patriotical Annals!!! Perthes' Life has

been written since, which I have riot seen. I am told there is in it a

civil mention of me. This _Dr. Julius_ introduced himself to

me as such translator a few years ago. He travelled as an Inspector of

Prisons for the Prussian Government into the United States of America.

In order to enable me to write this paper, which, by the bye, has nothing

in it of the least value, I went to see an exhibition of Blake's original

paintings in Carnaby Market, at a hosier's, Blake's brother. These

paintings filled several rooms of an ordinary dwelling-house, and

for the sight a half-crown was demanded of the visitor, for which he

had a catalogue. This catalogue I possess, and it is a very curious

exposure of the state of the artist's mind. I wished to send it to

Germany and to give a copy to Lamb and others, so I took four,

and giving 10s., bargained that I should be at liberty to go again.

'Free! as long as you live,'[2] said the brother, astonished

at such a liberality, which he had never experienced before,

nor I dare say did afterwards. _Lamb_ was delighted with the

catalogue, especially with the description of a painting afterwards

engraved, and connected with which is an anecdote that, unexplained,

would reflect discredit on a most amiable and excellent man, but

which Flaxman considered to have been not the willful act of

_Stodart_. It was after the friends of Blake had circulated

a subscription paper for an engraving of his _Canterbury Pilgrims_,

that _Stodart_ was made a party to an engraving of a painting

of the same subject by himself. Stodart's work is well known,

Blake's is known by very few. Lamb preferred it greatly to Stodart's,

and declared that Blake's description was the finest criticism he

had ever read of Chaucer's poem.

In this catalogue Blake writes of himself in the most outrageous

language--says, 'This artist defies all competition in colouring'--that

none can beat him, for none can beat the Holy Ghost--that he

and Raphael and Michael Angelo were under divine influence--while

Corregio and Titian worshipped a lascivious and therefore cruel

deity--Reubens a proud devil, etc. etc. He declared, speaking

of color, Titian's men to be of leather and his women of chalk,

and ascribed his own perfection in coloring to the advantage

he enjoyed in seeing daily the primitive men walking in their

native nakedness in the mountains of Wales. There were about

thirty oil-paintings, the coloring excessively dark and high,

the veins black, and the color of the primitive men very like that

of the Red Indians. In his estimation they would probably be the

primitive men. Many of his designs were unconscious imitations.

This appears also in his published works--the designs of _Blair's

Grave_, which Fuseli and Schiavonetti highly extolled--and in

his designs to illustrate _Job_, published after his death for

the benefit of his widow.

23/2/52.

To this catalogue and in the printed poems, the small pamphlet

which appeared in 1783, the edition put forth by Wilkinson of

The Songs of Innocence,' and other works already mentioned, to

which I have to add the first four books of Young's Night Thoughts,

and Allan Cunningham's Life of him, I now refer, and will confine

myself to the memorandums I took of his conversation. I had

heard of him from Flaxman, and for the first time dined in his

company at the Aders'. _Linnell_ the painter also was there--an

artist of considerable talent, and who professed to take[3]

a deep interest in Blake and his work, whether of a perfectly

disinterested character may be doubtful, as will appear hereafter.

This was on the 10th of December.

I was aware of his idiosyncrasies and therefore to a great

degree prepared for the sort of conversation which took place

at and after dinner, an altogether unmethodical rhapsody on art,

poetry, and religion--he saying the most strange things in the

most unemphatic manner, speaking of his _Visions_ as any

man would of the most ordinary occurrence. He was then 68 years

of age. He had a broad, pale face, a large full eye with a benignant

expression--at the same time a look of languor,[4] except when

excited, and then he had an air of inspiration. But not such

as without a previous acquaintance with him, or attending to

_what_ he said, would suggest the notion that he was insane.

There was nothing _wild_ about his look, and though very ready

to be drawn out to the assertion of his favorite ideas, yet with

no warmth as if he wanted to make proselytes. Indeed one of the

peculiar features of his scheme, as far as it was consistent, was

indifference and a very extraordinary degree of tolerance and

satisfaction with what had taken place.[5] A sort of pious and humble

optimism, not the scornful optimism of Candide. But at the same

time that he was very ready to praise he seemed incapable of envy,

as he was of discontent. He warmly praised some composition

of Mrs. Aders, and having brought for Aders an engraving of his

Canterbury Pilgrims, he remarked that one of the figures resembled

a figure in one of the works then in Aders's room, so that he had been

accused of having stolen from it. But he added that he had drawn the

figure in question 20 years before he had seen the _original_

picture. However, there is 'no wonder in the resemblance, as in my

youth I was always studying that class of painting.' I have forgotten

what it was, but his taste was in close conformity with the old German

school.

This was somewhat at variance with what he said both this day

and afterwards--implying that he copies his Visions. And it was

on this first day that, in answer to a question from me, he said, '_The

Spirits told me._' This lead me to say: Socrates used pretty much

the same language. He spoke of his Genius. Now, what affinity or

resemblance do you suppose was there between the _Genius_

which inspired Socrates and your _Spirits?_ He smiled, and for

once it seemed to me as if he had a feeling of vanity gratified.[6]

'The same as in our countenances.' He paused and said, 'I was

Socrates'--and then as if he had gone too far in that--'or

a sort of brother. I must have had conversations with him. So I had

with Jesus Christ. I have an obscure recollection of having been with

both of them.' As I had for many years been familiar with the idea

that an eternity _a parte post_ was inconceivable without an

eternity _a parte ante_, I was naturally led to express that

thought on this occasion. His eye brightened on my saying this.

He eagerly assented: 'To be sure. We are all coexistent with God;

members of the Divine body, and partakers of the Divine nature.'

Blake's having adopted this Platonic idea led me on our _tête-à-tête_

walk home at night to put the popular question to him, concerning

the imputed Divinity of Jesus Christ. He answered: 'He is the

only God'--but then he added--'And so am I and so are you.'

He had before said--and that led me to put the question--that

Christ ought not to have suffered himself to be crucified.' 'He should

not have attacked the Government. He had no business with such

matters.' On my representing this to be inconsistent with the sanctity

of divine qualities, he said Christ was not yet become the Father. It

is hard on bringing together these fragmentary recollections[7]

to fix Blake's position in relation to Christianity, Platonism, and

Spinozism.

It is one of the subtle remarks of _Hume_ on the tendency

of certain religious notions to reconcile us to whatever occurs, as

God's will. And apply--this to something Blake said, and drawing

the inference that there is no use in education, he hastily rejoined:

'There _is_ no use in education. I hold it wrong. It is the great

Sin. It is eating of the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil. That was

the fault of Plato: he knew of nothing but the Virtues and Vices.

There is nothing in all that. Everything is good in God's eyes.' On

my asking whether there is nothing absolutely evil in what man does,

he answered: 'I am no judge of that--perhaps not in God's

eyes.' Notwithstanding this, he, however, at the same time spoke

of error as being in heaven; for on my asking whether Dante was

pure in writing his _Vision_, 'Pure,' said Blake. 'Is there any

purity in God's eyes? No. "He chargeth his angels with folly.'" He even

extended this liability to error to the Supreme Being. 'Did he

not repent him that he had made Nineveh?' My journal here has

the remark that it is easier to retail his personal remarks than to

reconcile those which seemed to be in conformity with the most

opposed abstract systems. He spoke with seeming complacency

of his own life in connection with Art. In becoming an artist he

'acted by command.' The Spirits said to him, 'Blake, be an artist.'

