Chapter VI: Part 6

A thousand years ago the Dane's Dike must have been a very grand intrenchment, and a thousand years ere that perhaps it was still grander; for learned men say that it was a British work, wrought out before the Danes had ever learned to build a ship. Whatever, however, may be argued about that, the wise and the witless do agree about one thing--the stronghold inside it had been held by Danes, while severed by the Dike from inland parts, and these Danes made a good colony of their own, and left to their descendants distinct speech and manners, some traces of which are existing even now. The Dike, extending from the rough North Sea to the calmer waters of Bridlington Bay, is nothing more than a deep dry trench, skillfully following the hollows of the ground, and cutting off Flamborough Head and a solid cantle of high land from the rest of Yorkshire. The corner so intercepted used to be and is still called "Little Denmark"; and the in-dwellers feel a large contempt for all their outer neighbors. And this is sad, because Anerley Farm lies wholly outside of the Dike, which for a long crooked distance serves as its eastern boundary.

Upon the morning of the self-same day that saw Mr. Jellicorse set forth upon his return from Scargate Hall, armed with instructions to defy the devil, and to keep his discovery quiet--upon a lovely August morning of the first year of a new century, Mary Anerley, blithe and gay, came riding down the grassy hollow of this ancient Dane's Dike. This was her shortest way to the sea, and the tide would suit (if she could only catch it) for a take of shrimps, and perhaps even prawns, in time for her father's breakfast. And not to lose this, she arose right early, and rousing Lord Keppel, set forth for the spot where she kept her net covered with sea-weed. The sun, though up and brisk already upon sea and foreland, had not found time to rout the shadows skulking in the dingles. But even here, where sap of time had breached the turfy ramparts, the hover of the dew-mist passed away, and the steady light was unfolded.

For the season was early August still, with beautiful weather come at last; and the green world seemed to stand on tiptoe to make the extraordinary acquaintance of the sun. Humble plants which had long lain flat stood up with a sense of casting something off; and the damp heavy trunks which had trickled for a twelvemonth, or been only sponged with moss, were hailing the fresher light with keener lines and dove-colored tints upon their smoother boles. Then, conquering the barrier of the eastern land crest, rose the glorious sun himself, strewing before him trees and crags in long steep shadows down the hill. Then the sloping rays, through furze and brush-land, kindling the sparkles of the dew, descended to the brink of the Dike, and scorning to halt at petty obstacles, with a hundred golden hurdles bridged it wherever any opening was.

Under this luminous span, or through it where the crossing gullies ran, Mary Anerley rode at leisure, allowing her pony to choose his pace. That privilege he had long secured, in right of age, and wisdom, and remarkable force of character. Considering his time of life, he looked well and sleek, and almost sprightly; and so, without any reservation, did his gentle and graceful rider. The maiden looked well in a place like that, as indeed in almost any place; but now she especially set off the color of things, and was set off by them. For instance, how could the silver of the dew-cloud, and golden weft of sunrise, playing through the dapples of a partly wooded glen, do better (in the matter of variety) than frame a pretty moving figure in a pink checked frock, with a skirt of russet murrey, and a bright brown hat? Not that the hat itself was bright, even under the kiss of sunshine, simply having seen already too much of the sun, but rather that its early lustre seemed to be revived by a sense of the happy position it was in; the clustering hair and the bright eyes beneath it answering the sunny dance of life and light. Many a handsomer race, no doubt, more perfect, grand and lofty, received--at least if it was out of bed--the greeting of that morning sun; but scarcely any prettier one, or kinder, or more pleasant, so gentle without being weak, so good-tempered without looking void of all temper at all.

Suddenly the beauty of the time and place was broken by sharp, angry sound. Bang! bang! came the roar of muskets fired from the shore at the mouth of the Dike, and echoing up the winding glen. At the first report the girl, though startled, was not greatly frightened; for the sound was common enough in the week when those most gallant volunteers entitled the "Yorkshire Invincibles" came down for their annual practice of skilled gunnery against the French. Their habit was to bring down a red cock, and tether him against a chalky cliff, and then vie with one another in shooting at him. The same cock had tested their skill for three summers, but failed hitherto to attest it, preferring to return in a hamper to his hens, with a story of moving adventures.

Mary had watched those Invincibles sometimes from a respectful distance, and therefore felt sure (when she began to think) that she had not them to thank for this little scare. For they always slept soundly in the first watch of the morning; and even supposing they had jumped up with nightmare, where was the jubilant crow of the cock? For the cock, being almost as invincible as they were, never could deny himself the glory of a crow when the bullet came into his neighborhood. He replied to every volley with an elevated comb, and a flapping of his wings, and a clarion peal, which rang along the foreshore ere the musket roar died out. But before the girl had time to ponder what it was, or wherefore, round the corner came somebody, running very swiftly.

In a moment Mary saw that this man had been shot at, and was making for his life away; and to give him every chance she jerked her pony aside, and called and beckoned; and without a word he flew to her. Words were beyond him, if his breath should come back, and he seemed to have no time to wait for that. He had outstripped the wind, and his own wind, by his speed.

"Poor man!" cried Mary Anerley, "what a hurry you are in. But I suppose you cannot help it. Are they shooting at you?"

