CHAPTER IV

She creates at her will a little moving night and silence,With spaces of sweet gardens and a tent of elegant beauty,Closed in by sandy deserts, and a night of stars shining;A little tender moon, and hovering angels on the wing,And the male gives a time and revolution to her spaceTill the time of love is passed in ever-varying delights:For all things exist in the human imagination.

She creates at her will a little moving night and silence,

With spaces of sweet gardens and a tent of elegant beauty,

Closed in by sandy deserts, and a night of stars shining;

A little tender moon, and hovering angels on the wing,

And the male gives a time and revolution to her space

Till the time of love is passed in ever-varying delights:

For all things exist in the human imagination.

This seems an illustration of what we have said of the dependence of Blake’s poetry upon his pictorial imagination, for it is clearly nothing but a magnificent expansion of the midsummer night idyl of the glowworm shining for her mate, “with her little drop of moonlight,” as Beddoes beautifully says.

In artistic meritJerusalemis fully equal to any of Blake’s works. There is less of the grotesque than in the others, and even more of the impressive. Much, however, depends upon the colouring, which varies greatly in different copies. Mr. Gilchrist warns us that it cannot be judged aright if we have not seen the “incomparable” copy in the possession of Lord Crewe. “It is printed in a warm reddish-brown, the exact colour of a very fine photograph; and the broken blending of the deeper lines with the more tender shadows—all sanded over with a sort of golden mist peculiar to Blake’s mode of execution—makes still more striking the resemblance to the then undiscovered handling of Nature herself.” The general character of the design is excellently described by Gilchrist. “The subjects are vague and mystic as the poem itself. Female figures lie among waves full of reflected stars: a strange human image, with a swan’s head and wings, floats on water in a kneeling attitude and drinks; lovers embrace in an open water-lily; an eagle-headed creature sits and contemplates the sun; serpent-women are coiled with serpents; Assyrian-looking, human-visaged bulls are seen yoked to the plough or the chariot; rocks swallow or vomit forth human forms, or appear to amalgamate with them; angels cross each other over wheels of flame; and flames and hurrying figures wreathe and wind among the lines.” It may indeed, like Blake’s other productions of the kind, bedescribed as a gigantic arabesque, imbued with a passion and pathos not elsewhere attempted in this branch of art.

Design from “Milton.” By W. Blake.

The subject ofMilton, from which one of our illustrations is selected, is, in Mr. Swinburne’s words, the incarnation and descent into earth and hell of Milton, who represents redemption by inspiration. Something similar, as we have seen, is the idea of Blake’s fine mystical book,Thel,and the pilgrimage through a lower sphere is also found in the oldest Assyrian poetry. The book, likeJerusalem, is dated 1804, but, like its companion, must have been composed at Felpham. Nothing save actual and present contact with country scenes could have inspired such a passage as this, the crown of all Blake’s unrhymed poetry:—

Thou hearest the nightingale begin the song of spring:The lark sitting upon his earthly bed, just as the sunAppears, listens silent: then springing from the wavy corn-field loudHe leads the choir of day: trill, trill, trill, trill:Mounting upon the wings of light into the great expanse;Re-echoing against the lovely blue and shining heavenly shell:His little throat labours with inspiration, every featherOn throat and breast and wings vibrates with the effluence divine:All nature listens silent to him, and the awful sunStands still upon the mountain looking on this little birdWith eyes of soft humility, and wonder, love, and awe.

Thou hearest the nightingale begin the song of spring:

The lark sitting upon his earthly bed, just as the sun

Appears, listens silent: then springing from the wavy corn-field loud

He leads the choir of day: trill, trill, trill, trill:

Mounting upon the wings of light into the great expanse;

Re-echoing against the lovely blue and shining heavenly shell:

His little throat labours with inspiration, every feather

On throat and breast and wings vibrates with the effluence divine:

All nature listens silent to him, and the awful sun

Stands still upon the mountain looking on this little bird

With eyes of soft humility, and wonder, love, and awe.

Such a passage shows how greatly Blake might have gained as a poet had he been more intimate with external nature. Very splendid lines might be quoted from “Milton,” such as “A cloudy heaven mingled with stormy seas in loudest ruin,” but they are glowing light upon a black core of obscurity. Mr. Housman’s judgment applies to it as to all the works of its class. “They are the sign chiefly of a beautiful nature wasted for lack of equipment in formulating disputatively what grew out of his better work with all the thoughtlessness and glory of a flower.”[5]

From Blake’s “America.”