His eye glistened while he spoke of the joy of devoting himself to

_divine art_ alone. 'Art is inspiration. When Michael Angelo

or Raphael, in their day, or Mr. Flaxman, does any of his fine things,

he does them in the Spirit.' Of fame he said: 'I should be sorry if

I had any earthly fame, for whatever natural glory a man has is so

much detracted from his spiritual glory. I wish to do nothing for

profit. I want nothing--I am quite happy.' This was confirmed

to me on my subsequent interviews with him. His distinction between

the Natural and Spiritual worlds was very confused. Incidentally,

Swedenborg was mentioned--he declared him to be a Divine

Teacher. He had done, and would do, much good. Yet he did wrong

in endeavoring to explain to the _reason_ what it could not

comprehend. He seemed to consider, but that was not clear, the

visions of Swedenborg and Dante as of the same kind. Dante was

the greater poet. He too was wrong in occupying his mind about

political objects. Yet this did not appear to affect his estimation of

Dante's genius, or his opinion of the truth of Dante's visions. Indeed,

when he even declared Dante to be an Atheist, it was accompanied

by expression of the highest admiration; though, said he, Dante

saw Devils where I saw none.[8]

I put down in my journal the following insulated remarks. _Jacob

Böhmen_ was placed among the divinely inspired men. He praised

also the designs to Law's translation of Böhmen. Michael Angelo could

not have surpassed them.

'_Bacon, Locke_, and _Newton_ are the three great

teachers of Atheism, or Satan's Doctrine,' he asserted.

'_Irving_ is a highly gifted man--he is a _sent_ man;

but they who are sent sometimes go further than they ought.'[9]

_Calvin_. I saw nothing but good in _Calvin's_ house.

In _Luther's_ there were _Harlots._ He declared his

opinion that the earth is flat, not round, and just as I had objected

the circumnavigation dinner was announced. But objections were

seldom of any use. The wildest of his assertions was made with the

veriest indifference of tone,[10] as if altogether insignificant.

It respected the natural and spiritual worlds. By way of example

of the difference between them, he said, '_You_ never saw the

spiritual Sun. I have. I saw him on Primrose Hill.' He said,

'Do you take me for the Greek Apollo?' 'No!' I said. '_That_

(pointing to the sky) that is the Greek Apollo. He is Satan.'

Not everything was thus absurd. There were glimpses and flashes

of truth and beauty: as when he compared moral with physical

evil. 'Who shall say what God thinks evil? That is a wise tale

of the Mahometans--of the Angel of the Lord who murdered

the Infant.'--The Hermit of Parnell, I suppose.--'Is not

every infant that dies of a natural death in reality slain by an Angel?'

And when he joined to the assurance of his happiness, that of

his having suffered, and that it was necessary, he added, 'There is

suffering in Heaven; for where there is the capacity of enjoyment,

there is the capacity of pain.[11]

I include among the glimpses of truth this assertion, 'I know

what is true by internal conviction. A doctrine is stated. My heart

tells me It _must_ be true.' I remarked, in confirmation of

it, that, to an unlearned man, what are called the _external_

evidences of religion can carry no conviction with them; and this

he assented to.

After my first evening with him at Aders's, I made the remark

in my journal, that his observations, apart from his Visions and

references to the spiritual world, were sensible and acute. In the

sweetness of his countenance and gentility of his manner he added

an indescribable grace to his conversation. I added my regret,

which I must now repeat, at my inability to give more than incoherent

thoughts. Not altogether my fault perhaps.

25/2/52.

On the 17th I called on him in his house in Fountain's Court

in the Strand. The interview was a short one, and what I saw was

more remarkable than what I heard. He was at work engraving in

a small bedroom, light, and looking out on a mean yard. Everything

in the room squalid and indicating poverty, except himself. And

there was a natural gentility about him, and an insensibility to the

seeming poverty, which quite removed the impression. Besides,

his linen was clean, his hand white, and his air quite unembarrassed

when he begged me to sit down as if he were in a palace. There was

but one chair in the room besides that on which he sat. On my

putting my hand to it, I found that it would have fallen to pieces

if I had lifted it, so, as if I had been a Sybarite, I said with a smile,

'Will you let me indulge myself?' and I sat on the bed, and near him,[12]

and during my short stay there was nothing in him that betrayed

that he was aware of what to other persons might have been even

offensive, not in his person, but in all about him.

His wife I saw at this time, and she seemed to be the very

woman to make him happy. She had been formed by him. Indeed,

otherwise, she could not have lived with him. Notwithstanding her

dress, which was poor and dirty, she had a good expression in her

countenance, and, with a dark eye, had remains[13] of beauty

in her youth. She had that virtue of virtues in a wife, an implicit

reverence of her husband. It is quite certain that she believed

in all his visions. And on one occasion, not this day, speaking

of his Visions, she said, 'You know, dear, the first time you

saw God was when you were four years old, and he put his head

to the window and set you a-screaming.' In a word, she was formed

on the Miltonic model, and like the first Wife Eve worshipped

God in her husband. He being to her what God was to him. Vide

Milton's Paradise Lost--_passim_.

26/2/52.

He was making designs or engravings, I forget which. Carey's

Dante was before [_sic._] He showed me some of his designs

from Dante, of which I do not presume to speak. They were too

much above me. But Götzenberger, whom I afterwards took to see

them, expressed the highest admiration of them. They are in the

hands of _Linnell_ the painter, and, it has been suggested, are

reserved by him for publication when Blake may have become[14] an

object of interest to a greater number than he could be at this age.

_Dante_ was again the subject of our conversation. And Blake

declared him a mere politician and atheist, busied about this world's

affairs; as Milton was till, in his (M.'s) old age, he returned back

to the God he had abandoned in childhood.[15] I in vain endeavoured

to obtain from him a qualification of the term atheist, so as not to

include him in the ordinary reproach. And yet he afterwards spoke

of Dante's being _then_ with God. I was more successful when

he also called Locke an atheist, and imputed to him willful deception,

and seemed satisfied with my admission, that Locke's philosophy

led to the Atheism of the French school. He reiterated his former

strange notions on morals--would allow of no other education

than what lies in the cultivation of the fine arts and the imagination.

'What are called the Vices in the natural world, are the highest

sublimities in the spiritual world.' And when I supposed the case

of his being the father of a vicious son and asked him how he would

feel, he evaded the question by saying that in trying to think correctly

he must not regard his own weaknesses any more than other people's.

And he was silent to the observation that his doctrine denied evil.

He seemed not unwilling to admit the Manichaean doctrine of two

principles, as far as it is found in the idea of the Devil. And said

expressly said [_sic_] he did not believe in the omnipotence

of God. The language of the Bible is only poetical or allegorical on the

subject, yet he at the same time denied the _reality_ of the

natural world. Satan's empire is the empire of nothing.

As he spoke of frequently seeing Milton, I ventured to ask,

half ashamed at the time, which of the three or four portraits

in _Hollis's_ Memoirs (vols. in 4to) is the most like. He

answered, 'They are all like, at different ages. I have seen him as

a youth and as an old man with a long flowing beard. He came

lately as an old man--he said he came to ask a favor of

me. He said he had committed an error in his Paradise Lost,

which he wanted me to correct, in a poem or picture; but I declined.

I said I had my own duties to perform.' It is a presumptuous

question, I replied--might I venture to ask--what that could be.