The runaway nodded, for he could not spare a breath, but was deeply inhaling for another start, and could not even bow without hindrance. But to show that he had manners, he took off his hat. Then he clapped it on his head and set off again.

"Come back!" cried the maid; "I can show you a place. I can hide you from your enemies forever."

The young fellow stopped. He was come to that pitch of exhaustion in which a man scarcely cares whether he is killed or dies. And his face showed not a sign of fear.

"Look! That little hole--up there--by the fern. Up at once, and this cloth over you!"

He snatched it, and was gone, like the darting lizard, up a little puckering side issue of the Dike, at the very same instant that three broad figures and a long one appeared at the lip of the mouth. The quick-witted girl rode on to meet them, to give the poor fugitive time to get into his hole and draw the brown skirt over him. The dazzle of the sun, pouring over the crest, made the hollow a twinkling obscurity; and the cloth was just in keeping with the dead stuff around. The three broad men, with heavy fusils cocked, came up from the sea-mouth of the Dike, steadily panting, and running steadily with a long-enduring stride. Behind them a tall bony man with a cutlass was swinging it high in the air, and limping, and swearing with great velocity.

"Coast-riders," thought Mary, "and he a free-trader [smuggler]! Four against one is cowardice."

"Halt!" cried the tall man, while the rest were running past her; "halt! ground arms; never scare young ladies." Then he flourished his hat, with a grand bow to Mary. "Fair young Mistress Anerley, I fear we spoil your ride. But his Majesty's duty must be done. Hats off, fellows, at the name of your king! Mary, my dear, the most daring villain, the devil's own son, has just run up here--scarcely two minutes--you must have seen him. Wait a minute; tell no lies--excuse me, I mean fibs. Your father is the right sort. He hates those scoundrels. In the name of his Majesty, which way is he gone?"

"Was it--oh, was it a man, if you please? Captain Carroway, don't say so."

"A man? Is it likely that we shot at a woman? You are trifling. It will be the worse for you. Forgive me--but we are in such a hurry. Whoa! whoa! pony."

"You always used to be so polite, sir, that you quite surprise me. And those guns look so dreadful! My father would be quite astonished to see me not even allowed to go down to the sea, but hurried back here, as if the French had landed."

"How can I help it, if your pony runs away so?" For Mary all this time had been cleverly contriving to increase and exaggerate her pony's fear, and so brought the gunners for a long way up the Dike, without giving them any time to spy at all about. She knew that this was wicked from a loyal point of view; not a bit the less she did it. "What a troublesome little horse it is!" she cried. "O Captain Carroway, hold him just a moment. I will jump down, and then you can jump up, and ride after all his Majesty's enemies."

"The Lord forbid! He slews all out of gear, like a carronade with rotten lashings. If I boarded him, how could I get out of his way? No, no, my dear, brace him up sharp, and bear clear."

"But you wanted to know about some enemy, captain. An enemy as bad as my poor Lord Keppel?"

"Mary, my dear, the very biggest villain! A hundred golden guineas on his head, and half for you. Think of your father, my dear, and Sunday gowns. And you must have a young man--by-and-by, you know--such a beautiful maid as you are. And you might get a leather purse, and give it to him. Mary, on your duty, now?"

"Captain, you drive me so, what can I say? I cannot bear the thought of betraying anybody."

"Of course not, Mary dear; nobody asks you. He must be half a mile off by this time. You could never hurt him now; and you can tell your father that you have done your duty to the king."

"Well, Captain Carroway, if you are quite sure that it is too late to catch him, I can tell you all about him. But remember your word about the fifty guineas."

"Every farthing, every farthing, Mary, whatever my wife may say to it. Quick! quick! Which way did he run, my dear?"

"He really did not seem to me to be running at all; he was too tired."

"To be sure, to be sure, a worn-out fox. We have been two hours after him; he could not run; no more can we. But which way did he go, I mean?"

"I will not say anything for certain, sir; even for fifty guineas. But he may have come up here--mind, I say not that he did--and if so, he might have set off again for Sewerby. Slowly, very slowly, because of being tired. But perhaps, after all, he was not the man you mean."

"Forward, double-quick! We are sure to have him!" shouted the lieutenant--for his true rank was that--flourishing his cutlass again, and setting off at a wonderful pace, considering his limp. "Five guineas every man Jack of you. Thank you, young mistress--most heartily thank you. Dead or alive, five guineas!"

With gun and sword in readiness, they all rushed off; but one of the party, named John Cadman, shook his head and looked back with great mistrust at Mary, having no better judgment of women than this, that he never could believe even his own wife. And he knew that it was mainly by the grace of womankind that so much contraband work was going on. Nevertheless, it was out of his power to act upon his own low opinions now.

The maiden, blushing deeply with the sense of her deceit, was informed by her guilty conscience of that nasty man's suspicions, and therefore gave a smack with her fern whip to Lord Keppel, impelling him to join, like a loyal little horse, the pursuit of his Majesty's enemies. But no sooner did she see all the men dispersed, and scouring the distance with trustful ardor, than she turned the pony's head toward the sea again, and rode back round the bend of the hollow. What would her mother say if she lost the murrey skirt, which had cost six shillings at Bridlington fair? And ten times that money might be lost much better than for her father to discover how she lost it. For Master Stephen Anerley was a straight-backed man, and took three weeks of training in the Land Defense Yeomanry, at periods not more than a year apart, so that many people called him "Captain" now; and the loss of his suppleness at knee and elbow had turned his mind largely to politics, making him stiffly patriotic, and especially hot against all free-traders putting bad bargains to his wife, at the cost of the king and his revenue. If the bargain were a good one, that was no concern of his.

