' triumphantly told that this God was not Jehovah, but the Elohim ;

* and the doctrine of the Gnostics was repeated with sufficient con-
' sistency to silence one so unlearned as myself. The Preface to The

* ExaiJ'sion, especially the verses quoted from Book I. of The Recluse,

* so troubled him as to bring on a fit of illness. Those lines he
' singled out : —



'o'



" Jehovah — with His thunder, and the choir
Of shouting angels, and the empyreal thrones —
I pass them unalarmed."

' " Does Mr. W. think he can surpass Jehovah ? " There was a copy
' of the whole passage in his own hand in the volume of Wordsworth's

* poems returned to my chambers after his death. There was this
'note at the end — "Solomon, when he married Pharaoh's daughter,
' and became a convert to the heathen mythology, talked exactly in

* this way of Jehovah — as a very inferior object of man's contempla-

* tions : he also passed Him " unalarmed," and was permitted.
' Jehovah dropped a tear and followed him, by His spirit, into the
' abstract void. It is called the Divine mercy. Sarah dwells in it,
' but mercy does not dwell in him." Some of the poems he main-
' tained were from the Holy Ghost, others from the Devil. I lent
'him the 8vo edition, in two vols. (1815), of W.'s poems, which he

* had in his possession at the time of his death. They were returned
' to me then. I did not recognise the pencil notes he had made in

them to be his for some time, and was on the point of rubbing them
' out when I made the discovery ; and they were preserved.'

C C 2



288 LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE. [1824-1827.

Mr. Crabb Robinson was not only a friend and admirer of
Wordsworth, but among the believers, — fewer then than now,
—in the new poetic revelation to be found in his works. The
edition of 181 5 was the first in which Wordsworth's poems
were arranged into classes ; and contained the celebrated new
Preface on the various distinctive characteristics of poetry,
as well as the celebrated Preface and Supplementary Essay,
first printed in the second edition of the Lyrical Ballads.
Blake's notes extend over the first volume only: they are
characteristic iterations, according to his wont, of favourite
dogmas.

In the Preface to the edition of 181 5 Wordsworth writes,
' The powers requisite for the production of poetry are, first,
those of observation and description.' ' One power alone
makes a poet,' answers Blake, — ' Imagination ; the Divine
Vision.' On the line —

' Bound each to each by natural piety,'

Blake comments — ' There is no such thing as natural piety,
because the natural man is at enmity with God.' And again,
on the fly-leaf, under the heading, — Poems referring to the
Period of Childhood, — ' I see in Wordsworth the natural man
' rising up against the spiritual man continually ; and then he

* is no poet, but a heathen philosopher, at enmity with all true
' poetry or inspiration.' At the end of the divine poem To
H. C. Six Years Old, he exclaims : * This is all in the highest
' degree imaginative, and equal to any poet, but not superior.
' I cannot think that real poets have any competition. None

* are greatest in the kingdom of heaven. It is so in poetry.'
Against the heading, ' On the Influence of Natural Objects,'
— to the frost scene from the then unpublished Prelude, we
have the singular, yet (to one who has the key to Blake's
peculiar temperament) not unintelligible avowal : ' Natural
' objects always did, and now do, weaken, deaden, and ob-

* literate imagination in me. Wordsworth must know that



^T. 67—70.] DECLINING HEALTH : DESIGNS TO DANTE. 389

' what he writes valuable is not to be found in nature. Read
' Michael Angelo's Sonnet, vol. ii. page 179' (of this edition).

' No mortal object did these eyes behold
When first they met the placid light of thine,
And my Soul felt her destiny divine,
And hope of endless peace in me grew bold :
Heaven-born, the Soul a heavenward course must hold;
Beyond the visible world she soars to seek
(For what delights the sense is false and weak)
Ideal Form, the universal mould.
The wise man, I affirm, can find no rest
In that which perishes : nor will he lend
His heart to aught which doth on time depend.
'Tis sense, unbridled will, and not true love.
That kills the soul : love betters what is best,
Even here below, but more in heaven above.'

In the margin of the Essay Supplementary to the Preface,
against the words, ' By this time I trust the judicious reader,'
Blake audaciously writes, ' I do not know who wrote these
' Prefaces : they are very mischievous, and direct contrary to
' Wordsworth's own practice.' At p. 341 : ' This is not the de-
' fence of his own style in opposition to what is called poetic
' diction, but a sort of historic vindication of the unpopular
' poets.' Blake's disparaging view of the Prefaces is not
shared by myself; but no less a critic than Shelley, one of
Wordsworth's warmest contemporary admirers — though out-
raged by the poet's political and other delinquencies — in his
wicked, random skit of Peter Bell the Third (18 19), also
disrespectfully describes Wordsworth, as in these Prefaces, —

' Writing some sad stuff in prose : •
It is a dangerous invasion
When poets criticise ; their station
Is to delight, not pose.'

At the end of the Supplementary Essay Blake again breaks
out : ' It appears to me as if the last paragraph, beginning
* with " Is it the result of the whole that, in the opinion of the



2QO LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE. [1824— 1827.

