[Obituary Notices of Blake appeared in the _Literary Gazette_

of August 18, 1827 (pp. 540-41), the _Gentleman's Magazine_ of

October 1827 (pp. 377-8), and the _Annual Register_ of 1827, in its

Appendix of Deaths (pp. 253-4). The notice in the _Gentleman's

Magazine_ is largely condensed from that in the _Literary

Gazette_, but with a different opening, which I have given after

the notice in the _Literary Gazette._ The notice in the

_Annual Register_ is merely condensed from the _Gentleman's

Magazine._]

I

WILLIAM BLAKE

_The Illustrator of the Grave, etc._

To those few who have sympathies for the ideal and (comparatively

speaking) the intellectual in art, the following notice is addressed.

Few persons of taste are unacquainted with the designs by Blake,

appended as illustrations to a 4to edition of Blair's Grave. It was

borne forth into the world on the warmest praises of all our prominent

artists, Hoppner, Phillips, Stothard, Flaxman, Opie, Tresham,

Westmacott, Beechey, Lawrence, West, Nollekins, Shee, Owen, Rossi,

Thomson, Cosway, and Soane; and doubly assured with a preface

by the learned and severe Fuseli, the latter part of which we

transcribe--'The author of the moral series before us has

endeavored to wake sensibility by touching our sympathies with

nearer, less ambiguous, and less ludicrous imagery, than what

mythology, Gothic superstition, or symbols as far-fetched as

inadequate could supply. His invention has been chiefly employed

to spread a familiar and domestic atmosphere round the most

important of all subjects--to connect the visible and the

invisible world, without provoking probability--and to lead

the eye from the milder light of time to the radiations of eternity.

Such is the plan and the moral part of the author's invention; the

technic part, and the execution of the artist, though to be examined

by other principles, and addressed to a narrower circle, equally claim

approbation, sometimes excite our wonder, and not seldom our fears,

when we see him play on the very verge of legitimate invention;

but wildness so picturesque in itself, so often redeemed by taste,

simplicity, and elegance--what child of fancy, what artist,

would wish to discharge? The groups and single figures, on their

own basis, abstracted from the general composition, and considered

without attention to the plan, frequently exhibit those genuine

and unaffected attitudes, those simple graces, which nature and

the heart alone can dictate, and only an eye inspired by both

discover. Every class of artists, in every stage of their progress

and attainments, from the student to the finished master, and

from the contriver of ornament to the painter of history, will here

find materials of art, and hints of improvement!'

When it is stated, that the pure-minded Flaxman pointed out

to an eminent literary man the obscurity of Blake as a melancholy

proof of English apathy towards the grand, the philosophic, or

the enthusiastically devotional painter; and that he (Blake) has

been several times employed for that truly admirable judge of

art, Sir T. Lawrence, any further testimony to his extraordinary

powers is unnecessary. Yet has Blake been allowed to exist in

a penury which most artists[1]--beings necessarily of a sensitive

temperament--would deem intolerable. Pent, with his affectionate

wife, in a close back-room in one of the Strand courts, his

bed in one corner, his meagre dinner in another, a rickety table

holding his copper-plates in progress, his colors, books (among

which his Bible, a Sessi Velutello's Dante, and Mr. Carey's

translation, were at the top), his large drawings, sketches,

and MSS.;--his ankles frightfully swelled, his chest disordered,

old age striding on, his wants increased, but not his miserable

means and appliances: even yet was his eye undimmed, the fire

of his imagination unquenched, and the preternatural, never-resting

activity of his mind unflagging. He had not merely a calmly

resigned, but a cheerful and mirthful countenance; in short,

he was a living commentary on Jeremy Taylor's beautiful chapter

on Contentedness. He took no thought for his life, what he should

eat, or what he should drink; nor yet for his body, what he

should put on; but had a fearless confidence in that Providence

which had given him the vast range of the world for his recreation

and delight.

_Blake died last Monday!_ Died as he lived! piously cheerful,

talking calmly, and finally resigning himself to his eternal rest,

like an infant to its sleep. He has left _nothing_ except some

pictures, copper-plates, and his principal work of a series of a hundred

large designs from Dante.

William Blake was brought up under Basire, the eminent engraver.

He was active in mind and body, passing from one occupation to

another, without an intervening minute of repose. Of an ardent,

affectionate, and grateful temper, he was simple in manner and

address, and displayed an inbred courteousness, of the most

agreeable character. Next November he would have been _sixty-nine._

At the age of sixty-six he commenced the study of Italian, for

the sake of reading Dante in the original, which he accomplished!

His widow is left (we fear, from the accounts which have reached

us) in a very forlorn condition, Mr. Blake having latterly been much

indebted for succor and consolation to his friend Mr. Linnell, the

painter. We have no doubt but her cause will be taken up by the

distributors of those funds which are raised for the relief of distressed

artists, and also by the benevolence of private individuals.

When further time has been allowed us for inquiry, we shall

probably resume this matter; at present (owing the above information

to the kindness of a correspondent) we can only record the death

of a singular and very able man.

II

MR. WILLIAM BLAKE

Aug. 13, aged 68, Mr. William Blake, an excellent, but eccentric,

artist.

He was a pupil of the engraver Basire; and among his earliest

productions were eight beautiful plates in the Novelist's Magazine.

In 1793 he published in 12mo, 'The Gates of Paradise,' a very small

book for children, containing fifteen plates of emblems; and 'published

by W. B., 13 Hercules Buildings, Lambeth'; also about the same time,

'Songs of Experience, with plates'; 'America; a Prophecy,' folio, and

'Europe, a Prophecy,' 1794, folio. These are now become very scarce.

In 1797 he commenced, in large folio, an edition of Young's Night

Thoughts, of which every page was a design, but only one number

was published. In 1805 were produced in 8vo numbers, containing

five engravings by Blake, some ballads by Mr. Hayley, but which

also were abruptly discontinued. Few persons of taste are unacquainted

with the designs by Blake, engraved by Schiavonetti, as illustrations

to a 4to edition of Blair's Grave. They are twelve in number, and an

excellent portrait of Blake, from a picture by T. Phillips, R.A., is

prefixed. It was borne forth ... [Here follows the third sentence,

p. 345 above, to the end of the paragraph.]

In 1809 was published in 12mo, 'A Descriptive Catalogue of

[sixteen] pictures, poetical and historical inventions, painted by

William Blake in watercolors, being the ancient method of fresco

painting restored, and drawings, for public inspection, and for

sale by private contract.' Among these was a design of Chaucer's

Pilgrimage to Canterbury, from which an etching has been published.

Mr. Blake's last publication is a set of engravings to illustrate the

Book of Job. To Fuseli's testimony of his merit above quoted, it

is sufficient to add, that he has been employed by that truly

admirable judge of art, Sir Thomas Lawrence; and that the pure-minded

Flaxman....

[The remainder is condensed from the _Literary Gazette_,

in "The Illustrator of the Grave," above, with the occasional change

of a word, or the order of a sentence.]

[Footnote 1: The term is employed in its generic and comprehensive

sense.]

(VI.) EXTRACT FROM VARLEY'S ZODIACAL PHYSIOGNOMY (1828)

[John Varley, astrologer and water-color painter, was introduced to

Blake by Linnell, and it was for him that Blake did the 'visionary heads'

described by Allan Cunningham. (see "VIII Life of Blake by Allan

Cunningham.") 'The Ghost of a Flea' exists in both forms described

by Varley, in a sketch of the head (which he reproduces, engraved by

Linnell, in a plate at the end of his book, together with two other

heads in outline), and in a full-length picture in tempera. The passage

which follows is taken from pp. 54, 55 of 'A Treatise on Zodiacal

Physiognomy; illustrated with engravings of heads and features:

accompanied by tables of the times of rising of the twelve signs of

the Zodiac; and containing also new and astrological explanation

of some remarkable portions of Ancient Mythological History.' By John

Varley. London: Printed for the Author, 1828.]

EXTRACT FROM VARLEY'S ZODIACAL PHYSIOGNOMY

With respect to the vision of the Ghost of the Flea, seen by

Blake, it agrees in countenance with one class of people under

Gemini, which sign is the significator of the Flea; whose brown color

is appropriate to the color of the eyes in some full-toned Gemini

persons. And the neatness, elasticity, and tenseness of the Flea

are significant of the elegant dancing and fencing sign Gemini.

This spirit visited his imagination in such a figure as he never

anticipated in an insect. As I was anxious to make the most correct

investigation in my power, of the truth of these visions, on hearing

of this spiritual apparition of a Flea, I asked him if he could draw

for me the resemblance of what he saw: he instantly said, 'I see him

now before me.' I therefore gave him paper and a pencil, with which

he drew the portrait, of which a facsimile is given in this number. I

felt convinced by his mode of proceeding that he had a real image

before him, for he left off, and began on another part of the paper

to make a separate drawing of the mouth of the Flea, which the

spirit having opened, he was prevented from proceeding with the

first sketch, till he had closed it. During the time occupied in

completing the drawing, the Flea told him that all fleas were

inhabited by the souls of such men as were by nature blood-thirsty

to excess, and were therefore providentially confined to the size

and form of insects; otherwise, were he himself, for instance, the

size of a horse, he would depopulate a great portion of the country.

He added, that if in attempting to leap from one island to another,

he should fall into the sea, he could swim, and should not be lost.

This spirit afterwards appeared to Blake, and afforded him a view

of his whole figure; an engraving of which I shall give in this work.

(VII.) BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF BLAKE BY J. T. SMITH (1828)

[The Memoir of Blake by John Thomas Smith, Keeper of the Prints

and Drawings in the British Museum, is the last of the 'Biographical

Sketches and Anecdotes of several Artists and others contemporary

with Nollekens,' contained in the second volume of 'Nollekens and

his Times: comprehending a Life of that celebrated Sculptor; and

Memoirs of several contemporary Artists, from the' time of Roubiliac,

Hogarth, and Reynolds, to that of Fuseli, Flaxman, and Blake.' (London:

Henry Colburn, New Burlington Street, 1828.) It contains more facts

at first hand than any other account of Blake, and is really the

foundation of all subsequent biographies. I have added a page,

which is not without its significance, from a later book by Smith,

'A Book for a Rainy Day; or, Recollections of the Events of the last

Sixty-five Years' (1845), where it occurs under date 1784, on

pp. 81, 82.]

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF BLAKE

I believe it has been invariably the custom of every age, whenever

a man has been found to depart from the usual mode of thinking, to

consider him of deranged intellect, and not infrequently stark

staring mad; which judgment his calumniators would pronounce

with as little hesitation, as some of the uncharitable part of mankind

would pass sentence of death upon a poor half-drowned cur

who had lost his master, or one who had escaped hanging with a

rope about his neck. Cowper, in a letter to Lady Hesketh, dated

June 3, 1788, speaking of a dancing-master's advertisement, says,

'The author of it had the good hap to be crazed, or he had never

produced anything half so clever; for you will ever observe, that

they who are said to have lost their wits, have more than other

people.'

Bearing this stigma of eccentricity, William Blake, with most

extraordinary zeal, commenced his efforts in Art under the roof

of No. 28 Broad Street, Carnaby Market; in which house he was

born, and where his father carried on the business of a hosier.

William, the subject of the following pages, who was his second

son, showing an early stretch of mind, and a strong talent for

drawing, being totally destitute of the dexterity of a London

shopman, so well described by Dr. Johnson, was sent away from

the counter as a booby, and placed under the late Mr. James

Basire, an artist well known for many years as engraver to the

Society of Antiquaries. From him he learned the mechanical

part of his art, and as he drew carefully, and copied faithfully,

his master frequently and confidently employed him to make drawings

from monuments to be engraved.

After leaving his instructor, in whose house he had conducted

himself with the strictest propriety, he became acquainted with

Flaxman, the sculptor, through his friend Stothard, and was also

honored by an introduction to the accomplished Mrs. Mathew,

whose house, No. 27, in Rathbone Place, was then frequented by

most of the literary and talented people of the day. This lady--to

whom I also had the honor of being known, and whose door and

purse were constantly open and ready to cherish persons of genius

who stood in need of assistance in their learned and arduous

pursuits, worldly concerns, or inconveniences--was so extremely

zealous in promoting the celebrity of Blake, that upon hearing

him read some of his early efforts in poetry, she thought so well

of them, as to request the Bev. Henry Mathew, her husband, to

join Mr. Flaxman in his truly kind offer of defraying the expense

of printing them; in which he not only acquiesced, but, with his

usual urbanity, wrote the following advertisement, which precedes

the poems:

'The following sketches were the production of an untutored

youth, commenced in his twelfth, and occasionally resumed by the

author till his twentieth year; since which time, his talents having

been wholly directed to the attainment of excellence in his profession,

he has been deprived of the leisure requisite to such a revisal of

these sheets, as might have rendered them less unfit to meet the

public eye.

