On April 6, Wordsworth answers the letter from Rydal Mount, saying: 'My sister had taken flight for Herefordshire when your letter, for such we guessed it to be, arrived—it was broken open—(pray forgive the offense) and your charges of concealment and reserve frustrated. We are all, at all times, so glad to hear from you that we could not resist the temptation to purchase the pleasure at the expense of the peccadillo, for which we beg pardon with united voices. You are kind enough to mention my poems.'
[All the rest of the letter is taken up with them, and it ends, with no mention of Blake] 'I can write no more. T. Clarkson is going. Your supposed Biography entertained me much. I could give you the other side. Farewell.'
[There is no signature.]
[1]'And as I am requested to copy what he has written for the purpose' crossed out.
[2]The MS. is here torn.
[(3) FROM CRABB ROBINSON'S REMINISCENCES]
1810
I was amusing myself this spring by writing an account of the insane poet, painter, and engraver, Blake. Perthes of Hamburg had written to me asking me to send him an article for a new German magazine, entitled Vaterländische Annalen, which he was about to set up, and Dr. Malkin having in his Memoirs of his son given an account of this extraordinary genius with specimens of his poems, I resolved out of these to compile a paper. And this I did,[1] and the paper was translated by Dr. Julius, who, many years afterwards, introduced himself to me as my translator. It appears in the single number of the second volume of the Vaterländische Annalen. For it was at this time that Buonaparte united Hamburg to the French Empire, on which Perthes manfully gave up the magazine, saying, as he had no longer a Vaterland, there could be no Vaterländische Annalen. But before I drew up the paper, I went to see a gallery of Blake's paintings, which were exhibited by his brother, a hosier in Carnaby Market. The entrance was 2s. 6d., catalogue included. I was deeply interested by the catalogue as well as the pictures. I took 4—telling the brother I hoped he would let me come in again. He said, 'Oh! as often as you please.' I dare say such a thing had never happened before or did afterwards. I afterwards became acquainted with Blake, and will postpone till hereafter what I have to say of this extraordinary character, whose life has since been written very inadequately by Allan Cunningham in his Lives of the English Artists.