design from the same poets and subjects was no new thing,
as a comparison of their works will show. Take, for instance,
the Night Thoughts of Young, illustrated by Blake in 1797, by
^T. 4S— 50.] A KEEN EMPLOYER. 251
Stothard in 1802. Such coincidences naturally happen to all
painters of history and poetry. According to Stothard,
Blake praised his picture, and expressed much pleasure at
seeing it. Stothard, on his side, talked of introducing Blake
(a good subject, by the way) into the Procession, 'as a mark
of esteem for him and his works.' From these he candidly
confessed to have long derived pleasure and profit.
When Blake came to know how the case really stood, his
indisrnation was vehement against Cromek, at whom his
grudge was yet fresh for having robbed him of the engraving
his designs to Blair. Indignation, too, he long cherished
towards Stothard, whom he took to have been privy to
Cromek's previous dealings with himself for his design from
Chaucer. My own induction, from all the evidence, coincides
with Flaxman's opinion, viz., that Stothard's act was not a
wilful one, in being made a party to an engraving of a picture
by himself, on a subject previously taken by Blake. Certain
it is, indeed, that the general composition of his Procession
has a suspicious resemblance to Blake's. This, however, may
be due to hints given by the unscrupulous go-between.
By May 1807 Stothard's ' Cabinet Picture ' was publicly
exhibited ; and, what with its own merits and novelty, and
what with Cromek's judicious puffing, drew several thousand
gazers and admirers. Hoppner, at the end of May, wrote an
encomiastic descriptive ' Letter ' to Cumberland, printed in
Prince Hoare's Artist, and turned to good account in Cromek's
Prospectus for the engraving. Connoisseur, picture-dealing
Carey, — afterwards as ' Ridolfi,' Etty's panegyrist, — always
too happy to get his verbiage set up in type free of cost,
penned a still longer Critical Description the following year,
which wily Cromek had well circulated, as a bait to
subscribers.
During this May was scribbled a letter from Cromek to
Blake, bearing incidentally on this matter, but mainly on the
designs to The Grave, and the differences which had arisen
between the two. The letter sets forcibly before us Blake's
252 LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE. [1805- 1807.
circumstances at the time ; is an example of the spurns he
from the unworthy took ; and throws a flood of light on
the character of the writer. It subsequently fell into Allan
Cunningham's hands, thence into his son, Mr. Peter Cunning-
ham's, and has been printed in the Gentleman's Magazine
(Feb. 1852):—
'64, Newman Street, May, 1807.
'Sir,
' I rec"*, not with' great surprise, your letter demanding
' four guineas for the sketched vignette ded'^ to the Queen. I have
' returned the drawing with this note, and I will briefly state my
' reasons for so doing. In the first place, I do not think it merits the
' price you affix to it, under any circiimsta7ices. In the next place, I
' never had the remotest suspicion that you'^ for a moment entertain
' the idea of writing me to supply money to create an honour in w'' I
' cannot possibly participate. The Queen allowed you, not me, to
' dedicate the work to her ! The honour w'' have been yours exclus^ ;
' but that you might not be deprived of any advantage likely to con-
' tribute to your reputation, I was willing to pay Mr. Schiavonetd ten
' guineas for etching a plate from the drawing in question.
' Another reason for returning the sketch is, that I can do without
' //, having already engaged to give a greater number of etchings than
' the price of the book will warrant ; and I neither have, nor ever had,
' any encouragement from you to place you before the public in a
' more favourable point of view than that which I have already chosen.
* You charge me w'' imposing upon you. Upon my honour I have no
'recollection of anythmg of the kind. If the world and I were to
' settle accounts to-morrow, I do assure you the balance w'' be con-
' siderably in my favour. In this respect I am more sinned against
' than sinning \ but if I cannot recollect any instances wherein I have
' imposed upon you, several present themselves in w*" I have imposed
' upon myself. Take two or three that press upon me.