'He wished me to expose the falsehood of his doctrine, taught

in the Paradise Lost, that[16] sexual intercourse arose out

of the Fall. How that cannot be, for no good can spring out

of evil.' But, I replied, if the consequence were evil, mixed with

good, then the good might be ascribed to the common cause. To

this he answered by a reference to the _androgynous_ state,

in which I could not possibly follow him. At the time that he

asserted his own possession of this gift of Vision, he did not boast

of it as peculiar to himself; all men might have it if they would.

1826

27/2/52.

On the 24th I called a second time on him. And on this occasion

it was that I read to him _Wordsworth's Ode_ on the supposed

pre-existent State, and the subject of Wordsworth's religious

character was discussed when we met on the 18th of Feb., and the

12th of May. I will here bring together Blake's declarations concerning

Wordsworth, and set down his marginalia in the 8vo. edit. A.D. 1815,

vol. I. I had been in the habit, when reading this marvelous Ode

to friends, to omit one or two passages, especially that beginning:

'But there's a Tree, of many one,'

Lest I should be rendered ridiculous, being unable to explain

precisely _what_ I admired. Not that I acknowledged this to

be a fair test. But with Blake I could fear nothing of the kind. And it

was this very stanza which threw him almost into a hysterical rapture.

His delight in Wordsworth's poetry was intense.[17] Nor did it seem less,

notwithstanding the reproaches he continually cast on Wordsworth

for his imputed worship of nature;[18] which in the mind

of Blake constituted Atheism [see "Introduction."].

28/2/52.

The combination of the wannest praise with imputations which

from another would assume the most serious character, and the

liberty he took to interpret as he pleased, rendered it as difficult to

be offended as to reason with him. The eloquent descriptions of

Nature in Wordsworth's poems were conclusive proofs of atheism,

for whoever believes in Nature, said Blake, disbelieves in God. For

Nature is the work of the Devil. On my obtaining from him the

declaration that the Bible was the Word of God, I referred to the

commencement of Genesis--In the beginning God created the

Heavens and the Earth. But I gained nothing by this, for I was

triumphantly told that this God was not Jehovah, but the Elohim;

and the doctrine of the Gnostics repeated with sufficient consistency

to silence one so unlearned as myself.

The Preface to the Excursion, especially the verses quoted

from book i. of the Recluse, so troubled him as to bring on a fit

of illness. These lines he singled out:

Jehovah with his thunder, and the Choir

Of shouting Angels, and the Empyreal throne,

I pass them unalarmed.'

Does Mr. Wordsworth think he can surpass Jehovah? There was

a copy of the whole passage in his own hand,[19] in the volume of

Wordsworth's poems sent to my chambers after his death. There

was this note at the end: 'Solomon, when he married Pharaoh's

daughter, and became a convert to the Heathen Mythology, talked

exactly in this way of Jehovah, as a very inferior object of Man's

contemplations; he also passed him unharmed, and was permitted.

Jehovah dropped a tear and followed him by his Spirit into the

abstract void. It is called the Divine Mercy. Sarah dwells in it, but

Mercy does not dwell in Him.'

Some of Wordsworth's poems he maintained were from the Holy

Ghost, others from the Devil. I lent him the 8vo edition, two vols.,

of Wordsworth's poems, which he had in his possession at the time

of his death. They were sent me then. I did not recognize the pencil

notes he made in them to be his for some time, and was on the point

of rubbing them out under that impression, when I made the discovery.

The following are found in the 3rd vol., in the fly-leaf under

the words: Poems referring to the Period of Childhood.

29/2/52.

'I see in Wordsworth the Natural man rising up against the

Spiritual man continually, and then he is no poet, but a Heathen

Philosopher at Enmity against all true poetry or inspiration.'

Under the first poem:

'And I could wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety,'

He had written, 'There is no such thing as natural piety, because

the natural man is at enmity with God.' P. 43, under the Verses 'To

H. C., six years old'--'This is all in the highest degree

imaginative and equal to any poet, but not superior. I cannot

think that real poets have any competition. None are greatest

in the kingdom of heaven. It is so in poetry.' P. 44, 'On the

Influence of Natural Objects,' at the bottom of the page. 'Natural

objects always did and now do weaken, deaden, and obliterate

imagination in me. Wordsworth must know that what he writes

valuable is not to be found in Nature. Bead Michael Angelo's

sonnet, vol. iv. p. 179.' That is, the one beginning:

'No mortal object did these eyes behold

When first they met the placid light of thine.'[20]

It is remarkable that Blake, whose judgements were on most

points so very singular, on one subject closely connected with

Wordsworth's poetical reputation should have taken a very commonplace

view. Over the heading of the 'Essay Supplementary to the Preface'

at the end of the vol. he wrote, 'I do not know who wrote these

Prefaces; they are very mischievous, and direct contrary to

Wordsworth's own practice' (see "III. From Lady Charlotte Bury's Diary.")

This is not the defense of his own style in opposition to what is

called Poetic Diction, but a sort of historic vindication of the

_unpopular_ poets. On Macpherson, p. 364, Wordsworth wrote

with the severity with which all great writers have written of him.

Blake's comment below was, 'I believe both Macpherson and Chatterton,

that what they say is ancient is so.' And in the following page, 'I own

myself an admirer of Ossian equally with any other poet whatever.

Rowley and Chatterton also.' And at the end of this Essay he wrote,

'It appears to me as if the last paragraph beginning "Is it the spirit

of the whole," etc., was written by another hand and mind from

the rest of these Prefaces; they are the opinions of [ ]

landscape-painter. Imagination is the divine vision not of the world,

nor of man, nor from man as he is a natural man, but only as he

is a spiritual man. Imagination has nothing to do with memory.'

1826

1/3/52.

_19th Feb._ It was this day in connection with the assertion

that[21] the Bible is the Word of God and all truth is to be

found in it, he using language concerning man's reason being

opposed to grace very like that used by the Orthodox Christian,

that he qualified, and as the same Orthodox would say utterly

nullified all he said by declaring that he understood the Bible

in a Spiritual sense. As to the natural sense, he said _Voltaire_

was commissioned by God to expose that. 'I have had,' he said,

'much intercourse with Voltaire, and he said to me, "I blasphemed

the Son of Man, and it shall be forgiven me, but they (the enemies

of Voltaire) blasphemed the Holy Ghost in me, and it shall not

be forgiven to them." 'I ask him in what language Voltaire spoke.

His answer was ingenious and gave no encouragement to cross-questioning:

'To my sensations it was English. It was like the touch of a

musical key; he touched it probably French, but to my ear it

became English.' I also enquired as I had before about the form

of the persons[22] who appeared to him, and asked why he did

not _draw_ them. 'It is not worth while,' he said. 'Besides

there are so many that the labour would be too great. And there would

be no use in it.' In answer to an enquiry about Shakespeare, 'he is

exactly like the old engraving--which is said to be a bad one.

I think it very good.' I enquired about his own writings. 'I have

written,' he answered, 'more than Rousseau or Voltaire--six

or seven Epic poems as long as Homer and 20 Tragedies as long

as Macbeth.' He shewed me his 'Version of Genesis,'[23] for so it may

be called, as understood by a Christian Visionary. He read a

wild passage in a sort of Bible style. 'I shall print[24] no more,'

he said. 'When I am commanded by the Spirits, then I write, and

the moment I have written, I see the words fly about the room

in all directions. It is then published. The Spirits can read, and

my MS. is of no further use. I have been tempted to burn my MS.,

but my wife won't let me.' She is right, I answered; you write not

from yourself but from higher order. The MSS. are their property,

not yours. You cannot tell what purpose they may answer. This

was addressed _ad hominem._ And it indeed amounted only to

a deduction from his own principles. He incidentally denied

_causation_, every thing being the work of God or Devil.