' writer, the judgment of the people is not to be respected ? "
' was writ by another hand and mind from the rest of these
' Prefaces. Perhaps they are the opinion of a . landscape-
' painter. Imagination is the divine vision, not of the world,
♦ nor of man, nor from man, — as he is a natural man.
' Imagination has nothing to do with memory.'

In these years Blake's health was rapidly failing. He was
a perpetual sufferer from intermittent attacks of cold and
dysentery (evidently), as his letters to Mr. Linnell show.
The letters would never, in fact, have been written, but for
illness on his part, and Mr. Linnell's residence at Hampstead.
So long as their writer was well, and Mr. Linnell always in
Cirencester Place, there had been no occasion for letters.
They are characteristic, and explain what he suffered from.
Here is one : —

February 1st, 1826.

Dear Sir, —

I am forced to write, because I cannot come to you.
And this on two accounts. First, I omitted to desire you
would come and take a mutton chop with us the day you go
to Cheltenham, and I will go with you to the coach. Also,
I will go to Hampstead to see Mrs. Linnell on Sunday, but
will return before dinner (I mean if you set off before that).
And secojid, I wish to have a copy of J^ob to show to Mr.
Chantrey.

For I am again laid up by a cold in my stomach. The Hamp-
stead air, as it always did, so I fear it always will do this, except it
be the morning air : and that, in my cousin's time, I found I could
bear with safety, and perhaps benefit. I believe my constitution
to be a good one, but it has many peculiarities that no one but
myself can know. When I was young, Hampstead, Highgate,
Hornsey, Muswell Hill, and even Islington, and all places north of
London, always laid me up the day after, and sometimes two or
three days, with precisely the same complaint, and the same
torment of the stomach ; easily removed, but excruciating while it
lasts, and enfeebling for some time after. Sir Francis Bacon
would say, it is want of discipUne in mountainous places. Sir
Francis Bacon is a Har : no discipline will turn one man into
another, even in the least particle; and such discipline I call



^T. 67—70.] DECLINING HEALTH : DESIGNS TO DANTE. 39I

presumption and folly. I have tried it too much not to know this,
and am very sorry for all those who may be led to such osten-
tatious exertions against their eternal existence itself; because it is
a mental rebellion against the Holy Spirit, and fit only for a
soldier of Satan to perform.

Though I hope in a morning or two to call on you in Cirencester
Place, I feared you might be gone, or I might be too ill to let
you know how I am, and what I wish.

I am, dear Sir,

Yours sincerely,

William Blake.

Let us look over Mr. Crabb Robinson's shoulder again,
and (with his courteous permission) glance at a few more
entries : —

' Feb. 19, 1826, — It was this day, in connexion with the assertion

* that " the Bible is the Word of God, and all truth is to be found

* in it," — he using language concerning men's reason being opposed
' to grace, very like that used by the orthodox Christian, that he
' qualified and, as the same orthodox would say, utterly nullified all
' he said, by declaring that he understood the Bible in a spiritual
' sense. As to the natural sense, " Voltaire was commissioned by
' God to expose that. I have had," he said, " much intercourse
' with Voltaire, and he said to me : / blasphemed the Son of Man,
' and it shall be forgiven me, but they (the enemies of Voltaire)
' blasphemed the Holy Ghost iti me, and it shall not be forgiven
' thetn:' '

All the Spirits, it is worth notice, talk in the Blake manner.
To resume : —

' I asked in what language Voltaire spoke. His answer was
' ingenious, and gave no encouragement to cross-questioning : " To
' my sensations it was English. It was like the touch of a musical
' key : he touched it probably French, but to my ear it became
' English." I also inquired, as I had before, about the form of
' the persons who appeared to him, and asked why he did not
' draw them ? " It is not worth while. Besides, there are so
' many, the labour would be too great ; and there would be no
' use in it." '



392



LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE. [1824— 1827.



Blake evidently began to feel himself a little badgered, and
not insensible that he was under the hands of a cross-
examining, though courteous, lawyer. For, as we know, he
did, at times, make portraits of spiritual visitants.

' In answer to an inquiry about Shakspeare : " He is exactly like
' the old engraving — which is said to be a bad one ; I think it
' very good." I inquired about his own writings. " I have written,"

* he answered, " more than Rousseau or Voltaire ; six or seven epic
' poems as long as Homer's, and twenty tragedies as long as
' Macbeth.'" He showed me his Version of Genesis, for so it may

* be called, as understood by a Christian Visionary. He read a
' wild passage in a sort of Biblical style. " I shall print no more,"
' he said. " When I am commanded by the spirits, then I write ;
' and the moment I have written, I see the words fly about the
' room in all directions. It is then published. The spirits can
' read, and my MS. is of no further use. I have been tempted

* to burn my MSS., but my wife won't let me." " She is right,"
*■ I answered. "You wrote not from yourself, but from higher
' order. The MSS. are their property, not yours. You cannot
' tell what purpose they may answer." This was addressed ad

* hominem, and indeed amounted only to a deduction from his
' own premises. He incidentally denied causation : everything
' being the work of God or Devil. " Every man has a devil in
' himself; and the conflict between this Self and God perpetually
' carrying on." I ordered of him to-day a copy of his So7igs for

* five guineas. My manner of receiving his mention of price pleased
' him. He spoke of his horror of money, and of turning pale
' when it was offered him. And this was certainly unfeigned.'