Not that Mary, however, could believe, or would even have such a bad mind as to imagine, that any one, after being helped by her, would be mean enough to run off with her property. And now she came to think of it, there was something high and noble, she might almost say something downright honest, in the face of that poor persecuted man. And in spite of all his panting, how brave he must have been, what a runner, and how clever, to escape from all those cowardly coast-riders shooting right and left at him! Such a man steal that paltry skirt that her mother made such a fuss about! She was much more likely to find it in her clothes-press filled with golden guineas.

Before she was as certain as she wished to be of this (by reason of shrewd nativity), and while she believed that the fugitive must have seized such a chance and made good his escape toward North Sea or Flamborough, a quick shadow glanced across the long shafts of the sun, and a bodily form sped after it. To the middle of the Dike leaped a young man, smiling, and forth from the gully which had saved his life. To look at him, nobody ever could have guessed how fast he had fled, and how close he had lain hid. For he stood there as clean and spruce and careless as ever a sailor can be wished to be. Limber yet stalwart, agile though substantial, and as quick as a dart while as strong as a pike, he seemed cut out by nature for a true blue-jacket; but condition had made him a smuggler, or, to put it more gently, a free-trader. Britannia, being then at war with all the world, and alone in the right (as usual), had need of such lads, and produced them accordingly, and sometimes one too many. But Mary did not understand these laws. This made her look at him with great surprise, and almost doubt whether he could be the man, until she saw her skirt neatly folded in his hand, and then she said, "How do you do, sir?"

The free-trader looked at her with equal surprise. He had been in such a hurry, and his breath so short, and the chance of a fatal bullet after him so sharp, that his mind had been astray from any sense of beauty, and of everything else except the safety of the body. But now he looked at Mary, and his breath again went from him.

"You can run again now; I am sure of it," said she; "and if you would like to do anything to please me, run as fast as possible."

"What have I to run away from now?" he answered, in a deep sweet voice. "I run from enemies, but not from friends."

"That is very wise. But your enemies are still almost within call of you. They will come back worse than ever when they find you are not there."

"I am not afraid, fair lady, for I understand their ways. I have led them a good many dances.... When they cannot take another step, they will come back to Anerley for breakfast."

"I dare say they will; and we shall be glad to see them. My father is a soldier, and his duty is to nourish and comfort the forces of the King."

"Then you are young Mistress Anerley? I was sure of it before. There are no two such. And you have saved my life. It is something to owe it so fairly."

The young sailor wanted to kiss Mary's hand; but not being used to any gallantry, she held out her hand in the simplest manner to take back her riding skirt; and he, though longing in his heart to keep it, for a token or pretext for another meeting, found no excuse for doing so. And yet he was not without some resource.

For the maiden was giving him a farewell smile, being quite content with the good she had done, and the luck of recovering her property; and that sense of right which in those days formed a part of every good young woman said to her plainly that she must be off. And she felt how unkind it was to keep him any longer in a place where the muzzle of a gun, with a man behind it, might appear at any moment. But he, having plentiful breath again, was at home with himself to spend it.

"Fair young lady," he began, for he saw that Mary liked to be called a lady, because it was a novelty, "owing more than I ever can pay you already, may I ask a little more? Then it is that on your way down to the sea, you would just pick up (if you should chance to see it) the fellow ring to this, and perhaps you will look at this to know it by. The one that was shot away flew against a stone just on the left of the mouth of the Dike, but I durst not stop to look for it, and I must not go back that way now. It is more to me than a hatful of gold, though nobody else would give a crown for it."

"And they really shot away one of your earrings? Careless, cruel, wasteful men! What could they have been thinking of?"

"They were thinking of getting what is called 'blood-money.' One hundred pounds for Robin Lyth. Dead or alive--one hundred pounds."...

"Then are you the celebrated Robin Lyth--the new Robin Hood, as they call him? The man who can do almost anything?"

"Mistress Anerley, I am Robin Lyth; but, as you have seen, I cannot do much.... They have missed the best chance they ever had at me; it will make their temper very bad. If they shot at me again, they could do no good. Crooked mood makes crooked mode."

"You forget that I should not see such things. You may like very much to be shot at; but--but you should think of other people."

"I shall think of you only--I mean of your great kindness, and your promise to keep my ring for me. Of course you will tell nobody. Carroway will have me like a tiger if you do. Farewell, young lady--for one week, fare well." With a wave of his hat he was gone, before Mary had time to retract her promise; and she thought of her mother.

WILLIAM BLAKE

(1757-1827)

Poet-painter, visionary, and super-mystic in almost all capacities, William Blake was born in London in 1757. He was the second son of humble people--his father but a stocking merchant. An "odd little boy," he was destined to be recognized as "one of the most curious and abnormal personages of the later eighteenth and earlier nineteenth centuries." Allan Cunningham describes him by saying that Blake at ten years of age was an artist and at twelve a poet. He seems really to have shown in childhood his double gift. But the boy's education was rudimentary, his advantages not even usual, it would seem. To the end of his life, the mature man's works betray a defective common-schooling, a lamentable lack of higher intellectual training--unless we suspect that the process would have disciplined his mind, to the loss of bizarre originality. Most of what Blake learned he taught himself, and that at haphazard. The mistiness and inexplicability of his productions is part of such a process, as well as of invincible temperament.

