WILLIAM BLAKE
19/02/52
It was at the latter end of the year 1825 that I put in writing my recollections of this most remarkable man. The larger portions are under the date of the 18th of December. He died in the year 1827. I have therefore now revised what I wrote on the 10th of December and afterwards, and without any attempt to reduce to order, or make consistent the wild and strange rhapsodies uttered by this insane man of genius, thinking it better to put down what I find as it occurs, though I am aware of the objection that may justly be made to the recording the ravings of insanity in which it may be said there can be found no principle, as there is no ascertainable law of mental association which is obeyed; and from which therefore nothing can be learned.
This would be perfectly true of mere madness—but does not apply to that form of insanity ordinarily called monomania, and may be disregarded in a case like the present in which the subject of the remark was unquestionably what a German would call a Verunglückter Genie, whose theosophic dreams bear a close resemblance to those of Swedenborg—whose genius as an artist was praised by no less men than Flaxman and Fuseli—and whose poems were thought worthy republication by the biographer of Swedenborg (Wilkinson), and of which Wordsworth said after reading a number—they were the 'Songs of Innocence and Experience showing the two opposite sides of the human soul'—'There is no doubt this poor man was mad, but there is something in the madness of this man which interests me more than the sanity of Lord Byron and Walter Scott!' The German painter Götzenberger (a man indeed who ought not to be named after the others as an authority for my writing about Blake) said, on his returning to Germany about the time at which I am now arrived, 'I saw in England many men of talents, but only three men of genius, Coleridge, Flaxman, and Blake, and of these Blake was the greatest.' I do not mean to intimate my assent to this opinion, nor to do more than supply such materials as my intercourse with him furnish to an uncritical narrative to which I shall confine myself. I have written a few sentences in these reminiscences already, those of the year 1810. I had not then begun the regular journal which I afterwards kept. I will therefore go over the ground again and introduce these recollections of 1825 by a reference to the slight knowledge I had of him before, and what occasioned my taking an interest in him, not caring to repeat what Cunningham has recorded of him in the volume of his Lives of the British Painters, etc. etc., except thus much. It appears that he was born...
[The page ends here.]
Dr. Malkin, our Bury Grammar School Headmaster, published in the year 1806 a Memoir of a very precocious child who died... years old, and he prefixed to the Memoir an account of Blake, and in the volume he gave an account of Blake as a painter and poet, and printed some specimens of his poems, viz. 'The Tyger,' and ballads and mystical lyrical poems, all of a wild character, and M. gave an account of Visions which Blake related to his acquaintance. I knew that Flaxman thought highly of him, and though he did not venture to extol him as a genuine seer, yet he did not join in the ordinary derision of him as a madman. Without having seen him, yet I had already conceived a high opinion of him, and thought he would furnish matter for a paper interesting to Germans, and therefore when Fred. Perthes, the patriotic publisher at Hamburg, wrote to me in 1810 requesting me to give him an article for his Patriotische Annalen, I thought I could do no better than send him a paper on Blake, which was translated into German by Dr. Julius, filling, with a few small poems copied and translated, 24 pages. These appeared in the first and last No. of volume 2 of the Annals. The high-minded editor boldly declared that as the Emperor of France had annexed Hamburg to France he had no longer a country, and there could no longer be any patriotical Annals!!! Perthes' Life has been written since, which I have riot seen. I am told there is in it a civil mention of me. This Dr. Julius introduced himself to me as such translator a few years ago. He travelled as an Inspector of Prisons for the Prussian Government into the United States of America. In order to enable me to write this paper, which, by the bye, has nothing in it of the least value, I went to see an exhibition of Blake's original paintings in Carnaby Market, at a hosier's, Blake's brother. These paintings filled several rooms of an ordinary dwelling-house, and for the sight a half-crown was demanded of the visitor, for which he had a catalogue. This catalogue I possess, and it is a very curious exposure of the state of the artist's mind. I wished to send it to Germany and to give a copy to Lamb and others, so I took four, and giving 10s., bargained that I should be at liberty to go again. 'Free! as long as you live,'[2] said the brother, astonished at such a liberality, which he had never experienced before, nor I dare say did afterwards. Lamb was delighted with the catalogue, especially with the description of a painting afterwards engraved, and connected with which is an anecdote that, unexplained, would reflect discredit on a most amiable and excellent man, but which Flaxman considered to have been not the willful act of Stodart. It was after the friends of Blake had circulated a subscription paper for an engraving of his Canterbury Pilgrims, that Stodart was made a party to an engraving of a painting of the same subject by himself. Stodart's work is well known, Blake's is known by very few. Lamb preferred it greatly to Stodart's, and declared that Blake's description was the finest criticism he had ever read of Chaucer's poem.
In this catalogue Blake writes of himself in the most outrageous language—says, 'This artist defies all competition in colouring'—that none can beat him, for none can beat the Holy Ghost—that he and Raphael and Michael Angelo were under divine influence—while Corregio and Titian worshipped a lascivious and therefore cruel deity—Reubens a proud devil, etc. etc. He declared, speaking of color, Titian's men to be of leather and his women of chalk, and ascribed his own perfection in coloring to the advantage he enjoyed in seeing daily the primitive men walking in their native nakedness in the mountains of Wales. There were about thirty oil-paintings, the coloring excessively dark and high, the veins black, and the color of the primitive men very like that of the Red Indians. In his estimation they would probably be the primitive men. Many of his designs were unconscious imitations. This appears also in his published works—the designs of Blair's Grave, which Fuseli and Schiavonetti highly extolled—and in his designs to illustrate Job, published after his death for the benefit of his widow.
23/2/52.
To this catalogue and in the printed poems, the small pamphlet which appeared in 1783, the edition put forth by Wilkinson of The Songs of Innocence,' and other works already mentioned, to which I have to add the first four books of Young's Night Thoughts, and Allan Cunningham's Life of him, I now refer, and will confine myself to the memorandums I took of his conversation. I had heard of him from Flaxman, and for the first time dined in his company at the Aders'. Linnell the painter also was there—an artist of considerable talent, and who professed to take[3] a deep interest in Blake and his work, whether of a perfectly disinterested character may be doubtful, as will appear hereafter. This was on the 10th of December.