'Conscious of the irregularities and defects to be found in almost

every page, his friends have still believed that they possessed a

poetical originality, which merited some respite from oblivion. These,

their opinions, remain, however, to be now reproved or confirmed by

a less partial public.'

The annexed Song is a specimen of the juvenile playfulness of

Blake's muse, copied from page 10 of these Poems.[1]

SONG

'How sweet I roam'd 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 show'd 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.'

But it happened, unfortunately, soon after this period, that in

consequence of his unbending deportment, or what his adherents

are pleased to call his manly firmness of opinion, which certainly

was not at all times considered pleasing by every one, his visits

were not so frequent. He, however, continued to benefit by Mrs.

Mathew's liberality, and was enabled to continue in partnership,

as a print-seller, with his fellow-pupil, Parker, in a shop, No. 27,

next door to his father's, in Broad Street; and being extremely partial

to Robert, his youngest brother, considered him as his pupil. Bob,

as he was familiarly called, was one of my playfellows, and much

beloved by all his companions.

Much about this time, Blake wrote many other songs, to which

he also composed tunes. These he would occasionally sing to his

friends; and though, according to his confession, he was entirely

unacquainted with the science of music, his ear was so good, that

his tunes were sometimes most singularly beautiful, and were noted

down by musical professors. As for his later poetry, if it may be so

called, attached to his plates, though it was certainly in some parts

enigmatically curious as to its application, yet it was not always wholly

uninteresting; and I have unspeakable pleasure in being able to state,

that though I admit he did not for the last forty years attend any place

of Divine worship, yet he was not a Freethinker, as some invidious

detractors have thought proper to assert, nor was he ever in any

degree irreligious. Through life, his Bible was everything with him;

and as a convincing proof how highly he reverenced the Almighty, I

shall introduce the following lines with which he concludes his address

to the Deists:

'For a tear is an intellectual thing;

And a sigh is the sword of an Angel-King;

And the bitter groan of a Martyr's woe

Is an arrow from the Almighty's bow.'

Again, at page 77, in his address to the Christians:

'I give you the end of a golden string;

Only wind it into a ball,

It will lead you in at Heaven's gate,

Built in Jerusalem's wall.'

In his choice of subjects, and in his designs in Art, perhaps no

man had higher claim to originality, nor ever drew with a closer

adherence to his own conception; and from what I knew of him,

and have heard related by his friends, I most firmly believe few

artists have been guilty of less plagiarisms than he. It is true,

I have seen him admire and heard him expatiate upon the beauties

of Marc Antonio and of Albert Dürer; but I verily believe not with

any view of borrowing an idea; neither do I consider him at any

time dependent in his mode of working, which was generally with

the graver only; and as to printing, he mostly took off his own

impressions.

After his marriage, which took place at Battersea, and which

proved a mutually happy one, he instructed his _beloved_, for

so he most frequently called his Kate,[2] and allowed her, till the last

moment of his practice, to take off his proof impressions and print

his works, which she did most carefully, and ever delighted in the

task: nay, she became a draughts-woman; and as a convincing proof

that she and her husband were born for each others comfort, she

not only entered cheerfully into his views, but, what is curious,

possessed a similar power of imbibing ideas, and has produced

drawings equally original and, in some respects, interesting.

Blake's peace of mind, as well as that of his Catherine, was much

broken by the death of their brother Robert, who was a most amicable

link in their happiness; and, as a proof how much Blake respected him,

whenever he beheld him in his visions, he implicitly attended to his

opinion and advice as to his future projected works. I should have

stated, that Blake was supereminently endowed with the power of

disuniting all other thoughts from his mind, whenever he wished to

indulge in thinking of any particular subject; and so firmly did he

believe, by this abstracting power, that the objects of his compositions

were before him in his mind's eye, that he frequently believed them

to be speaking to him. This I shall now illustrate by the following

narrative.

Blake, after deeply perplexing himself as to the mode of accomplishing

the publication of his illustrated songs, without their being subject

to the expense of letterpress, his brother Robert stood before him

in one of his visionary imaginations, and so decidedly directed him

in the way in which he ought to proceed, that he immediately followed

his advice, by writing his poetry, and drawing his marginal subjects of

embellishments in outline upon the copper-plate with an impervious

liquid, and then eating the plain parts or lights away with aqua-fortis

considerably below them, so that the outlines were left as a stereotype.

The plates in this state were then printed in any tint that he wished,

to enable him or Mrs. Blake to color the marginal figures up by hand

in imitation of drawings.

The following are some of his works produced in this manner, viz.;

'Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, The Book of Jerusalem,'

consisting of an hundred plates, 'The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,'

'Europe and America'; and another work, which is now very uncommon,

a pretty little series of plates, entitled 'Gate of Paradise.'

Blake, like those artists absorbed in a beloved study, cared not

for money beyond its use for the ensuing day; and indeed he and

his 'beloved' were so reciprocally frugal in their expenses, that, never

sighing for either gilded vessels, silver-laced attendants, or turtle's

livers, they were contented with the simplest repast, and a little

answered their purpose. Yet, notwithstanding all their economy,

Dame Fortune being, as it is pretty well known to the world, sometimes

a fickle jade, they, as well as thousands more, have had their

intercepting clouds.

As it is not my intention to follow them through their lives, I

shall confine myself to a relation of a few other anecdotes of this

happy pair; and as they are connected with the Arts, in my opinion

they ought not to be lost, as they may be considered worthy the

attention of future biographers.

For his marginal illustrations of 'Young's Night Thoughts,' which

possess a great power of imagination, he received so despicably

low a price, that Flaxman, whose heart was ever warm, was determined

to serve him whenever an opportunity offered itself; and with his usual

voice of sympathy, introduced him to his friend Hayley, with whom it

was no new thing to give pleasure, capricious as he was. This

gentleman immediately engaged him to engrave the plates for his

quarto edition of 'The Life of Cowper,' published in 1803-4;

and for this purpose he went down to Felpham, in order to be near

that highly respected _Hermit._

Here he took a cottage, for which he paid twenty pounds a year,

and was not, as has been reported, entertained in a house belonging

to Mr. Hayley rent-free. During his stay he drew several portraits,

and could have had full employment in that department of the Art;

but he was born to follow his own inclinations, and was willing

to rely upon a reward for the labours of the day.

Mr. Flaxman, knowing me to be a collector of autographs, among

many others, gave me the following letter, which he received from

Blake immediately after his arrival at Felpham, in which he styles him.

'DEAR SCULPTOR OF ETERNITY,

'We are safe arrived at our cottage, which is more beautiful than

I thought it, and more convenient. It is a perfect model for cottages,

and, I think, for palaces of magnificence; only enlarging, not altering,

its proportions, and adding ornaments and not principals. Nothing can

be more grand than its simplicity and usefulness. Simple without

intricacy, it seems to be the spontaneous effusion of humanity, congenial

to the wants of man. No other-formed house can ever please me so

well; nor shall I ever be persuaded, I believe, that it can be improved

either in beauty or use.

'Mr. Hayley received us with his usual brotherly affection. I have

begun to work. Felpham is a sweet place for study, because it is more

spiritual than London. Heaven opens here on all sides her golden

gates; her windows are not obstructed by vapors; voices of celestial

inhabitants are more distinctly heard, and their forms more distinctly

seen, and my cottage is also a shadow of their houses. My wife and

sister are both well, courting Neptune for an embrace.

'Our journey was very pleasant; and though we had a great deal

of luggage, no grumbling. All was cheerfulness and good-humour

on the road, and yet we could not arrive at our cottage before half-past

eleven at night, owing to the necessary shifting of our luggage from

one chaise to another; for we had seven different chaises, and

as many different drivers. We set out between six and seven in the

morning of Thursday, with sixteen heavy boxes, and portfolios full

of prints.

'And now begins a new life, because another covering of earth

is shaken off. I am more famed in Heaven for my works than I could

well conceive. In my brain are studies and chambers filled with books

and pictures of old, which I wrote and painted in ages of eternity,

before my mortal life; and those works are the delight and study

of archangels. Why then should I be anxious about the riches or fame

of mortality? The Lord, our father, will do for us and with us according

to his Divine will for our good.

'You, O dear Flaxman! are a sublime Archangel, my friend and

companion from eternity. In the Divine bosom is our dwelling-place.

I look back into the regions of reminiscence, and behold our ancient

days before this earth appeared in its vegetated mortality to my

mortal-vegetated eyes. I see our houses of eternity which can

never be separated, though our mortal vehicles should stand at the

remotest corners of Heaven from each other.

'Farewell, my best friend! Remember me and my wife in love

and friendship to our dear Mrs. Flaxman, whom we ardently desire

to entertain beneath our thatched roof of rusted gold; and believe

me for ever to remain,

'Your grateful and affectionate,

'WILLIAM BLAKE.

'Felpham, _Sept._ 21, 1800.

'Sunday morning.'

In a copy of Hayley's 'Triumphs of Temper,' illustrated by Stothard,

which had been the one belonging to the Author's son, and which

he gave after his death to Blake, are these verses in MS. by the

hand of the donor:

'Accept, my gentle visionary, Blake,

Whose thoughts are fanciful and kindly mild;

Accept, and fondly keep for friendship's sake,

This favor'd vision, my poetic child.

'Rich in more grace than fancy ever won,

To thy most tender mind this book will be,

For it belong'd to my departed son;

So from an angel it descends to thee.

W. H.

_July_, 1800.'[3]

Upon his return from Felpham, he addressed the public,

in page 3 of his Book of Jerusalem, in these words, 'After my

three years' slumber on the banks of the ocean, I again display

my giant-forms to the public,' etc.

Some of the 'giant-forms,' as he calls them, are mighty and

grand, and if I were to compare them to the style of any preceding

artist, Michel Angelo, Sir Joshua's favorite, would be the one; and

were I to select a specimen as a corroboration of this opinion, I

should instance the figure personifying the 'Ancient of Days,' the

frontispiece to his 'Europe, a Prophecy.' In my mind, his knowledge

of drawing, as well as design, displayed in this figure, must at once

convince the informed reader of his extraordinary abilities.

I am now under the painful necessity of relating an event promulgated

in two different ways by two different parties; and as I entertain a high

respect for the talents of both persons concerned, I shall, in order to

steer clear of giving umbrage to the supporters of either, leave the

reader to draw his own conclusions, unbiassed by any insinuation

whatever of mine.

An engraver of the name of Cromek, a man who endeavored to

live by speculating upon the talents of others, purchased a series

of drawings of Blake, illustrative of Blair's 'Grave,' which he had

begun with a view of engraving and publishing. These were sold

to Mr. Cromek for the insignificant sum of one guinea each, with

the promise, and indeed under the express agreement, that Blake

should be employed to engrave them; a task to which he looked

forward with anxious delight. Instead of this negotiation being

carried into effect, the drawings, to his great mortification, were put

into the hands of Schiavonetti. During the time this artist was thus

employed, Cromek had asked Blake--what work he had in mind

to execute next. The unsuspecting artist not only told him, but without

the least reserve showed him the designs sketched out for a fresco

picture; the subject Chaucer's 'Pilgrimage to Canterbury'; with which

Mr. Cromek appeared highly delighted. Shortly after this, Blake

discovered that Stothard, a brother-artist to whom he had been

extremely kind in early days, had been employed to paint a picture,

not only of the same subject, but in some instances similar to the

fresco sketch which he had shown to Mr. Cromek. The picture painted

by Stothard became the property of Mr. Cromek, who published

proposals for an engraving from it, naming Bromley as the engraver

to be employed. However, in a short time, that artist's name was

withdrawn, and Schiavonetti's substituted, who lived only to complete

the etching; the plate being finished afterwards by at least three

different hands. Blake, highly indignant at this treatment, immediately

set to work, and proposed an engraving from his fresco picture, which

he publicly exhibited in his brother James's shop-window, at the

corner of Broad Street, accompanied with an address to the public,

stating what he considered to be improper conduct.

So much on the side of Blake.[4] On the part of

Stothard, the story runs thus. Mr. Cromek had agreed with that artist to

employ him upon a picture of the Procession of Chaucer's Pilgrimage

to Canterbury, for which he first agreed to pay him sixty guineas, but

in order to enable him to finish it in a more exquisite manner, promised

him forty more, with an intention of engaging Bromley to engrave it; but

in consequence of some occurrence, his name was withdrawn, and

Schiavonetti was employed. During the time Stothard was painting the

picture, Blake called to see it, and appeared so delighted with it, that

Stothard, sincerely wishing to please an old friend with whom he had

lived so cordially for many years, and from whose works he always most

liberally declared he had received much pleasure and edification,

expressed a wish to introduce his portrait as one of the party, as a

mark of esteem.

