William Blake, the Man

by Charles Gardner

The early short poems, on the contrary, shine with their own light. The Tiger and The Emmet are written before his mind has time to plunge into the penumbra of his disorderly system.

Blake was still young in spirit when he died. One feels with him, as with Tolstoi, that he had far from come to the end of his tether. He was one of the few to whose years another threescore might have been added with advantage. Where would he have arrived? I think when we remember that for more than twenty years before his death he was on the voyage of rediscovery, we may hazard the guess that he would have reached the catholic form of Christianity, having thrown overboard his private symbolism on the way; and that then he would have produced great, long poems of crystalline clearness, which would have placed him by the side of the master-poets of the ages.

Yet it is idle work guessing at what might have been. We blame a man’s times, or birth, or church, or what not for his failures, when we should look for some fundamental lack in his own equipment. That Blake was not quite one of our conquerors, then, we will not attribute to the eighteenth century or to Swedenborg’s predominant influence in his early life, but simply to the fact that he lacked the strong, virile reason that could keep pace with the on-rush of his visions. He was all Los: Urizen, whom he repudiated with such scorn, alone could have balanced his nature and led him to the supreme achievement.

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INDEX

Abel the Shepherd, [176]
Abstract Philosophy, [109]
Adam and Eve observed by Satan, [123]
Aders, Mr and Mrs, [187]
Age of Reason, [87], [93]
Ahania, [111]
Akashic Records, [132]
Albion, [149-50]
America: A Prophecy, [96-7], [98]
American Independence, War of, [86], [87], [98]
Ancient of Days, [101]
Angelic Wisdom, [58]
Angelico, Fra, [176]
Arblay, M. d’, [85]
Asia, [109]
Astrology, [172-3]
Augustine, St, [152]
Austen, Jane, [170]
Barbauld, Mrs, [30]
Bartolozzi, [17], [123], [154]
Barton, Bernard, [174]
Bas Bleu, [28]
Basire, [17], [18]
Bastille, the, [89], [90], [92]
Bath, Lord, [29]
Beaumont and Fletcher, [33]
Beethoven, [170]
Bible, the, [122], [133]
Bildad, [184]
Blair’s Grave, [154-9]
Blake, Catherine, [30], [31], [37], [38], [40], [66], [148]
Blake, James (Sen.), [12], [39]
Blake, James (Jun.), [39]
Blake, Robert, [14], [39], [40], [45]
Blake, William, born, [11];
baptized, [12];
vision at Peckham Rye, [13];
books read, [14];
learns drawing from Mr Pars, [15];
apprenticed to Basire, [17];
joins the Academy under Moser, [21];
designs Morning, or Glad Day, [22];
falls in love with Polly Wood, [23];
marries Catherine Boucher, [24];
meets Flaxman, [30];
goes to Mrs Mathew’s parties, [30];
on war, [34-5];
lodges at 23 Green Street, [37];
moves to 27 Broad Street, [39];
nurses Robert, [40];
moves to 28 Poland Street, [40];
engraves after Stothard, [44];
Robert imparts method of engraving, [45];
comments on Lavater’s Aphorisms, [51];
and Swedenborg, [55-80];
reads and annotates Angelic Wisdom, [62-5];
subscribes his name to tenets of the New Church, [66];
on Swedenborg, [72];
takes leave of Swedenborg, [80];
among the rebels, [89];
wears the bonnet rouge, [89];
on sex, [94-6];
moves to 13 Hercules Buildings, [98];
engraves Europe: A Prophecy, [99], [101];
illustrates Bürger’s Lenore, [111];
goes to Felpham, [117];
paints miniatures, [119-21];
learns Greek from Hayley, [121];
returns to London, [127];
South Molton Street, [127];
vision clears after visit to Truchsess gallery, [129];
and Sir J. Reynolds, [156-9];
writes descriptive catalogue, [161];
and Chaucer, [162-3];
vision of Jesus Christ, [165-8];
new friends, [172];
and Varley, [172-3];
removes to 3 Fountain Court, Strand, [180];
sells his collection of engravings, [180];
and Book of Job, [182-86];
and Dante, [187];
illness, [187];
death, [188]
Blue-stockings, the, [26-36]
Boehme, Jacob, [23], [47], [49], [51], [56], [58], [72], [118], [165], [172]
Bond Street, [21]
Book for a Rainy Day, [30]
Book of Ahania, [110]
Book of Job, [181-2]
Book of Los, [110]
Book of Urizen, [106]
Boucher, Catherine, [24]
Bourdon, [129]
Bousset, [61]
Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery, [123]
Brahma, [109]
Bray, Mrs, [160], [162]
Breughel, [129]
Brontë, Charlotte, [177]
Brook Kerith, [178]
Brooke, Mrs, [30]
Bull and Bush, North End, Hampstead, [174]
Bunyan, John, [140]
Bürger, [111], [112]
Burke, Edmund, [85], [89]
Burney, Dr, [29]
Burney, Fanny, [28], [42], [85], [86], [170]
Butler, Samuel, [166]
Butts, Thomas, [121], [124], [125], [127], [132]
Calvert, Edward, [175], [176]
Candide, [28]
Caracci, [126]
Carter, Mrs, [26], [27], [28], [30]
Castle of Otranto, [34]
Catherine of Siena, St, [53], [133]
Chapone, Mrs, [30], [31]
Chatterton, [14]
Chaucer, [161], [162], [163]
Chaucer’s Canterbury Pilgrims, [159]
Chesterfield, Lord, Letters to his Son, [27]
Christ, [152]
Christ and the Woman of Samaria, [176]
Clod, the, [104]
Coleridge, S. T., [82], [170]
Collins’ Farm, North End, Hampstead, [174]