I was aware of his idiosyncrasies and therefore to a great degree prepared for the sort of conversation which took place at and after dinner, an altogether unmethodical rhapsody on art, poetry, and religion—he saying the most strange things in the most unemphatic manner, speaking of his Visions as any man would of the most ordinary occurrence. He was then 68 years of age. He had a broad, pale face, a large full eye with a benignant expression—at the same time a look of languor,[4] except when excited, and then he had an air of inspiration. But not such as without a previous acquaintance with him, or attending to what he said, would suggest the notion that he was insane. There was nothing wild about his look, and though very ready to be drawn out to the assertion of his favorite ideas, yet with no warmth as if he wanted to make proselytes. Indeed one of the peculiar features of his scheme, as far as it was consistent, was indifference and a very extraordinary degree of tolerance and satisfaction with what had taken place.[5] A sort of pious and humble optimism, not the scornful optimism of Candide. But at the same time that he was very ready to praise he seemed incapable of envy, as he was of discontent. He warmly praised some composition of Mrs. Aders, and having brought for Aders an engraving of his Canterbury Pilgrims, he remarked that one of the figures resembled a figure in one of the works then in Aders's room, so that he had been accused of having stolen from it. But he added that he had drawn the figure in question 20 years before he had seen the original picture. However, there is 'no wonder in the resemblance, as in my youth I was always studying that class of painting.' I have forgotten what it was, but his taste was in close conformity with the old German school.
This was somewhat at variance with what he said both this day and afterwards—implying that he copies his Visions. And it was on this first day that, in answer to a question from me, he said, 'The Spirits told me.' This lead me to say: Socrates used pretty much the same language. He spoke of his Genius. Now, what affinity or resemblance do you suppose was there between the Genius which inspired Socrates and your Spirits? He smiled, and for once it seemed to me as if he had a feeling of vanity gratified.[6] 'The same as in our countenances.' He paused and said, 'I was Socrates'—and then as if he had gone too far in that—'or a sort of brother. I must have had conversations with him. So I had with Jesus Christ. I have an obscure recollection of having been with both of them.' As I had for many years been familiar with the idea that an eternity a parte post was inconceivable without an eternity a parte ante, I was naturally led to express that thought on this occasion. His eye brightened on my saying this. He eagerly assented: 'To be sure. We are all coexistent with God; members of the Divine body, and partakers of the Divine nature.' Blake's having adopted this Platonic idea led me on our tête-à-tête walk home at night to put the popular question to him, concerning the imputed Divinity of Jesus Christ. He answered: 'He is the only God'—but then he added—'And so am I and so are you.' He had before said—and that led me to put the question—that Christ ought not to have suffered himself to be crucified.' 'He should not have attacked the Government. He had no business with such matters.' On my representing this to be inconsistent with the sanctity of divine qualities, he said Christ was not yet become the Father. It is hard on bringing together these fragmentary recollections[7] to fix Blake's position in relation to Christianity, Platonism, and Spinozism.
It is one of the subtle remarks of Hume on the tendency of certain religious notions to reconcile us to whatever occurs, as God's will. And apply—this to something Blake said, and drawing the inference that there is no use in education, he hastily rejoined: 'There is no use in education. I hold it wrong. It is the great Sin. It is eating of the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil. That was the fault of Plato: he knew of nothing but the Virtues and Vices. There is nothing in all that. Everything is good in God's eyes.' On my asking whether there is nothing absolutely evil in what man does, he answered: 'I am no judge of that—perhaps not in God's eyes.' Notwithstanding this, he, however, at the same time spoke of error as being in heaven; for on my asking whether Dante was pure in writing his Vision, 'Pure,' said Blake. 'Is there any purity in God's eyes? No. "He chargeth his angels with folly.'" He even extended this liability to error to the Supreme Being. 'Did he not repent him that he had made Nineveh?' My journal here has the remark that it is easier to retail his personal remarks than to reconcile those which seemed to be in conformity with the most opposed abstract systems. He spoke with seeming complacency of his own life in connection with Art. In becoming an artist he 'acted by command.' The Spirits said to him, 'Blake, be an artist.' His eye glistened while he spoke of the joy of devoting himself to divine art alone. 'Art is inspiration. When Michael Angelo or Raphael, in their day, or Mr. Flaxman, does any of his fine things, he does them in the Spirit.' Of fame he said: 'I should be sorry if I had any earthly fame, for whatever natural glory a man has is so much detracted from his spiritual glory. I wish to do nothing for profit. I want nothing—I am quite happy.' This was confirmed to me on my subsequent interviews with him. His distinction between the Natural and Spiritual worlds was very confused. Incidentally, Swedenborg was mentioned—he declared him to be a Divine Teacher. He had done, and would do, much good. Yet he did wrong in endeavoring to explain to the reason what it could not comprehend. He seemed to consider, but that was not clear, the visions of Swedenborg and Dante as of the same kind. Dante was the greater poet. He too was wrong in occupying his mind about political objects. Yet this did not appear to affect his estimation of Dante's genius, or his opinion of the truth of Dante's visions. Indeed, when he even declared Dante to be an Atheist, it was accompanied by expression of the highest admiration; though, said he, Dante saw Devils where I saw none.[8]
I put down in my journal the following insulated remarks. Jacob Böhmen was placed among the divinely inspired men. He praised also the designs to Law's translation of Böhmen. Michael Angelo could not have surpassed them.
'Bacon, Locke, and Newton are the three great teachers of Atheism, or Satan's Doctrine,' he asserted.
'Irving is a highly gifted man—he is a sent man; but they who are sent sometimes go further than they ought.'[9]
Calvin. I saw nothing but good in Calvin's house. In Luther's there were Harlots. He declared his opinion that the earth is flat, not round, and just as I had objected the circumnavigation dinner was announced. But objections were seldom of any use. The wildest of his assertions was made with the veriest indifference of tone,[10] as if altogether insignificant. It respected the natural and spiritual worlds. By way of example of the difference between them, he said, 'You never saw the spiritual Sun. I have. I saw him on Primrose Hill.' He said, 'Do you take me for the Greek Apollo?' 'No!' I said. 'That (pointing to the sky) that is the Greek Apollo. He is Satan.'
Not everything was thus absurd. There were glimpses and flashes of truth and beauty: as when he compared moral with physical evil. 'Who shall say what God thinks evil? That is a wise tale of the Mahometans—of the Angel of the Lord who murdered the Infant.'—The Hermit of Parnell, I suppose.—'Is not every infant that dies of a natural death in reality slain by an Angel?'
And when he joined to the assurance of his happiness, that of his having suffered, and that it was necessary, he added, 'There is suffering in Heaven; for where there is the capacity of enjoyment, there is the capacity of pain.[11]
I include among the glimpses of truth this assertion, 'I know what is true by internal conviction. A doctrine is stated. My heart tells me It must be true.' I remarked, in confirmation of it, that, to an unlearned man, what are called the external evidences of religion can carry no conviction with them; and this he assented to.