Mr. Hoppner, in a letter to a friend, dated May 30, 1807, says

of it:

'This intelligent group is rendered still more interesting by the

charm of coloring, which though simple is strong, and most harmoniously

distributed throughout the picture. The landscape has a deep-toned

brightness that accords most admirably with the figures; and the

painter has ingeniously contrived to give a value to a common scene

and very ordinary forms, that would hardly be found, by unlearned eyes,

in the natural objects. He has expressed too, with great vivacity and

truth, the freshness of morning, at that season when Nature herself

is most fresh and blooming--the Spring; and it requires no

great stretch of fancy to imagine we perceive the influence of it

on the cheeks of the Fair Wife of Bath, and her rosy companions,

the Monk and Friar.

'In respect of the execution of the various parts of this pleasing

design, it is not too much praise to say, that it is wholly free from

that vice which painters term _manner_; and it has this

peculiarity beside, which I do not remember to have seen in any

picture, ancient or modern, namely, that it bears no mark of the

period in which it was painted, but might very well pass for the

work of some able artist of the time of Chaucer. This effect is not,

I believe, the result of any association of ideas connected with the

costume, but appears in primitive simplicity, and the total absence

of all affectation, either of coloring or pencilling.

'Having attempted to describe a few of the beauties of this

captivating performance, it remains only for me to mention one

great defect. The picture is, notwithstanding appearances, _a

modern one._ But if you can divest yourself of the general

prejudice that exists against contemporary talents, you will see

a work that would have done honor to any school, at any period.'[5]

In 1810, Stothard, to his great surprise, found that Blake had

engraved and published a plate of the same size, in some respects

bearing a similarity to his own.[6] Such are the outlines of this

controversy.

Blake's ideas were often truly entertaining, and after he had

conveyed them to paper, his whimsical and novel descriptions

frequently surpassed his delineations; for instance, that of his

picture of the Transformation of the Flea to the form of a Man,

is extremely curious. This personification, which he denominated

a Cupper, or Blood-sucker, is covered with coat of armor, similar

to the case of the flea, and is represented slowly pacing in the night,

with a thorn attached to his right hand, and a cup in the other, as

if ready to puncture the first person whose blood he might fancy, like

Satan prowling about to seek whom he could devour. Blake said of

the flea, that were that lively little fellow the size of an elephant,

he was quite sure, from the calculations he had made of his wonderful

strength, that he could bound from Dover to Calais in one leap.[7]

Whatever may be the public opinion hereafter of Blake's talents,

when his enemies are dead, I will not presume to predict;[8]

but this I am certain of, that on the score of industry at least,

many artists must strike to him. Application was a faculty so

engendered in him that he took little bodily exercise to keep up

his health: he had few evening walks and little rest from labour,

for his mind was ever fixed upon his art, nor did he at any time

indulge in a game of chess, draughts, or backgammon; such

amusements, considered as relaxations by artists in general,

being to him distractions. His greatest pleasure was derived

from the Bible--a work ever at his hand, and which he often

assiduously consulted in several languages. Had he fortunately

lived till the next year's exhibition at Somerset House, the public

would then have been astonished at his exquisite finishing of a

Fresco picture of the Last Judgment, containing upwards of one

thousand figures, many of them wonderfully conceived and grandly

drawn. The lights of this extraordinary performance have the

appearance of silver and gold; but upon Mrs. Blake's assuring me

that there was no silver used, I found, upon a closer examination,

that a blue wash had been passed over those parts of the gilding

which receded, and the lights of the forward objects, which were

also of gold, were heightened with a warm color, to give the

appearance of the two metals.

It is most certain, that the uninitiated eye was incapable of

selecting the beauties of Blake; his effusions were not generally

felt; and in this opinion I am borne out in the frequent assertions

of Fuseli and Flaxman. It would, therefore, be unreasonable to

expect the booksellers to embark in publications, not likely to

meet remuneration. Circumstanced, then, as Blake was, approaching

to threescore years and ten, in what way was he to persevere in his

labours? Alas, he knew not! until the liberality of Mr. Linnell, a

brother-artist of eminence, whose discernment could well appreciate

those parts of his designs which deserved perpetuity, enabled him

to proceed and execute in comfort a series of twenty-one plates,

illustrative of the Book of Job. This was the last work he completed,

upon the merits of which he received the highest congratulations

from the following Royal Academicians: Sir Thomas Lawrence, Mr.

Baily, Mr. Philips, Mr. Chantrey, Mr. James Ward, Mr. Arnald, Mr.

Collins, Mr. Westmacott, and many other artists of eminence.

As to Blake's system of coloring, which I have not hitherto

noticed, it was in many instances most beautifully prismatic. In

this branch of the art he often acknowledged Apelles to have been

his tutor, who was, he said, so much pleased with his style, that

once when he appeared before him, among many of his observations,

he delivered the following:--'You certainly possess my system of

coloring; and I now wish you to draw my person, which has hitherto

been untruly delineated.'

I must own that until I was favoured by Mr. Upcott with a sight

of some of Blake's works, several of which I had never seen, I was

not so fully aware of his great depth of knowledge in coloring. Of

these most interesting specimens of his art, which are now extremely

rare, and rendered invaluable by his death, as it is impossible for any

one to color them with his mind, should the plates remain, Mr. Richard

Thomson, another truly kind friend, has favoured me with the following

descriptive lists.

SONGS OF EXPERIENCE. The author and printer, W. Blake. Small

octavo; seventeen plates, including the title-page. Frontispiece, a

winged infant mounted on the shoulders of a youth. On the title-page,

two figures weeping over two crosses.

_Introduction._ Four Stanzas on a cloud, with a night-sky

behind, and beneath, a figure of Earth stretched on a mantle.

_Earths Answer._ Five Stanzas; a serpent on the ground

beneath.

_The Clod, and the Pebble._ Three Stanzas; above, a

headpiece of four sheep and two oxen; beneath, a duck and reptiles.

_A Poison Tree._ Four Stanzas: The tree stretches up the right

side of the page; and beneath, a dead body killed by its influence.

_The Fly._ Five Stanzas. Beneath, a female figure with two

children.

_Holy Thursday._ Four Stanzas. Head-piece, a female figure

discovering a dead child. On the right-hand margin a mother and two

children lamenting the loss of an infant which lies beneath. Perhaps this

is one of the most tasteful of the set.

_The Chimney-Sweeper._ Three Stanzas. Beneath, a figure of

one walking in snow towards an open door.

_London._ Four Stanzas. Above, a child leading an old man

through the street; on the right hand, a figure warming itself at a fire.

If in any instance Mr. Blake has copied himself, it is in the figure of

the old man upon this plate, whose position appears to have been a

favorite one with him.

_The Tiger._ Six Stanzas. On the right-hand margin, the

trunk of a tree; and beneath, a tiger walking.

_A Little Boy Lost._ Six Stanzas. Ivy-leaves on the right hand,

and beneath, weeping figure before a fire, in which the verses state that

the child had been burned by a Saint.

_The Human Abstract._ Six Stanzas. The trunk of a tree on

the right-hand margin, and beneath, an old man in white drawing a veil

over his head.

_The Angel._ Four Stanzas. Head-piece, a female figure lying

beneath a tree, and pushing from her a winged boy.

_My Pretty Rose-Tree._ Two Stanzas: succeeded by a small

vignette, of a figure weeping, and another lying reclined at the foot of

a tree. Beneath, are two verses more, entitled, _Ah! Sun-Flower_;

and a single stanza, headed _The Lily._

_Nurse's Song._ Two Stanzas. Beneath, a girl with a youth

and a female child at a door surrounded by vine-leaves.

_A Little Girl Lost._ Seven Stanzas; interspersed with birds

and leaves, the trunk of a tree on the right-hand margin.

The whole of these plates are colored in imitation of fresco. The

poetry of these songs is wild, irregular, and highly mystical, but of no

great degree of elegance or excellence, and their prevailing feature is

a tone of complaint of the misery of mankind.

AMERICA: _a Prophecy._ Lambeth: Printed by William Blake,

in the year 1793; folio; eighteen plates or twenty pages, including the

frontispiece and title-page. After a Preludium of thirty-seven lines

commences the Prophecy of 226, which are interspersed with numerous

headpieces, vignettes, and tail-pieces, usually stretching along the

left-hand margin and enclosing the text; which sometimes appears

written on a cloud, and at others environed by flames and water. Of

the latter subject a very fine specimen is shown upon page 13, where

the tail-piece represents the bottom of the sea, with various fishes

coming together to prey upon a dead body. The head-piece is another

dead body lying on the surface of the waters, with an eagle feeding

upon it with outstretched wings. Another instance of Mr. Blake's

favorite figure of the old man entering at Death's door, is contained

on page 12 of this poem. The subject of the text is a conversation

between the Angel of Albion, the Angels of the Thirteen States,

Washington, and some others of the American generals, and 'Red

Ore,' the spirit of war and evil. The verses are without rhyme, and most

resemble hexameters, though they are by no means exact; and the

expressions are mystical in a very high degree.

EUROPE: _a Prophecy._ Lambeth: Printed by William Blake,

1794; folio; seventeen plates on the leaves, inclusive of the frontispiece

and title-page. Colored to imitate the ancient fresco painting. The

Preludium consists of thirty-three lines, in stanzas without rhyme, and

the Prophecy of two hundred and tight; the decorations to which are

larger than most of those in the former book, and approach nearest

to the character of paintings, since, in several instances, they occupy

the whole page. The frontispiece is an uncommonly fine specimen of

art, and approaches almost to the sublimity of Raffaelle or Michel

Angelo. It represents 'The Ancient of Days,' in an orb of light surrounded

by dark clouds, as referred to in Proverbs VIII. 27, stooping down with

an enormous pair of compasses to describe the destined orb of the

world,[9] 'when he set a compass upon the face of the earth.'

'In His hand

He took the golden compasses, prepar'd

In God's eternal store, to circumscribe

This universe, and all created things:

One foot he centred, and the other turn'd

Round through the vast profundity obscure;

And said, "Thus far extend, thus far thy bounds,

This be thy just circumference, O World!"'

Paradise Lost, book VII. line 236.

Another splendid composition in this work are the two angels pouring

out the black-spotted plague upon England, on page 9; in which the

fore-shortening of the legs, the grandeur of their positions, and the

harmony with which they are adapted to each other and to their curved

trumpets, are perfectly admirable. The subject-matter of the work is

written in the same wild and singular measures as the preceding, and

describes, in mystical language, the terrors of plague and anarchy which

overspread England during the slumbers of Enitharmon for eighteen

hundred years; upon whose awaking, the ferocious spirit Ore burst into

flames 'in the vineyards of red France.' At the end of this poem are seven

separate engravings on folio pages, without letterpress, which are

colored like the former part of the work, with a degree of splendor and

force, as almost to resemble sketches in oil-colors. The finest of these

are a figure of an angel standing in the sun, a group of three furies

surrounded by clouds and fire, and a figure of a man sitting beneath

a tree in the deepest dejection; all of which are peculiarly remarkable

for their strength and splendor of coloring. Another publication by Mr.

Blake consisted only of a small quarto volume of twenty-three engravings

of various shapes and sizes, colored as before, some of which are

of extraordinary effect and beauty. The best plates in this series

are--the first of an aged man, with a white heard sweeping the

ground, and writing in a book with each hand, naked; a human figure

pressing out his brain through his ears; and the great sea-serpent; but

perhaps the best is a figure sinking in a stormy sea at sunset, the

splendid light of which, and the foam upon the black waves, are

almost magical effects of coloring. Beneath the first design is engraved

'_Lambeth, printed by W. Blake_, 1794.'

Blake's modes of preparing his ground, and laying them over

his panels for painting, mixing his colors, and manner of working,

were those which he considered to have been practized by the

earliest fresco painters, whose productions still remain, in numerous

instances, vivid and permanently fresh. His ground was a mixture

of whiting and carpenter's glue, which he passed over several times

in thin coatings: his colors he ground himself, and also united them

with the same sort of glue, but in a much weaker state. He would, in

the course of painting a picture, pass a very thin transparent wash

of glue-water over the whole of the parts he had worked upon, and

then proceed with his finishing.[10]

This process I have tried, and find, by using my mixture warm,

that I can produce the same texture as possessed in Blake's pictures

of the Last Judgment, and others of his productions, particularly

in Varley's curious picture of the personified Flea. Blake preferred

mixing his colors with carpenter's glue, to gum, on account of the

latter cracking in the sun, and becoming humid in moist weather.

The glue-mixture stands the sun, and change of atmosphere has no

effect upon it. Every carpenter knows that if a broken piece of stick

be joined with good glue, the stick will seldom break again in the

glued parts.

That Blake had many secret modes of working, both as a colorist

and an engraver, I have no doubt. His method of eating away the plain

copper, and leaving his drawn lines of his subjects and his words as

stereotype, is, in my mind, perfectly original. Mrs. Blake is in

possession of the secret, and she ought to receive something

considerable for its communication, as I am quite certain it may be

used to the greatest advantage both to artists and literary characters

in general.