In 1767 Blake was studying drawing with Mr. Pars, at the sometime famous Strand Academy, where he was reckoned a diligent but egotistical pupil. At fourteen he became apprenticed, for a livelihood,--afterward exchanged for the painter's and illustrator's freer career,--to James Basire, an academic but excellent engraver, whose manner is curiously traceable through much of Blake's after work. Even in the formal atmosphere of the Royal Academy's antique school, Blake remained an opinionated and curiously "detached" scholar, with singular critical notions, with half-expressed or very boldly expressed theories as to art, religion, and most other things. In 1782 he married a young woman of equally humble derivation, who could not even sign the marriage register. He developed her character, educated her mind, and made her a devoted and companionable wife, full of faith in him. Their curious and retired ménage was as happy in a practical and mundane aspect as could be hoped from even a normal one.

In 1780 he began to exhibit, his first picture being 'The Death of Earl Godwin.' After exhibiting five others, however, ending with 'Jacob's Dream,' he withdrew altogether from public advertisement. Several devoted patrons--especially Mr. Linnell, and a certain Mr. Thomas Butts, who bought incessantly, anything and everything,--seized upon all he drew and painted. In his literary undertakings he was for the most part his own editor and printer and publisher. His career in verse and prose began early. In 1783 came forth the charming collection 'Poetical Sketches,' juvenile as the fancies of his boyish days, but full of a sensitive appreciation of nature worthy of a mature heart, and expressed with a diction often exquisite. The volume was not really public nor published, but printed by the kindly liberality of two friends, one of them Flaxman. In 1787, "under the direction of the spirit of his dead brother," Robert, he decided on publishing a new group of lyrics and fancies, 'Songs of Innocence,' by engraving the text of the poems and its marginal embellishments on copper--printing the pages in various tints, coloring or recoloring them by hand, and even binding them, with his wife's assistance. The medium for mixing his tints, by the by, was "revealed to him by Saint Joseph."

With this volume--now a rarity for the bibliophile--began Blake's system of giving his literary works and many of his extraordinary artistic productions their form and being. Like a poet-printer of our own day, Mr. William Morris, Blake insisted that each page of text, all his delicate illustrations, every cover even, should pass through his own fingers, or through those of his careful and submissive helpmeet. The expense of their paper was the chief one to the light purse of the queerly assorted, thrifty pair.

In 1789 appeared another little volume of verses, 'Songs of Innocence.' This also was ushered into existence as a dual book of pictures and of poetry. In 1794 came the 'Songs of Experience,' completing that brief lyrical trio on which rests Blake's poetical reputation and his claim on coming generations of sympathetic readers. To these early and exquisite fruits of Blake's feeling succeeded a little book 'For Children,' the mystic volume 'The Gates of Paradise,' 'The Visions of the Daughters of Albion,' 'America, a Prophecy,' Part First of his 'Book of Urizen,' and a collection of designs without text, treated in the methods usual with him, besides other labors with pencil and pen.

But the wonderful and disordered imagination of the artist and poet now embodied itself in a strange group of writings for which no parallel exists. To realize them, one must imagine the most transcendent notions of Swedenborg mingled with the rant of a superior kind of Mucklewrath. Such poems as 'The Book of Thel,' in spite of beautiful allegoric passages; 'The Gates of Paradise'; 'Tiriel,' an extended narrative-fantasy in irregular unrhymed verses; even the striking 'Marriage of Heaven and Hell,'--may be reckoned as mere prologues to such productions as 'Jerusalem,' 'The Emanation of the Giant Albion.' 'Milton,' and the "prophecies" embodied in the completed 'Urizen,' the 'Europe,' 'Ahania,' and 'The Book of Los.' Such oracular works Blake put forth as dictated to him by departed spirits of supreme influence and intellectuality, or by angelic intelligences, quite apart from his own volition; indeed, only with his "grateful obedience." Such claims are not out of place in the instance of one who "saw God"; who often "conversed familiarly with Jesus Christ"; who "was" Socrates; who argued conclusions for hours at a time with Moses, with Milton, with Dante, with the Biblical prophets, with Voltaire; who could "see Satan" almost at will--all in vivid conceptions that sprang up in his mind with such force as to set seemingly substantial and even speaking beings before him. In his assumption of the seer, Blake was not a charlatan: he believed fully in his supernatural privileges. To him his modest London lodging held great company, manifest in the spirit.

Blake's greater "prophetic" writings ended, he busied himself with painting and illustration. He was incessant in industry; indeed, his ordinary recreation at any time was only a change of work from one design to another. So were wrought out the (incomplete) series of plates for Young's 'Night Thoughts'; the drawings for Hayley's 'Life of Cowper,' and for the same feeble author's 'Ballads on Anecdotes relating to Animals'; the 'Dante' designs: the 'Job' series of prints; a vast store of aquarelle and distemper paintings and plates, and a whole gallery of "portraits" derived from sitters of distinction in past universal history. These sitters, it is needless to say, were wholly invisible to other eyes than Blake's. The subjects vary from likenesses of Saint Joseph and the Virgin Mary to those of Mahomet and Shakespeare. Sundry of the old masters, Titian included, reviewed his efforts and guided his brush! Such assertions do not ill accord with the description of his once seeing a fairy's funeral, or that he first beheld God when four years old.