' When I first called on you, I found you without reputation ; I
' imposed on myself the labour, and an herculean one it has been, to
' create and establish a reputation for you. I say the labour was her-
' culean, because I had not only to contend v/ith, but I had to battle
' with a man who had predetermined not to be served. What public
' reputation you have, the reputation of eccentricity excepted, I have
' acquired for you ; and I can honestly and conscientiously assert,
' that if you had laboured through life for yourself as zealously and as
.ET. 4S-50.] A KEEN EMPLOYER. 253
' earnestly as I have done for you, your reputation as an artist w'' not
' only have been enviable, but it would have put it out of the power
' of an individual as obscure as myself either to add to or take from
' it. I a /so imposed on myself, when I believed what you so often have
' told me, that your works were equal, nay superior, to a Raphael, or to
• a Michael Angelo ! Unfortunately for me as a publisher, the public
'awoke me from this state of stupor, this mental delusion. That
' public is willing to give you credit for what real talent is to be found
' in your productions, and for no more.
' I have imposed on myself yet more grossly in believing you to be
' one altogether abstracted from this world, holding converse with the
' world of spirits ! simple, unoffending., a combination of the se?pent
* and the dove. I really blush when I reflect how I have been cheated
' in this respect. The most effectual way of benefiting a designer
' whose aim is general patronage, is to bring his designs before the
' public, through the medium of engraving.' Your drawings have had
' the good fortune to be engraved by one of the first artists in Europe,
' and the specimens already shown have already produced you orders
' that I verily believe you otherwise w"" not have rec''. Herein I have
' been gratified ; for I was determined to bring you food as well as
' reputation, though, from your late conduct, I have some reason to
' embrace your wild opinion, that to manage genius, and to cause it
' to produce good things, it is absolutely necessary to starve it ; in-
' deed, this opinion is considerably heightened by the recollection
' that your best work, the illustrations of The Grave, was produced
' when you and Mrs. Blake were reduced so low as to be obliged to
' live on half a guinea a week !
* Before I conclude this letter, it will be necessary to remark, when
' I gave you the order for the drawings from the poem of The
' Grave, I paid you for them more than I could then afford ; more
* in proportion than you were in the habit of receiving, and what you
' were perfectly satisfied with ; though, I must do you the justice to
' confess, much less than I think is their real value. Perhaps you have
' friends and admirers who can appreciate their merit and .worth as
' much as I do. I am decidedly of opinion that the twelve for The
' Grave should sell at the least for sixty guineas. If you can meet
* with any gentleman who will ^ive you this sum for them, I will
« deliver them into his hands on the publication of the poem. I will
' deduct the twenty guineas 1 have paid you from that sum, and the
' remainder forty ditto shall be at your disposal.
* I will not detain you more than one minute. Why did you so
254 LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE. [1805— 1807.
^ fia-iously rage at tlie success of the little picture of The Pilgrim-
^ age? Three thousand people have now j"^^// it and have approved
' of it. Believe me, yours is " the voice of one crying in the
' '* wilderness /"
* You say the subject is low, and contemptibly treated. For his ex-
<cellent mode of treating the subject, the poet has been admired for
' the last 400 years ; the poor painter has not yet the advantage of
' antiquity on his side, therefore, w'' some people, an apology may be
' necessary for him. The conclusion of one of Squire Simkin's
' letters to his mother in the Bath Guide will afford one. He speaks
' greatly to the purpose : —
'"I very well know,
' Both my subject and verse is exceedingly low ;
* But if any great critic finds fault with my letter,
' He has nothing to do hut to send you a better.'"
' With much respect for your talents,
' I remain. Sir,
' Your real friend and well-wisher,
'R. H. Cromek.'
It is one thing to read such a letter fifty years after it was
written, though one can hardly do so without indignation ;
another to have had to receive and digest its low affronts. A
poet had need have a world of visions to retire to when
exposed to these 'slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.'
Blake might well get irascible, might well give vent to his
contempt and scorn in epigrams such as the following, v/hich
I find in that same MS. note-book wherein poor Hayley
figures so ignominiously : —
Cromek loves artists as he loves his meat ;
He loves the art, but 'tis the art to cheat !
And again : —
A petty sneaking knave I knew ;
Oh, Mr. Cromek ! how do you do ?
Here is a taste of ' Cromek's opinions put into rhyme.'
* * *
^T. 4S-50-] A KEEN EMPLOYER. 255
I always take my judgments from a fool,
Because his judgment is so very cool ;
Not prejudiced by feelings great and small.
Amiable state ! he cannot feel at all.