Several lyrical poems printed in Blake’s works may be assigned to this date. Some, such as “The Crystal Cabinet” and “The Mental Traveller,” are extremely mystical; others, such as “Mary,” are of simply human interest; others, such as “Auguries of Innocence,” seem little remote from nonsense. “The Everlasting Gospel” expresses his profoundest ideas with startling crudity. None are wholly unmelodious,but the old bewitching melody has gone from all, unless from the lines introductory to “Milton”:—

And did those feet in ancient timeWalk upon England’s mountains green;And was the holy Lamb of GodOn England’s pleasant pastures seen?And did the countenance divineShine forth upon our clouded hills?And was Jerusalem builded hereAmong these dark Satanic mills?Bring me my bow of burning gold,Bring me my arrows of desire:Bring me my spear: O clouds unfold!Bring me my chariot of fire!I will not cease from mental fight,Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,Till we have built JerusalemIn England’s green and pleasant land.

And did those feet in ancient timeWalk upon England’s mountains green;And was the holy Lamb of GodOn England’s pleasant pastures seen?

And did those feet in ancient time

Walk upon England’s mountains green;

And was the holy Lamb of God

On England’s pleasant pastures seen?

And did the countenance divineShine forth upon our clouded hills?And was Jerusalem builded hereAmong these dark Satanic mills?

And did the countenance divine

Shine forth upon our clouded hills?

And was Jerusalem builded here

Among these dark Satanic mills?

Bring me my bow of burning gold,Bring me my arrows of desire:Bring me my spear: O clouds unfold!Bring me my chariot of fire!

Bring me my bow of burning gold,

Bring me my arrows of desire:

Bring me my spear: O clouds unfold!

Bring me my chariot of fire!

I will not cease from mental fight,Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,Till we have built JerusalemIn England’s green and pleasant land.

I will not cease from mental fight,

Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,

Till we have built Jerusalem

In England’s green and pleasant land.

Portrait of William Blake. From the engraving by L. Schiavonetti, after T. Phillips, R.A.

Blake, who had settled at 17, South Molton Street, Oxford Street, was in the meantime dealing with a very different patron from Hayley, Robert Cromek, a “stickit” engraver turned print-seller, who tricked if he did not actually defraud him, but who is entitled to the credit of having recognised his genius, and of having brought forward works of his more adapted to attract public notice than anything he had yet done. These were the twelve illustrations to Blair’sGrave, full of Blake’s peculiar genius and at the same time intelligible to all. They had been executed in 1804 and 1805. Cromek, who afterwards admitted that they were worth sixty guineas, obtained them for twenty from the artist, who had intended to publish them himself. It had been understood that Blake should have engraved them, but Cromek, wisely from his own point of view, but wrongfully as regarded Blake, intrusted the task to Schiavonetti. As a frontispiece, they were accompanied by a portrait of Blake from a drawing by Phillips, also engraved by Schiavonetti, which we have reproduced. Thanks to Cromek’s judicious engineering, and the popularity of the poem illustrated, the adventure proved a considerable success. “It is the only volume with Blake’s name on the title-page,” says Mr. Gilchrist, “which is not scarce.” The publication took place in 1808.In the interval Cromek, calling upon Blake, had seen a pencil sketch of a design for the procession of Chaucer’s Canterbury Pilgrims. Failing to obtain a finished drawing from the artist, who resented his previous treatment, he proposed the subject to Stothard, withholding as apart from all questions of Stothard’s “frigid and exemplary” character would be most natural for him to do, all mention of Blake’s drawing. Stothard accepted the commission; his elaborate oil picture was exhibited in 1807 with great success, but at the cost of a breach with Blake, who went so far in his denunciation, not only of Cromek’s underhand dealing but of the defects which he found in Stothard’s work, that when he afterwards sought a reconciliation Stothard remained impervious. Determined to vindicate his superiority, Blake completed, exhibited, and engraved his own fresco. The exhibition, accompanied by a remarkable “descriptive catalogue,” to which we shall return—was not the success it might have been in the hands of the shrewd Cromek. The exhibition room was watched by Blake’s brother James, whom Crabb Robinson asked whether he should be allowed to come again free in consideration of having bought four copies of the descriptive catalogue. “As long as you live,” answered the overjoyed custodian. The success of the engraving was proportionate to that of the exhibition; though it might have been otherwise if the roughness of the original design had been smoothed down by the deft Schiavonetti. “Blake’s production,” says Mr. Rossetti, “is as unattractive as Stothard’s is facile; as hard and strong as Stothard’s is limp; one face in Blake’s design means as much on the part of the artist, and takes as much scrutiny and turning over of thought on the part of the spectator, as all the prettyfantocciniand their sprightly little horses in Stothard’s work.” The engraving of thePilgrimagein Gilchrist’s biography evinces the justice of this criticism; though Ellis and Yeats rightly add that Blake has given all his personages the eyes of visionaries. “A work of wonderful power and spirit, hard and dry, yet with grace,” says Charles Lamb. The original fresco was purchased by Elijah’s raven, the ever-ready Butts.