That Blake's colored plates have more effect than others where

gum has been used, is, in my opinion, the fact, and I shall rest my

assertion upon those beautiful specimens in the possession of Mr.

Upcott, colored purposely for that gentleman's godfather, Ozias

Humphrey, Esq., to whom Blake wrote the following interesting letter.

TO OZIAS HUMPHREY, ESQ.

'The design of The Last Judgment, which I have completed by

your recommendation for the Countess of Egremont, it is necessary

to give some account of; and its various parts ought to be described,

for the accommodation of those who give it the honor of their

attention.

'Christ seated on the Throne of Judgment: the Heavens in clouds

rolling before him and around him, like a scroll ready to be consumed

in the fires of the Angels; who descend before his feet, with their four

trumpets sounding to the four winds.

'Beneath, the Earth is convulsed with the labours of the Resurrection.

In the caverns of the earth is the Dragon with seven heads and ten

horns, chained by two Angels; and above his cavern, on the earth's

surface, is the Harlot, also seized and bound by two Angels with

chains, while her palaces are falling into ruins, and her counsellors and

warriors are descending into the abyss, in wailing and despair.

'Hell opens beneath the harlot's seat on the left hand, into which

the wicked are descending.

'The right hand of the design is appropriated to the Resurrection

of the Just: the left hand of the design is appropriated to the

Resurrection and Fall of the Wicked.

'Immediately before the Throne of Christ are Adam and Eve,

kneeling in humiliation, as representatives of the whole human

race; Abraham and Moses kneel on each side beneath them; from

the cloud on which Eve kneels, and beneath Moses, and from the

tables of stone which utter lightning, is seen Satan wound round

by the Serpent, and falling headlong; the Pharisees appear on

the left hand pleading their own righteousness before the Throne

of Christ: The Book of Death is opened on clouds by two Angels;

many groups of figures are falling from before the throne, and

from the sea of fire, which flows before the steps of the throne;

on which are seen the seven Lamps of the Almighty, burning before

the throne. Many figures chained and bound together fall through the

air, and some are scourged by Spirits with flames of fire into the

abyss of Hell, which opens to receive them beneath, on the left hand

of the harlot's seat; where others are howling and descending into

the flames, and in the act of dragging each other into Hell, and of

contending in fighting with each other on the brink of perdition.

'Before the Throne of Christ on the right hand, the Just, in

humiliation and in exultation, rise through the air, with their

Children and Families; some of whom are bowing before the Book

of Life, which is opened by two Angels on clouds: many groups

arise with exultation; among them is a figure crowned with stars,

and the moon beneath her feet, with six infants around her, she

represents the Christian Church. The green hills appear beneath;

with the graves of the blessed, which are seen bursting with their

births of immortality; parents and children embrace and arise

together, and in exulting attitudes tell each other that the New

Jerusalem is ready to descend upon earth; they arise upon the air

rejoicing; others newly awaked from the graves, stand upon the

earth embracing and shouting to the Lamb, who cometh in the

clouds with power and great glory.

'The whole upper part of the design is a view of Heaven opened;

around the Throne of Christ, four living creatures filled with eyes,

attended by seven angels with seven vials of the wrath of God, and

above these seven Angels with the seven trumpets compose the

cloud, which by its rolling away displays the opening seats of the

Blessed, on the right and the left of which are seen the four-and-twenty

Elders seated on thrones to judge the dead.

'Behind the seat and Throne of Christ appears the Tabernacle

with its veil opened, the Candlestick on the right, the Table with

Show-bread on the left, and in the midst, the Cross in place of the

Ark, with the two Cherubim bowing over it.

'On the right hand of the Throne of Christ is Baptism, on his left

is the Lord's Supper--the two introducers into Eternal Life.

Women with infants approach the figure of an aged Apostle, which

represents Baptism; and on the left hand the Lord's Supper is

administered by Angels, from the hands of another aged Apostle;

these kneel on each side of the Throne, which is surrounded by

a glory: in the glory many infants appear, representing Eternal

Creation flowing from the Divine Humanity in Jesus; who opens

the Scroll of Judgment upon his knees before the living and the

dead.

'Such is the design which you, my dear Sir, have been the cause

of my producing, and which, but for you, might have slept till the

Last Judgment.

'WILLIAM BLAKE.

'_January_ 18, 1808.'

Blake and his wife were known to have lived so happily together,

that they might unquestionably have been registered at Dunmow.

'Their hopes and fears were to each other known,' and their days

and nights were passed in each other's company, for he always

painted, drew, engraved, and studied, in the same room where

they grilled, boiled, stewed, and slept; and so steadfastly attentive

was he to his beloved tasks, that for the space of two years he had

never once been out of his house; and his application was often so

incessant, that in the middle of the night, he would, after thinking

deeply upon a particular subject, leap from his bed and write for

two hours or more; and for many years he made a constant practice

of lighting the fire, and putting on the kettle for breakfast before

his Kate awoke.

During his last illness, which was occasioned by the gall mixing

with his blood, he was frequently bolstered-up in his bed to

complete his drawings, for his intended illustration of Dante;

an author so great a favorite with him, that though he agreed

with Fuseli and Flaxman, in thinking Carey's translation superior

to all others, yet, at the age of sixty-three years, he learned the

Italian language purposely to enjoy Dante in the highest possible

way. For this intended work, he produced seven engraved plates

of an imperial quarto size, and nearly one hundred finished drawings

of a size considerably larger; which will do equal justice to his

wonderful mind, and the liberal heart of their possessor, who

engaged him upon so delightful a task at a time when few persons

would venture to give him employment, and whose kindness softened,

for the remainder of his life, his lingering bodily sufferings, which

he was seen to support with the most Christian fortitude.

On the day of his death, August 12,[11] 1827, he composed and

uttered songs to his Maker so sweetly to the ear of his Catherine,

that when she stood to hear him, he, looking upon her most affectionately,

said, 'My beloved, they are not mine--no--they are not mine.'

He expired at six in the evening, with the most cheerful serenity.

Some short time before his death, Mrs. Blake asked him where he

should like to be buried, and whether he would have the Dissenting

Minister, or the Clergyman of the Church of England, to read

the service: his answers were, that as far as his own feelings

were concerned, they might bury him where she pleased, adding,

that as his father, mother, aunt, and brother were buried in

Bunhill Bow, perhaps it would be better to lie there, but as

to service, he should wish for that of the Church of England.

His hearse was followed by two mourning-coaches, attended by

private friends: Calvert, Richmond, Tatham, and his brother, promising

young artists, to whom he had given instructions in the Arts, were of

the number. Tatham, ill as he was, travelled ninety miles to attend the

funeral of one for whom, next to his own family, he held the highest

esteem. Blake died in his sixty-ninth year, in the back-room of the

first-floor of No. 3 Fountain Court, Strand, and was buried in Bunhill

Fields, on the 17th of August, at the distance of about twenty-five feet

from the north wall, numbered eighty.

Limited as Blake was in his pecuniary circumstances, his beloved

Kate survives him clear of even a sixpenny debt; and in the fullest

belief that the remainder of her days will be rendered tolerable by the

sale of the few copies of her husband's works, which she will dispose

of at the original price of publication; in order to enable the collector

to add to the weight of his bookshelves, without being solicited to

purchase, out of compassion, those specimens of her husband's talents

which they ought to possess.

EXTRACT FROM 'A BOOK FOR A RAINY DAY'

[1784].--This year Mr. Flaxman, who then lived in Wardour

Street, introduced me to one of his early patrons, the Rev. Henry

Mathew, of Percy Chapel, Charlotte Street, which was built for him;

he was also afternoon preacher at Saint Martin's-in-the-Fields. At that

gentleman's house, in Rathbone Place, I became acquainted with

Mrs. Mathew and her son. At that lady's most agreeable conversaziones

I first met the late William Blake, the artist, to whom she and Mr.

Flaxman had been truly kind. There I have often heard him read

and sing several of his poems. He was listened to by the company with

profound silence, and allowed by most of the visitors to possess original

and extraordinary merit.'[12]

[Footnote 1: The whole copy of this little work, entitled 'Poetical

Sketches, by W. B.,' containing seventy pages, octavo, bearing

the date of 1783, was given to Blake to sell to friends, or publish,

as he might think proper.]

[Footnote 2: A friend has favoured me with the following anecdotes,

which he received from Blake, respecting his courtship. He states

that 'Our Artist fell in love with a lively little girl, who allowed him

to say everything that was loving, but would not listen to his overtures

on the score of matrimony. He was lamenting this in the house of

a friend, when a generous-hearted lass declared that she pitied him

from her heart. "Do you pity me?" asked Blake. "Yes; I do, most

sincerely."--"Then," said he, "I love you for that."--"Well,"

said the honest girl, "and I love you." The consequence was, they

were married, and lived the happiest of lives.']

[Footnote 3: I copied the above from the book now in the possession of

Mrs. Blake.]

[Footnote 4: In 1809, Blake exhibited sixteen poetical and historical

inventions, in his brother's first-floor in Broad Street; eleven

pictures in fresco, professed to be painted according to the

ancient method, and seven drawings, of which an explanatory

catalogue was published, and is perhaps the most curious of its

kind ever written. At page 7, the description of his fresco

painting of Geoffrey Chaucer's Pilgrimage commences. This picture,

which is larger than the print, is now in the possession of Thomas

Butts, Esq., a gentleman friendly to Blake, and who is in possession

of a considerable number of his works.]

[Footnote 5: See the 'Artist,' by Prince Hoare, Esq., No. 13,

vol. I. p. 13.]

[Footnote 6: I must do Mr. Stothard the justice to declare, that the

very first time I saw him after he had read the announcement

of Blake's death, he spoke in the handsomest terms of his talents,

and informed me that Blake made a remarkably correct and fine

drawing of the head of Queen Philippa, from her monumental effigy

in Westminster Abbey, for Gough's Sepulchral Monuments, engraved

by Basire. The collectors of Stothard's numerous and elegant designs

will recollect the name of Blake as the engraver of several plates in

the Novelist's Magazine, the Poetical Magazine, and also others for

a work entitled the Wit's Magazine, from drawings produced by the

same artist. Trotter, the engraver, who received instructions from

Blake, and who was a pattern-draughtsman to the calico-printers,

introduced his friend Stothard to Blake, and their attachment for

each other coutinued most cordially to exist in the opinion of the

public, until they produced their rival pictures of Chaucer's Canterbury

Pilgrimage.]

[Footnote 7: This interesting little picture is painted in fresco. It is

now the property of John Varley, the artist, whose landscapes

will ever be esteemed as some of the finest productions in Art,

and who may fairly be considered as one of the founders of the

Society of Artists in Water-Colors; the annual exhibitions of which

continue to surpass those of the preceding seasons.]

[Footnote 8: Blake's talent is not to be seen in his engravings from the

designs of other artists, though he certainly honestly endeavored

to copy the beauties of Stothard, Flaxman, and those masters set

before him by the few publishers who employed him; but his own

engravings from his own mind are the productions which the man

of true feeling must ever admire, and the predictions of Fuseli and

Flaxman may hereafter be verified 'That a time will come when Blake's

finest works will be as much sought after and treasured up in the

portfolios of men of mind, as those of Michel Angelo are at

present.']

[Footnote 9: He was inspired with the splendid grandeur of this figure,

by the vision which he declared hovered over his head at the

top of his staircase; and he has been frequently heard to say,

that it made a more powerful impression upon his mind than all

he had ever been visited by. This subject was such a favorite with

him, that he always bestowed more time and enjoyed greater pleasure

when coloring the print, than anything he ever produced.

Mr. F. Tatham employed him to tint an impression of it, for

which I have heard he paid him the truly liberal sum of three

guineas and a half. I say liberal, though the specimen is worth

any price, because the sum was so considerably beyond what Blake

generally had been accustomed to receive as a remuneration for

his extraordinary talents. Upon this truly inestimable impression,

which I have now before me, Blake worked when bolstered-up in

his bed only a few days before he died; and my friend F. Tatham

has just informed me, that after Blake had frequently touched

upon it, and had as frequently held it at a distance, he threw it

from him, and with an air of exulting triumph exclaimed, 'There,

that will do! I cannot mend it.' However, this was not his last

production; for immediately after he had made the above declaration

to his beloved Kate, upon whom his eyes were steadfastly fixed,

he vociferated, 'Stay! keep as you are! _you_ have ever been

an _angel_ to me, I will draw you'; and he actually made

a most spirited fineness of her, though within so short a period

of his earthly termination.]