After my first evening with him at Aders's, I made the remark in my journal, that his observations, apart from his Visions and references to the spiritual world, were sensible and acute. In the sweetness of his countenance and gentility of his manner he added an indescribable grace to his conversation. I added my regret, which I must now repeat, at my inability to give more than incoherent thoughts. Not altogether my fault perhaps.
25/2/52.
On the 17th I called on him in his house in Fountain's Court in the Strand. The interview was a short one, and what I saw was more remarkable than what I heard. He was at work engraving in a small bedroom, light, and looking out on a mean yard. Everything in the room squalid and indicating poverty, except himself. And there was a natural gentility about him, and an insensibility to the seeming poverty, which quite removed the impression. Besides, his linen was clean, his hand white, and his air quite unembarrassed when he begged me to sit down as if he were in a palace. There was but one chair in the room besides that on which he sat. On my putting my hand to it, I found that it would have fallen to pieces if I had lifted it, so, as if I had been a Sybarite, I said with a smile, 'Will you let me indulge myself?' and I sat on the bed, and near him,[12] and during my short stay there was nothing in him that betrayed that he was aware of what to other persons might have been even offensive, not in his person, but in all about him.
His wife I saw at this time, and she seemed to be the very woman to make him happy. She had been formed by him. Indeed, otherwise, she could not have lived with him. Notwithstanding her dress, which was poor and dirty, she had a good expression in her countenance, and, with a dark eye, had remains[13] of beauty in her youth. She had that virtue of virtues in a wife, an implicit reverence of her husband. It is quite certain that she believed in all his visions. And on one occasion, not this day, speaking of his Visions, she said, 'You know, dear, the first time you saw God was when you were four years old, and he put his head to the window and set you a-screaming.' In a word, she was formed on the Miltonic model, and like the first Wife Eve worshipped God in her husband. He being to her what God was to him. Vide Milton's Paradise Lost—passim.
26/2/52.
He was making designs or engravings, I forget which. Carey's Dante was before [sic.] He showed me some of his designs from Dante, of which I do not presume to speak. They were too much above me. But Götzenberger, whom I afterwards took to see them, expressed the highest admiration of them. They are in the hands of Linnell the painter, and, it has been suggested, are reserved by him for publication when Blake may have become[14] an object of interest to a greater number than he could be at this age. Dante was again the subject of our conversation. And Blake declared him a mere politician and atheist, busied about this world's affairs; as Milton was till, in his (M.'s) old age, he returned back to the God he had abandoned in childhood.[15] I in vain endeavoured to obtain from him a qualification of the term atheist, so as not to include him in the ordinary reproach. And yet he afterwards spoke of Dante's being then with God. I was more successful when he also called Locke an atheist, and imputed to him willful deception, and seemed satisfied with my admission, that Locke's philosophy led to the Atheism of the French school. He reiterated his former strange notions on morals—would allow of no other education than what lies in the cultivation of the fine arts and the imagination. 'What are called the Vices in the natural world, are the highest sublimities in the spiritual world.' And when I supposed the case of his being the father of a vicious son and asked him how he would feel, he evaded the question by saying that in trying to think correctly he must not regard his own weaknesses any more than other people's. And he was silent to the observation that his doctrine denied evil. He seemed not unwilling to admit the Manichaean doctrine of two principles, as far as it is found in the idea of the Devil. And said expressly said [sic] he did not believe in the omnipotence of God. The language of the Bible is only poetical or allegorical on the subject, yet he at the same time denied the reality of the natural world. Satan's empire is the empire of nothing.
As he spoke of frequently seeing Milton, I ventured to ask, half ashamed at the time, which of the three or four portraits in Hollis's Memoirs (vols. in 4to) is the most like. He answered, 'They are all like, at different ages. I have seen him as a youth and as an old man with a long flowing beard. He came lately as an old man—he said he came to ask a favor of me. He said he had committed an error in his Paradise Lost, which he wanted me to correct, in a poem or picture; but I declined. I said I had my own duties to perform.' It is a presumptuous question, I replied—might I venture to ask—what that could be. 'He wished me to expose the falsehood of his doctrine, taught in the Paradise Lost, that[16] sexual intercourse arose out of the Fall. How that cannot be, for no good can spring out of evil.' But, I replied, if the consequence were evil, mixed with good, then the good might be ascribed to the common cause. To this he answered by a reference to the androgynous state, in which I could not possibly follow him. At the time that he asserted his own possession of this gift of Vision, he did not boast of it as peculiar to himself; all men might have it if they would.
1826
27/2/52.
On the 24th I called a second time on him. And on this occasion it was that I read to him Wordsworth's Ode on the supposed pre-existent State, and the subject of Wordsworth's religious character was discussed when we met on the 18th of Feb., and the 12th of May. I will here bring together Blake's declarations concerning Wordsworth, and set down his marginalia in the 8vo. edit. A.D. 1815, vol. I. I had been in the habit, when reading this marvelous Ode to friends, to omit one or two passages, especially that beginning:
'But there's a Tree, of many one,'
Lest I should be rendered ridiculous, being unable to explain precisely what I admired. Not that I acknowledged this to be a fair test. But with Blake I could fear nothing of the kind. And it was this very stanza which threw him almost into a hysterical rapture. His delight in Wordsworth's poetry was intense.[17] Nor did it seem less, notwithstanding the reproaches he continually cast on Wordsworth for his imputed worship of nature;[18] which in the mind of Blake constituted Atheism [see "Introduction.">[.
28/2/52.
The combination of the wannest praise with imputations which from another would assume the most serious character, and the liberty he took to interpret as he pleased, rendered it as difficult to be offended as to reason with him. The eloquent descriptions of Nature in Wordsworth's poems were conclusive proofs of atheism, for whoever believes in Nature, said Blake, disbelieves in God. For Nature is the work of the Devil. On my obtaining from him the declaration that the Bible was the Word of God, I referred to the commencement of Genesis—In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth. But I gained nothing by this, for I was triumphantly told that this God was not Jehovah, but the Elohim; and the doctrine of the Gnostics repeated with sufficient consistency to silence one so unlearned as myself.
The Preface to the Excursion, especially the verses quoted from book i. of the Recluse, so troubled him as to bring on a fit of illness. These lines he singled out:
Jehovah with his thunder, and the Choir
Of shouting Angels, and the Empyreal throne,
I pass them unalarmed.'
Does Mr. Wordsworth think he can surpass Jehovah? There was a copy of the whole passage in his own hand,[a][19] in the volume of Wordsworth's poems sent to my chambers after his death. There was this note at the end: 'Solomon, when he married Pharaoh's daughter, and became a convert to the Heathen Mythology, talked exactly in this way of Jehovah, as a very inferior object of Man's contemplations; he also passed him unharmed, and was permitted. Jehovah dropped a tear and followed him by his Spirit into the abstract void. It is called the Divine Mercy. Sarah dwells in it, but Mercy does not dwell in Him.'