Correggio, [126], [172]
Cosmos, the, [134], [147], [183], [185]
Cowper, W., [82], [116], [123], [124], [130]
Cowper, Life of, [130]
Crime and Punishment, [98]
Croce, Benedetto, [193]
Cromek, Robert Hartley, [154-6], [159], [160], [165]
Cumberland, George, [172]
Dante, [73], [114], [133], [187], [192]
Deism, [144-5]
De Profundis, [178]
Designs for Job, [183-6]
Dialogues of the Dead, [26]
Dogma, [192]
Dostoieffski, [98]
Dualism, [143]
Dürer, Albert, [16], [17], [41], [42], [129], [172]
Earl Godwin, [42]
Ego-theism, [71]
Elihu, [185]
Elinor, [112]
Eliot, George, [112]
Eliphaz, [184]
Elizabethan age, [16]
Emmet, the, [193]
Engleheart, [160]
Enitharmon, [99], [100], [108]
Eno, [111]
Enquiry concerning Political Justice, [82]
Epipsychidion, [95]
Essay on Old Maids, [121]
Essenes, the, [61]
Europe, [109]
Europe: A Prophecy, [99-101]
Evelina, [42]
Ezekiel, [137], [144], [181], [189]
Ezra, [118]
Fair Elinor, [34]
Felpham, [117], [119], [125], [126]
Fénelon, [50], [53]
Fielding, Copley, [172]
Fingal, [14]
Flaxman, [22], [24], [25], [29], [30], [31], [116], [117], [118], [119], [121], [123], [159], [160], [171]
Flaxman, Maria, [114]
Flemish picturesque, [125]
Florentine School of Art, [16]
Fludd, [23]
Foote, Samuel, [49]
Fordyce, Dr, [85]
France, [109]
Francis of Assisi, St, [45]
Franklin, [96]
French Revolution, [85], [87], [89], [90-2], [101], [118]
Fuseli, [24], [81], [171-2]
Fuzon, [110], [111]
Garrick, [115]
Gaskell, Mrs, [177]
Gates of Paradise, [178]
Genlis, Madame de, [86]
Ghost of a Flea, [173]
Gibbon, Edward, [115]
Gilchrist, [45]
Glad Day, [42]

Gnosticism, [134]
Godwin, W., [82-4], [86], [87], [88], [92], [145], [172], [190]
Goethe, [30], [36], [54], [170]
Goldsmith, Oliver, [18]
Gordon, Lord George, [23]
Gothic architecture, [17]
Grand Style, [125]
Gregory, Dr, [85]
Guyon, Madame, [23], [47], [50]
Gwen, King of Norway, [34]
Habakkuk, [129]
Halls of Los, [122]
Hamilton, [42]
Hardy, [88]
Harlow, [160]
Haydn, [170]
Hayley, William, [114-130], [137], [139-42], [153-4], [165], [171]
Head of Romney, [153]
Heath, James, [160]
Heaven and Hell, [78]
Hegel, [181]
Hell, [57]
Hemskerck, Martin, [16]
Herbert, George, [176]
Hervey, [49], [50]
Hesketh, Lady, [116]
Highland Society, [14]
Hogarth, [42], [43], [158]
Holbein, Hans, [129]
Holcroft, [88]
Holmes, James, [172], [175]
Hoppner, [162]
How sweet I roam’d, [16], [33]
Hume, [36]
Hunt, W. H., [172]
Ibsen, [190]
Imagination, [122], [125]
Imlay, Charles, [86]
Immanence, [192]
Inspiration, [122], [132], [133]
Isaiah, [118]
Jacob, [169]
Jefferson, [87]
Jerusalem, [113], [131], [132], [142], [149], [151]
Jesus Christ, [165-8], [189], [190-1]
Job, Book of, [76]
John, Saint, [152]
Johnson, bookseller, [22], [81], [82], [86], [90], [123]
Johnson, Dr, [20], [27], [28], [36], [47], [48], [145], [192]
Johnson, Rev. John, [119], [122]
Jonah, [181]
Jonson, Ben, [14], [16], [31], [33]
Joseph of Arimathea, [18]
Juniper Hall, [85]
Kaufmann, Angelica, [17]
Keim, [61]
King Edward the Third, [33]
King Edward and Queen Elinor, [42]
Klopstock’s Messiah, [122]
Landseer, [161]
Laocoon, [179]
Lavater, [50-4], [171]
Law, William, [48], [165]