[Footnote 10: Loutherbourgh was also, in _his_ way, very ingenious in his

contrivances. To oblige his friend Garrick, he enriched a drama,

entitled '_The Christmas Tale_,' with scenery painted by himself,

and introduced such novelty and brilliancy of effect, as formed

a new era in that species of art. This he accomplished by means

of differently colored silks placed before the lamps at the front of

the stage, and by the lights behind the side scenes. The same

effects were used for distance and atmosphere. As for instance,

Harlequin in a fog was produced by tiffany hung between the

audience and himself. Mr. Seguire, the father of the Keeper of

the King's Pictures, and those of the National Gallery, purchased

of Mr. Loutherbourgh ten small designs for the scenery of Omiah,

for which scenes the manager paid him one thousand pounds. Mr.

Loutherbourgh never would leave any paper or designs at the

theatre, nor would he ever allow any one to see what he intended

to produce; as he secretly held small cards in his hand, which he

now and then referred to in order to assist him in his recollections

of his small drawings.]

[Footnote 11: Not the 13th, as has been stated by several editors who

have noticed his death.]

[Footnote 12: A time will come when the numerous, though now very

rare works of Blake (in consequence of his taking very few impressions

from the plates before they were rubbed out to enable him to use them

for other subjects), will be sought after with the most intense avidity.

He was considered by Stothard and Flaxman (and will be by those of

congenial minds, if we can reasonably expect such again) with their

highest admiration. These artists allowed him their utmost unqualified

praise, and were ever anxious to recommend him and his productions

to the patrons of the Arts; but, alas! they were not sufficiently

appreciated as to enable Blake, as every one could wish, to provide

an independence for his surviving partner, Kate, who adored his

memory.]

(VIII.) LIFE OF BLAKE

BY ALLAN CUNNINGHAM (1830)

[Allan Cunningham's Life of Blake occupies pp. 142-179 of the second

volume of his _Lives of the most eminent British Painters, Sculptors,

and Architects._ (London: John Murray, Albemarle Street, MDCCCXXX.)

It is largely indebted to Smith, but contains a few anecdotes not found

elsewhere, and probably derived from Varley and Linnell. In a letter to

Linnell, printed in Mr. Story's Life, Cunningham says that 'much

valuable information' has been received from Varley, and asks

for more, adding, with characteristic impertinence: 'I know Blake's

character, for I knew the man. I shall make a _judicious_ use of

my materials, and be merciful where sympathy is needed.' He reproduces

the Phillips portrait of Blake, which had been engraved by Schiavonetti

for Blair's _Grave_, in a less showy and more lifelike engraving

by W. C. Edwards.]

Painting, like poetry, has followers, the body of whose genius

is light compared to the length of its wings, and who, rising above

the ordinary sympathies of our nature, are, like Napoleon, betrayed

by a star which no eye can see save their own. To this rare class

belonged William Blake.

He was the second son of James Blake and Catherine his wife,

and born on the 28th of November, 1757, in 28 Broad Street,

Carnaby Market, London. His father, a respectable hosier, caused

him to be educated for his own business, but the love of art came

early upon the boy; he neglected the figures of arithmetic for those of

Raphael and Reynolds; and his worthy parents often wondered how

a child of theirs should have conceived a love for such unsubstantial

vanities. The boy, it seems, was privately encouraged by his mother.

The love of designing and sketching grew upon him, and he desired

anxiously to be an artist. His father began to be pleased with the notice

which his son obtained--and to fancy that a painter's study

might after all be a fitter place than a hosier's shop for one who drew

designs on the backs of all the shop bills, and made sketches on the

counter. He consulted an eminent artist, who asked so large a sum

for instruction, that the prudent shopkeeper hesitated, and young

Blake declared he would prefer being an engraver--a profession

which would bring bread at least, and through which he would be

connected with painting. It was indeed time to dispose of him.

In addition to his attachment to art, he had displayed poetic

symptoms--scraps of paper and the blank leaves of books were

found covered with groups and stanzas. When his father saw sketches

at the top of the sheet and verses at the bottom, he took him away

to Basire, the engraver, in Green Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, and

bound him apprentice for seven years. He was then fourteen years old.

It is told of Blake that at ten years of age he became an artist,

and at twelve a poet. Of his boyish pencillings I can find no

traces--but of his early intercourse with the Muse the proof

lies before me in seventy pages of verse, written, he says, between

his twelfth and his twentieth year, and published, by the advice of

friends, when he was thirty. There are songs, ballads, and a dramatic

poem; rude sometimes and melodious, but full of fine thought and

deep and peculiar feeling. To those who love poetry for the music

of its bells, these seventy pages will sound harsh and dissonant; but

by others they will be more kindly looked upon. John Flaxman, a judge

in all things of a poetic nature, was so touched with many passages,

that he not only counseled their publication, but joined with a gentleman

of the name of Matthews in the expense, and presented the printed

sheets to the artist to dispose of for his own advantage. One of these

productions is an address to the Muses--a common theme, but

sung in no common manner.

'Whether on Ida's shady brow,

Or in the chambers of the east,

The chambers of the sun, that now

From ancient melody have ceas'd;

Whether in heaven ye wander fair,

Or the green corners of the earth,

Or the blue regions of the air,

Where the melodious winds have birth;

Whether on crystal rocks ye rove,

Beneath the bosom of the sea,

Wandering in many a coral grove,

Fair Nine! forsaking poesie;

How have ye left the ancient love,

That Bards of old enjoyed in you;--

The languid strings now scarcely move,

The sound is forced--the notes are few.'

The little poem called 'The Tiger' has been admired for the

force and vigour of its thoughts by poets of high name. Many

could weave smoother lines--few could stamp such living images.

'Tiger! Tiger! burning bright

In the forest of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Framed thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies

Burned the fervour 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 formed thy dread feet?

What the hammer! what the chain!

Formed thy strength and forged thy brain?

What the anvil! What dread grasp

Dared thy deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spheres,

And sprinkled heaven with shining tears,

Did he smile, his work to see?

Did he who made the lamb make thee?'

In the dramatic poem of King Edward the Third there are many

nervous lines, and even whole passages of high merit. The structure

of the verse is often defective, and the arrangement inharmonious;

but before the ear is thoroughly offended, it is soothed by some touch

of deep melody and poetic thought. The princes and earls of England

are conferring together on the eve of the battle of Cressy--the

Black Prince takes Chandos aside, and says--

'Now we're alone, John Chandos, I'll unburthen

And breathe my hopes into the burning air--

Where thousand Deaths are posting up and down,

Commissioned to this fatal field of Cressy:

Methinks I see them arm my gallant soldiers,

And gird the sword upon each thigh, and fit

The shining helm, and string each stubborn bow,

And dancing to the neighing of the steeds;--Methinks

the shout begins--the battle burns;--Methinks

I see them perch on English crests,

And breathe the wild flame of fierce war upon

The thronged enemy.'

In the same high poetic spirit Sir Walter Manny converses

with a genuine old English warrior, Sir Thomas Dagworth.

'O, Dagworth!--France is sick!--the very sky,

Though sunshine light, it seems to me as pale

As is the fainting man on his death-bed,

Whose face is shown by light of one weak taper--

It makes me sad and sick unto the heart;

Thousands must fall to-day.'

Sir Thomas answers.

'Thousands of souls must leave this prison-house

To be exalted to those heavenly fields

Where songs of triumph, psalms of victory,

Where peace, and joy, and love, and calm content

Sit singing on the azure clouds, and strew

The flowers of heaven upon the banquet table.

Bind ardent hope upon your feet, like shoes,

And put the robe of preparation on.

The table, it is spread in shining heaven.

Let those who fight, fight in good steadfastness;

And those who fall shall rise in victory.'

I might transcribe from these modest and unnoticed pages many

such passages. It would be unfair not to mention that the same

volume contains some wild and incoherent prose, in which we may

trace more than the dawning of those strange, mystical, and mysterious

fancies on which he subsequently misemployed his pencil. There

is much that is weak, and something that is strong, and a great deal

that is wild and mad, and all so strangely mingled, that no meaning

can be assigned to it; it seems like a lamentation over the disasters

which came on England during the reign of King John.

Though Blake lost himself a little in the enchanted region of

song, he seems not to have neglected to make himself master of

the graver, or to have forgotten his love of designs and sketches.

He was a dutiful servant to Basire, and he studied occasionally under

Flaxman and Fuseli; but it was his chief delight to retire to the solitude

of his chamber, and there make drawings, and illustrate these with

verses, to be hung up together in his mother's chamber. He was

always at work; he called amusement idleness, sight-seeing vanity,

and money-making the ruin of all high aspirations. 'Were I to love

money,' he said, 'I should lose all power of thought! desire of gain

deadens the genius of man. I might roll in wealth and ride in a golden

chariot, were I to listen to the voice of parsimony. My business is

not to gather gold, but to make glorious shapes, expressing godlike

sentiments.' The day was given to the graver, by which he earned

enough to maintain himself respectably; and he bestowed his evenings

upon painting and poetry, and intertwined these so closely in his

compositions, that they cannot well be separated.

When he was six-and-twenty years old, he married Katharine

Boutcher, a young woman of humble connections--the dark-eyed

Kate of several of his lyric poems. She lived near his father's house

and was noticed by Blake for the whiteness of her hand, the brightness

of her eyes, and a slim and handsome shape, corresponding with his

own notions of sylphs and naiads. As he was an original in all things,

it would have been out of character to fall in love like an ordinary

mortal; he was describing one evening in company the pains he

had suffered from some capricious lady or another, when Katharine

Boutcher said, 'I pity you from my heart.' 'Do you pity me?' said Blake,

'then I love you for that.' 'And I love you,' said the frank-hearted lass,

and so the courtship began. He tried how well she looked in a drawing,

then how her charms became verse; and finding moreover that she

had good domestic qualities, he married her. They lived together long

and happily.

She seemed to have been created on purpose for Blake:--she

believed him to be the finest genius on earth; she believed in his

verse--she believed in his designs; and to the wildest flights

of his imagination she bowed the knee, and was a worshipper. She set

his house in good order, prepared his frugal meal, learned to think

as he thought, and, indulging him in his harmless absurdities,

became, as it were, bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh.

She learned--what a young and handsome woman is seldom apt

to learn--to despise gaudy dresses, costly meals, pleasant

company, and agreeable invitations--she found out the way

of being happy at home, living on the simplest of food, and contented

in the homeliest of clothing. It was no ordinary mind which could

do all this; and she whom Blake emphatically called his beloved,'

was no ordinary woman. She wrought off in the press the impressions

of his plates--she colored them with a light and neat hand--made

drawings much in the spirit of her husband's compositions, and almost

rivaled him in all things save in the power which he possessed of

seeing visions of any individual living or dead, whenever he chose

to see them.

His marriage, I have heard, was not agreeable to his father; and

he then left his roof and resided with his wife in Green Street, Leicester

Fields. He returned to Broad Street, on the death of his father, a

devout man, and an honest shopkeeper, of fifty years' standing, took

a first-floor and a shop, and in company with one Parker, who had

been his fellow-apprentice, commenced print-seller. His wife attended

to the business, and Blake continued to engrave, and took Robert, his

favorite brother, for a pupil. This speculation did not succeed--his

brother too sickened and died; he had a dispute with Parker--the

shop was extinguished, and he removed to 28 Poland Street. Here he

commenced that series of works which give him a right to be numbered

among the men of genius of his country. In sketching designs, engraving

plates, writing songs, and composing music, he employed his time, with

his wife sitting at his side, encouraging him in all his undertakings. As

he drew the figure he meditated the song which was to accompany it,

and the music to which the verse was to be sung, was the offspring

too of the same moment. Of his music there are no specimens--he

wanted the art of noting it down--if it equalled many of his

drawings, and some of his songs, we have lost melodies of real value.

The first fruits were the 'Songs of Innocence and Experience,' a

work original and natural, and of high merit, both in poetry and in

painting. It consists of some sixty-five or seventy scenes, presenting

images of youth and manhood--of domestic sadness, and fireside

joy--of the gaiety and innocence, and happiness of childhood.

Every scene has its poetical accompaniment, curiously interwoven

with the group or the landscape, and forming, from the beauty of the

color and the prettiness of the pencilling, a very fair picture of itself.

Those designs are in general highly poetical; more allied, however, to

heaven than to earth,--a kind of spiritual abstractions, and

indicating a better world and fuller happiness than mortals enjoy.

The picture of Innocence is introduced with the following sweet

verses.

'Piping down the valleys wild,

Piping songs of pleasant glee,

On a cloud I saw a child,

And he laughing said to me--

Pipe a song about a lamb;

So I piped with merry cheer.

Piper, pipe that song again--

So I piped--he wept to hear.

Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe,

Sing thy songs of happy cheer--

So I sung the same again,

While he wept with joy to hear.

Piper, sit thee down and write

In a book that all may read--

So he vanished from my sight:

And I plucked a hollow reed,

And I made a rural pen,

And I stained the water clear,

And I wrote my happy songs,

Every child may joy to hear.'

