The remainder of the artist’s life is not outwardly eventful. In 1813 he formed, through the introduction of George Cumberland of Bristol, a valuable friendship with John Linnell and other rising water-colour painters. Amongst the group Blake seems to have found special sympathy in the society of John Varley, who, himself addicted to astrology, encouraged Blake to cultivate his gift of inspired vision; and it is probably to this influence that we are indebted for several curious drawings made from visions, especially the celebrated “ghost of a flea” and the very humorous portrait of the builder of the Pyramids. In 1821 Blake removed to Fountain Court, in the Strand, where he died on the 12th of August 1827. The chief work of these last years was the splendid series of engraved designs in illustration of the book of Job. Here we find the highest imaginative qualities of Blake’s art united to the technical means of expression which he best understood. Both the invention and the engraving are in all ways remarkable, and the series may fairly be cited in support of a very high estimate of his genius. None of his works is without the trace of that peculiar artistic instinct and power which seizes the pictorial element of ideas, simple or sublime, and translates them into the appropriate language of sense; but here the double faculty finds the happiest exercise. The grandeur of the theme is duly reflected in the simple and sublime images of the artist’s design, and in the presence of these plates we are made to feel the power of the artist over the expressional resources of human form, as well as his sympathy with the imaginative significance of his subject.
A life of Blake, with selections from his works, by Alexander Gilchrist, was published in 1863 (new edition by W.G. Robertson, 1906); in 1868 A.C. Swinburne published a critical essay on his genius, remarkable for a full examination of the Prophetic Books, and in 1874 William Michael Rossetti published a memoir prefixed to an edition of the poems. In 1893 appeared The Works of William Blake, edited by E.J. Ellis and W.B. Yeats. But for a long time all the editors paid too little attention to a correct following of Blake’s own MSS. The text of the poems was finally edited with exemplary care and thoroughness by John Sampson in his edition of the Poetical Works (1905), which has rescued Blake from the “improvements” of previous editors. See also The Letters of William Blake, together with a Life by Frederick Tatham; edited by A.G.B. Russell (1906); and Basil de Selincourt, William Blake (1909).
(J. C. C.)
BLAKELOCK, RALPH ALBERT (1847- ), American painter, was born in New York, on the 15th of October, 1847. He graduated at the College of the City of New York in 1867. In art he was self-taught and markedly original. Until ill-health necessitated the abandonment of his profession, he was a most prolific worker, his subjects including pictures of North American Indian life, and landscapes—notably such canvases as “The Indian Fisherman”; “Ta-wo-koka: or Circle Dance”; “Silvery Moonlight”; “A Waterfall by Moonlight”; “Solitude”; and “Moonlight on Long Island Sound.”
BLAKENEY, WILLIAM BLAKENEY, Baron (1672-1761), British soldier, was born at Mount Blakeney in Limerick in 1672. Destined by his father for politics, he soon showed a decided preference for a military career, and at the age of eighteen headed the tenants in defending the Blakeney estate against the Rapparees. As a volunteer he went to the war in Flanders, and at the siege of Venlo in 1702 won his commission. He served as a subaltern throughout Marlborough’s campaigns, and is said to have been the first to drill troops by signal of drum or colour. For many years after the peace of Utrecht he served unnoticed, and was sixty-five years of age before he became a colonel. This neglect, which was said to be due to the hostility of Lord Verney, ceased when the duke of Richmond was appointed colonel of Blakeney’s regiment, and thenceforward his advance was rapid. Brigadier-general in the Cartagena expedition of 1741, and major-general a little later, he distinguished himself by his gallant and successful defence of Stirling Castle against the Highlanders in 1745. Two years later George II. made him lieutenant-general and lieutenant-governor of Minorca. The governor of that island never set foot in it, and Blakeney was left in command for ten years.
In 1756 the Seven Years’ War was preluded by a swift descent of the French on Minorca. Fifteen thousand troops under marshal the duc de Richelieu, escorted by a strong squadron under the marquis de la Gallisonnière, landed on the island on the 18th of April, and at once began the siege of Fort St Philip, where Blakeney commanded at most some 5000 soldiers and workmen. The defence, in spite of crumbling walls and rotted gun platforms, had already lasted a month when a British fleet under vice-admiral the Hon. John Byng appeared. La Gallisonnière and Byng fought, on the 20th of May, an indecisive battle, after which the relieving squadron sailed away and Blakeney was left to his fate. A second expedition subsequently appeared off Minorca, but it was then too late, for after a heroic resistance of seventy-one days the old general had been compelled to surrender the fort to Richelieu (April 18-June 28, 1756). Only the ruined fortifications were the prize of the victors. Blakeney and his little garrison were transported to Gibraltar with absolute liberty to serve again. Byng was tried and executed; Blakeney, on his return to England, found himself the hero of the nation. Rewards came freely to the veteran. He was made colonel of the Enniskillen regiment of infantry, knight of the Bath, and Baron Blakeney of Mount Blakeney in the Irish peerage. A little later Van Most’s statue of him was erected in Dublin, and his popularity continued unabated for the short remainder of his life. He died on the 20th of September 1761, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
See Memoirs of General William Blakeney (1757).