Some of Wordsworth's poems he maintained were from the Holy Ghost, others from the Devil. I lent him the 8vo edition, two vols., of Wordsworth's poems, which he had in his possession at the time of his death. They were sent me then. I did not recognize the pencil notes he made in them to be his for some time, and was on the point of rubbing them out under that impression, when I made the discovery.
The following are found in the 3rd vol., in the fly-leaf under the words: Poems referring to the Period of Childhood.
29/2/52.
'I see in Wordsworth the Natural man rising up against the Spiritual man continually, and then he is no poet, but a Heathen Philosopher at Enmity against all true poetry or inspiration.'
Under the first poem:
'And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety,'
He had written, 'There is no such thing as natural piety, because the natural man is at enmity with God.' P. 43, under the Verses 'To H. C., six years old'—'This is all in the highest degree imaginative and equal to any poet, but not superior. I cannot think that real poets have any competition. None are greatest in the kingdom of heaven. It is so in poetry.' P. 44, 'On the Influence of Natural Objects,' at the bottom of the page. 'Natural objects always did and now do weaken, deaden, and obliterate imagination in me. Wordsworth must know that what he writes valuable is not to be found in Nature. Bead Michael Angelo's sonnet, vol. iv. p. 179.' That is, the one beginning:
'No mortal object did these eyes behold
When first they met the placid light of thine.'[20]
It is remarkable that Blake, whose judgements were on most points so very singular, on one subject closely connected with Wordsworth's poetical reputation should have taken a very commonplace view. Over the heading of the 'Essay Supplementary to the Preface' at the end of the vol. he wrote, 'I do not know who wrote these Prefaces; they are very mischievous, and direct contrary to Wordsworth's own practice' (see "III. From Lady Charlotte Bury's Diary.") This is not the defense of his own style in opposition to what is called Poetic Diction, but a sort of historic vindication of the unpopular poets. On Macpherson, p. 364, Wordsworth wrote with the severity with which all great writers have written of him. Blake's comment below was, 'I believe both Macpherson and Chatterton, that what they say is ancient is so.' And in the following page, 'I own myself an admirer of Ossian equally with any other poet whatever. Rowley and Chatterton also.' And at the end of this Essay he wrote, 'It appears to me as if the last paragraph beginning "Is it the spirit of the whole," etc., was written by another hand and mind from the rest of these Prefaces; they are the opinions of [ ] landscape-painter. Imagination is the divine vision not of the world, nor of man, nor from man as he is a natural man, but only as he is a spiritual man. Imagination has nothing to do with memory.'
1826
1/3/52.
19th Feb. It was this day in connection with the assertion that[21] the Bible is the Word of God and all truth is to be found in it, he using language concerning man's reason being opposed to grace very like that used by the Orthodox Christian, that he qualified, and as the same Orthodox would say utterly nullified all he said by declaring that he understood the Bible in a Spiritual sense. As to the natural sense, he said Voltaire was commissioned by God to expose that. 'I have had,' he said, 'much intercourse with Voltaire, and he said to me, "I blasphemed the Son of Man, and it shall be forgiven me, but they (the enemies of Voltaire) blasphemed the Holy Ghost in me, and it shall not be forgiven to them." 'I ask him in what language Voltaire spoke. His answer was ingenious and gave no encouragement to cross-questioning: 'To my sensations it was English. It was like the touch of a musical key; he touched it probably French, but to my ear it became English.' I also enquired as I had before about the form of the persons[22] who appeared to him, and asked why he did not draw them. 'It is not worth while,' he said. 'Besides there are so many that the labour would be too great. And there would be no use in it.' In answer to an enquiry about Shakespeare, 'he is exactly like the old engraving—which is said to be a bad one. I think it very good.' I enquired about his own writings. 'I have written,' he answered, 'more than Rousseau or Voltaire—six or seven Epic poems as long as Homer and 20 Tragedies as long as Macbeth.' He shewed me his 'Version of Genesis,'[23] for so it may be called, as understood by a Christian Visionary. He read a wild passage in a sort of Bible style. 'I shall print[24] no more,' he said. 'When I am commanded by the Spirits, then I write, and the moment I have written, I see the words fly about the room in all directions. It is then published. The Spirits can read, and my MS. is of no further use. I have been tempted to burn my MS., but my wife won't let me.' She is right, I answered; you write not from yourself but from higher order. The MSS. are their property, not yours. You cannot tell what purpose they may answer. This was addressed ad hominem. And it indeed amounted only to a deduction from his own principles. He incidentally denied causation, every thing being the work of God or Devil. Every man has a Devil in himself, and the conflict between his Self and God is perpetually going on. I ordered of him to-day a copy of his songs for 5 guineas. My[25] manner of receiving his mention of price pleased him. He spoke of his horror of money and of turning pale when it was offered him, and this was certainly unfeigned.
In the No. of the Gents. Magazine for last Jan. there is a letter by Gromek to Blake printed in order to convict Blake of selfishness. It cannot possibly be substantially true. I may elsewhere notice it.
13th June. I saw him again in June. He was as wild as ever, says my journal, but he was led today to make assertions more palpably mischievous, if capable of influencing other minds, and immoral, supposing them to express the will[26] of a responsible agent, than anything he had said before. As, for instance, that he had learned from the Bible that Wives should be in common. And when I objected that marriage was a Divine institution, he referred to the Bible—'that from the beginning it was not so.' He affirmed that he had committed many murders, and repeated his doctrine, that reason is the only sin, and that careless, gay people are better than those who think, etc. etc.
It was, I believe, on the 7th of December that I saw him last. I had just heard of the death of Flaxman, a man whom he professed to admire, and was curious to know how he would receive the intelligence. It was as I expected.[27] He had been ill during the summer, and he said with a smile, 'I thought I should have gone first.' He then said, 'I cannot think of death as more than the going out of one room into another.' And Flaxman was no longer thought of. He relapsed into his ordinary train of thinking. Indeed I had by this time learned that there was nothing to be gained by frequent intercourse. And therefore it was that after this interview I was not anxious to be frequent in my visits. This day he said, 'Men are born with an Angel and, a Devil.' This he himself interpreted as Soul and Body, and as I have long since said of the strange sayings of a man who enjoys a high reputation, 'it is more in the language than the thought that this singularity is to be looked for.' And this day he spoke of the Old Testament as if [sic] were the evil element. Christ, he said, took much after his mother, and in so far was one of the worst of men. On my asking him for an instance, he referred to his turning the moneychangers out of the Temple—he had no right to do that. He digressed into a condemnation of those who sit in judgement on others. 'I have never known a very bad man who had not something very good about him.'