In a higher and better spirit he wrought with his pencil. But

then he imagined himself under spiritual influences; he saw

the forms and listened to the voices of the worthies of other

days; the past and the future were before him, and he heard,

in imagination, even that awful voice which called on Adam amongst

the trees of the garden. In this kind of dreaming abstraction, he

lived much of his life; all his works are stamped with it; and though

they owe much of their mysticism and obscurity to the circumstance,

there can be no doubt that they also owe to it much of their singular

loveliness and beauty. It was wonderful that he could thus, month

after month, and year after year, lay down his graver after it had won

him his daily wages, and retire from the battle for bread, to disport his

fancy amid scenes of more than earthly splendor, and creatures

pure as unfalled dew.

In this lay the weakness and the strength of Blake, and those

who desire to feel the character of his compositions, must be

familiar with his history and the peculiarities of his mind. He was

by nature a poet, a dreamer, and an enthusiast. The eminence

which it had been the first ambition of his youth to climb, was

visible before him, and he saw on its ascent or on its summit

those who had started earlier in the race of fame. He felt conscious

of his own merit, but w as not aware of the thousand obstacles

which were ready to interpose.' He thought that he had but to

sing songs and draw designs, and become great and famous.

The crosses which genius is heir to had been wholly unforeseen--and

they befell him early; he wanted the skill of hand, and fine tact

of fancy and taste, to impress upon the offspring of his thoughts

that popular shape, which gives such productions immediate circulation.

His works were looked coldly on by the world, and were only

esteemed by men of poetic minds, or those who were fond of

things out of the common way. He earned a little fame, but no

money by these speculations, and had to depend for bread on

the labours of the graver.

All this neither crushed his spirit, nor induced him to work

more in the way of the world; but it had a visible influence upon

his mind. He became more seriously thoughtful, avoided the company

of men, and lived in the manner of a hermit, in that vast wilderness,

London. Necessity made him frugal, and honesty and independence

prescribed plain clothes, homely fare, and a cheap habitation. He was

thus compelled more than ever to retire to worlds of his own creating,

and seek solace in visions of paradise for the joys which the earth

denied him. By frequent indulgence in these imaginings, he gradually

began to believe in the reality of what dreaming fancy painted--the

pictured forms which swarmed before his eyes, assumed, in his

apprehension, the stability of positive revelations, and he mistook

the vivid figures, which his professional imagination shaped, for the

poets, and heroes, and princes of old. Amongst his friends, he at

length ventured to intimate that the designs on which he was

engaged were not from his own mind, but copied from grand works

revealed to him in visions; and those who believed that, would

readily lend an ear to the assurance that he was commanded to

execute his performances by a celestial tongue!

Of these imaginary visitations he made good use, when he invented

his truly original and beautiful mode of engraving and tinting his

plates. He had made the sixty-five designs of his Days of Innocence,

and was meditating, he said, on the best means of multiplying their

resemblance in form and in hue; he felt sorely perplexed. At last

he was made aware that the spirit of his favorite brother Robert was

in the room, and to this celestial visitor he applied for counsel.

The spirit advised him at once: 'write,' he said, 'the poetry, and

draw the designs upon the copper with a certain liquid (which

he named, and which Blake ever kept a secret); then cut the

plain parts of the plate down with aqua-fortis, and this will give

the whole, both poetry and figures, in the manner of a stereotype.'

The plan recommended by this gracious spirit was adopted; the

plates were engraved, and the work printed off. The artist then

added a peculiar beauty of his own. He tinted both the figures

and the verse with a variety of colors, amongst which, while

yellow prevails, the whole has a rich and lustrous beauty, to

which I know little that can be compared. The size of these

prints is four inches and a half high by three inches wide. The

original genius of Blake was always confined, through poverty,

to small dimensions. Sixty-five plates of copper were an object

to him who had little money. The Gates of Paradise, a work of

sixteen designs, and those exceedingly small, was his next undertaking.

The meaning of the artist is not a little obscure; it seems to

have been his object to represent the innocence, the happiness,

and the upward aspirations of man. They bespeak one intimately

acquainted with the looks and the feelings of children. Over them

there is shed a kind of mysterious halo which raises feelings of

devotion. The Songs of Innocence, and the Gates of Paradise,

became popular among the collectors of prints. To the sketch

book and the cabinet the works of Blake are unfortunately confined.

If there be mystery in the meaning of the Gates of Paradise, his

succeeding performance, by name Urizen, has the merit or the

fault of surpassing all human comprehension. The spirit which

dictated this strange work was undoubtedly a dark one; nor does

the strange kind of prose which is intermingled with the figures

serve to enlighten us. There are in all twenty-seven designs

representing beings human, demoniac, and divine, in situations

of pain and sorrow and suffering. One character--evidently

an evil spirit--appears in most of the plates; the horrors

of hell, and the terrors of darkness and divine wrath, seem his

sole portion. He swims in gulps of fire--descends in cataracts

of flame--holds combats with scaly serpents, or writhes in

anguish without any visible cause. One of his exploits is to chase

a female soul through 'a narrow gate and hurl her headlong down

into a darksome pit. The wild verses which are scattered here and

there, talk of the sons and the daughters of Urizen. He seems to

have extracted these twenty-seven scenes out of many visions--what

he meant by them even his wife declared she could not tell, though

she was sure they had a meaning and a fine one. Something like

the fall of Lucifer and the creation of Man is dimly visible in this

extravagant work; it is not a little fearful to look upon; a powerful,

dark, terrible though undefined and indescribable impression is

left on the mind--and it is in no haste to be gone. The size

of the designs is four inches by six; they bear date, 'Lambeth,

1794.' He had left Poland Street and was residing in Hercules

Buildings.

The name of Blake began now to be known a little, and Edwards,

the bookseller, employed him to illustrate Young's Night Thoughts.

The reward in money was small, but the temptation in fame was

great: the work was performed something in the manner of old

books with illuminated margins. Along the ample margins which

the poetry left on the page the artist sketched his fanciful creations;

contracting or expanding them according to the space. Some of

those designs were in keeping with the poems, but there were

others which alarmed fastidious people: the serious and the

pious were not prepared to admire shapes trembling in nudity

round the verses of a grave divine. In the exuberance of Young

there are many fine figures; but they are figures of speech only, on

which art should waste none of its skill. This work was so much,

in many parts, to the satisfaction of Flaxman, that he introduced

Blake to Hayley the poet, who, in 1800, persuaded him to remove

to Felpham in Sussex, to make engravings for the Life of Cowper.

To that place he accordingly went with his wife and sister, and was

welcomed by Hayley with much affection. Of his journey and his

feelings he gives the following account to Flaxman, whom he

usually addressed thus, 'Dear Sculptor of Eternity.'

'We are arrived safe at our cottage, which is more beautiful

than I thought it, and more convenient. It is a perfect model for

cottages, and I think for palaces of magnificence, only enlarging

and not altering its proportions, and adding ornaments and not

principals. Nothing can be more grand than its simplicity and

usefulness. Felpham is a sweet place for study, because it is more

spiritual than London. Heaven opens here on all sides her golden,

gates; her windows are not obstructed by vapors; voices of celestial

inhabitants are more distinctly heard, and their forms more distinctly

seen, and my cottage is also a shadow of their houses. My wife and

sister are both well, and are courting Neptune for an embrace.'

Thus far had he written in the language and feelings of a

person of upper air; though some of the expressions are tinctured

with the peculiar enthusiasm of the man, they might find shelter

under the licence of figurative speech, and pass muster as the

poetic language of new-found happiness. Blake thus continues:--

'And now begins a new life, because another covering of earth

is shaken off. I am more famed in heaven for my works than I

could well conceive. In my brain are studies and chambers filled

with books and pictures of old, which I wrote and painted in ages

of eternity before my mortal life, and those works are the delight

and study of archangels. Why then should I be anxious about the

riches or fame of mortality? You, O dear Flaxman, are a sublime

archangel, my friend and companion from eternity. Farewell, my

dear friend, remember me and my wife in love and friendship to Mrs.

Flaxman, whom we ardently desire to entertain beneath our thatched

roof of russet gold.'

This letter, written in the year 1800, gives the true twofold

image of the author's mind. During the day he was a man of sagacity

and sense, who handled his graver wisely, and conversed in a

wholesome and pleasant manner; in the evening, when he had done

his prescribed task, he gave a loose to his imagination. While

employed on those engravings which accompany the works of Cowper,

he saw such company as the country where he resided afforded, and

talked with Hayley about poetry with a feeling to which the author

of the Triumphs of Temper was an utter stranger; but at the close

of day away went Blake to the seashore to indulge in his own thoughts and:

'High converse with the dead to hold.'

Here he forgot the present moment and lived in the past; he

conceived, verily, that he had lived in other days, and had formed

friendships with Homer and Moses; with Pindar and Virgil; with

Dante and Milton. These great men, he asserted, appeared to him

in visions, and even entered into conversation. Milton, in a moment

of confidence, entrusted him with a whole poem of his, which the

world had never seen; but unfortunately the communication was oral,

and the poetry seemed to have lost much of its brightness in Blake's

recitation. When asked about the looks of those visions, he answered,

'They are all majestic shadows, gray but luminous, and superior to the

common height of men.' It was evident that the solitude of the country

gave him a larger swing in imaginary matters. His wife often accompanied

him to these strange interviews; she saw nothing and heard as

little, but she was certain that her husband both heard and saw.

Blake's mind at all times resembled that first page in the magician's

book of gramoury, which made:

'The cobweb on the dungeon wall,

Seem tapestry in lordly hall.'

His mind could convert the most ordinary occurrence into something

mystical and supernatural. He often saw less majestic shapes than

those of the poets of old. 'Did you ever see a fairy's funeral,

madam?' he once said to a lady, who happened to sit by him in

company. 'Never, sir!' was the answer. 'I have,' said Blake, 'but not

before last night. I was walking alone in my garden, there was

great stillness among the branches and flowers and more than

common sweetness in the air; I heard a low and pleasant sound,

and I knew not whence it came. At last I saw the broad leaf of a

flower move, and underneath I saw a procession of creatures of

the size and color of green and gray grasshoppers, bearing a

body laid out on a rose leaf, which they buried with songs, and

then disappeared. It was a fairy funeral.' It would, perhaps,

have been better for his fame had he connected it more with the

superstitious beliefs of his country--amongst the elves

and fairies his fancy might have wandered at will--their

popular character would perhaps have kept him within the bounds

of traditionary belief, and the sea of his imagination might have

had a shore.

After a residence of three years in his cottage at Felpham, he

removed to 17 South Molton Street, London, where he lived seventeen

years. He came back to town with a fancy not a little exalted by the

solitude of the country, and in this mood designed and engraved an

extensive and strange work which he entitled '_Jerusalem._' A

production so exclusively wild was not allowed to make its appearance

in an ordinary way: he thus announced it. 'After my three years'

slumber on the banks of the ocean, I again display my giant forms

to the public.' Of those designs there are no less than an hundred;

what their meaning is the artist has left unexplained. It seems of a

religious, political, and spiritual kind, and wanders from hell to

heaven and from heaven to earth; now glancing into the distractions

of our own days, and then making a transition to the antediluvians.

The crowning defect is obscurity; meaning seems now and then

about to dawn; you turn plate after plate and read motto after

motto, in the hope of escaping from darkness into light. But the

first might as well be looked at last; the whole seems a riddle

which no ingenuity can solve. Yet, if the work be looked at for

form and effect rather than for meaning, many figures may be

pronounced worthy of Michael Angelo. There is wonderful freedom of

attitude and position; men, spirits, gods, and angels, move with

an ease which makes one lament that we know not wherefore they

are put in motion. Well might Hayley call him his 'gentle visionary

Blake.' He considered the Jerusalem to be his greatest work, and

for a set of the tinted engravings he charged twenty-five guineas.

Few joined the artist in his admiration. The Jerusalem, with all

its giant forms, failed to force its way into circulation.

His next work was the Illustrations of Blair's Grave, which

came to the world with the following commendation by Fuseli:

'The author of the moral series before us has endeavored to

awaken sensibility by touching our sympathies with nearer, less

ambiguous and less ludicrous imagery, than what mythology, Gothic

superstition, or symbols as far fetched as inadequate could supply.

His avocation has been chiefly employed to spread a familiar and

domestic atmosphere round the most important of all subjects,

to connect the visible and the invisible world without provoking

probability, and to lead the eye from the milder light of time to

the radiations of eternity.' For these twelve Inventions,' as he

called them, Blake received twenty guineas from Cromeck, the

engraver--a man of skill in art and taste in literature. The

price was little, but nevertheless it was more than what he usually

received for such productions; he also undertook to engrave them.

But Blake's mode of engraving was as peculiar as his style of

designing; it had little of that grace of execution about it, which

attracts customers, and the Inventions, after an experiment or two,

were placed under the fashionable graver of Louis Schiavonetti.

Blake was deeply incensed--he complained that he was deprived

of the profit of engraving his own designs, and, with even less

justice, that Schiavonetti was unfit for the task.