We must now return to the illustrations to Blair’sGrave, which are not only the most popular of Blake’s works, but among his greatest. He showed in general more vigour in dealing with the conceptions of another than with his own, the latter imbibing an element of fanciful grace from the gentle spirit which produced them. HenceThe SoulExploring the Recesses of the Grave, reproduced fromThel, though one of the most poetical of the designs, is one of the least powerful. His rendering of Blair’s thoughts is marvellously direct and impressive, whether the passion depicted be joy, as inThe Reunion of the Soul and the Body(given here), or horror, as inThe Death of the Strong Wicked Man, or an intermediate shade, as inThe Soul hovering over the Body. None of these and few of the series, once seen, will easily be forgotten. The most famous, and deservedly so, is the marvellous one, a combination of two designs inAmericaandThe Gates of Paradise, where the aged man, impelled by a strong wind, totters towards the portal of the sepulchre, on the summit of which sits the rejuvenated spirit, personified by a strong youth, rejoicing in his deliverance, but dazzled by the as yet unwonted light. In all these designs the element of seemly, yet slightly formal and conventional grace which Blake had learned from Stothard, is very conspicuous. The least successful, as seems to us, isThe Last Judgment, where Blake appears as a minor Michael Angelo, but this work as engraved differs widely from his description of the work as exhibited. It may well be believed that the modified version was distinguished by great splendour of colouring.

Other works of this period were two small frescoes exhibited at the Academy in 1808,Christ in the SepulchreandJacob’s Dream; the “ornamental device” engraved (by Cromek) along with the frontispiece to Malkin’sFather’s Memoirs of his Child, a graceful and pathetic composition; three illustrations to Shakespeare, one of which, the highly imaginative conception of the appearance of the Ghost to Hamlet, is engraved in Gilchrist’s biography;The Babylonian Woman on the Seven-headed Beast(1809) reproduced here; a continuous series of designs produced for Mr. Butts, to be mentioned more fully hereafter; and the pictures displayed along withThe Canterbury Pilgrimsat its exhibition (1809). We must now devote some attention to Blake’s appearance as an æsthetic writer in theDescriptive Cataloguehe put forth on this occasion, with which his other principal deliverances on the subject of art may be advantageously grouped.

The Reunion of Soul and Body. From Blair’s “Grave,” illustrated by W. Blake.

Blake’sDescriptive Catalogueand hisAppeal to the Publicto judge between himself and his rivals in the department of engraving, are a singular mixture of gold and clay. The dignity which characterised his demeanour in life forsakes him as soon as he takes the pen into his hand,and he reviles Stothard, Woollett, and others in a strain inconsistent with self-respect on his own part, even had his criticism been well founded. As a matter of fact, it seems to have had no foundation, and assuredly has not affected the reputation of his antagonists in the smallest degree. At the same time it is impossible not to be moved by his earnestness. He is evidently contending for principles of great importance to himself, and through the mist of his confused and ungrammatical expression we seem to catch glimpses of high and serious truth. A refreshing contrast is afforded by the passages devoted to Chaucer, which are truly admirable for their felicitous insight into the old poet. “For all who have read Blake,” justly say Messrs. Ellis and Yeats, “Chaucer is something more than the sweet spinner of rhyming gossip that he seems to most.” Like Ruskin, and indeed all men of creative power, Blake is on much safer ground when he extols than when he censures. To much the same period belongs a remarkable paper on hisLast Judgment, published by Gilchrist from his MS. Nothing of his admits us so fully into the sanctuary of his mind. “The Last Judgment,” he begins, “is not fable or allegory, but vision. Fable, or allegory, is a totally distinct and inferior kind of poetry. Vision, or imagination, is a representation of what actually exists, really and unchangeably.” Then follows an extremely graphic and vivid description of the painting, interspersed with profound remarks, such as “Man passes on, but states remain for ever; he passes through them like a traveller, who may as well suppose that the places he has passed through exist no more as a man may suppose that the states he has passed through exist no more; everything is eternal.” “I have seen, when at a distance, multitudes of men in harmony appear like a single infant.”[6]“In Hell all is self-righteousness; there is no such thing there as forgiveness of sin. He who does forgive sin is crucified as an abettor of criminals.” “Angels are happier than men and devils, because they are not always prying after good and evil in one another, and eating the tree of knowledge for Satan’s gratification.” “The Last Judgmentis an overwhelming of bad art and science.” Finally, in words that state his own case as respects his reputed delusions, he says: “I assert for myself that I do not behold the outward creation, and that to me it is hindrance and not action. ‘What!’ it will be questioned, ‘when the sun rises, do you not see a round disc of fire, somewhat like a guinea?’ Oh! no! no! I see an innumerable company of the heavenly host, crying, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty!’ I question not my corporeal eye, any more than I would question a window concerning a sight. I look through it, and not with it.”