And yet, is not a needy publisher to make that profit out
of a needy painter he cannot for himself? May not the
purchaser of twelve drawings at twenty pounds do what he
likes with his own ? That Cromek had no answer to the
charge of ' imposition,' and of having tricked Blake, is obvious
from his preferring to open up irrelevant questions : he
defends by attacking. The artist's discouragement of
Cromek's herculean labours in behalf of Blake's fame, refers
to his infatuated preference for being his own engraver, ac-
cording to agreement. Through Cromek's reluctance to part
with four guineas, the Blair lost a crowning grace in the
vignette or setting, as in Blake's hands it would have been, of
the Dedication to the Qiicen.
Poor Blake, in asking four guineas instead of one, for a
single sketch, had evidently felt entitled to some insignificant
atonement for previous under-pay. Perhaps, on the hint at
the close of Cromek's letter —
' He has nothing to do but to send you a better,'
the indignant painter acted in executing, hereafter, his
projected * fresco ' from the Canterbury Pilgrimage, and
exhibiting and engraving it.
CHAPTER XXIII.
GLEAMS OF PATRONAGE, iSo6— 1808. [.ct. 49—51.]
Another 'discoverer' of Blake's singular and ignored
genius was Dr. Malkin, Head-Master of Bury Grammar
School, to whose account of the artist's early years we were
indebted at the outset. It was, probably, after the return
from Felpham, and through Cromek, they were made known
to one another. Dr. Malkin was the author of various now
all but forgotten works, — Essays on Subjects connected with
Civilization, 1795 : Scenery, Antiquities, and Biography of
South Wales, 1804, which was his most popular effort, reach-
ing, in 1807, to a second edition : also, AlniaJiide and Hamet
a Tragedy, 1804. His name may likewise be found to a
current revision of Smollett's Translation of Gil Bias, the
earlier editions of which contain illustrations by Smirke.
Blake designed, and originally engraved, the ' ornamental
device ' to the frontispiece for Malkin's Father s Memoirs of
his Child, but it was erased before the appearance of the
work, and the same design re-engraved by Cromek. The
book was published February, 1806; in which month, by
the way, died Barry, whom Blake knew and admired. The
frontispiece consists of a portrait of the precocious infant,
when two years old, from a miniature by Page, surrounded
by an emblematic design of great beauty. An Angel is
conducting the child heavenward ; he takes leave, with consol-
ing gesture, of his kneeling mother, who, in a half-resigned,
.^T. 49-51.] GLEAMS OF PATRONAGE. 257
half-deprecating attitud'e, stretches towards him her wistful,
unavailing arms, from the edge of a cliff — typifying Earth's
verge. It is in a rambling Introductory Letter to Johnes of
Hafod, translator of Froissart, the account in question of the
designer of the frontispiece is given, with extracts from his
Poems : a well-meant, if not very successful, attempt of the
kindly pedagogue to serve the ' untutored proficient,' as he
terms Blake. The poor little defunct prodigy who is the
subject of the Memoir, and who died in 1802, after little
more than a six years' lease of life, was not only an expert
linguist, a general reader, something of a poet, the historian
and topographer of an imaginary kingdom, of which he drew
an 'accurate map;' but was also a designer, producing
' copies from some of Raphael's heads so much in unison
' with the style and sentiment of the originals, as induced
' our late excellent and ingenious friend, Mr. Banks, the
* sculptor, to predict, " that if he were to pursue the arts as
' a profession, he would one day rank among the more dis-
* tinguished of their votaries." '
He was also an original inventor of ' little landscapes ; ac-
' customed to cut every piece of waste paper within his reach
' into squares ' an inch or two in size, and to fill them with
' temples, bridges, trees, broken ground, or any other fanciful
' and picturesque materials which suggested themselves to his
' imagination.' The father gives tracings from six of these as
' specimens of his talent in composition ; ' himself descrying
a ' decisive idea attached to each,' and that ' the buildings
are placed firm on the ground ; ' not to mention a taste and
variety, the ' result of a mind gifted with just feeling and
fertile resources.'