But all his fantasies did not destroy his faith in the fundamentals of orthodoxy. He never ceased to be a believer in Christianity. His convictions of a revealed religion were reiterated. While incessant in asserting that he had a solemn message-spiritual to his day and generation, he set aside nothing significant in the message of the Scriptures. There is something touching in the anecdote of him and his devoted Kate told by the portrait-painter Richmond. Himself discouraged with his imperfect work, Richmond one day visited Blake and confessed his low mood. To his astonishment, Blake turned to his wife suddenly, and said, "It is just so with us, is it not, for weeks together, when the visions forsake us! What do we do then, Kate?" "We kneel down and pray, Mr. Blake."

So passed Blake's many years, between reality and dream, labors and chimeras. The painter's life was not one of painful poverty. He and his Kate needed little money; and the seer-husband's pencils and burin, or the private kindness so constantly shown him, provided daily bread. Despite the visions and inspirations and celestial phenomena that filled his head, Blake withal was sane enough in everyday concerns. He lived orderly, even if he thought chaos. Almost his last strokes were on the hundred water-colors for the 'Divina Commedia,' the 'Job' cycle, the 'Ancient of Days' drawing, or a "frenzied sketch" of his wife which he made, exclaiming in beginning it, "Stay! Keep as you are! You have ever been an angel to me. I will draw you." Natural decay and painful chronic ailments increased. He seldom left his rooms in Fountain Court, Strand, except in a visit to the Linnells, at Hampstead. He died gently in 1827, "singing of the things he saw in Heaven." His grave, to-day unknown, was a common one in Bunhill Fields Cemetery. Many friends mourned him. With all his eccentricities and the extravagances of his "visions" and "inspirations," he was loved. His ardor of temperament was balanced by meekness, his aggressiveness by true politeness. He was frank, abstemious, a lover of children,--who loved him,--devout in prayer, devoid of vice. Yet whenever he was in contact with his fellow-men, he was one living and walking apart. As an influence in literature he is less considerable than in painting. In the latter art, a whole group of contemporary notables, intellectualists, and rhapsodists of greater or less individuality have to do with him, among whom Dante Gabriel Rossetti was in much his literary child, still more his child in art.

A brief and early 'Life' of Blake, prepared by his intimate friend Allan Cunningham, appeared in 1829. In 1839, for the first time, his works were really given to the public. Mr. Gilchrist's invaluable biography and study appeared in 1863; revised and enlarged in an edition of 1880. Mr. Swinburne's critical essay on him is a notable aid to the student. The artist-poet's complete works were edited by Mr. William Michael Rossetti in 1874, with a complete and discriminating memoir. More recent contributions to Blake literature are the Ellis and Yeats edition of his works, also with a Memoir and an Interpretation; and Mr. Alfred J. Story's volume on 'The Life, Character, and Genius of William Blake.' Some of the rarest of his literary productions, as well as the scarcest among his drawings, are owned in America, chiefly by two private collectors in the Eastern States.

SONG

My silks and fine array,
My smiles and languished air,
By love are driven away,
And mournful lean Despair
Brings me yew to deck my grave:
Such end true lovers have.

His face is fair as heaven
When springing buds unfold;
Oh, why to _him_ was 't given,
Whose heart is wintry cold?
His breast is Love's all-worshiped tomb,
Where all Love's pilgrims come.

Bring me an axe and spade,
Bring me a winding-sheet;
When I my grave have made,
Let winds and tempests beat:
Then down I'll lie, as cold as clay:
True love doth never pass away.

SONG

Love and harmony combine
And around our souls entwine,
While thy branches mix with mine
And our roots together join.

Joys upon our branches sit,
Chirping loud and singing sweet;
Like gentle streams beneath our feet,
Innocence and virtue meet.

Thou the golden fruit dost bear,
I am clad in flowers fair;
Thy sweet boughs perfume the air,
And the turtle buildeth there.

There she sits and feeds her young;
Sweet I hear her mournful song;
And thy lovely leaves among,
There is Love: I hear his tongue.

There his charmed nest he doth lay,
There he sleeps the night away,
There he sports along the day,
And doth among our branches play.

* * * * *

THE TWO SONGS

I heard an Angel singing
When the day was springing:
"Mercy, pity, and peace,
Are the world's release."

So he sang all day
Over the new-mown hay,
Till the sun went down,
And the haycocks looked brown.

I heard a devil curse
Over the heath and the furse:
"Mercy could be no more
If there were nobody poor,

And pity no more could be
If all were happy as ye:
And mutual fear brings peace.
Misery's increase
Are mercy, pity, peace."

At his curse the sun went down,
And the heavens gave a frown.

* * * * *

NIGHT

From 'Songs of Innocence'

The sun descending in the west,
The evening star does shine,
The birds are silent in their nest,
And I must seek for mine.
The moon, like a flower
In heaven's high bower,
With silent delight,
Sits and smiles in the night.