Le Brun, [21]
Lenore, Bürger’s, [111]
Linnell, John, [172], [173-5], [181]
Little Girl Found, [103]
Little Girl Lost, [103]
Little Tom the Sailor, [119]
Locke, John, [109]
London, Bishop of, [29]
Los, [75], [107], [108], [109], [139], [144], [194]
Luke, St, [185]
Luvah, [144]
Lyca, [104]
Lyttelton, Lord, [26], [29]
Lytton, Bulwer, [82], [173], [178]
Mackintosh, [89]
Macpherson, [14], [15], [42]
Mad Song, [33]
Maimonides, [54]
Marriage of Heaven and Hell, [75], [81], [176]
Martin, Rev. John, [173], [176]
Mathew, Mrs, [25], [29], [30], [31], [32], [35], [39], [44], [119]
Mathew, Rev. Henry, [29], [30], [32]
Memory, [122], [132], [133], [135], [136], [137], [147]
Mendelssohn, Moses, [54]
Meyer, [115]
Michael Angelo, [16], [17], [18], [21], [42], [44], [117],

[126], [129], [139], [157], [158], [171]
Milton, John, [44], [76], [105], [118], [123-4], [132], [133], [137], [138], [139], [151]
Milton, [122], [124], [131], [132], [137-142], [152]
Miniature Painting, [119], [120], [121], [125]
Montagu, Mrs, [26], [27], [28], [29], [30], [35]
Moore, George, [61], [178]
More, Hannah, [28], [115]
Morland, George, [173]
Morning, or Glad Day, [22]
Morris, Mr, [71]
Mortimer, [42]
Moses, [182], [183]
Mulgrave, Lord, [29]
Mulready, W., [172]
Muses, the, [122]
My Silks and Fine Array, [33]
Mysterious Mother, [34]
Mysticism, German, [68]
Napoleon, [170]
Narbonne, M. de, [85]
Nature, [13], [125], [146], [149]
Nelly O’Brien, [158]
Newman, Cardinal, [176]
Newton, Sir Isaac, [109]
Nietzsche, [54], [133], [139], [140], [170], [190]
Night Thoughts, Young’s, [112]
No Popery Riots, [23]
North American States, [44]
North End, Hampstead, [174], [176]
Odin, [109]
On Homer’s Poetry, [179]
On Virgil, [179], [180]
Oothoon, [94-5]
Opie, Mrs, [115]
Oram, [30]
Orc, [99], [100], [109], [110]
Ord, Mrs, [28]
Ossian, [14]
Ossian, [105]