Every man has a Devil in himself, and the conflict between his

_Self_ and God is perpetually going on. I ordered of him

to-day a copy of his songs for 5 guineas. My[25] manner of

receiving his mention of price pleased him. He spoke of his horror

of money and of turning pale when it was offered him, and this

was certainly unfeigned.

In the No. of the _Gents. Magazine_ for last Jan. there is

a letter by _Gromek_ to Blake printed in order to convict

Blake of selfishness. It cannot possibly be substantially true. I

may elsewhere notice it.

13_th June._ I saw him again in June. He was as wild as

ever, says my journal, but he was led today to make assertions more

palpably mischievous, if capable of influencing other minds, and

immoral, supposing them to express the will[26] of a responsible

agent, than anything he had said before. As, for instance, that he

had learned from the Bible that Wives should be in common. And

when I objected that marriage was a Divine institution, he referred

to the Bible--'that from the beginning it was not so.' He

affirmed that he had committed many murders, and repeated his

doctrine, that reason is the only sin, and that careless, gay people

are better than those who think, etc. etc.

It was, I believe, on the 7th of December that I saw him last.

I had just heard of the death of Flaxman, a man whom he professed

to admire, and was curious to know how he would receive the

intelligence. It was as I expected.[27] He had been ill during

the summer, and he said with a smile, 'I thought I should have

gone first.' He then said, 'I cannot think of death as more than

the going out of one room into another.' And Flaxman was no longer

thought of. He relapsed into his ordinary train of thinking. Indeed I

had by this time learned that there was nothing to be gained by

frequent intercourse. And therefore it was that after this interview

I was not anxious to be frequent in my visits. This day he said, 'Men

are born with an Angel and, a Devil.' This he himself interpreted as

Soul and Body, and as I have long since said of the strange sayings

of a man who enjoys a high reputation, 'it is more in the language

than the thought that this singularity is to be looked for.' And this

day he spoke of the Old Testament as if [_sic_] were the evil

element. Christ, he said, took much after his mother, and in so far

was one of the worst of men. On my asking him for an instance, he

referred to his turning the moneychangers out of the Temple--he

had no right to do that. He digressed into a condemnation of those

who sit in judgement on others. 'I have never known a very bad man

who had not something very good about him.'

Speaking of the Atonement in the ordinary Calvinistic sense,

he said, 'It is a horrible doctrine; if another pay your debt, I do not

forgive it.'

I have no account of any other call--but there is probably

an omission. I took Götzenberger to see him, and he met the

Masqueriers in my chambers. Masquerier was not the man to meet

him. He could not humour Blake nor understand the peculiar sense

in which he was to be received.[28]

1827

My journal of this year contains nothing about Blake. But in

January 1828 Barron Field and myself called on Mrs. Blake. The

poor old lady was more affected than I expected she would be at

the sight of me. She spoke of her husband as dying like an angel.

She informed me that she was going to live with Linnell as his

housekeeper. And we understood that she would live with him,

and he, as it were, to farm her services and take all she had. The

engravings of Job were his already. Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims

were hers. I took two copies--one I gave to C. Lamb. Barron

Field took a proof.

Mrs. Blake died within a few years, and since Blake's death

Linnell has not found the market I took for granted he would seek

for Blake's works. Wilkinson printed a small edition of his poems,

including the 'Songs of Innocence and Experience,'[29] a few years

ago, and Monkton Mylne talks of printing an edition. I have a few

colored engravings--but Blake is still an object of interest

exclusively to men of imaginative taste and psychological curiosity.

I doubt much whether these mems will be of any use to this small

class. I have been reading since the Life of Blake by Allan Cunningham,

vol. II. p. 143 of his Lives of the Painters. It recognizes more perhaps

of Blake's merit than might be expected of a _Scotch_ realist.

22/3/52.

[Footnote 1: The article appeared under the title: 'William Blake,

Künstler, Dichter und religiöser Schwärmer' (aus dem Englischen) on

pp. 107-131 of the _Vaterländisches Museum_, Zweiter Band,

Erstes Heft. Hamburg, bey Friedrich Perthes. 1811.' It has the motto:

'The lunatic, the lover, and the poet

Are of imagination all compact.'

SHAKESPEARE.

Five of Blake's poems, 'To the Muse?, Piping down the valleys wild,

Holy Thursday, The Tyger, The Garden of Love,' together with ten

lines from the Prophetic Books, are quoted, with German versions in

the metres of the original by Dr. Julius, the translator of the article.

On p. 101 there is an article, 'Von der neuesten englischen Poesie,'

containing notices of 'Poems by W. Cowper' (1803), 'Works of R.

Burns,'and 'Southey's Poems' (1801) and 'Metrical Tales' (1803).]

[Footnote 2: 'Like' is first written, and replaced by 'live.']

[Footnote 3: 'Took' crossed out.]

[Footnote 4: 'With an air of feebleness' crossed out.]

[Footnote 5: After 'indifference and' 'the entire absence of anything

like blame ['reproach' crossed out], and I do not think that I ever heard

him blame anything, then or afterwards crossed out.]

[Footnote 6: 'Pretty much' crossed out.]

[Footnote 7: 'Comparing these fragmentary memoranda' crossed out.]

[Footnote 8: Crossed out:

'Yet this did not appear to affect the truth of his Visions.

I could not reconcile this with his blaming Wordsworth for being a

Platonist--not a Christian. He asked whether Wordsworth

acknowledged the Scriptures as Divine, and declared on my answering

in the affirmative that the Introduction to the Excursion had troubled

him so as to bring on a fit of illness. The passage that offended Blake

was:

'Jehovah with his thunder and the choir

Of shouting Angels and the empyreal throne,

I pass them unalarmed.

"Does Mr. Wordsworth," said Blake, "think his mind can _surpass_

Jehovah's." I tried in vain to rescue Wordsworth from the imputation

of being a Pagan or perhaps an Atheist, but this did not rob him of the

character of being the great poet. Indeed Atheism meant but little

in Blake's mind as will hereafter appear. Therefore when he declared

Dante to be an Atheist, etc.'

In the margin: See of Wordsworth as Blake judged of him,

p. 46 _et seq_. (i.e. "1826, 27/2/52" below.)]

[Footnote 9: 'Dante saw Devils where I saw none' crossed out.]

[Footnote 10: 'Most unconscious simplicity' crossed out.]

[Footnote 11: 'It was after my first interview with him that I expressed

what I must repeat now--my regret' crossed out.]

[Footnote 12: 'He smiled' omitted.]

[Footnote 13: 'Marks' crossed out.]

[Footnote 14: 'More' crossed out.]

[Footnote 15: 'And yet he afterwards said that he was _then_ with God'

crossed out.]

[Footnote 16: 'The plea' crossed out.]

[Footnote 17: 'And seemingly undisturbed by the' crossed out.]

[Footnote 18: 'Which I have anticipated, and which he characterised as

Atheism, that is, in worshipping Nature. See page' crossed out.]

[Footnote 19: 'He gave me a copy of these lines in his hand, with this

note at the end' crossed out.]

[Footnote 20: 'An admirable assertion of the ideal' crossed out.]

