Chapter XI: Part II: Records From Contemporary Sources (4)

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.