Speaking of the Atonement in the ordinary Calvinistic sense, he said, 'It is a horrible doctrine; if another pay your debt, I do not forgive it.'
I have no account of any other call—but there is probably an omission. I took Götzenberger to see him, and he met the Masqueriers in my chambers. Masquerier was not the man to meet him. He could not humour Blake nor understand the peculiar sense in which he was to be received.[28]
1827
My journal of this year contains nothing about Blake. But in January 1828 Barron Field and myself called on Mrs. Blake. The poor old lady was more affected than I expected she would be at the sight of me. She spoke of her husband as dying like an angel. She informed me that she was going to live with Linnell as his housekeeper. And we understood that she would live with him, and he, as it were, to farm her services and take all she had. The engravings of Job were his already. Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims were hers. I took two copies—one I gave to C. Lamb. Barron Field took a proof.
Mrs. Blake died within a few years, and since Blake's death Linnell has not found the market I took for granted he would seek for Blake's works. Wilkinson printed a small edition of his poems, including the 'Songs of Innocence and Experience,'[29] a few years ago, and Monkton Mylne talks of printing an edition. I have a few colored engravings—but Blake is still an object of interest exclusively to men of imaginative taste and psychological curiosity. I doubt much whether these mems will be of any use to this small class. I have been reading since the Life of Blake by Allan Cunningham, vol. II. p. 143 of his Lives of the Painters. It recognizes more perhaps of Blake's merit than might be expected of a Scotch realist.
22/3/52.
[1]The article appeared under the title: 'William Blake, Künstler, Dichter und religiöser Schwärmer' (aus dem Englischen) on pp. 107-131 of the Vaterländisches Museum, Zweiter Band, Erstes Heft. Hamburg, bey Friedrich Perthes. 1811.' It has the motto:
'The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
Are of imagination all compact.'
SHAKESPEARE.
Five of Blake's poems, 'To the Muse?, Piping down the valleys wild, Holy Thursday, The Tyger, The Garden of Love,' together with ten lines from the Prophetic Books, are quoted, with German versions in the metres of the original by Dr. Julius, the translator of the article. On p. 101 there is an article, 'Von der neuesten englischen Poesie,' containing notices of 'Poems by W. Cowper' (1803), 'Works of R. Burns,'and 'Southey's Poems' (1801) and 'Metrical Tales' (1803).
[2]'Like' is first written, and replaced by 'live.'
[3]'Took' crossed out.
[4]'With an air of feebleness' crossed out.
[5]After 'indifference and' 'the entire absence of anything like blame ['reproach' crossed out], and I do not think that I ever heard him blame anything, then or afterwards crossed out.
[6]'Pretty much' crossed out.
[7]'Comparing these fragmentary memoranda' crossed out.
[8]Crossed out:
'Yet this did not appear to affect the truth of his Visions. I could not reconcile this with his blaming Wordsworth for being a Platonist—not a Christian. He asked whether Wordsworth acknowledged the Scriptures as Divine, and declared on my answering in the affirmative that the Introduction to the Excursion had troubled him so as to bring on a fit of illness. The passage that offended Blake was:
'Jehovah with his thunder and the choir
Of shouting Angels and the empyreal throne,
I pass them unalarmed.
"Does Mr. Wordsworth," said Blake, "think his mind can surpass Jehovah's." I tried in vain to rescue Wordsworth from the imputation of being a Pagan or perhaps an Atheist, but this did not rob him of the character of being the great poet. Indeed Atheism meant but little in Blake's mind as will hereafter appear. Therefore when he declared Dante to be an Atheist, etc.'
In the margin: See of Wordsworth as Blake judged of him, p. 46 et seq. (i.e. "1826, 27/2/52," below.)
[9]'Dante saw Devils where I saw none' crossed out.
[10]'Most unconscious simplicity' crossed out.
[11]'It was after my first interview with him that I expressed what I must repeat now—my regret' crossed out.
[12]'He smiled' omitted.
[13]'Marks' crossed out.
[14]'More' crossed out.
[15]'And yet he afterwards said that he was then with God' crossed out.
[16]'The plea' crossed out.
[17]'And seemingly undisturbed by the' crossed out.
[18]'Which I have anticipated, and which he characterised as Atheism, that is, in worshipping Nature. See page' crossed out.
[19]'He gave me a copy of these lines in his hand, with this note at the end' crossed out.
[20]'An admirable assertion of the ideal' crossed out.
[21]'Some of Wordsworth's' crossed out.
[22]'Spirits' crossed out.
[23]'Vision of Genesis' crossed out.
[24]'Write' crossed out.
[25]'Immediate 'crossed out.
[26]'Character' crossed out.
[27]'As might have been expected' crossed out.
[28]'Understood' crossed out.
[29]'And some other poems' crossed out.
[(II.) FROM 'A FATHER'S MEMOIRS OF HIS CHILD,' BY BENJAMIN HEATH MALKIN (1806)]
[This, the first printed account of Blake, is taken from the dedicatory epistle of 'A Father's Memoirs of his Child,' by Benj. Heath Malkin, Esq., M.A., F.A.S. (London: Printed for Longmans, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, Paternoster Row, by T. Bensley, Bolt Court, Fleet Street, 1806), to Thomas Johnes, the translator of Froissart. I have given everything that relates to Blake, with enough of the remainder to explain the purpose of the dedication. Malkin was himself, perhaps, already engaged on the translation of Gil Blas, which he brought out in 1809. The frontispiece to the Memoirs, designed by Blake, and engraved by Cromek, consists of a portrait of little Malkin, from a miniature, surrounded by a design of the child saying good-bye to his mother, and floating up to heaven, hand in hand with an ample and benign angel.]
TO THOMAS JOHNES, OF HAFOD, ESQ., M.P., LORD LIEUTENANT OF THE COUNTY OF CARDIGAN, ETC. ETC. ETC.
MY DEAR FRIEND,
I have been influenced by several motives, in prefixing your name to the following pages. My pen seems destined to owe its employment, in some shape or other, to Hafod....
You may perhaps recollect, that while I was staying with you last summer, our conversations were nearly as rambling and as various, as our rides over your new mountain-farms, or as the subject matter of these preliminary remarks seems likely to be.... It would have been unnatural, to have concealed the mark of an afflicting dispensation, in society so capable of consoling the survivor, and appreciating the merit of the departed. In the interchange of our thoughts on this subject, the task of furnishing the public with the following facts was urged upon me, at once as a tribute to the latter, and a relief to the feelings of the former.... On mentioning my design to some of my friends, they expressed their regret, that I had not determined on it sooner.... In every other respect, but that of catching attention while the object is still before the eye, the interval must be considered as an advantage.... I have been asked, 'How could you get over such a loss?' I need not say, that this was not your question, for you could never have found it on the list of possible interrogatories: and to you, for that very reason, will I answer it.