The Babylonian Woman on the Seven-headed Beast. From a water-colour drawing by W. Blake. British Museum.

Blake’s conception of the sun may be compared with Dante’s vision of the angels with the cloud:—

Then lifting up mine eyes, as the tears came,I saw the Angels, like a rain of manna,In a long flight flying back heavenward;Having a little cloud in front of them,After the which they went, and said, “Hosanna!”And if they had said more, you should have heard.

Then lifting up mine eyes, as the tears came,

I saw the Angels, like a rain of manna,

In a long flight flying back heavenward;

Having a little cloud in front of them,

After the which they went, and said, “Hosanna!”

And if they had said more, you should have heard.

An earlier acquaintance with Dante would undoubtedly have exerted a great influence upon Blake.

Not the least interesting part of Blake’s catalogue is his description of the pictures accompanying hisCanterbury Pilgrims, which include the strange patriotic allegories ofNelson guiding LeviathanandPitt guiding Behemoth, the latter of which is now in the National Gallery;Satan calling up his Legions;The Bard, described by Rossetti as “a gorgeous piece of colour tone”; an idyll, charming in conception whatever it may have been in execution, representing goats nibbling the vine leaves that form the sole drapery of savage maidens; and Arthur’s battle of Camlan, whence only three—the strongest, the most beautiful, and the ugliest of champions—escaped with their lives. This picture Seymour Kirkup thought Blake’s best, and Allan Cunningham his worst. Kirkup, Mr. Swinburne tells us, remembered to the last“the fury and splendour of energy there contrasted with the serene ardour of simply beautiful courage, the violent life of the design, and the fierce distance of fluctuating battle.” Blake’s estimate of his powers, as conveyed in his descriptions of his works, certainly does not err on the side of modesty; perhaps he thought with Goethe that “Nur die Lumpen sind bescheiden.” It is a more serious matter that the descriptions are crammed with statements far more significant than Blake’s visions of a condition of mental disorder, such as that the Greek marbles are copies of the works of the Asiatic patriarchs; that no one painted in oil, except by accident, before Vandyke; that ancient British heroes dwell to this day on Snowdon “in naked simplicity”: a species of Welsh Mahatmas, as it would appear. It would have been a judicious emendation if any one had suggested the substitution of “lying spirits” when the artist spoke of himself as “molested by blotting and blurring demons.”

More important than these idle extravagances, though extravagant enough, are the annotations on Reynolds’s discourses, written a few years afterwards. To read Blake’s abuse of this great artist with any patience, one must remember that his expressions require to be translated out of his peculiar dialect into ordinary speech; as when, for example, he says that Correggio is a most effeminate and cruel demon, he only means that he is a bad model for artists to follow. Yet there is a great and serious truth lying at the bottom of Blake’s declamation, and his protest against the apparent tendency of Reynolds to inculcate the feasibility of manufacturing genius by study was not uncalled for. What he did not sufficiently remember was that the number of artists capable of what Plato calls divine insanity, must always be very small, and that Reynolds’s precepts may be very serviceable for the rank and file of the great army. As his denunciation of Reynolds was partly prompted by personal grievances (not the less real, if the apparent paradox may be excused, for being imaginary), it is the more to his honour to find him breaking out into genuine admiration whenever, in Swedenborg’s phrase, the dry rod blossoms as Reynolds affirms a truth. It is also pleasant to receive Samuel Palmer’s assurance that Blake’s splenetic outbreaks in print astonished those accustomed to his catholicity of criticism in conversation.

Blake’s Life in South Molton Street and Fountain Court—Acquaintance with Linnell and Varley—Drawings of Visionary Heads—Miscellaneous Works in Private Collections—Illustrations of “Job”—Work as an Engraver—Acquaintance with Crabb Robinson—Illustrations of Dante—Declining health and death—General observations—His principal Biographer and Critics.