[Footnote 21: 'Some of Wordsworth's' crossed out.]

[Footnote 22: 'Spirits' crossed out.]

[Footnote 23: 'Vision of Genesis' crossed out.]

[Footnote 24: 'Write' crossed out.]

[Footnote 25: 'Immediate 'crossed out.]

[Footnote 26: 'Character' crossed out.]

[Footnote 27: 'As might have been expected' crossed out.]

[Footnote 28: 'Understood' crossed out.]

[Footnote 29: 'And some other poems' crossed out.]

(II.) FROM 'A FATHER'S MEMOIRS OF HIS CHILD,' BY BENJAMIN HEATH

MALKIN (1806)

[This, the first printed account of Blake, is taken from the

dedicatory epistle of 'A Father's Memoirs of his Child,' by Benj.

Heath Malkin, Esq., M.A., F.A.S. (London: Printed for Longmans,

Hurst, Rees, and Orme, Paternoster Row, by T. Bensley, Bolt

Court, Fleet Street, 1806), to Thomas Johnes, the translator of

Froissart. I have given everything that relates to Blake, with enough

of the remainder to explain the purpose of the dedication. Malkin

was himself, perhaps, already engaged on the translation of

_Gil Blas_, which he brought out in 1809. The frontispiece

to the Memoirs, designed by Blake, and engraved by Cromek, consists

of a portrait of little Malkin, from a miniature, surrounded by a

design of the child saying good-bye to his mother, and floating

up to heaven, hand in hand with an ample and benign angel.]

TO THOMAS JOHNES, OF HAFOD, ESQ., M.P., LORD LIEUTENANT OF

THE COUNTY OF CARDIGAN, ETC. ETC. ETC.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

I have been influenced by several motives, in prefixing your

name to the following pages. My pen seems destined to owe its

employment, in some shape or other, to Hafod....

You may perhaps recollect, that while I was staying with you

last summer, our conversations were nearly as rambling and as

various, as our rides over your new mountain-farms, or as the

subject matter of these preliminary remarks seems likely to be....

It would have been unnatural, to have concealed the mark of an

afflicting dispensation, in society so capable of consoling the

survivor, and appreciating the merit of the departed. In the

interchange of our thoughts on this subject, the task of furnishing

the public with the following facts was urged upon me, at once as

a tribute to the latter, and a relief to the feelings of the former....

On mentioning my design to some of my friends, they expressed

their regret, that I had not determined on it sooner.... In every

other respect, but that of catching attention while the object is

still before the eye, the interval must be considered as an

advantage.... I have been asked, 'How could you get over such

a loss?' I need not say, that this was not your question, for you

could never have found it on the list of possible interrogatories:

and to you, for that very reason, will I answer it.

I got over this great loss, by considering at once what I had

left; how unavailing the lengthened and excessive indulgence of

grief would have been to myself, and how useless it would have

rendered me to others....

Besides this comparison of my own, with the probable or actual

circumstances of others, I bore my disappointment the better

for the recollection, that personal regards are selfish. If my

thoughts were disposed to dwell on the mortifying idea, that

society might have lost an ornament derived to it through me,

they were soon checked, and ashamed of their presumption. Topics

of private bewailing or condolence, of whatever magnitude they

may appear to the individual, can never be modestly transferred

to general interest. But it was my principal consolation, that the

change to him must have been for the better. Supposing the opinion

to have been rational and probable, that the promise of this child

would have ripened into something more than fair capacity and

marketable talent, the prolongation of life was to himself perhaps

the less desirable on that very account. It rarely happens, that the

world affords even the ordinary allowance of happiness to men

of transcendent faculties. Their merits are too frequently denied

the protection and encouragement, to which they feel themselves

entitled, from the private intimations of their own scrutinizing spirit.

When they are most successful, the composure of their minds does

not always keep pace with the prosperity of their fortunes. They

necessarily have but few companions; few, who are capable of

appreciating their high endowments, and entering into the grandeur

of their conceptions. Of these few, those who come the nearest

to their own rank and standard, those who might be the associates

of their inmost thoughts, and the partners of their dearest interests,

are too often envious of their fame. It is a common remark, that

great men are not gregarious. This is but too just; and so much

of man's happiness depends upon society, that the comparative

solitude, to which a commanding genius condemns its possessor,

detracts considerably from the sum of his personal enjoyment.

While I am on this subject, I cannot forbear enlarging somewhat

on an instance the more apposite, as being casually connected with

the subsequent pages. Hitherto, it has confirmed the observation

just hazarded, on the probable fate of stubborn originality in human

life. There seems now indeed some prospect, that the current will

turn: and I shall be eager, on the evidence of the very first

deponent, to disencumber myself of an opinion, which pays so ill

a compliment to our nature. In the meantime, I am confident that

you, and my other readers of taste and feeling, will readily forgive

my travelling a little out of the record, for the purpose of

descanting on merit, which ought to be more conspicuous, and

which must have become so long since, but for opinions and habits

of an eccentric kind.

It is, I hope, unnecessary to call your attention to the ornamental

device, round the portrait in this book; but I cannot so easily refrain

from introducing to you the designer.

Mr. William Blake, very early in life, had the ordinary opportunities

of seeing pictures in the houses of noblemen and gentlemen,

and in the king's palaces. He soon improved such casual occasions

of study, by attending sales at Langford's, Christie's, and other

auction-rooms. At ten years of age he was put to Mr. Pars's

drawing-school in the Strand, where he soon attained the art of

drawing from casts in plaster of the various antiques. His father

bought for him the Gladiator, the Hercules, the Venus of Medicis,

and various heads, hands and feet. The same indulgent parent

soon supplied him with money to buy prints; when he immediately

began his collection, frequenting the shops of the print-dealers,

and the sales of the auctioneers. Langford called him his little

connoisseur; and often knocked down to him a cheap lot, with

friendly precipitation. He copied Raphael and Michael Angelo,

Martin Hemskerck and Albert Dürer, Julio Romano, and the rest

of the historic class, neglecting to buy any other prints, however

celebrated. His choice was for the most part contemned by his

youthful companions, who were accustomed to laugh at what they

called his mechanical taste. At the age of fourteen, he fixed on

the engraver of Stuart's Athens and West's Pylades and Orestes

for his master, to whom he served seven years' apprenticeship.

Basire, whose taste was like his own, approved of what he did.

Two years passed over smoothly enough, till two other apprentices

were added to the establishment, who completely destroyed its

harmony. Blake, not choosing to take part with his master against

his fellow apprentices, was sent out to make drawings. This

circumstance he always mentions with gratitude to Basire, who

said that he was too simple and they too cunning.

He was employed in making drawings from old buildings and

monuments, and occasionally, especially in winter, in engraving

from those drawings. This occupation led him to an acquaintance

with those neglected works of art, called Gothic monuments.

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 windings of modern practice. The

monuments of Kings and Queens in Westminster Abbey, which surround

the chapel of Edward the Confessor, particularly that of King

Henry the Third, the beautiful monument and figure of Queen Elinor,

Queen Philippa, King Edward the Third, King Richard the Second

and his Queen, were among his first studies. All these he drew

in every point he could catch, frequently standing on the monument,

and viewing the figures from the top. The heads he considered

as portraits; and all the ornaments appeared as miracles of art,

to his Gothicised imagination. He then drew Aymer de Valence's

monument, with his fine figure on the top. Those exquisite little

figures which surround it, though dreadfully mutilated, are still

models for the study of drapery. But I do not mean to enumerate

all his drawings, since they would lead me over all the old

monuments in Westminster Abbey, as well as over other churches

in and about London.