Paine, Tom, [82], [86-8], [89], [93], [96], [98], [144], [145], [190]
Palamabron, [109]
Palmer, Samuel, [172], [175-6]
Pantheism, [71], [72], [106], [107], [143]
Pantheism, Hindoo, [191]
Paracelsus, [23], [47], [58], [118], [172]
Paradise Lost, [136]
Parker, [39], [40]
Pars, Mr, [15]
Pascal, [28]
Passion, [76], [77], [147-8]
Pastorals of Virgil, [180]
Paul, St, [134], [135], [140], [146], [181]
Paulus, Dr, [61]
Pebble, the, [154]
Penance of Jane Shore, [42]
Pepys, Sir Lucas, [29]
Percy’s Reliques, [14]
Phillips, Captain, [29]
Pilgrimage to Canterbury, [160-1]
Piozzi, Mrs, [84]
Plato, [109], [149], [152]
Poetical Sketches, [33], [44]
Poison Tree, [104]
Pope, A., [114]
Portland, Duchess of, [26]
Price, Dr, [82]
Priestley, Dr, [82], [87], [93]
Proverbs of Hell, [76]
Pythagoras, [109]
Quakers, [174]
Quintilian, [28]
Radcliffe, Mrs, [34]
Raphael, [16], [21], [42], [126], [157]
Reign of Terror, [89], [100], [102], [117], [190]
Rembrandt, [42], [158], [171]
Renan, [61]
Repression, [189-90], [191]
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, [118], [126], [156-9], [193]
Reynolds’ Discourses, [157-8], [193]
Richmond, George, [176-7]
Rights of Man, [88]
Rintrah, [109]
Ritson’s English Songs, [44]
Robinson, Crabb, [161], [177], [187]
Romano, Julio, [16]
Romney, [115], [116], [118], [119], [123], [124], [130]
Romney, Life of, [130]
Rose, Samuel, [127]
Rotten Row, Hampstead, [174]
Rousseau, [28], [36], [109], [145]
Rowley, [14]
Royal Academy, [21], [25]
Rubens, [21], [42]
Samson, Dr, [99]
Satan, [76], [139], [183], [184], [186]
Schiavonetti, Lewis, [155], [160]
Schiavonetti, Niccolo, [160]
Schoolboy, the, [104]
Schweitzer, [61]
Scott, Sir W., [14], [170]
Seven Planes, [134]
Seward, Anna, [115]
Sex, [147-8]
Shakespeare, [14], [26], [27], [33], [44], [76], [118], [132], [133]

Sharpe, [123]
Shelley, [71], [84], [95], [133], [172]
Shields, F., [112]
Shipwreck, after Romney, [130], [153]
Skofield, [127]
Smelt, Mr, [29]
Smith, J. T., [30], [39]
Socrates, [109]
Song of Liberty, [93]
Song of Los, [108]
Songs of Experience, [70]
Songs of Innocence, [69], [102], [103]
Sotho, [109]
Spencer, [31]
Spencer’s Faery Queen, [14]
Staël, Madame de, [86]
Stothard, [22], [24], [44], [112], [114], [159], [160], [161], [162], [164], [165], [171]
Strange Story, [173]
Strauss, [61]
Swedenborg, [30], [39], [49], [51], [52], [53], [55-80], [58], [59], [105], [110], [118], [137], [138], [143], [160], [187], [190], [191], [192], [194]
Swinburne, [14], [33], [53]
Symbolism, [136]
Tabard Inn, [162]
Talleyrand, [85]
Tatham, F., [177]
Tharmas, [144]
The Divine Image, [69]
The Little Vagabond, [71]
Thel, [66-9]
Thelwall, [86]
Theosophy, [134]
Theotormon, [94-5]
Theresa, St, [23], [47], [50]
Thomson, [14]
Thornton, Dr, [180]
Thus Spake Zarathustra, [190]
Tiger, the, [193]
Tiriel, [66], [67]
Titian, [42], [172]
Tolstoï, [193]s
Tooke, Horne, [86]
Townshend, Charles, [87]
Transcendence, [192]
Trismegistus, [109]
Triumphs of Temper, [114], [115], [121]
Truchsess, Count, [129]
Urizen, [66], [67], [75], [93], [99], [106], [107], [108], [110], [111], [139], [142], [144], [194]
Varley, Cornelius, [173]
Varley, John, [172-3], [174]
Venetian art, [117]
Venetian finesse, [125]
Vesey, Mrs, [28]
Vinci, Leonardo da, [129], [185]
Visions of the Daughters of Albion, [94-5], [97]
Voltaire, [28], [36], [109], [145]
Wainewright, T. G., [177-8]
Walpole, Horace, [26], [28], [34], [85]
War, [34], [35], [43], [44]
Warren, [96]
Washington, [96]

Water Colour Society, [172]
Watson, Caroline, [130]
Watteau, [129]
Webster, [33]
Werther, [28]
Wesley, John, [23], [48], [49], [50], [66], [139], [140], [165]
West, Sir Benjamin, [173]
Whitefield, [23], [49], [50], [66], [139], [140], [145], [165]
Wilberforce, [177]
Wilde, Oscar, [178]
Wilkinson, Garth, [53], [68], [71], [72]
Wollstonecraft, Mary, [82], [84-6], [88], [89], [92], [190]
Wood, Polly, [23]
Woollett, [17], [18]
Wordsworth, [13], [170]
Yeats, W. B., [112], [132]
Young, Edward, [112]
Zanoni, [173]
Zoas, the Four, [113], [124], [131], [142], [145], [182]
Zophar, [184]

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