I got over this great loss, by considering at once what I had left; how unavailing the lengthened and excessive indulgence of grief would have been to myself, and how useless it would have rendered me to others....
Besides this comparison of my own, with the probable or actual circumstances of others, I bore my disappointment the better for the recollection, that personal regards are selfish. If my thoughts were disposed to dwell on the mortifying idea, that society might have lost an ornament derived to it through me, they were soon checked, and ashamed of their presumption. Topics of private bewailing or condolence, of whatever magnitude they may appear to the individual, can never be modestly transferred to general interest. But it was my principal consolation, that the change to him must have been for the better. Supposing the opinion to have been rational and probable, that the promise of this child would have ripened into something more than fair capacity and marketable talent, the prolongation of life was to himself perhaps the less desirable on that very account. It rarely happens, that the world affords even the ordinary allowance of happiness to men of transcendent faculties. Their merits are too frequently denied the protection and encouragement, to which they feel themselves entitled, from the private intimations of their own scrutinizing spirit. When they are most successful, the composure of their minds does not always keep pace with the prosperity of their fortunes. They necessarily have but few companions; few, who are capable of appreciating their high endowments, and entering into the grandeur of their conceptions. Of these few, those who come the nearest to their own rank and standard, those who might be the associates of their inmost thoughts, and the partners of their dearest interests, are too often envious of their fame. It is a common remark, that great men are not gregarious. This is but too just; and so much of man's happiness depends upon society, that the comparative solitude, to which a commanding genius condemns its possessor, detracts considerably from the sum of his personal enjoyment.
While I am on this subject, I cannot forbear enlarging somewhat on an instance the more apposite, as being casually connected with the subsequent pages. Hitherto, it has confirmed the observation just hazarded, on the probable fate of stubborn originality in human life. There seems now indeed some prospect, that the current will turn: and I shall be eager, on the evidence of the very first deponent, to disencumber myself of an opinion, which pays so ill a compliment to our nature. In the meantime, I am confident that you, and my other readers of taste and feeling, will readily forgive my travelling a little out of the record, for the purpose of descanting on merit, which ought to be more conspicuous, and which must have become so long since, but for opinions and habits of an eccentric kind.
It is, I hope, unnecessary to call your attention to the ornamental device, round the portrait in this book; but I cannot so easily refrain from introducing to you the designer.
Mr. William Blake, very early in life, had the ordinary opportunities of seeing pictures in the houses of noblemen and gentlemen, and in the king's palaces. He soon improved such casual occasions of study, by attending sales at Langford's, Christie's, and other auction-rooms. At ten years of age he was put to Mr. Pars's drawing-school in the Strand, where he soon attained the art of drawing from casts in plaster of the various antiques. His father bought for him the Gladiator, the Hercules, the Venus of Medicis, and various heads, hands and feet. The same indulgent parent soon supplied him with money to buy prints; when he immediately began his collection, frequenting the shops of the print-dealers, and the sales of the auctioneers. Langford called him his little connoisseur; and often knocked down to him a cheap lot, with friendly precipitation. He copied Raphael and Michael Angelo, Martin Hemskerck and Albert Dürer, Julio Romano, and the rest of the historic class, neglecting to buy any other prints, however celebrated. His choice was for the most part contemned by his youthful companions, who were accustomed to laugh at what they called his mechanical taste. At the age of fourteen, he fixed on the engraver of Stuart's Athens and West's Pylades and Orestes for his master, to whom he served seven years' apprenticeship. Basire, whose taste was like his own, approved of what he did. Two years passed over smoothly enough, till two other apprentices were added to the establishment, who completely destroyed its harmony. Blake, not choosing to take part with his master against his fellow apprentices, was sent out to make drawings. This circumstance he always mentions with gratitude to Basire, who said that he was too simple and they too cunning.
He was employed in making drawings from old buildings and monuments, and occasionally, especially in winter, in engraving from those drawings. This occupation led him to an acquaintance with those neglected works of art, called Gothic monuments. There he found a treasure, which he knew how to value. He saw the simple and plain road to the style of art at which he aimed, unentangled in the intricate windings of modern practice. The monuments of Kings and Queens in Westminster Abbey, which surround the chapel of Edward the Confessor, particularly that of King Henry the Third, the beautiful monument and figure of Queen Elinor, Queen Philippa, King Edward the Third, King Richard the Second and his Queen, were among his first studies. All these he drew in every point he could catch, frequently standing on the monument, and viewing the figures from the top. The heads he considered as portraits; and all the ornaments appeared as miracles of art, to his Gothicised imagination. He then drew Aymer de Valence's monument, with his fine figure on the top. Those exquisite little figures which surround it, though dreadfully mutilated, are still models for the study of drapery. But I do not mean to enumerate all his drawings, since they would lead me over all the old monuments in Westminster Abbey, as well as over other churches in and about London.
Such was his employment at Basire's. As soon as he was out of his time, he began to engrave two designs from the History of England, after drawings which he had made in the holiday hours of his apprenticeship. They were selected from a great number of historical compositions, the fruits of his fancy. He continued making designs for his own amusement, whenever he could steal a moment from the routine of business; and began a course of study at the Royal Academy, under the eye of Mr. Moser. Here he drew with great care, perhaps all, or certainly nearly all the noble antique figures in various views. But now his peculiar notions began to intercept him in his career. He professes drawing from life always to have been hateful to him; and speaks of it as looking more like death, or smelling of mortality. Yet still he drew a good deal from life, both at the academy and at home. In this manner has he managed his talents, till he is himself almost become a Gothic monument. On a view of his whole life, he still thinks himself authorized to pronounce, that practice and opportunity very soon teach the language of art: but its spirit and poetry, which are seated in the imagination alone, never can be taught; and these make an artist.