Such was his employment at Basire's. As soon as he was out

of his time, he began to engrave two designs from the History of

England, after drawings which he had made in the holiday hours

of his apprenticeship. They were selected from a great number of

historical compositions, the fruits of his fancy. He continued making

designs for his own amusement, whenever he could steal a moment

from the routine of business; and began a course of study at the

Royal Academy, under the eye of Mr. Moser. Here he drew with

great care, perhaps all, or certainly nearly all the noble antique

figures in various views. But now his peculiar notions began to

intercept him in his career. He professes drawing from life always

to have been hateful to him; and speaks of it as looking more

like death, or smelling of mortality. Yet still he drew a good deal

from life, both at the academy and at home. In this manner has

he managed his talents, till he is himself almost become a Gothic

monument. On a view of his whole life, he still thinks himself

authorized to pronounce, that practice and opportunity very

soon teach the language of art: but its spirit and poetry, which

are seated in the imagination alone, never can be taught; and

these make an artist.

Mr. Blake has long been known to the order of men among whom

he ranks; and is highly esteemed by those, who can distinguish

excellence under the disguise of singularity. Enthusiastic and

high-flown notions on the subject of religion have hitherto, as

they usually do, prevented his general reception, as a son of

taste and of the muses. The sceptic and the rational believer,

uniting their forces against the visionary, pursue and scare a

warm and brilliant imagination, with the hue and cry of madness.

Not contented with bringing down the reasonings of the mystical

philosopher, as they well may, to this degraded level, they apply

the test of cold calculation and mathematical proof to departments

of the mind, which are privileged to appeal from so narrow and

rigorous a tribunal. They criticize the representations of corporeal

beauty, and the allegoric emblems of mental perfections; the

image of the visible world, which appeals to the senses for a

testimony to its truth, or the type of futurity and the immortal

soul, which identifies itself with our hopes and with our hearts,

as if they were syllogisms or theorems, demonstrable propositions

or consecutive corollaries. By them have the higher powers of

this artist been kept from public notice, and his genius tied down,

as far as possible, to the mechanical department of his profession. By

them, in short, has he been stigmatized as an engraver, who might

do tolerably well, if he was not mad. But men, whose names will

bear them out, in what they affirm, have now taken up his cause.

On occasion of Mr. Blake engaging to illustrate the poem of The

Grave, some of the first artists in this country have stept forward,

and liberally given the sanction of ardent and encomiastic applause.

Mr. Fuseli, with a mind far superior to that jealousy above described,

has written some introductory remarks in the Prospectus of the

work. To these he has lent all the penetration of his understanding,

with all the energy and descriptive power characteristic of his style.

Mr. Hope and Mr. Locke have pledged their character as connoisseurs,

by approving and patronizing these designs. Had I been furnished

with an opportunity of showing them to you, I should, on Mr. Blake's

behalf, have requested your concurring testimony, which you would

not have refused me, had you viewed them in the same light.

Neither is the capacity of this untutored proficient limited to

his professional occupation. He has made several irregular and

unfinished attempts at poetry. He has dared to venture on the

ancient simplicity; and feeling it in his own character and manners,

has succeeded better than those, who have only seen it through

a glass. His genius in this line assimilates more with the bold

and careless freedom, peculiar to our writers at the latter end

of the sixteenth, and former part of the seventeenth century,

than with the polished phraseology, and just, but subdued thought

of the eighteenth. As the public have hitherto had no opportunity

of passing sentence on his poetical powers, I shall trespass on

your patience, while I introduce a few specimens from a collection,

circulated only among the author's friends, and richly embellished

by his pencil.

LAUGHING SONG

When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy,

And the dimpling stream runs laughing by,

When the air does laugh with our merry wit,

And the green hill laughs with the noise of it,

When the meadows laugh with lively green,

And the grasshopper laughs in this merry scene,

When Mary and Susan and Emily,

With their sweet round mouths, sing Ha, ha, he!

When the painted birds laugh in the shade,

Where our table with cherries and nuts is spread,

Come live and be merry and join with me,

To sing the sweet chorus of Ha, ha, he!

The Fairy Glee of Oberon, which Stevens's exquisite music

has familiarized to modern ears, will immediately occur to the

reader of these laughing stanzas. We may also trace another less

obvious resemblance to Jonson, in an ode gratulatory to the

Right Honourable Hierome, Lord Weston, for his return from his

embassy, in the year 1632. The accord is to be found, not in the

words nor in the subject; for either would betray imitation: but

in the style of thought, and, if I may so term it, the date of the

expression.

Such pleasure as the teeming earth

Doth take in easy nature's birth,

When she puts forth the life of every thing:

And in a dew of sweetest rain,

She lies delivered without pain,

Of the prime beauty of the year, the spring.

The rivers in their shores do run,

The clouds rack clear before the sun,

The rudest winds obey the calmest air:

Rare plants from every bank do rise,

And every plant the sense surprise,

Because the order of the whole is fair!

The very verdure of her nest,

Wherein she sits so richly drest,

As all the wealth of season there was spread;

Doth show the graces and the hours

Have multiplied their arts and powers,

In making soft her aromatic bed.

Such joys, such sweets, doth your return

Bring all your friends, fair lord, that burn

With love, to hear your modesty relate

The bus'ness of your blooming wit,

With all the fruit shall follow it,

Both to the honor of the king and state.

The following poem of Blake is in a different character. It

expresses with majesty and pathos the feelings of a benevolent

mind, on being present at a sublime display of national munificence

and charity.

HOLY THURSDAY

'Twas on a Holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean,

The children walking two and two, in red and blue and

green;

Grey-headed beadles walked before, with wands as white

as snow;

Till into the high dome of Paul's, they, like Thames'

waters, flow.

Oh! What a multitude they seemed, these flowers of

London town!

Seated in companies they sit, with radiance all their own!

The hum of multitudes was there, but multitudes of lambs;

Thousands of little boys and girls, raising their innocent

hands.

Now like a mighty wind they raise to heaven the voice

of song,

Or like harmonious thunderings, the seats of heaven

among!

Beneath them sit the aged men, wise guardians of the

poor:

Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door.

The book of Revelation, which may well be supposed to engross

much of Mr. Blake's study, seems to have directed him, in common

with Milton, to some of the foregoing images. 'And I heard as it were

the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and

as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord

God omnipotent reigneth.' Milton comprises the mighty thunderings

in the epithet 'loud,' and adopts the comparison of many waters, which

image our poet, having in the first stanza appropriated differently, to

their flow rather than to their sound, exchanges in the last for that

of a mighty wind.

He ended; and the heav'nly audience loud

Sung hallelujah, as the sound of sees,

Through multitude that sung.

_Paradise Lost_, Book X. 641.