Farewell, green fields and happy groves
Where flocks have ta'en delight;
Where lambs have nibbled, silent move
The feet of angels bright;
Unseen they pour blessing,
And joy without ceasing,
On each bud and blossom,
And each sleeping bosom.

They look in every thoughtless nest,
Where birds are covered warm;
They visit caves of every beast,
To keep them all from harm;
If they see any weeping
That should have been sleeping,
They pour sleep on their head,
And sit down by their bed.

When wolves and tigers howl for prey,
They pitying stand and weep;
Seeking to drive their thirst away,
And keep them from the sheep.
But if they rush dreadful,
The angels most heedful
Receive each wild spirit,
New worlds to inherit.

And there the lion's ruddy eyes
Shall flow with tears of gold;
And pitying the tender cries,
And walking round the fold,
Saying, "Wrath by His meekness,
And by His health, sickness,
Are driven away
From our immortal day.

"And now beside thee, bleating lamb,
I can lie down and sleep,
Or think on Him who bore thy name,
Graze after thee and weep.
For washed in life's river,
My bright mane forever
Shall shine like the gold,
As I guard o'er the fold."

THE PIPER AND THE CHILD

Introduction to 'Songs of Innocence'

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 sang 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.

HOLY THURSDAY

From 'Songs of Innocence'

'Twas on a Holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean,
Came children walking two and two, in red and blue and green:
Gray-headed beadles walked before, with wands as white as snow,
Till into the high dome of Paul's they like Thames waters flow.

Oh, what a multitude they seemed, these flowers of London town!
Seated in companies they sit, with radiance all their own.
The hum of multitudes was there, but multitudes of lambs,
Thousands of little boys and girls raising their innocent hands.

Now like a mighty wind they raise to heaven the voice of song,
Or like harmonious thunderings the seats of heaven among:
Beneath them sit the aged men, wise guardians of the poor.
Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door.

A CRADLE SONG

From 'Songs of Experience'

Sleep, sleep, beauty bright,
Dreaming in the joys of night;
Sleep, sleep; in thy sleep
Little sorrows sit and weep.

Sweet babe, in thy face
Soft desires I can trace,
Secret joys and secret smiles,
Little pretty infant wiles.

As thy softest limbs I feel,
Smiles as of the morning steal
O'er thy cheek and o'er thy breast,
Where thy little heart doth rest.

Oh, the cunning wiles that creep
In thy little heart asleep!
When thy little heart shall wake,
Then the dreadful light shall break.

THE LITTLE BLACK BOY

From 'Songs of Innocence'

MY MOTHER bore me in the Southern wild,
And I am black, but oh, my soul is white!
White as an angel is the English child,
But I am black, as if bereaved of light.

My mother taught me underneath a tree,
And sitting down before the heat of day,
She took me on her lap and kissed me,
And, pointing to the East, began to say:--

"Look on the rising sun: there God does live,
And gives his light, and gives his heat away,
And flowers and trees and beasts and men receive
Comfort in morning, joy in the noonday.

"And we are put on earth a little space,
That we may learn to bear the beams of love;
And these black bodies and this sunburnt face
Are but a cloud, and like a shady grove.

"For when our souls have learned the heat to bear,
The cloud will vanish, we shall hear his voice,
Saying, 'Come out from the grove, my love and care,
And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice.'"

Thus did my mother say, and kissèd me,
And thus I say to little English boy:
When I from black, and he from white cloud free,
And round the tent of God like lambs we joy,

I'll shade him from the heat till he can bear
To lean in joy upon our Father's knee;
And then I'll stand and stroke his silver hair,
And be like him, and he will then love me.

THE TIGER

From 'Songs of Experience'

Tiger! Tiger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Framed thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burned that fire within thine eyes?
On what wings dared he aspire?
What the hand dared 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,
Knit thy strength and forged thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dared thy deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?

CHARLES BLANC

(1813-1882)

We have few personal details of Charles Blanc. We know that he lived in a luminous world of form and thought, a life in harmony with his work; we have books containing his conception of art; we know that art was his one absorbing passion: and this should satisfy us, for it was his own opinion that all which does not tend to illustrate an artist's conception of art is of but secondary importance in his life.

Of Franco-Italian extraction, Charles Blanc was born in Castres, France, on the 15th of November, 1813. When in 1830 he and his brother Louis, youths of eighteen and nineteen, came to Paris, their aged father, an ex-inspector of finance whose career had been ruined by the fall of Napoleon, was dependent on them for support. Louis soon procured work on a newspaper; but Charles, whose ambition from his earliest years was to become a painter, spent his days in the Louvre, or wandering about Paris looking in the old-print-shop windows, and he thus learned much that he afterwards developed in his works. As his brother's position improved, he was enabled to study drawing with Delaroche and engraving with Calamatta. His masters gave him but little encouragement, however, and he soon turned his thoughts to literature, his maiden effort being a description of the Brussels Salon of 1836 for his brother's paper.