Very little is known of Blake’s life for several years after his exhibition. William Carey, a rare example of disinterestedness among picture-dealers, for he praised Blake enthusiastically without having dealt with him, says in his exposition of West’sDeath on the Pale Horse(1817), “So entire is the uncertainty in which he is involved that after many inquiries I meet with some in doubt whether he is still in existence. But I have accidentally learned since I commenced these remarks that he is now a resident in London.” He was, in fact, continuing to live on his second floor in South Molton Street, poor, but content, subsisting from day to day by hack work as an engraver, and the occasional sale of a water-colour design or a coloured copy of one of his books, but nowise squalid, abject, or destitute. He was no longer able to publish on his own account as of old, and the poems which he continued to produce abundantly, all of which have perished, met with the reception which was to be expected from earthly publishers. Blake smiled in pity, assured that, in his own figurative language, they were handsomely printed and bound in heaven, and eagerly perused by spiritual intelligences. “I should be sorry,” he afterwards said to Crabb Robinson, “if I had any earthly fame, for whatever natural glory a man has is so much taken from his spiritual glory.” He certainly had not thought so when he published his catalogue; but there is no question of his perfect sincerity when he added, “I wish to do nothing for profit. I wish to live for art.” Though he had said“Thought is act: Christ’s acts were nothing to Cæsar’s if this is not so”; so intense was his own devotion to labour that for two years he never quitted his lodging, except (for the ridiculous will intrude where it is not wanted—imps grin in the cells of anchorites—) for a pot of porter. Even while he engraved he read, as the plate-marks on his books attest. Flaxman, his steady friend from youth, found him some work in engraving, and praised him in conversation. “But Blake’s a wild enthusiast, isn’t he?” “Some thinkmean enthusiast,” answered Flaxman, who was, in truth, more than half a Swedenborgian.

From this hermit’s existence Blake once more emerges, in 1818, into comparative publicity through the intimacy he formed with a young painter of promise, which he was destined to more than redeem. This was John Linnell, who was introduced to him by Mr. George Cumberland, of Bristol, an enlightened patron of art. At this time Linnell was largely engaged in portrait painting, and the plate of the portrait selected here for reproduction, that of Wilson Lowry, Esq., appears to have been worked upon by both him and Blake, bearing the name of each. Linnell, though neither gentle nor mystical, lived much in the world of the spirit, and, without sharing Blake’s peculiarities, was rather attracted than repelled by them. Within a few days after making Blake’s acquaintance he had found him work to the amount of fifteen guineas, and gradually introduced him to patrons, including Sir Thomas Lawrence, a great gentleman as well as a fine painter, who took the notice of Blake which it became him to take in his position as President of the Royal Academy. Blake never encountered hostility from artists of true eminence. Reynolds advised him wisely, though he would not think so. Lawrence patronised him; and Flaxman, Fuseli, Stothard, Linnell were, so far as he permitted them, real friends. Within a few years Linnell had introduced him to a younger circle, ready in a measure to sit at his feet, and the rejected stone was honourably built into the corner. Of these we shall have to speak afterwards, but one important intimacy mainly belongs to the period of 1818-21. This was his acquaintance with John Varley, famed as one of the fathers of English water-colour painting, but even more renowned as an astrologer. Indeed, some of the stories told of his successful predictions are less startling to the uninitiated than to astrologers themselves, who cannot comprehend on what principle of the art they could be made. They certainlywere not arrived at by vision or revelation, for the good Varley was a most unspiritual personage, the very antipodes of seer or anchorite, big, sanguine, jovial, and everlastingly in the claws of the bailiffs. Astrology, therefore, a study which, with all its fascination for an imaginative mind, requires nothing but observation and calculation, was the only occult science open to him; for magic, although a diabolical pursuit, occasionally demands an amount of fasting inconvenient even for a saint. Varley would have wished to go further, and finding the perception of visions inconsistent with his own corporeal and spiritual constitution, was delighted to make the acquaintance of one who to this end needed but to open his eyes. He speedily developed the practical idea that Blake should depict the spiritual entities which he beheld. Blake forthwith set to work, and ere long the portfolios of Varley and Linnell were enriched with those ghosts of fleas, portraits of Edward the Third, and men who built the pyramids, which are better known to many than anything he ever did, and are assuredly no mean examples of his imaginative power. “All,” says Gilchrist, “are marked by a decisive portrait-like character, and are evidently literal portraits of what Blake’s imaginative eye beheld.”[7]This is corroborated by the account of Varley, who says, “On hearing of this spiritual apparition of a Flea, I asked him if he could draw for me the resemblance of what he saw. He instantly said, ‘I see him now before me.’ I therefore gave him a paper and a pencil, with which he drew the portrait of which a facsimile is given in this number [of Varley’sZodiacal Physiognomy]. I felt convinced by his mode of proceeding that he had a real image before him; for he left off and began on another part of the paper to make a separate drawing of the mouth of the Flea, which the spirit having opened he was prevented from proceeding with the first sketch till he had closed it.” It was “an idea with the force of a sensation,” as Peacock’s philosopher classifies the apparition inNightmare Abbey. Shelley, who also saw visions, has enriched his note-books with similar delineations of imaginary figures, generally vague and careless, but sometimes very Blake-like. One of Linnell’s most spirited studies from life, engraved in Story’s biography, represents Blake and Varley in discussion.