It may be worth a moment's consideration, whether Dr. Johnson's

remarks on devotional poetry, though strictly just where he applies

them, to the artificial compositions of Waller and Watts, are universally

and necessarily true. Watts seldom rose above the level of a mere

versifier. Waller, though entitled to the higher appellation of poet,

had formed himself rather to elegance and delicacy, than to passionate

emotions or a lofty and dignified deportment. The devotional pieces

of the Hebrew bards are clothed in that simple language, to which

Johnson with justice ascribes the character of sublimity. There is no

reason therefore why the poets of other nations should not be equally

successful, if they think with the same purity, and express themselves

in the same unaffected terms. He says indeed with truth, that 'Repentance

trembling in the presence of the judge, is not at leisure for cadences

and epithets.' But though we should exclude the severer topics from our

catalogue, mercy and benevolence may be treated poetically, because

they are in unison with the mild spirit of poetry. They are seldom

treated successfully; but the fault is not in the subject. The mind of

the poet is too often at leisure for the mechanical prettinesses of

cadence and epithet, when it ought to be engrossed by higher thoughts.

Words and numbers present themselves unbidden, when the soul is

inspired by sentiment, elevated by enthusiasm, or ravished by devotion.

I leave it to the reader to determine, whether the following stanzas

have any tendency to vindicate this species of poetry; and whether

their simplicity and sentiment at all make amends for their unartificial

and unassuming construction.

THE DIVINE IMAGE

To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love,

All pray in their distress,

And to these virtues of delight

Return their thankfulness.

For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love

Is God our Father dear:

And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love,

Is man, his child and care.

For Mercy has a human heart;

Pity, a human face;

And Love, the human form divine,

And Peace, the human dress.

Then every man, of every clime,

That prays in his distress,

Prays to the human form divine,

Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.

And all must love the human form.

In Heathen, Turk, or Jew!

Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell,

There God is dwelling too.

Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis, Tarquin and Lucrece, and his Sonnets,

occasioned it to be said by a contemporary, that, 'As the soul of

Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras, so the sweet witty

soul of Ovid lives in mellifluous honey-tongued Shakespeare.' These

poems, now little read, were favorite studies of Mr. Blake's early

days. So were Jonson's Underwoods and Miscellanies, and he seems

to me to have caught his manner, more than that of Shakespeare

in his trifles. The following song is a good deal in the spirit of the

Hue and Cry after Cupid, in the Masque on Lord Haddington's marriage.

It was written before the age of fourteen, in the heat of youthful fancy,

unchastized by judgment. The poet, as such, takes the very strong

liberty of equipping himself with wings, and thus appropriates his

metaphorical costume to his corporeal fashion and seeming. The

conceit is not unclassical; but Pindar and the ancient lyrics arrogated

to themselves the bodies of swans for their august residence. Our

Gothic songster is content to be encaged by Cupid; and submits,

like a young lady's favorite, to all the vagaries of giddy curiosity

and tormenting fondness.

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 sunny beams did glide!

He showed me lilies for my hair,

And blushing roses for my brow;

He led me through his gardens fair,

Where all his golden pleasures grow.

With sweet May dews 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;

Then stretches out my golden wing,

And mocks my loss of liberty.

The playful character ascribed to the prince of love, especially his

wanton and fantastic action while sporting with his captive, in the

two last stanzas, render it probable that the author had read the

Hue and Cry after Cupid. If so, it had made its impression; but the

lines could scarcely have been remembered at the time of writing, or

the resemblance would have been closer. The stanzas to which I

especially allude, are these.

Wings he hath, which though ye clip,

He will leap from lip to lip,

Over liver, lights, and heart,

But not stay in any part;

And, if chance his arrow misses,

He will shoot himself, in kisses.

Idle minutes are his reign;

Then the straggler makes his gain,

By presenting maids with toys,

And would have ye think'em joys:

'Tis th' ambition of the elf,

To have all childish as himself.

The two following little pieces are added, as well by way of

contrast, as for the sake of their respective merits. In the first,

there is a simple and pastoral gaiety, which the poets of a refined

age have generally found much more difficult of attainment, than

the glitter of wit, or the affectation of antithesis. The second rises

with the subject. It wears that garb of grandeur, which the idea of

creation communicates to a mind of the higher order. Our bard,

having brought the topic he descants on from warmer latitudes

than his own, is justified in adopting an imagery, of almost oriental

feature and complexion.

SONG

I love the jocund dance,

The softly breathing song,

Where innocent eyes do glance,

And where lisps the maiden's tongue.

I love the laughing gale,

I love the echoing hill,

Where mirth does never fail,

And the jolly swain laughs his fill.

I love the pleasant cot,

I love the innocent bower,

Where white and brown is our lot,

Or fruit in the midday hour.

I love the oaken seat,

Beneath the oaken tree,

Where all the old villagers meet,

And laugh our sports to see.

I love our neighbors all,

But, Kitty, I better love thee;

And love them I ever shall;

But thou art all to me.

THE TIGER

Tiger, Tiger, burning bright,

In the forest of the right!

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?

When thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand forged thy dread feet?

What the hammer? What the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? What dread grasp

Dared 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 forest of the night;

What immortal hand or eye

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Besides these lyric compositions, Mr. Blake has given several

specimens of blank verse. Here, as might be expected, his personifications

are bold, his thoughts original, and his style of writing altogether epic

in its structure. The unrestrained measure, however, which should

warn the poet to restrain himself, has not infrequently betrayed

him into so wild a pursuit of fancy, as to leave harmony unregarded,

and to pass the line prescribed by criticism to the career of

imagination.

But I have been leading you beside our subject, into a labyrinth

of poetical comment, with as little method or ceremony, as if we were

to have no witness of our correspondence. It is time we should return

from the masking regions of poetry, to the business with which

we set out. Donne, in his Anatomy of the World, remarks the

Egyptians to have acted wisely, in bestowing more cost upon

their tombs than on their houses. This example he adduces, to

justify his own Funeral Elegies: and I may perhaps be allowed

to adopt it, as an additional plea, should my former be of no avail,

for coming forward with this piece of almost infantine biography....

I regret, my dear friend, that it was not in my power to furnish

you and my readers with a portrait of a later date. We had often

talked of allowing ourselves that indulgence; but we were not privy

to the event, which was to have communicated to it an incalculable

value. The engraving here given, though it might well be taken to

represent a much older child, is from a very beautiful miniature,

painted by Paye, when Thomas was not quite two years old. He then

was only beginning to speak; but there was even at that early period

an intelligence in his eye, and an expression about his mouth, which

are, I hope, sufficiently characterized in the delineation to afford

no inadequate idea of his physiognomy....

At all events, this work, though it should escape censure, can

rank no higher than a trifle. What apology must I make for addressing

it to a fellow-laborer, who has accomplished the serious and

difficult task of giving an English dress to Froissart? I think it was

Gray who denominated your venerable original the Herodotus of

a barbarous age; But surely that age is entitled to a more respectful

epithet, when France could boast its Froissart, Italy its Petrarch,

England its Wickliffe, the father of our reformation, and Chaucer, the

father of our poetry. If I might slightly alter the designation of so

complete a critic, I would prefer calling this simple and genuine

historian, the Herodotus of chivalry. But by whatever title

we are to greet him, the interesting minuteness of his recital,

affording a strong pledge of its fidelity, the lively delineation of

manners, and the charm of unadulterated language, all conspire

to place him in the first rank of early writers. The public began

to revolt from that spirit of philosophizing on the most common

occasions, in consequence of which our modern historians seem

to be more ingenious in assigning causes and motives, than assiduous

to ascertain facts. We are returning home to plain tales and first-hand

authorities; and you will share the honor of pointing out the way.

Froissart, hitherto inaccessible to English readers in general,

from the obsolete garb both of the French and of Lord Berners's

translation, may now be read in such a form, as to unite a peculiar

thought and turn of the ancient with the intelligible phraseology

of modern times. With my best congratulations on your success,

and my earnest request to be forgiven for thus intruding on your

leisure, believe me to be, my dear friend, faithfully yours,

B. H. MALKIN.

HACKNEY, _January_ 4, 1806.