Exquisite sensitiveness and responsiveness to beauty eminently fitted Charles Blanc for the position of art critic, and gave a charm to his earliest writings. He brought to his new task the technical knowledge of an artist, and a penetrating critical insight which, aided by study, ripened rapidly. The evidence of talent afforded by his first art criticism induced Louis Blanc to confide to him successively the editorship of several provincial papers. But Charles's inclinations were toward the calm atmosphere of art; he was, and ever remained, indifferent to politics, and looked upon the fiery, active Louis with astonishment, even while catching his energy and ambition. On his return to Paris he began a history of the 'French Painters of the Nineteenth Century,' but one volume of which appeared; and the 'Painters of All Schools,' completed in 1876. Very little was then known of the lives of the painters. By illustrating each biographical sketch with engravings of the artists' pictures, Blanc met a long-felt want. As the work was intended for the general reader, it was not overloaded with erudition: but numerous anecdotes, combined with vivacity of style, aroused interest in painting and created a public for the more purely technical works which followed. Though assisted by others in this undertaking, Blanc himself planned the method of treatment, and wrote the history of the Dutch and French schools; and the work justly retains his name.

The Socialists had taken a prominent part in the events of February, 1848, which led to the overthrow of Louis Philippe; and they yielded to the universal desire by appointing Charles Blanc Director of Fine Arts--a position which he had prophesied to his friends several years before that he would one day fill. When he assumed office, the position of artists was critical; as, owing to social convulsions, government and private orders had dwindled into insignificance. Thanks to his energy, work was resumed on public monuments, and the greater part of the sum of 900,000 francs, voted by the National Assembly for the Champs de Mars festival, was devoted to work which gave employment to a legion of decorative painters and sculptors. After the Salon of 1848, as the government coffers were depleted, he obtained 80,000 francs' worth of Sèvres porcelain from the Minister of Commerce, to give as prizes. He combated a proposition made by the Committee on Finance to suppress the Louvre studios of molding; he opposed the motion to reduce the corps of professors at the School of Fine Arts, and defended the School of Rome, threatened with suppression.

While Director of Fine Arts, Blanc fought his first and only duel, in defence of his brother, although he had never fired a pistol in his life. During the political agitation of 1848, Louis was condemned by the National Assembly, and fled to London. After his departure, he was abused in very insulting language by one Lacombe, and Charles called the latter to account. In the duel which followed, Lacombe was hit, but the ball struck his pocket-book and glanced off, when Méry, one of the seconds, exclaimed, "That was money well invested!" and there the matter ended.

Another event, which occurred several years previous, has a certain psychological significance. One evening Charles Blanc was visiting a friend who resided a distance of one hundred and fifty miles from Paris. In the midst of conversation, he suddenly grew pale and exclaimed that he had received a shock, adding that something must have happened to Louis. The next day his fears were confirmed by the receipt of a letter, telling him that the latter had been knocked down in the streets of Paris by a blow across the forehead. When Dumas père heard of this coincidence, he utilized it in his 'Corsican Brothers.'

Notwithstanding his fine record as an administrator and his encouragement of talent, Blanc was sacrificed to the spirit of reaction which set in about 1850. His removal displeased the entire art world, so highly was he esteemed for his integrity, his progressive ideas, and his unerring taste. On his return to private life he resumed his 'History of the Painters.' 'L'Oeuvres de Rembrandt' (1853 to 1863), containing also a life of the artist, was illustrated by the first photographic plates which ever appeared in a book.

The name 'Peintres des Fêtes Galantes' was derived by Blanc from the title conferred on Watteau by the French Academy. Of the artists therein mentioned, Watteau occupied the realm of poetry; Lancret that of the conventional, the fashionable; Pater that of vulgar, jovial reality; Boucher, the most distinctively French of artists, that of brilliancy, dash, and vivacity. These painters are a curious study for the historian interested in the external forms of things.

With the exception of Dupré, Blanc knew all the painters of whom he writes in the 'Artistes de mon Temps' (Artists of My Time). The work is therefore replete with personal recollections. Here again the general interest is deepened by the warm interest which the author takes in the men and events of the time. There are many charming pages devoted to Félix Duban, Delacroix, and Calamatta; to the contemporary medallions of David d'Angers; to Henri Leys, Chenavard, and Troyon; to Corot, the lover of nature who saw her through a veil of poetry; to Jules Dupré and Rousseau, who saw the poetry innate in her. He introduces us to the caricaturists Grandville and Gavarni; to Barye's lifelike animals. On reading the lives of these men, one is struck by the fact that they produced their masterpieces at about the age of twenty years.

The 'Treasures of Art in Manchester,' and 'From Paris to Vienna,' were published in 1857. The latter contained curious information about the sale of art works during the seventeenth century, with the prices they brought, and is enlivened with short spirited sketches of artists and amateurs. In 1867 Blanc became a member of the Academic des Beaux Arts. The 'Treasures of Curiosity' is a catalogue of pictures and engravings sold between 1830 and the date of the appearance of the book.

Devoted to purely artistic subjects, the Journal des Beaux Arts, founded by Blanc, rendered great service to art by spreading a taste for it among the cultivated classes. The 'Grammar of Painting and Engraving' first appeared in this periodical. Though given up to a consideration of technical subjects, the work abounds in poetic touches and has great interest for the general reader. In 1875 it was discussed in the French Academy, when its author competed for the chair left vacant by the death of Vitel. He was not elected until the following year, though his book met with great success, and led to the revival of engraving in France.