Portrait of Wilson Lowry. By John Linnell. Engraved by Blake and Linnell.

These drawings were mostly executed in 1819 and 1820. In the latter year Blake lost his chief patron Butts, whose walls, indeed, had become so crowded with his works that he had almost ceased to give him commissions. The greater part of the collection was dispersed in 1852, but the zeal of Mr. W. M. Rossetti traced most of its constituents out, and reference to his notes, printed in the second volume of Gilchrist’s biography, will enable us to convey some faint notion of its manifoldopulence. Putting theJobaside for the present, the most remarkable appear to be the nine designs forParadise Lost, the property of Mr. J. C. Strange, in which, says Mr. Rossetti, Blake is king of all his powers of design, draughtsmanship, conception, spiritual meaning, and impression. Another set, belonging to Mr. Aspland, of Liverpool, omits one subject and adds four. Another set of Miltonic designs forComus, rather distinguished by grace than grandeur, has been recently published by Mr. Quaritch. Another set of no less than one hundred and eighteen designs for Gray’s works, in 1860 in the possession of the Duke of Hamilton, are reputed to rank among Blake’s finest productions, but have not been inspected by any one competent to describe them. Among others especially commended by Mr. Rossetti areThe Sacrifice of Jephthah’s Daughter,Ruth,The Judgment of Paris,The Wise and Foolish Virgins,Fire,Famine,Samson subdued,The Finding of Moses,Moses erecting the Brazen Serpent,The Ghost of Samuel appearing to Saul,The Entombment,The Sealing of the Sepulchre,The Angel rolling the Stone from the Sepulchre,The River of Life, andHecate. To these may be addedThe Resurrection of the Dead, now in the British Museum, reproduced by us. Many others, not belonging to the Butts collection, are described with equal enthusiasm; and, apart from all questions of technical execution, usually splendid, but lost upon those who have not access to the original works, it may be said that the conceptions, as described by Mr. Rossetti, would be impossible to one unendowed with the highest artistic imagination, and that the body is worthy of the spirit.

The Resurrection of the Dead. From a water-colour drawing by W. Blake. British Museum.

Prominent among these designs are the set of illustrations toJob, now the property of the Earl of Crewe. A duplicate set belonged to Mr. Linnell, who, “discounting as it were,” says Gilchrist, “Blake’s bill on posterity when no one else would,” commissioned this from him, tracing the outlines from Butt’s copy himself, and handing them over to Blake to complete. This was done in September, 1821, and when the drawings were completed in 1823 Linnell went further still, and commissioned Blake to engrave them, a stroke which has probably effected more than anything else for the artist’s fame, for the drawings which have set him on such a pinnacle, if unengraved, would have remained virtually unknown to the world. The terms also were liberal. Blake was to receive £100 for the twenty-two plates and £100 more out of the profits.When the publication barely covered its expenses, Linnell, reflecting that the plates remained in his possession in virtue of the agreement, not unreasonably but very handsomely allowed Blake £50 more. But for this manna from heaven Blake’s last years would have been spent in engraving pigs and poultry after Morland. Linnell, who was himself an excellent engraver, further conferred an important benefit upon him by making him acquainted with the best style of Italian engraving. Blake proved a docile pupil at sixty-five, and his plates toJobare not only technically the best he ever executed, but occupy an important place in the history of the art.

