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.