Mr. Blake has long been known to the order of men among whom he ranks; and is highly esteemed by those, who can distinguish excellence under the disguise of singularity. Enthusiastic and high-flown notions on the subject of religion have hitherto, as they usually do, prevented his general reception, as a son of taste and of the muses. The sceptic and the rational believer, uniting their forces against the visionary, pursue and scare a warm and brilliant imagination, with the hue and cry of madness. Not contented with bringing down the reasonings of the mystical philosopher, as they well may, to this degraded level, they apply the test of cold calculation and mathematical proof to departments of the mind, which are privileged to appeal from so narrow and rigorous a tribunal. They criticize the representations of corporeal beauty, and the allegoric emblems of mental perfections; the image of the visible world, which appeals to the senses for a testimony to its truth, or the type of futurity and the immortal soul, which identifies itself with our hopes and with our hearts, as if they were syllogisms or theorems, demonstrable propositions or consecutive corollaries. By them have the higher powers of this artist been kept from public notice, and his genius tied down, as far as possible, to the mechanical department of his profession. By them, in short, has he been stigmatized as an engraver, who might do tolerably well, if he was not mad. But men, whose names will bear them out, in what they affirm, have now taken up his cause. On occasion of Mr. Blake engaging to illustrate the poem of The Grave, some of the first artists in this country have stept forward, and liberally given the sanction of ardent and encomiastic applause. Mr. Fuseli, with a mind far superior to that jealousy above described, has written some introductory remarks in the Prospectus of the work. To these he has lent all the penetration of his understanding, with all the energy and descriptive power characteristic of his style. Mr. Hope and Mr. Locke have pledged their character as connoisseurs, by approving and patronizing these designs. Had I been furnished with an opportunity of showing them to you, I should, on Mr. Blake's behalf, have requested your concurring testimony, which you would not have refused me, had you viewed them in the same light.
Neither is the capacity of this untutored proficient limited to his professional occupation. He has made several irregular and unfinished attempts at poetry. He has dared to venture on the ancient simplicity; and feeling it in his own character and manners, has succeeded better than those, who have only seen it through a glass. His genius in this line assimilates more with the bold and careless freedom, peculiar to our writers at the latter end of the sixteenth, and former part of the seventeenth century, than with the polished phraseology, and just, but subdued thought of the eighteenth. As the public have hitherto had no opportunity of passing sentence on his poetical powers, I shall trespass on your patience, while I introduce a few specimens from a collection, circulated only among the author's friends, and richly embellished by his pencil.
LAUGHING SONG
When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy,
And the dimpling stream runs laughing by,
When the air does laugh with our merry wit,
And the green hill laughs with the noise of it,
When the meadows laugh with lively green,
And the grasshopper laughs in this merry scene,
When Mary and Susan and Emily,
With their sweet round mouths, sing Ha, ha, he!
When the painted birds laugh in the shade,
Where our table with cherries and nuts is spread,
Come live and be merry and join with me,
To sing the sweet chorus of Ha, ha, he!
The Fairy Glee of Oberon, which Stevens's exquisite music has familiarized to modern ears, will immediately occur to the reader of these laughing stanzas. We may also trace another less obvious resemblance to Jonson, in an ode gratulatory to the Right Honourable Hierome, Lord Weston, for his return from his embassy, in the year 1632. The accord is to be found, not in the words nor in the subject; for either would betray imitation: but in the style of thought, and, if I may so term it, the date of the expression.
Such pleasure as the teeming earth
Doth take in easy nature's birth,
When she puts forth the life of every thing:
And in a dew of sweetest rain,
She lies delivered without pain,
Of the prime beauty of the year, the spring.
The rivers in their shores do run,
The clouds rack clear before the sun,
The rudest winds obey the calmest air:
Rare plants from every bank do rise,
And every plant the sense surprise,
Because the order of the whole is fair!
The very verdure of her nest,
Wherein she sits so richly drest,
As all the wealth of season there was spread;
Doth show the graces and the hours
Have multiplied their arts and powers,
In making soft her aromatic bed.
Such joys, such sweets, doth your return
Bring all your friends, fair lord, that burn
With love, to hear your modesty relate
The bus'ness of your blooming wit,
With all the fruit shall follow it,
Both to the honor of the king and state.
The following poem of Blake is in a different character. It expresses with majesty and pathos the feelings of a benevolent mind, on being present at a sublime display of national munificence and charity.
HOLY THURSDAY
'Twas on a Holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean,
The children walking two and two, in red and blue and
green;
Grey-headed beadles walked before, with wands as white
as snow;
Till into the high dome of Paul's, they, like Thames'
waters, flow.
Oh! What a multitude they seemed, these flowers of
London town!
Seated in companies they sit, with radiance all their own!
The hum of multitudes was there, but multitudes of lambs;
Thousands of little boys and girls, raising their innocent
hands.
Now like a mighty wind they raise to heaven the voice
of song,
Or like harmonious thunderings, the seats of heaven
among!
Beneath them sit the aged men, wise guardians of the
poor:
Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door.
The book of Revelation, which may well be supposed to engross much of Mr. Blake's study, seems to have directed him, in common with Milton, to some of the foregoing images. 'And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.' Milton comprises the mighty thunderings in the epithet 'loud,' and adopts the comparison of many waters, which image our poet, having in the first stanza appropriated differently, to their flow rather than to their sound, exchanges in the last for that of a mighty wind.
He ended; and the heav'nly audience loud
Sung hallelujah, as the sound of sees,
Through multitude that sung.
Paradise Lost, Book X. 641.
It may be worth a moment's consideration, whether Dr. Johnson's remarks on devotional poetry, though strictly just where he applies them, to the artificial compositions of Waller and Watts, are universally and necessarily true. Watts seldom rose above the level of a mere versifier. Waller, though entitled to the higher appellation of poet, had formed himself rather to elegance and delicacy, than to passionate emotions or a lofty and dignified deportment. The devotional pieces of the Hebrew bards are clothed in that simple language, to which Johnson with justice ascribes the character of sublimity. There is no reason therefore why the poets of other nations should not be equally successful, if they think with the same purity, and express themselves in the same unaffected terms. He says indeed with truth, that 'Repentance trembling in the presence of the judge, is not at leisure for cadences and epithets.' But though we should exclude the severer topics from our catalogue, mercy and benevolence may be treated poetically, because they are in unison with the mild spirit of poetry. They are seldom treated successfully; but the fault is not in the subject. The mind of the poet is too often at leisure for the mechanical prettinesses of cadence and epithet, when it ought to be engrossed by higher thoughts. Words and numbers present themselves unbidden, when the soul is inspired by sentiment, elevated by enthusiasm, or ravished by devotion. I leave it to the reader to determine, whether the following stanzas have any tendency to vindicate this species of poetry; and whether their simplicity and sentiment at all make amends for their unartificial and unassuming construction.
THE DIVINE IMAGE
To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love,
All pray in their distress,
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.
For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is God our Father dear:
And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love,
Is man, his child and care.
For Mercy has a human heart;
Pity, a human face;
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.
Then every man, of every clime,
That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine,
Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.
And all must love the human form.
In Heathen, Turk, or Jew!
Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell,
There God is dwelling too.
Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis, Tarquin and Lucrece, and his Sonnets, occasioned it to be said by a contemporary, that, 'As the soul of Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras, so the sweet witty soul of Ovid lives in mellifluous honey-tongued Shakespeare.' These poems, now little read, were favorite studies of Mr. Blake's early days. So were Jonson's Underwoods and Miscellanies, and he seems to me to have caught his manner, more than that of Shakespeare in his trifles. The following song is a good deal in the spirit of the Hue and Cry after Cupid, in the Masque on Lord Haddington's marriage. It was written before the age of fourteen, in the heat of youthful fancy, unchastized by judgment. The poet, as such, takes the very strong liberty of equipping himself with wings, and thus appropriates his metaphorical costume to his corporeal fashion and seeming. The conceit is not unclassical; but Pindar and the ancient lyrics arrogated to themselves the bodies of swans for their august residence. Our Gothic songster is content to be encaged by Cupid; and submits, like a young lady's favorite, to all the vagaries of giddy curiosity and tormenting fondness.
How sweet I roamed from field to field,
And tasted all the summer's pride,
Till I the prince of love beheld,
Who in the sunny beams did glide!
He showed me lilies for my hair,
And blushing roses for my brow;
He led me through his gardens fair,
Where all his golden pleasures grow.
With sweet May dews my wings were wet,
And Phoebus fired my vocal rage;
He caught me in his silken net,
And shut me in his golden cage.
He loves to sit and hear me sing,
Then, laughing, sports and plays with me;
Then stretches out my golden wing,
And mocks my loss of liberty.
The playful character ascribed to the prince of love, especially his wanton and fantastic action while sporting with his captive, in the two last stanzas, render it probable that the author had read the Hue and Cry after Cupid. If so, it had made its impression; but the lines could scarcely have been remembered at the time of writing, or the resemblance would have been closer. The stanzas to which I especially allude, are these.
Wings he hath, which though ye clip,
He will leap from lip to lip,
Over liver, lights, and heart,
But not stay in any part;
And, if chance his arrow misses,
He will shoot himself, in kisses.
Idle minutes are his reign;
Then the straggler makes his gain,
By presenting maids with toys,
And would have ye think'em joys:
'Tis th' ambition of the elf,
To have all childish as himself.
The two following little pieces are added, as well by way of contrast, as for the sake of their respective merits. In the first, there is a simple and pastoral gaiety, which the poets of a refined age have generally found much more difficult of attainment, than the glitter of wit, or the affectation of antithesis. The second rises with the subject. It wears that garb of grandeur, which the idea of creation communicates to a mind of the higher order. Our bard, having brought the topic he descants on from warmer latitudes than his own, is justified in adopting an imagery, of almost oriental feature and complexion.
SONG
I love the jocund dance,
The softly breathing song,
Where innocent eyes do glance,
And where lisps the maiden's tongue.
I love the laughing gale,
I love the echoing hill,
Where mirth does never fail,
And the jolly swain laughs his fill.
I love the pleasant cot,
I love the innocent bower,
Where white and brown is our lot,
Or fruit in the midday hour.
I love the oaken seat,
Beneath the oaken tree,
Where all the old villagers meet,
And laugh our sports to see.
I love our neighbors all,
But, Kitty, I better love thee;
And love them I ever shall;
But thou art all to me.
THE TIGER
Tiger, Tiger, burning bright,
In the forest of the right!
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies,
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
When thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand forged thy dread feet?
What the hammer? What the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dared its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he, who made the lamb, make thee?
Tiger, tiger, burning bright,
In the forest of the night;
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
Besides these lyric compositions, Mr. Blake has given several specimens of blank verse. Here, as might be expected, his personifications are bold, his thoughts original, and his style of writing altogether epic in its structure. The unrestrained measure, however, which should warn the poet to restrain himself, has not infrequently betrayed him into so wild a pursuit of fancy, as to leave harmony unregarded, and to pass the line prescribed by criticism to the career of imagination.
But I have been leading you beside our subject, into a labyrinth of poetical comment, with as little method or ceremony, as if we were to have no witness of our correspondence. It is time we should return from the masking regions of poetry, to the business with which we set out. Donne, in his Anatomy of the World, remarks the Egyptians to have acted wisely, in bestowing more cost upon their tombs than on their houses. This example he adduces, to justify his own Funeral Elegies: and I may perhaps be allowed to adopt it, as an additional plea, should my former be of no avail, for coming forward with this piece of almost infantine biography...
I regret, my dear friend, that it was not in my power to furnish you and my readers with a portrait of a later date. We had often talked of allowing ourselves that indulgence; but we were not privy to the event, which was to have communicated to it an incalculable value. The engraving here given, though it might well be taken to represent a much older child, is from a very beautiful miniature, painted by Paye, when Thomas was not quite two years old. He then was only beginning to speak; but there was even at that early period an intelligence in his eye, and an expression about his mouth, which are, I hope, sufficiently characterized in the delineation to afford no inadequate idea of his physiognomy....
At all events, this work, though it should escape censure, can rank no higher than a trifle. What apology must I make for addressing it to a fellow-laborer, who has accomplished the serious and difficult task of giving an English dress to Froissart? I think it was Gray who denominated your venerable original the Herodotus of a barbarous age; But surely that age is entitled to a more respectful epithet, when France could boast its Froissart, Italy its Petrarch, England its Wickliffe, the father of our reformation, and Chaucer, the father of our poetry. If I might slightly alter the designation of so complete a critic, I would prefer calling this simple and genuine historian, the Herodotus of chivalry. But by whatever title we are to greet him, the interesting minuteness of his recital, affording a strong pledge of its fidelity, the lively delineation of manners, and the charm of unadulterated language, all conspire to place him in the first rank of early writers. The public began to revolt from that spirit of philosophizing on the most common occasions, in consequence of which our modern historians seem to be more ingenious in assigning causes and motives, than assiduous to ascertain facts. We are returning home to plain tales and first-hand authorities; and you will share the honor of pointing out the way. Froissart, hitherto inaccessible to English readers in general, from the obsolete garb both of the French and of Lord Berners's translation, may now be read in such a form, as to unite a peculiar thought and turn of the ancient with the intelligible phraseology of modern times. With my best congratulations on your success, and my earnest request to be forgiven for thus intruding on your leisure, believe me to be, my dear friend, faithfully yours,
B. H. MALKIN.
HACKNEY, January 4, 1806.
[(III.) FROM LADY CHARLOTTE BURY'S DIARY (1820)]
[This extract from the Diary illustrative of the Times of George the Fourth, by Lady Charlotte Bury, afterwards Lady Charlotte Campbell, published anonymously, and edited by John Galt, in four volumes, in 1839, was first noticed by Mr. W. M. Rossetti, who printed it in the Athenaeum. It is from vol. iii. pp. 345-318.]