The glory ofJob, however, is not in the engraving, but in the invention, which, beautiful in the soft and idyllic passages, rises into sublimity when the theme appeals strongly to the creative imagination. It is especially remarkable as being one of the very few instances of a worthy representation of the Almighty. The tender humanities of Christian art are absent: all is awful, Hebraic, and strictly monotheistic. Among the most remarkable designs may be noted that where the exulting fiend pulls down the mansion upon Job’s sons and daughters (reproduced here); the frantic speed of the messenger of evil, who bursts out with his tale before he is well within hearing, while another follows with equal haste hard upon him, and the uninterested sheep graze on undisturbed; the terrible scene where Satan, a figure repeated in essentials from works of earlier date, smites the prostrate Job with sore boils; Eliphaz besieged with phantoms, to all seeming not less real than himself (also given here); the morning stars singing together; the downfall of the wicked; and the Lord answering Job out of the whirlwind. Passages even of the less striking designs often have a singular fascination, such as the night-piercing stars in the Elihu scene, which would be impressive in the absence of any human figure; Behemoth and Leviathan, thene plus ultraof grotesque grandeur, which we have also given; and the bowed backs of Job’s accusing friends when the Lord blesses him.[8]On the whole,though others of Blake’s designs may be more transcendent of ordinary human faculty, he has scarcely executed anything displaying all his faculties so well combined and in such perfect equilibrium; and, were it necessary to rest his fame upon one set of works, this would probably be selected. As a scriptural theme it appealed with especial strength to English sympathies, and having been selected by Gilchrist for reproduction, it is more widely known than any of his works except the illustrations to Blair’sGrave. “The original water-colour designs,” Rossetti says, “are much larger than the engravings, and generally pale in colour, with a less full and concentrated effect than the engravings, and by no means equal to them in power and splendid decorative treatment of the light and shade. On the other hand, they are often completer and naturally freer in expression, and do not exhibit a certain tendency to over-sturdiness of build and physiognomy in the figures.” Fine as is the figure of Satan inThe Destruction of Job’s Sons and Daughters, it is, Mr. Rossetti thinks, much finer in the water colour. On the other hand, “the effect of sublimity and multitude inWhen the morning stars sang togetheris centupled in the engraving by adding the upraised arms of two other angels to right and left, passing out of the composition.” The whole account suggests how desirable it would be to have many of Blake’s unpublished water colours translated into black and white, could engraver or etcher of the needful force be found.

Woodcut from Thornton’s Pastoral.

In 1821 Blake had performed another work of moment, his first and last wood-engravings. These were to illustrate Phillips’s imitation of Virgil’s first pastoral, republished by Dr. Thornton, a physician and botanist. Blake was a novice in this branch of art, and the cuts answer to Dr. Thornton’s own description of them: “They display less of art than of genius.” But nothing could more effectually confirm the principle enunciated by their critic in theAthenæum:“Amid all drawbacks there exists a power in the work of the man of genius which no one but himself can utter fully.” Rude as they are, their force is extraordinary; few things can be more truly magical than the glimpse of distant sea in the second of those engraved by Gilchrist. At the same time they are not in the least Virgilian, and in this respect form an instructive contrast with the exquisite though unfinished Virgilian illustrations of Samuel Palmer. Palmer, though putting in a cypress now and then as a tribute tocouleur locale, provides Virgil substantially with the same style of illustration as he had been producing all his life for other ends, and yet this seems as appropriate to the text as Blake’s is discrepant. It is interesting to speculate what effect an Italian residence of two or three years, such as Palmer had enjoyed, would have produced upon Blake beyond the inevitable one of dissipating his monstrous delusions about Italian artists. He would probably have gone chiefly with the view of studying Michael Angelo, but we suspect that the influences of Italian landscape would in the long run have proved fully as potent.

In 1821 Blake removed from South Molton Street to Fountain Court, Strand, near the Savoy, where he occupied two rooms on the first floor. The reason may have been that the house was kept by a brother-in-law of Mrs. Blake’s named Baines, the only trace we have of any connection with his wife’s family. Economy too may have had its influence; his means were very low, not yet improved by the donation of £25 he received from the Academy next year, or his arrangement with Linnell in the year following. At the worst, however, the rooms were always clean and neat, thanks to Mrs. Blake’s industry and devotion; and Blake’s manner always had the simplicity and dignity of a gentleman. That his circumstances improved was almost entirely the doing of Linnell, who not only provided for his wants by commissions, but made him what his genius had never made him, the patriarch of a band of admirers, almost disciples. Coming frequently to visit Linnell at Hampstead, Blake fell in with a group of young men who resorted thither, four of whom at least—Samuel Palmer, Edward Calvert, George Richmond, and F. O. Finch—became artists of great distinction. One characteristic these young men had in common: they were as far as possible from the theory of art for art’s sake, but only valued art as the outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace of consecration to the Power behind Nature. The biographies of Palmer and Calvert disclose the priestlikespirit in which they wrought, a spirit akin to that of their pre-Raphaelite successors, but apparently less impregnated with the ordinary atmosphere of the studio. These were just the men to treat the aged Blake as the antediluvian youth ought to have treated the aged Jubal; and the patriarchal influence is visible both in their writings and their works, not always to the advantage of the latter, if we may judge by the examplespreserved of Palmer’s early labours. But all seemed fair in the light of fond retrospect. Twenty-eight years after Blake’s death Samuel Palmer addressed a letter to Mr. Gilchrist, long and full of interesting particulars relating to Blake’s opinions on art; but the gist of the estimate of the man is conveyed in few words. “In him you saw at once the Maker, the Inventor; one of the few in any age; a fitting companion for Dante. He was energy itself, and shed around him a kindling influence, an atmosphere of life, full of the ideal. He was a man without a mask; his aim single, his path straightforwardness, and his wants few; so he was free, noble, and happy.”