The ' testimony of Mr, Blake ' is added, who, being a man
of imagination, can decipher more in these pre-Claudite jot-
tings of pillar and post, arch and scrub, than his humble
biographer can. What he says is, in its general tenor, inter-
esting and true enough. But surely Mr. Blake saw double
on the occasion, — for his sincerity never admits of doubt,
VOL. L S
258 LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE. [1806— 1808.
' They are all,' writes he, ' firm determinate outline, or iden-
' tical form. Had the hand which executed these little ideas
' been that of a plagiary, who works only from the memory,
* we should have seen blots, called masses,' (Blake is girding
at his own opposites in Art) ' blots without form, and there-
' fore without meaning. These blots of light and dark, as
' being the result of labour, are always clumsy and indefinite ;
' the effect of rubbing out and putting in ; like the progress
' of a blind man, or one in the dark, who feels his way but
* does not see it. These are not so. Even the copy from
'Raphael's cartoon of St. Paul Preaching'' (from Dorigny's
* plate of the same) ' is a firm, determinate outline, struck at
* once, as Protogenes struck his line, when he went to make
' himself known to Apelles, The map of Allestone has the
' same character of the firm and determinate. All his efforts
' prove this little boy to have had that greatest of blessings,
' a strong' imagination, a clear idea, and a determinate vision
' of things in his own mind,'
To this date belongs a vigorous letter, discovered by Mr.
Swinburne in the Monthly Review for July, ist, 1806, our old
friend Phillips being then editor, in which Blake returns some
of Fuseli's good offices by defending his picture of Count
Ugolino against an adverse critic : —
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.
Sir,
My indignation was exceedingly moved at reading a criti-
cism in BeWs Weekly Messenger (25th May), on the picture of
Count Ugolino, by Mr. Fuseli, in the Royal Academy Exhibition ;
and your magazine being as extensive in its circulation as that paper,
and as it also must, from its nature, be more permanent, I take the
advantageous opportunity to counteract the widely diffused malice
which has for many years, under the pretence of admiration of the
arts, been assiduously sown and planted among the English public
against true art, such as it existed in the days of Michael Angelo
and Raphael. Under the pretence of fair criticism and candour
the most wretched taste ever produced has been upheld for many,
very many years : but now, I say, now, its end has come. Such an
Mr. 49—51] GLEAMS OF PATRONAGE. 259
artist as Fuseli is invulnerable ; he needs not my defence : but I
should be ashamed not to set my hand and shoulder, and whole
strength, against those wretches who, under pretence of criticism,
use the dagger and the poison.
My criticism on this picture is as follows : — Mr. Fuseli' s Count
Ugolino is the father of sons of feeling and dignity, who would not
sit looking in their parent's face in the moments of his agony, but
would rather retire and die in secret, while they suffer him to indulge
his passionate and innocent grief, his innocent and venerable mad-
ness and insanity and fury and whatever paltry, cold-hearted critics
cannot, because they dare not, look upon. Fuseli's Count Ugolino
is a man of wonder and admiration, of resentment against man and
devil, and of humiliation before God ; prayer and parental affection
fill the figure from head to foot. The child in his arms, whether
boy or girl signifies not (but the critic must be a fool who has not
read Dante, and who does not know a boy from a girl), I say, the
child is as beautifully drawn as it is coloured— in both, inimitable;
and the effect of the whole is truly sublime, on account of that very
colouring which our critic calls black and heavy. The German-flute
colour, which was used by the Flemings (they call it burnt bone) has
[so ?] possessed the eye of certain connoisseurs, that they cannot see
appropriate colouring, and are blind to the gloom of a real terror.
The taste of English amateurs has been too much formed upon
pictures imported from Flanders and Holland; consequently our
countrymen are easily brow-beat on the subject of painting; and
hence it is so common to hear a man say, ' I am no judge of pic-
tures ; ' but, oh Englishmen ! know that every man ought to be a
judge of pictures, and every man is so who has not been connois-
seured out of his senses.
A gentleman' who visited me the other day said, ' I am very much
surprised at the dislike which some connoisseurs show on viewing
the pictures of Mr. Fuseli ; but the truth is, he is a hundred
years beyond the present generation.' Though I am startled at
such an assertion, I hope the contemporary taste will shorten the
hundred years into as many hours ; for I am sure that any person
consulting his own reputation, or the reputation of his country,
will refrain from disgracing either by such ill-judged criticisms in
future.
Yours,
Wm. Blake.
S 2
26o LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE.' [1806— 1808.
Cromek, in the letter of May, 1807, quoted in the previous
chapter, tells Blake incidentally, ' The specimens' (in proof)
' of Schiavonetti's etchings have already produced you orders
' that, I verily believe, you would not otherwise have received.'
