Those who desire to know exactly what every vague phrase and unconnected thought may be ingeniously supposed to symbolize, must be referred to Messrs. Ellis and Yeats, who have possibly alighted on the real meaning and intention of these wild fancies. No system, not even that of the Zoas, ingenious as it is, seems quite to convince one that it is the ground plan of Blake’s work. For my own part I shall not attempt systematic explanations of the “Prophetic Books,” for which task, indeed, I am entirely unfitted, but shall merely reserve to myself the right of making suggestions as to possible meanings when they occur to me.

The beauty of the designs is the real glory of this and the following books.

The Argument and a very notable bit of decorative design and colour, representing the Eagle of Theotormon in the act of descending and tearing the beautiful, abandoned, white body of Oothoon, lying on a billowy cloud, should be specially noticed.

There is one extraordinarily fine plate worked in flat, even tints, representing Oothoon and Bromion bound back to back on the sea-shore, while Theotormon, with head buried in arms, sits on a rock above in the very abandon of stony grief. We have seen nothing of Blake’s yet, so bold, decisive, nervous. The massive modelling of the Bromion torso is happily contrasted with the shrinking white slenderness of Oothoon. Beyond this passion-torn group, a calm sea, under a mild afternoon sun, shines deeply blue. We shall come across this plate again in the large book of designs in the Print Room. There, it is heavy and opaque in colouring, and totally different in mood, being gloomy and sinister in the highest degree. The blood-red sun hangs like a lamp in stormy purple clouds. The sea is deeply green. All is ominous. Much more like this latter plate, in colour, than the one issued in the complete work in the Print Room, is another, printed off the same plate, of course, but laid on with an impasto. It was sold at Messrs. Hodgson’s on January 14th, 1904, for £29. Neither it nor that in the “Book of Designs” is so beautiful as the one from which our illustration is taken. The plate in the Library copy is another variation, being soft, mysterious and pale in colour. The clarity and brilliance of the colour, however, must be seen to be appreciated, and this of course, our plate lacks. The writing and printed outlines of this book are in dead beech brown.

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BROMION AND OOTHOON BOUND BACK TO BACK
IN THE CAVE OF THEOTORMON

From “Visions of the Daughters of Albion,” 1793.
A printed and coloured plate from the Print Room copy

The next book appearing in this year, 1793, is entitled “America,” a prophecy. It consists of eighteen plates. For richness of invention and design none of the books we have yet seen are equal to “America.” The Print Room copy is printed in a dull blue, with a very happy effect, while the duplicate in the Library is in deep sombre green. Gilchrist says that no one who has not seen a coloured copy can judge of the beauty and splendour that adorn its pages. It is a difficult matter to see a coloured copy, as the only one definitely known to exist for many years was Lord Crewe’s copy, which was sold last year at Sotheby’s for £295. However, another coloured copy has appeared from the hitherto unknown collection of a lady in Scotland, and this I had the rare good luck to see before it was sold at Messrs. Hodgson’s in January, 1904, for £207. Indeed it is beautiful, but with a quite other sort of beauty to that of the austere blue-printed copy in the Museum. The two are so different in mood and key as to seem like quite separate and distinct creations. Gilchrist says of the coloured copy which he saw—Lord Crewe’s—that so fair and open were its pages, as to simulate an increase of light on the retina.

That which I examined had the brightness and delicacy of Blake’s colour in the earlier books, combined with the richness and grandeur of the later ones, but happily without the opacity and heaviness that sometimes accompany these later qualities.