Some of these twelve 'Inventions' are natural and poetic, others

exhibit laborious attempts at the terrific and the sublime. The old

Man at Death's Door is one of the best--in the Last Day

there are fine groups and admirable single figures--the Wise

Ones of the Earth pleading before the inexorable Throne, and

the Descent of the Condemned, are creations of a high order.

The Death of the Strong Wicked Man is fearful and extravagant,

and the flames in which the soul departs from the body have no

warrant in the poem or in belief. The Descent of Christ into the

Grave is formal and tame, and the hoary old Soul in the Death of

the Good Man, travelling heavenward between two orderly Angels,

required little outlay of fancy. The frontispiece--a naked

Angel descending headlong and rousing the Dead with the Sound

of the last Trumpet--alarmed the devout people of the north,

and made maids and matrons retire behind their fans.

If the tranquillity of Blake's life was a little disturbed by the

dispute about the twelve Inventions,' it was completely shaken

by the controversy which now arose between him and Cromeck

respecting his Canterbury Pilgrimage. That two artists at one and

the same time should choose the same subject for the pencil,

seems scarcely credible--especially when such subject was

not of a temporary interest. The coincidence here was so close,

that Blake accused Stothard of obtaining knowledge of his design

through Cromeck, while Stothard with equal warmth asserted that

Blake had commenced his picture in rivalry of himself. Blake declared

that Cromeck had actually commissioned him to paint the Pilgrimage

before Stothard thought of his; to which Cromeck replied, that the

order had been given in a vision, for he never gave it. Stothard, a

man as little likely to be led aside from truth by love of gain as by

visions, added to Cromeck's denial the startling testimony that Blake

visited him during the early progress of his picture, and expressed

his approbation of it, in such terms, that he proposed to introduce

Blake's portrait in the procession, as a mark of esteem. It is probable

that Blake obeyed some imaginary revelation in this matter, and

mistook it for the order of an earthly employer; but whether

commissioned by a vision or by mortal lips, his Canterbury Pilgrimage

made its appearance in an exhibition of his principal works in the house

of his brother, in Broad Street, during the summer of 1809.

Of original designs, this singular exhibition contained sixteen--they

were announced as chiefly 'of a spiritual and political nature'--but

then the spiritual works and political feelings of Blake were unlike

those of any other man. One piece represented 'The Spiritual Form

of Nelson guiding Leviathan.' Another, 'The Spiritual Form of

Seth guiding Behemoth.' This, probably, confounded both divines

and politicians; there is no doubt that plain men went wondering

away. The chief attraction was the Canterbury Pilgrimage, not

indeed from its excellence, but from the circumstance of its origin,

which was well known about town, and pointedly alluded to in

the catalogue. The picture is a failure. Blake was too great a

visionary for dealing with such literal wantons as the Wife of Bath

and her jolly companions. The natural flesh and blood of Chaucer

prevailed against him. He gives grossness of body for grossness

of mind,--tries to be merry and wicked--and in vain.

Those who missed instruction in his pictures, found entertainment

in his catalogue, a wild performance, overflowing with the oddities

and dreams of the author--which may be considered as a kind

of public declaration of his faith concerning art and artists. His first

anxiety is about his colors. 'Colouring,' says this new lecturer on the

_Chiaroscuro_, 'does not depend on where the colours are

put, but on where the lights and darks are put, and all depends on

form or outline. Where that is wrong the coloring never can be right,

and it is always wrong in Titian and Corregio, Rubens and Rembrandt;

till we get rid of them we shall never equal Raphael and Albert Dürer,

Michael Angelo and Julio Romano. Clearness and precision have

been my chief objects in painting these pictures--clear colors

and firm determinate lineaments, unbroken by shadows--which

ought to display and not hide form, as in the practice of the later

schools of Italy and Flanders. The picture of the Spiritual Form of Pitt

is a proof of the power of colors unsullied with oil or with any cloggy

vehicle. Oil has been falsely supposed to give strength to colors, but

a little consideration must show the fallacy of this opinion. Oil will not

drink or absorb color enough to stand the test of any little time and

of the air. Let the works of artists since Rubens' time witness to the

villainy of those who first brought oil-painting into general opinion

and practice, since which we have never had a picture painted that

would show itself by the side of an earlier composition. This is an awful

thing to say to oil-painters; they may call it madness, but it is true.

All the genuine old little pictures are in fresco and not in oil.'

Having settled the true principles and proper materials of color,

he proceeds to open up the mystery of his own productions. Those

who failed to comprehend the pictures on looking at them, had

only to turn to the following account of the Pitt and the Nelson.

'These two pictures,' he says, 'are compositions of a mythological

cast, similar to those Apotheoses of Persian, Hindoo, and Egyptian

antiquity, which are still preserved in rude monuments, being copies

from some stupendous originals now lost or perhaps buried to some

happier age. The artist having been taken, in vision, to the ancient

republics, monarchies, and patriarchates of Asia, has seen those

wonderful originals, called in the sacred Scriptures the cherubim,

which were painted and sculptured on the walls of temples, towns,

cities, palaces, and erected in the highly-cultivated states of Egypt,

Moab, and Edom, among the rivers of Paradise, being originals

from which the Greeks and Hetrurians copied Hercules, Venus,

Apollo, and all the groundworks of ancient art. They were executed

in a very superior style to those justly admired copies, being with their

accompaniments terrific and grand in the highest degree. The

artist has endeavored to emulate the grandeur of those seen in

his vision, and to apply it to modern times on a smaller scale.

The Greek Muses are daughters of Memory, and not of Inspiration

or Imagination, and therefore not authors of such sublime conceptions;

some of these wonderful originals were one hundred feet in height;

some were painted as pictures, some were carved as bass-relieves,

and some as groups of statues, all containing mythological and

recondite meaning. The artist wishes it was now the fashion to

make such monuments, and then he should not doubt of having

a national commission to execute those pictures of Nelson and

Pitt on a scale suitable to the grandeur of the nation who is the

parent of his heroes, in highly finished fresco, where the colors

would be as permanent as precious stones.'

The man who could not only write down, but deliberately correct

the printer's sheets which recorded, matter so utterly wild and

mad, was at the same time perfectly sensible to the exquisite

nature of Chaucer's delineations, and felt rightly what sort of skill

his inimitable Pilgrims required at the hand of an artist. He who

saw visions in Coele-Syria and statues an hundred feet high,

wrote thus concerning Chaucer: 'The characters of his pilgrims

are the characters which compose all ages and nations: as one

age falls another rises, different to mortal sight, but to immortals

only the same: for we see the same characters repeated again and

again, in animals, in vegetables, and in men; nothing new occurs

in identical existence. Accident ever varies; substance can never

suffer change nor decay. Of Chaucer's characters, some of the

names or titles are altered by time, but the characters themselves

for ever remain unaltered, and consequently they are the physiognomies

of universal human life, beyond which nature never steps. Names

alter--things never alter; I have known multitudes of those

who would have been monks in the age of monkery, who in this

deistical age are deists. As Linnaeus numbered the plants, so Chaucer

numbered the classes of men.'

His own notions and much of his peculiar practice in art are

scattered at random over the pages of this curious production. His

love of a distinct outline made him use close and clinging dresses;

they are frequently very graceful--at other times they are

constrained, and deform the figures which they so scantily cover.

'The great and golden rule of art (says he) is this:--that the

more distinct and sharp and wiry the bounding line, the more

perfect the work of art; and the less keen and sharp this external

line, the greater is the evidence of weak imitative plagiarism and

bungling: Protogenes and Apelles knew each other by this line.

How do we distinguish the oak from the beech; the horse from the

ox, but by the bounding outline? How do we distinguish one face

or countenance from another, but by the bounding line and its

infinite inflexions and movements? Leave out this line and you leave

out life itself: all is chaos again, and the line of the Almighty must

be drawn out upon it before man or beast can exist.'

These abominations--concealed outline and tricks of colour--now

bring on one of those visionary fits to which Blake was so liable,

and he narrates with the most amusing wildness sundry revelations

made to him concerning them. He informs us that certain painters

were _demons_--let loose on earth to confound the 'sharp wiry

outline,' and fill men's minds with fears and perturbations.

He signifies that he himself was for some time a miserable instrument

in the hands of Chiaro-Scuro demons, who employed him in making

'experiment pictures in oil.' 'These pictures,' says he, 'were

the result of temptations and perturbations laboring to destroy

imaginative power by means of that infernal machine called Chiaro-Scuro,

in the hands of Venetian and Flemish demons, who hate the Roman

and Venetian schools. They cause that everything in art shall

become a machine; they cause that the execution shall be all

blocked up with brown shadows; they put the artist in fear and

doubt of his own original conception. The spirit of Titian was

particularly active in raising doubts concerning the possibility of

executing without a model. Rubens is a most outrageous demon,

and by infusing the remembrances of his pictures, and style of

execution, hinders all power of individual thought. Corregio is a

soft and effeminate, consequently a most cruel demon, whose

whole delight is to cause endless labour to whoever suffers him

to enter his mind.' When all this is translated into the language

of sublunary life, it only means that Blake was haunted with the

excellences of other men's works, and, finding himself unequal

to the task of rivaling the soft and glowing colors and singular

effects of light and shade of certain great masters, betook himself

to the study of others not less eminent, who happened to have

laid out their strength in outline.

To describe the conversations which Blake held in prose with

demons and in verse with angels, would fill volumes, and an

ordinary gallery could not contain all the heads which he drew

of his visionary visitants. That all this was real, he himself most

sincerely believed; nay, so infectious was his enthusiasm, that

some acute and sensible persons who heard him expatiate, shook

their heads, and hinted that he was an extraordinary man, and

that there might be something in the matter. One of his brethren,

an artist of some note, employed him frequently in drawing the

portraits of those who appeared to him in visions. The most

propitious time for those 'angel-visits' was from nine at night

till five in the morning; and so docile were his spiritual sitters,

that they appeared at the wish of his friends. Sometimes, however,

the shape which he desired-to draw was long in appearing, and

he sat with his pencil and paper ready and his eyes idly roaming

in vacancy; all at once the vision came upon him, and he began

to work like one possess.

He was requested to draw the likeness of Sir. William Wallace--the

eye of Blake sparkled, for he admired heroes. 'William Wallace!'

he exclaimed, 'I see him now--there, there, how noble he

looks--reach me my things!' Having drawn for some time,

with the same care of hand and steadiness of eye, as if a living

sitter had been before him, Blake stopped suddenly, and said, 'I

cannot finish him--Edward the First has stept in between

him and me.' 'That's lucky,' said his friend, 'for I want the portrait

of Edward too.' Blake took another sheet of paper, and sketched

the features of Plantagenet; upon which his majesty politely vanished,

and the artist finished the head of Wallace. 'And pray, sir,' said a

gentleman, who heard Blake's friend tell his story--'was

Sir William Wallace an heroic-looking man? And what sort of personage

was Edward?' The answer was: 'There they are, sir, both framed

and hanging on the wall behind you, judge for yourself.' 'I looked

(says my informant) and saw two warlike heads of the size of

common life. That of Wallace was noble and heroic, that of Edward

stern and bloody. The first had the front of a god, the latter the

aspect of a demon.'

The friend who obliged me with these anecdotes, on observing

the interest which I took in the subject, said, 'I know much about

Blake--I was his companion for nine years. I have sat beside

him from ten at night till 'three in the morning, sometimes slumbering

and sometimes waking, but Blake never slept; he sat with a pencil

and paper drawing portraits of those whom I most desired to see.

I will show you, sir, some of these works.' He took out a large book

filled with drawings, opened it, and continued, 'Observe the poetic

fervor of that face--it is Pindar as he stood a conqueror in

the Olympic games. And this lovely creature is Corinna, who

conquered in poetry in the same place. That lady is Lais, the

courtesan--with the impudence which is part of her profession,

she stept in between Blake and Corinna, and he was obliged to paint

her to get her away. There! that is a face of a different stamp--can

you conjecture who he is?' 'Some scoundrel, I should think, sir.'

'There now--that is a strong proof of the accuracy of Blake--he

is a scoundrel indeed! The very individual task-master whom Moses

slew in Egypt. And who is this now--only imagine who this is?'

'Other than a good one, I doubt, sir.' 'You are right, it is the

Devil--he resembles, and this is remarkable, two men who

shall be nameless; one is a great lawyer, and the other--I

wish I durst name him--is a suborner of false witnesses. This

other head now?--this speaks for itself--it is the head

of Herod; how like an eminent officer in the army!'

He closed the book, and taking out a small panel from a private

drawer, said, 'This is the last which I shall show you; but it is the

greatest curiosity of all. Only look at the splendor of the coloring

and the original character of the thing!' 'I see,' said I, 'a naked

figure with a strong body and a short neck--with burning

eyes which long for moisture, and a face worthy of a murderer, holding

a bloody cup in its clawed hands, out of which it seems eager to

drink. I never saw any shape so strange, nor did I ever see any coloring

so curiously splendid--a kind of glistening green and dusky

gold, beautifully varnished. But what in the world is it?' 'It is a ghost,

sir--the ghost of a flea--a spiritualisation of the thing!'