When he began his studies for the life of Ingres, which appeared in 1867, he found many letters of the artist, which enabled him to follow the latter through the various phases of his life: to know the changes of his temper, the inflexibility of his character; his emotions day by day; his momentary discouragements, his great will-power; the heroic efforts he made to reach the heights; his ideas on art, his opinions of others as well as himself: and thanks to these documents, he was enabled to reproduce one of the most remarkable personalities, if not the most original one, of the French school.

In 1870 he was again made Director of Fine Arts. He introduced several reforms in the organization of the Salon, and founded a 4,000-franc prize. But the spirit of reaction could not forgive his political antecedents; and in 1873, on the fall of Thiers, he was removed before he could complete his plan for establishing a museum of copies to reproduce the masterpieces of painting. One well-deserved satisfaction was granted him in 1878 by the creation of a chair of Æsthetics and Art History in the College of France, which he was called by special decree to fill; and there he taught for three years.

The first part of the 'Grammar of the Decorative Arts' appeared in 1881; the second part, dealing with interior decorations, in 1882. The third part, 'The Decoration of Cities,' was not completed, owing to his sudden death. Elected President of the French Academy in 1882, he did not enjoy this well-deserved honor long. A few weeks before his death--which occurred on February 17th, 1882, from the effects of an operation for cancer--he began a catalogue of the collection presented by Thiers to the Louvre. This was the last work of a pen wielded with unimpaired vigor to the end.

"The great artist," wrote Blanc, "is he who guides us into the region of his own thoughts, into the palaces and fields of his own imagination, and while there, speaks to us the language of the gods;" and to none are these words more applicable than to himself. In the world of thought he was a man of great originality, though neither architect, painter, nor sculptor. He had all the artist nature from a boy, and never lost the tender sensibility and _naïf_ admiration for the beautiful in nature and art which give such glow of enthusiasm to his writings. His 'Grammar of Painting and Engraving' founded the scientific method of criticism. In this work he brought his intellectual qualifications and extensive reading to bear upon a subject until then treated either by philosophical theorizers or eloquent essayists. He has left one of the purest literary reputations in France. He was above all an idealist, and made the World Beautiful more accessible to us.

REMBRANDT

From 'The Dutch School of Painters'

Rembrandt has taken great pains to transmit to us paintings of his person, or at least of his face, from the time of his youth up to that of shrunken old age. He was a man at once robust and delicate. His broad and slightly rounded forehead presented a development that indicated a powerful imagination. His eyes were small, deep-set, bright, intelligent, and full of fire. His hair, of a warm color bordering on red and curling naturally, may possibly have indicated a Jewish extraction. His head had great character, in spite of the plainness of his features; a large flat nose, high cheek-bones, and a copper-colored complexion imparted to his face a vulgarity which, however, was relieved by the form of his mouth, the haughty outline of his eyebrows, and the brilliancy of his eyes. Such was Rembrandt; and the character of the figures he painted partakes of that of his own person. That is to say, they have great expression, but are not noble; they possess much pathos, while deficient in what is termed style.

An artist thus constituted could not but be exceedingly original, intelligent, and independent, though selfish and entirely swayed by caprice. When he began to study nature, he entered upon his task not with that good nature which is the distinctive characteristic of so many of the Dutch painters, but with an innate desire to stamp upon every object his own peculiarity, supplementing imagination by an attentive observation of real life. Of all the phenomena of nature, that which gave him most trouble was light; the difficulty he most desired to conquer was that of expression.

ALBERT DÜRER'S 'MELANCHOLIA'

From 'The Dutch School of Painters'

The love of the extravagant and fantastic observable in Dürer's first pictures never abandoned him. He has probably expressed the inspiration of his own soul in the figure of Melancholy, who, seated on the sea-shore, seems trying to penetrate with her gaze into infinite space. For my part, I have this picture always before me. How could it be possible to forget an engraving of Dürer's, even though seen but once? I can see her proud and noble head resting thoughtfully upon one hand, her long hair falling in disheveled tresses upon her shoulders; her folded wings emblematic of that impotent aspiration which directs her gaze towards heaven; a book, closed and useless as her wings, resting upon her knee. Nothing can be more gloomy, more penetrating, than the expression of this figure. From the peculiar folds of her dress, one would suppose she was enveloped in iron draperies. Near her is a sun-dial with a bell which marks the hours as they glide away. The sun is sinking beneath the ocean, and darkness will soon envelop the earth. Above hovers a strange-looking bat with spreading wings, and bearing a pennon on which is written the word "Melancholia."

All is symbolical in this composition, of which the sentiment is sublime. Melancholy holds in her right hand a pair of compasses and a circle, the emblem of that eternity in which her thoughts are lost. Various instruments appertaining to the arts and sciences lie scattered around her; after having made use of them, she has cast them aside and has fallen into a profound revery. As typical of the mistrust which has crept into her heart with avarice and doubt, a bunch of keys is suspended to her girdle; above her is an hour-glass, the emblem of her transitory existence. Nothing could be more admirable than the face of Melancholy, both in the severe beauty of her features and the depth of her gaze.

Neither the sentiment of melancholy nor the word which expresses it had appeared in art before the time of Albert Dürer.

* * * * *

INGRES

From the 'Life of Ingres'