One commission, the credit whereof Cromek may here be
assuming to himself, was that which occupied Blake during
1807 for the Countess of Egremont, to whom he had already
been made known by Hayley. It was for a repetition, or en-
largement rather, of the most elaborate of the Blair drawings
— The Last Jitdgment. In reality, however, the commission
was obtained through his staunch friend, Ozias Humphrey,
the miniature painter, A letter to him from Blake (i8th
February, 1808), descriptive of this composition, is, in its
commencement, applicable to that in the Blair, but shows
the new picture to have contained many more figures and
considerable variations from the previous treatment. Smith
got hold of this letter from Upcott, Humphrey's godson, or,
as some say, son in a less spiritual sense. The original is
now in the possession of Mr. Anderdon, and, thanks, to his
courtesy, has been here followed ; Smith's version being a
slightly inaccurate one. To those familiar with Blake's
works, a very extraordinary and imaginative composition is
indicated.
To Ozias Humphrey., Esq.
The design of The Last Judgment^ which I have completed, by
your recommendation, for the Countess of Egremont, it is necessary
to give some account of; and its various parts ought to be described,
for the accommodation of those who give it the honour of their
attention.
Christ seated on the Throne of Judgment : before His feet and
around Him the Heavens, in clouds, are rolling like a scroll, ready to
be consumed in the fires of Angels who descend with the four
trumpets sounding to the four winds.
Beneath, the earth is convulsed with the labours of the Resurrec-
tion. In the caverns of the earth is the Dragon with seven heads
and ten horns, chained by two Angels ; and above his cavern on the
earth's surface, is the Harlot, seized and bound by two Angels with
A-.T. 49-51.] GLEAMS OF PATRONAGE. 26 1
chains, while her palaces are falling into ruins, and her counsellors
and warriors are descending into the abyss, in wailing and despair.
Hell opens beneath the Harlot's seat on the left hand, into which
the wicked are descending.
The right hand of the design is appropriated to the Resurrection
of the Just : the left hand of the design is appropriated to the
Resurrection and Fall of the Wicked.
Immediately before the Throne of Christ are Adam and Eve,
kneeling in humiliation, as representatives of the whole human
race ; Abraham and Moses kneel on each side beneath them ; from
the cloud on which Eve kneels, is seen Satan, wound round by the
Serpent, and falling headlong ; the Pharisees appear on the left hand
pleading their own Righteousness before the Throne of Christ and
before the Book of Death, which is opened on clouds by two Angels ;
many groups of figures are falling from before the throne, and from
the sea of fire which flows before the steps of the throne ; on which
are seen the seven Lamps of the Almighty, burning before the
throne. Many figures, chained and bound together, and in various
attitudes of despair and horror, fall through the air, and some are
scourged by Spirits with flames of fire into the abyss of Hell which
opens beneath, on the left hand of the Harlot's seat ; where others
are howling and descending into the flames, and in the act of drap^-
ging each other into Hell, and of contending and fighting with each
other on the brink of perdition.
Before the Throne of Christ on the right hand, the Just, in humili-
ation and in exultation, rise through the air with their children and
families ; some of whom are bowing before the Book of Life, which
is opened on clouds by two Angels : many groups arise in exultation ;
among them is a figure crowned with stars, and the moon beneath
her feet, with six infants around her, — she represents the Christian
Church. Green hills appear beneath with the graves of the blessed,
which are seen bursting with their births of immortality ; parents and
children, wives and husbands, embrace and arise together, and in
exulting attitudes tell each other that the New Jerusalem is ready to
descend upon earth ; they arise upon the air rejoicing ; others, newly
awaked from the grave, stand upon the earth embracing and shout-
ing to the Lamb, who cometh in the clouds with power and great
glory.
The whole upper part of the design is a view of Heaven opened,
around the Throne of Christ. In the clouds, which roll away, are
the four living creatures filled with eyes, attended by seven Angels
262 LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE. [1806- 180S.
with seven vials of the wrath of God, and above these, seven Angels
with the seven trumpets ; these compose the cloud, which, by its
rolling away, displays the opening seats of the Blessed ; on the right
and the left of which are seen the four-and-twenty Elders seated on
thrones to judge the Dead.
Behind the seat and Throne of Christ appear the Tabernacle
with its veil opened, the Candlestick on the right, the Table with
Shew-bread on the left, and, in the midst, the Cross in place of the
Ark, the Cherubim bowing over it.
On the right hand of the Throne of Christ is Baptism, on His left
is the Lord's Supper — the two introducers into Eternal Life. Women
with infants approach the figure of an Apostle, which represents