'He saw this in a vision then,' I said. 'I'll tell you all about it, sir.

I called on him one evening, and found Blake more than usually

excited. He told me he had seen a wonderful thing--the ghost

of a flea! And did you make a drawing of him? I inquired. No, indeed,

said he, I wish I had, but I shall, if he appears again! He

looked earnestly into a corner of the room, and then said, here

he is--reach me my things--I shall keep my eye on him. There he

comes! his eager tongue whisking out of his mouth, a cup in his

hand to hold blood and covered with a scaly skin of gold and

green;--as he described him so he drew him.'

These stories are scarcely credible, yet there can be no doubt

of their accuracy. Another friend, on whose veracity I have the

fullest dependence, called one evening on Blake, and found him

sitting with a pencil and a panel, drawing a portrait with all the

seeming anxiety of a man who is conscious that he has got a

fastidious sitter; he looked and drew, and drew and looked, yet

no living soul was visible. 'Disturb me not,' said he, in a whisper,

'I have one sitting to me.' 'Sitting to you!' exclaimed his astonished

visitor, 'where is he, and what is he?--I see no one.' 'But I

see him, sir,' answered Blake haughtily, 'there he is, his name is

Lot--you may read of him in the Scripture. _He_ is sitting for

his portrait.'

Had he always thought so idly, and wrought on such visionary

matters, this memoir would have been the story of a madman,

instead of the life of a man of genius, some of whose works are

worthy of any age or nation. Even while he was indulging in these

laughable fancies, and seeing visions at the request of his friends,

he conceived, and drew, and engraved, one of the noblest of all

his productions--the Inventions for the Book of Job. He

accomplished this series in a small room, which served him for

kitchen, bedchamber, and study, where he had no other companion

but his faithful Katherine, and no larger income than some seventeen

or eighteen shillings a week. Of these Inventions, as the artist loved

to call them, there are twenty-one, representing the Man of Uz

sustaining his dignity amidst the inflictions of Satan, the reproaches

of his friends, and the insults of his wife. It was in such things that

Blake shone; the Scripture overawed his imagination, and he was

too devout to attempt aught beyond a literal embodying of the

majestic scene. He goes step by step with the narrative; always

simple, and often sublime--never wandering from the subject,

nor overlaying the text with the weight of his own exuberant fancy.

The passages, embodied, will show with what lofty themes he

presumed to grapple. 1. Thus did Job continually. 2. The Almighty

watches the good man's household. 3. Satan receiving power over

Job. 4. The wind from the wilderness destroying Job's children. 5. And

I alone am escaped to tell thee. 6. Satan smiting Job with sore boils.

7. Job's friends comforting him. 8. Let the day perish wherein I was

born. 9. Then a spirit passed before my face. 10. Job laughed to

scorn by his friends. 11. With dreams upon my bed thou scarest

me--thou affrightest me with visions. 12. I am young and

ye are old, wherefore I was afraid. 13. Then the Lord answered Job

out of the whirlwind. 14. When the morning stars sang together,

and the sons of God shouted for joy. 15. Behold now Behemoth,

which I made with thee. 16. Thou hast fulfilled the judgment of

the wicked. 17. I have heard thee with the hearing of my ear, but

now my eye rejoiceth in thee. 18. Also the Lord accepted Job.

19. Every one also gave him a piece of money. 20. There were not

found women fairer than the daughters of Job. 21. So the Lord

blessed the latter end of Job more than the beginning.

While employed on these remarkable productions, he was made

sensible that the little approbation which the world had ever bestowed

on him was fast leaving him. The waywardness of his fancy, and the

peculiar execution of his compositions, were alike unadapted for

popularity; the demand for his works lessened yearly from the

time that he exhibited his Canterbury Pilgrimage; and he could

hardly procure sufficient to sustain life, when old age was creeping

upon him. Yet, poverty-stricken as he was, his cheerfulness never

forsook him--he uttered no complaint--he contracted no debt, and

continued to the last manly and independent. It is the fashion

to praise genius when it is gone to the grave--the fashion is

cheap and convenient. Of the existence of Blake few men of taste

could be ignorant--of his great merits multitudes knew, nor was

his extreme poverty any secret. Yet he was reduced--one of the

ornaments of the age--to a miserable garret and a crust of bread,

and would have perished from want, had not some friends, neither

wealthy nor powerful, averted this disgrace from coming upon

our country. One of these gentlemen, Mr. Linnell, employed Blake to

engrave his Inventions of the Book of Job; by this he earned money

enough to keep him living--for the good old man still labored

with all the ardor of the days of his youth, and with skill equal to his

enthusiasm. These engravings are very rare, very beautiful, and

very peculiar. They are in the earlier fashion of workmanship, and

bear no resemblance whatever to the polished and graceful style

which now prevails. I have never seen a tinted copy, nor am I sure

that tinting would accord with the extreme simplicity of the designs,

and the mode in which they are handled. The Songs of Innocence, and

these Inventions for Job, are the happiest of Blake's works, and ought

to be in the portfolios of all who are lovers of nature and

imagination.

Two extensive works, bearing the ominous names of Prophecies,

one concerning America, the other Europe, next made their appearance

from his pencil and graver. The first contains eighteen and the other

seventeen plates, and both are plentifully seasoned with verse, without

the incumbrance of rhyme. It is impossible to give a satisfactory

description of these works; the frontispiece of the latter, representing

the Ancient of Days, in an orb of light, stooping into chaos, to measure

out the world, has been admired less for its meaning than for the grandeur

of its outline. A head and a tailpiece in the other have been much

noticed--one exhibits the bottom of the sea, with enormous

fishes preying on a dead body--the other, the surface, with a dead

body floating, on which an eagle with outstretched wings is feeding.

The two angels pouring out the spotted plague upon Britain--an

angel standing in the sun, attended by three furies--and several

other Inventions in these wild works, exhibit wonderful strength of

drawing and splendor of coloring. Of loose prints--but which

were meant doubtless to form part of some extensive work--one

of the most remarkable is the Great Sea Serpent; and a figure, sinking in

a stormy sea at sunset--the glow of which, with the foam upon

the dark waves, produces a magical effect.

After a residence of seventeen years in South Molton Street, Blake

removed (not in consequence, alas! of any increase of fortune) to No. 3

Fountain Court, Strand. This was in the year 1823. Here he engraved by

day and saw visions by night, and occasionally employed himself in

making Inventions for Dante; and such was his application that he

designed in all one hundred and two, and engraved seven. It was

publicly known that he was in a declining state of health; that old

age had come upon him, and that he was in want. Several friends,

and artists among the number, aided him a little, in a delicate way,

by purchasing his works, of which he had many copies. He sold

many of his Songs of Innocence, and also of Urizen, and he wrought

incessantly upon what he counted his masterpiece, the Jerusalem,

tinting and adorning it, with the hope that his favorite would find a

purchaser. No one, however, was found ready to lay out twenty-five

guineas on a work which no one could have any hope of comprehending,

and this disappointment sank to the old man's heart.

He had now reached his seventy-first year, and the strength of

nature was fast yielding. Yet he was to the last cheerful and contented.

'I glory,' he said, 'in dying, and have no grief but in leaving you,

Katherine; we have lived happy, and we have lived long; we have been

ever together, but we shall be divided soon. Why should I fear death?

nor do I fear it. I have endeavored to live as Christ commands,

and have sought to worship. God truly--in my own house, when

I was not seen of men.' He grew weaker and weaker--he could

no longer sit upright; and was laid in his bed, with no one to watch

over him, save his wife, who, feeble and old herself, required help

in such a touching duty.

The Ancient of Days was such a favorite with Blake, that three

days before his death, he sat bolstered up in bed, and tinted it

with his choicest colors and in his happiest style. He touched and

retouched it--held it at arm's-length, and then threw it from

him, exclaiming, 'There! that will do! I cannot mend it.' He saw

his wife in tears--she felt this was to be the last of his

works--'Stay, Kate! (cried Blake) keep just as you are--I

will draw your portrait--for you have ever been an angel to

me'--she obeyed, and the dying artist' made a fine likeness.

The very joyfulness with which this singular man welcomed

the coming of death, made his dying moments intensely mournful.

He lay chanting songs, and the verses and the music were both the

offspring of the moment. He lamented that he could no longer

commit those inspirations, as he called them, to paper. 'Kate,' he

said, 'I am a changing man--I always rose and wrote down

my thoughts, whether it rained, snowed, or shone, and you arose

too and sat beside me--this can' be no longer.' He died on

the 12th of August, 1828, without any visible pain--his wife,

who sat watching him, did not perceive when he ceased breathing.

William Blake was of low stature and slender make, with a high

pallid forehead, and eyes large, dark, and expressive. His temper

was touchy, and when moved, he spoke with an indignant eloquence,

which commanded respect. His voice, in general, was low and musical,

his manners gentle and unassuming, his conversation a singular

mixture of knowledge and enthusiasm. His whole life was one of

labour and privation,--he had never tasted the luxury of that

independence, which comes from professional profit. This untoward

fortune he endured with unshaken equanimity--offering himself,

in imagination, as a martyr in the great cause of poetic art;--_pitying_

some of his more fortunate brethren for their inordinate love

of gain; and not doubting that whatever he might have won in

gold by adopting other methods, would have been a poor compensation

for the ultimate loss of fame. Under this agreeable delusion,

he lived all his life--he was satisfied when his graver gained

him a guinea a week--the greater the present denial, the surer

the glory hereafter.

Though he was the companion of Flaxman and Fuseli, and sometimes

their pupil, he never attained that professional skill, without which

all genius is bestowed in vain. He was his own teacher chiefly; and

self-instruction, the parent occasionally of great beauties, seldom

fails to produce great deformities. He was a most splendid tinter, but

no colorist, and his works were all of small dimensions, and therefore

confined to the cabinet and the portfolio. His happiest flights, as well

as his wildest, are thus likely to remain shut up from the world. If we

look at the man through his best and most intelligible works, we shall

find that he who could produce the Songs of Innocence and Experience,

the Gates of Paradise, and the Inventions for Job, was the possessor

of very lofty faculties, with no common skill in art, and moreover

that, both in thought and mode of treatment, he was a decided original.

But should we, shutting our eyes to the merits of those works,

determine to weigh his worth by his Urizen, his Prophecies of Europe

and America, and his Jerusalem, our conclusion would be very

unfavorable; we would say that, with much freedom of composition

and boldness of posture, he was unmeaning, mystical, and extravagant,

and that his original mode of working out his conceptions was little

better than a brilliant way of animating absurdity. An overflow of

imagination is a failing uncommon in this age, and has generally

received of late little quarter from the critical portion of mankind.

Yet imagination is the life and spirit of all great works of genius

and taste; and, indeed, without it, the head thinks and the hand

labours in vain. Ten thousand authors and artists rise to the

proper, the graceful, and the beautiful, for ten who ascend

into 'the heaven of invention.' A work--whether from poet

or painter--conceived in the fiery ecstasy of imagination,

lives through every limb; while one elaborated out by skill and

taste only will look, in comparison, like a withered and sapless

tree beside one green and flourishing. Blake's misfortune was that

of possessing this precious gift in excess. His fancy overmastered

him--until he at length confounded 'the mind's eye' with

the corporeal organ, and dreamed himself out of the sympathies

of actual life.

His method of coloring was a secret which he kept to himself,

or confided only to his wife; he believed that it was revealed in a

vision, and that he was bound in honor to conceal it from the

world. 'His modes of preparing his grounds,' says Smith, in his

Supplement to the Life of Nollekens, 'and laying them over his

panels for painting, mixing his colors, and manner of working,

were those which he considered to have been practized by the

early fresco painters, whose productions still remain in many

instances vividly and permanently fresh. His ground was a mixture

of whiting and carpenters' glue, which he passed over several

times in the coatings; his colors he ground himself, and also

united with them the same sort of glue, but in a much weaker

state. He would, in the course of painting a picture, pass a very

thin transparent wash of glue-water over the whole of the parts

he had worked upon, and then proceed with his finishing. He

had many secret modes of working, both as a colorist and an

engraver. His method of eating away the plain copper, and leaving

the lines of his subjects and his words as stereotype, is, in my

mind, perfectly original. Mrs. Blake is in possession of the secret,

and she ought to receive something considerable for its communication,

as I am quite certain it may be used to advantage, both to artists

and literary characters in general. The affection and fortitude

of this woman entitled her to much respect. She shared her husband's

lot without a murmur, set her heart solely upon his fame, and

soothed him in those hours of misgiving and despondency which

are not unknown to the strongest intellects. She still lives

to lament the loss of Blake--and _fell_ it.'