But though he saw, he said nothing. His spiritual friends (on the other side) commanded him “to bear all and be silent, and to go through all without murmuring, and, in fine, hope, till his three years shall be accomplished.” When Hayley was more than usually exasperating, Blake vented himself in an epigram, and, much relieved, went on quietly.
Thus, when Blake was convinced that Providence did not mean him to paint miniatures, he wrote:
“When Hayley finds out what you cannot do,
That is the very thing he’ll set you to do.”
Again, Blake discovered that Hayley’s virtues and faults were both of the feminine order. It was a feminine instinct that had prompted him to write The Triumphs of Temper and the Essay on Old Maids. A brilliant epigram of Blake’s accounts for this odd psychic twist, and flashes Hayley before us:
“Of Hayley’s birth this was the happy lot:
His mother on his father him begot.”
That was the true state of affairs. But Blake obeyed his spiritual friends, and for a long time no sign appeared in his letters that there was anything the matter.
Hayley was also anxious to teach Blake Greek. Like most men of his times, he believed that no man could attain to the highest degree of excellence who had not mastered Greek and Latin. He probably thought that a knowledge of Greek would at least correct some of Blake’s vagaries. Blake was quick at languages, and soon Hayley was able to write to Johnson: “Blake is just become a Grecian, and literally learning the language.... The new Grecian greets you affectionately.”
Blake, however, never attained to his teacher’s proficiency; he learnt just enough to be able to formulate to himself the nature of the Greek genius, and to see it in relation to his own. “The Muses were the Daughters of Memory.” The inspiration of the Bible was from a higher source than Memory. Memory is the indelible record of experience. Inspiration is always a breaking into experience to the creation of something new. Then only is the new creation handed over to Memory. Thus Inspiration feeds Memory, but is not its fruit. Imagination is the true instrument of Inspiration. When Blake saw all this clearly, he wrote in the Preface to Milton: “We do not want either Greek or Roman Models if we are just and true to our own Imaginations.” Greek and Latin have their abiding place in Memory, and Blake was about to write fine things about Memory, which he calls the Halls of Los; but for himself they did not stimulate his imagination. To master them would add to his culture; but mere culture is always barren.
Hayley’s last attempt to teach Blake was in March 1805, the month in which Klopstock died. He translated parts of Klopstock’s Messiah aloud for Blake’s benefit. Certain lines by Blake with big gaps have been preserved, which are hard for us to understand. The only thing we are quite sure about them is that they were written “after too much Klopstock.”
There was one great name that held Hayley and Blake alike at this time. We know that Blake had always admired Milton’s superb gifts, while he disliked his theology. Blake’s special friends had also been preoccupied with Milton. Fuseli, for example, not only disagreed with Dr Johnson’s strictures on the poet, but he had been inspired by his ardent imagination to paint a series of pictures illustrating the poet’s works, and these had been on public view at a Milton Gallery opened on May 20th, 1799, and reopened March 21st, 1800.