(III.) FROM LADY CHARLOTTE BURY'S DIARY (1820)

[This extract from the _Diary illustrative of the Times of George

the Fourth_, by Lady Charlotte Bury, afterwards Lady Charlotte

Campbell, published anonymously, and edited by John Galt, in four

volumes, in 1839, was first noticed by Mr. W. M. Rossetti, who printed

it in the _Athenaeum._ It is from vol. iii. pp. 345-318.]

FROM LADY CHARLOTTE BURY'S DIARY (1820)

_Tuesday_, _the_ 20_th of January_ [1820].--I

dined at Lady C. L----'s. She had collected a strange

party of artists and literati and one or two fine folks, who were very

ill assorted with the rest of the company, and appeared neither to give

nor receive pleasure from the society among whom they were mingled.

Sir T. Lawrence, next whom I sat at dinner, is as courtly as ever. His

conversation is agreeable, but I never feel as if he was saying what

he really thought....

Besides Sir T., there was also present of this profession Mrs. M.,

the miniature painter, a modest, pleasing person; like the pictures she

executes, soft and sweet. Then there was another eccentric little

artist, by name Blake; not a regular professional painter, but one

of those persons who follow the art for its own sweet sake, and

derive their happiness from its pursuit. He appeared to me to be

full of beautiful imaginations and genius; but how far the execution

of his designs is equal to the conceptions of his mental vision, I

know not, never having seen them. _Main-d'oeuvre_ is frequently

wanting where the mind is most powerful Mr. Blake appears unlearned

in all that concerns this world, and, from what he said, I should fear

he is one of those whose feelings are far superior to his situation

in life. He looks care-worn and subdued; but his countenance

radiated as he spoke of his favorite pursuit, and he appeared

gratified by talking to a person who comprehended his feelings.

I can easily imagine that he seldom meets with any one who enters

into his views; for they are peculiar, and exalted above the common

level of received opinions. I could not help contrasting this humble

artist with the great and powerful Sir Thomas Lawrence, and thinking

that the one was fully if not more worthy of the distinction and the

fame to which the other has attained, but from which _he_ is

far removed. Mr. Blake, however, though he may have as much right,

from talent and merit, to the advantages of which Sir Thomas is

possessed, evidently lacks that worldly wisdom and that grace of

manner which make a man gain an eminence in his profession,

and succeed in society. Every word he uttered spoke the perfect

simplicity of his mind, and his total ignorance of all worldly

matters. He told me that Lady C---- L---- had been very kind

to him. 'Ah!' said he, 'there is a deal of kindness in that lady.' I

agreed with him, and though it was impossible not to laugh at the

strange manner in which she had arranged this party, I could not

help admiring the goodness of heart and discrimination of talent

which had made her patronize this unknown artist. Sir T. Lawrence

looked at me several times whilst I was talking with Mr. B., and I

saw his lips curl with a sneer, as if he despised me for conversing

with so insignificant a person.[1] It was very evident Sir Thomas

did not like the company he found himself in, though he was too

well-bred and too prudent to hazard a remark upon the subject.

The literati were also of various degrees of eminence, beginning

with Lord B----, and ending with----. The grandees were Lord

L----, who appreciates talent, and therefore not so ill assorted

with the party as was Mrs. G----and Lady C----, who did nothing

but yawn the whole evening, and Mrs A----, who all looked with

evident contempt upon the surrounding company.

[Footnote 1: There is surely some mistake in this supposition, for Sir

T. Lawrence was, afterwards at least, one of Mr. Blake's great

patrons and admirers.]

(IV.) BLAKE'S HOROSCOPE (1825)

[Blake's horoscope was cast during his lifetime in _Urania_,

or, the Astrologer's Chronicle, and Mystical Magazine; edited by Merlinus

Anglicanus, jun., the Astrologer of the Nineteenth Century, assisted by

the Metropolitan Society of Occult Philosophers (No. I, London, 1825),

the first and only number of an astrological magazine, published under

the pseudonym of Merlinus Anglicanus by R. C. Smith, an astrologer

of the period, and it is highly probable, as Dr. Garnett suggests, that

the date (confirmed by the birth register at St. James's, Westminster)

was derived from Varley, who would have had it from Blake himself.

I give the map, not as it is printed in the book, but in the clearer and

simpler form in which it was copied and given to me by Dr. Garnett.

I am told that the most striking thing in the map, from an astrological

point of view, is the position and aspect of Uranus, the occult planet,

which indicate in the highest degree 'an inborn and supreme instinct

for things occult,' without showing the least tendency towards madness.

The 'Nativity of Mr. Blake' is the last entry, Footnote [2] in

"William Blake, chapter II."]

[Illustration 02]

NATIVITY OF MR. BLAKE,

THE MYSTICAL ARTIST

[Illustration 03]

The above horoscope is calculated for the _estimate_ time

of birth, and Mr. Blake, the subject thereof, is well known amongst

scientific characters, as having a most peculiar and extraordinary

turn of genius and vivid imagination. His illustrations of the Book

of Job have met with much and deserved praise; indeed, in the line

which this artist has adopted, he is perhaps equalled by none of the

present day. Mr. Blake is no less peculiar and _outré_ in his

ideas, as he seems to have some curious intercourse with the invisible

world; and, according to his own account (in which he is certainly,

to all appearance, perfectly sincere), he is continually surrounded

by the spirits of the deceased of all ages, nations, and countries.

He has, so he affirms, held actual conversations with Michael Angelo,

Raphael, Milton, Dryden, and the worthies of antiquity. He has now

by him a long poem nearly finished, which he affirms was recited to

him by the spirit of Milton; and the mystical drawings of this

gentleman are no less curious and worthy of notice, by all those

whose minds soar above the cloggings of this terrestrial element,

to which we are most of us too fastly chained to comprehend the

nature and operations of the world of spirits.

Mr. Blake's pictures of the last judgment, his profiles of Wallace,

Edward the Sixth, Harold, Cleopatra, and numerous others which

we have seen, are really wonderful for the spirit in which they are

delineated. We have been in company with this gentleman several

times, and have frequently been not only delighted with his conversation,

but also filled with feelings of wonder at his extraordinary faculties;

which, whatever some may say to the contrary, are by no means

tinctured with superstition, as he certainly believes what he

promulgates. Our limits will not permit us to enlarge upon this

geniture, which we merely give as an example worthy to be noticed

by the astrological student in his list of remarkable nativities. But it

is probable that the extraordinary faculties and eccentricities of

idea which this gentleman possesses, are the effects of the Moon

in Cancer in the twelfth house (both sign and house being mystical),

in trine to Herschell from the mystical sign Pisces, from the house

of science, and from the mundane trine to Saturn in the scientific

sign Aquarius, which latter planet is in square to Mercury in Scorpio,

and in quintile to the Sun and Jupiter, in the mystical sign Sagittarius.

The square of Mars and Mercury, from fixed signs, also, has a

remarkable tendency to sharpen the intellects, and lay the foundation

of extraordinary ideas. There are also many other reasons for the

strange peculiarities above noticed, but these the student will no

doubt readily discover.

(V.) OBITUARY NOTICES IN THE LITERARY GAZETTE' AND 'GENTLEMAN'S

MAGAZINE,' 1827.