The Destruction of Job’s Sons and Daughters. From the “Book of Job.” By W. Blake.

A very important witness to Blake’s demeanour and opinions in his later years is Henry Crabb Robinson the diarist, whom we have already met as a visitor to Blake’s exhibition, and who had made him the subject of an essay in a German periodical. Robinson was the right man in the right place, not being a mystic or enthusiast to fall down at Blake’s feet, nor yet a man of the world to deride him as a visionary, but an inquisitive observer of great intellectual range and most kindly and tolerant disposition, ready to allow that things might exist of which his philosophy had not dreamed, and whom abnormal opinions, if held in evident sincerity, might startle but could hardly shock. “It is strange,” says he, “that I who have no imagination, nor any power beyond that of a logical understanding, should yet have a great respect for religious mystics.” Thrown into Blake’s company in 1825, he has recorded his conversations with him at considerable length in his delightful diary, as yet but partially published. His description of Blake’s “interesting appearance” agrees with that of his own circle. “He is pale, with a Socratic countenance, and an expression of great sweetness, though with something of languor about it except when animated, and then he has about him an air of inspiration. The tone and manner are incommunicable. There are a natural sweetness and gentility about him which are delightful.” Having heard of Blake’s visions, Robinson was not surprised to find him asserting that the visionary gift was innate in all men, and only torpid for want of cultivation; but he must have had much ado to digest such statements as that the world was flat, that Wordsworth was a Pagan, and that “what are called the vices in the natural world are the highest sublimities in the spiritual world.” Not understanding that by atheismBlake meant, in his own words, “whatever assumes the reality of the natural and unspiritual world,” Robinson was naturally aghast when Locke was classed with atheists, and ventured what must have appeared to him the conclusive rejoinder that Locke had written in defence of Christianity. Blake, who probably understood Robinson’s definition of atheism as little as Robinson did his, “made no reply.” Some of Blake’s remarks are well worthy of preservation. “Art is inspiration. When Michael Angelo, or Raphael, or Mr. Flaxman does any of his fine things, he does them in the spirit.” “Irving is asentman. But they who are sent go further sometimes than they ought.” “Dante saw devils where I see none.”

With Dreams upon my Bed thou scarest me. From the “Book of Job.” By W. Blake.

Dante must have been much in Blake’s thoughts just then, for Robinson found him occupied with the long series of illustrations of the poet commissioned by Linnell, the last important work of his life. Thehistory of the commission is thus related by Linnell’s biographer, Mr. Story. “Although theJobhad been paid for, Linnell continued to give him money weekly. Blake said, ‘I do not know how I shall ever repay you.’ Linnell replied, ‘I do not want you to repay me. I am only too glad to be able to serve you. What I would like, however, if you do anything for me, is that you should make some designs for Dante’sInferno,Purgatorio, andParadiso.’ Blake entered upon the work with alacrity, concurrently with the engraving of theJobdesigns, and the two together occupied the old man for the rest of his life.” During all this period Linnell was remitting Blake money, as the latter’s notes in acknowledgment prove. Linnell undoubtedly acquired the designs at a low price, but immediately upon Blake’s death he endeavoured to dispose of them for the benefit of the widow. Failing in this he kept them, never attempting to make anything by them; and they are still in the possession of his family.

Blake studied Italian to qualify himself more effectually for his task, and is said to have acquired it; when Robinson saw him, however, at an early stage of the commission it is true, he was working by the aid of Cary’s English version. He executed no less than ninety-eight drawings, several of which were left in an unfinished state. Seven have been engraved. The merits of the series have been variously estimated. Mr. Rossetti considers them “on the whole a very fine series, though not uniformly equal in merit.” Mr. Yeats, so well qualified by his own imaginative gift to enter into the merit of Blake’s work, thinks them the finest of all his productions. Robinson, who saw Blake at work upon them, says, “They evince a power I should not have anticipated of grouping, and of throwing grace and interest over conceptions monstrous and horrible.” For our own part, we must regretfully admit that when we saw them at the Old Masters’ exhibition the monstrosity and horror appeared more evident than the grace and interest. We could not deem Dante’s conceptions adequately rendered; the colour, too, often seemed harsh and extravagant. Blake went on working upon them until his death, when Mrs. Blake sent them to Linnell. They thus escaped the fate of Blake’s other artistic and literary remains left in his widow’s possession, which after her death were appropriated, apparently without any legal authority, by a person named Tatham, who had been much aboutBlake in his later years, and who ultimately destroyed them in deference to the mandate of a religious sect with which he had become connected![9]

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