Blake's visitor made the purchase simply as a delicate
means of assisting the artist. From the same motive, he
bought some other books and drawings ; but, though he had
expressly asked for them, experienced the greatest difficulty
in getting Blake to accept money. The latter wished to
present them. Poor Blake !

Next in order of date comes another letter to Mr. Linnell : —

19/// May, 1826.

Dear Sir, —

I have had another desperate shivering fit. It came on
yesterday afternoon — after as good a morning as I ever experienced.



.-ET. 67-70.] DECLINING HEALTH: DESIGNS TO DANTE. 393

It began by a gnawing pain in the stomach, and soon spread a
deadly feel all over the limbs, which brings on the shivering fit ;
when I am forced to go to bed, where I contrive to get into
a little perspiration, which takes it quite away. It was night when
it left me ; so I did not get up. But just as I was going to rise
this morning, the shivering fit attacked me again, and the pain
with the accompanying deathly feel. I got again into a perspi-
ration, and was well again, but so much weakened that I am still
in bed. This entirely prevents me from the pleasure of seeing
you on Sunday at Hampstead, as I fear the attack again when
I am away from home.

I am, dear Sir,

Yours sincerely,

William Blake.

Friday Evening.

An entry in Mr. Crabb Robinson's Journal, a few weeks

later, refers to Blake —

13//^ Jtme, 1826.

' I saw him again. He was as wild as ever, says my journal.

* But he was led to-day to make assertions more palpably mis-

* chievous, if capable of influencing other minds, and immoral,

* supposing them to express the will of a responsible agent, than
' anything he had said before.'

Which must be taken to signify that Blake and his visitor
were at cross purposes, and the former not in a serene frame
of mind ; but in a mood to kick out, leaving his listener to
make sense of his wild speech as best he could.

During the summer Mr. Linnell, who showed a truly filial
solicitude for his friend, proposed taking lodgings for him in
the neighbourhood of his own cottage at Hampstead, which
his growing family pretty well filled. To this project and its
postponement, the three following letters refer : —

2nd July, 1826.
My dearest Friend, —

This sudden cold weather has cut up all my hopes by
the roots. Every one who knows of our intended flight into your
delightful country concurs in saying, Do not venture till summer
appears again. I also feel myself weaker than I was aware, being



394 LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE. [1824— 1827.

not able, as yet, to sit up longer than six hours at a time; and
also feel the cold too much to dare venture beyond my present
precincts. My heartiest thanks for your care in my accommoda-
tion, and the trouble you will yet have with me. But I get better
and stronger every day, though weaker in muscle and bone than I
supposed. As to pleasantness of prospect, it is all pleasant
prospect at North End. Mrs. Kurd's (the lodgings of Mr. Linnell
before he went to Collins' Farm) I should like as well as any;
but think of the expense, and how it may be spared, and never
mind appearances.

I intend to bring with me, besides our necessary change of
apparel, only my book of drawings from Dante, and one plate
shut up in the book. All will go very well in the coach, which, at
present, would be a rumble I fear I could not go through. So that
I conclude another week must pass before I dare venture upon
what I ardently desire, — the seeing you with your happy family
once again, and that for a longer period than I had ever hoped in

my healthful hours.

I am, dear Sir,

Yours most gratefully,

William Blake.

$th July, 1826.
Dear Sir, —

I thank you for the receipt of five pounds this morning,
and congratulate you on the receipt of another fine boy. Am glad
to hear of Mrs. Linnell's health and safety.

I am getting better every hour. My plan is diet only ; but if
the machine is capable of it, shall make an old man yet. I go
on just as if perfectly well, which indeed I am, except in those
paroxysms, which I now . believe will never more return. Pray let
your own health and convenience put all solicitude concerning me
at rest. You have a family ; I have none : there is no comparison
between our necessary avocations.

Believe me to remain, dear Sir,

Yours sincerely,

William Blake.

\()th July, 1826.
Dear Sir, —

I have been, ever since taking Dr. Young's addition to
Mr. Fincham's prescription for me {the addition is dandelion), in a



^T. 67—70.] DECLINING HEALTH : DESIGNS TO DANTE. 395

species of delirium, and in pain too much for thought. It is now
past : as I hope. But the moment I got ease of body began pain
of mind, and that not a small one. It is about the name of the
child, which certainly ought to be Thomas, after Mrs. Linnell's
father. It will be brutal, not to say worse, in my opinion and on
my part. Pray reconsider it, if it is not too late. It very much
troubles me, as^a crime in which I shall be the principal. Pray
excuse this hearty expostulation, and believe me to be,

Yours sincerely,

William Blake.

Sunday Afternoon.

P.S. — Fincham is a pupil of Abernethy's. This is what gives
me great pleasure. I did not know it before yesterday, — from Mr.
Fincham.

The child .was to have been named after the artist as a
mark of friendly respect ; but was eventually called James,
and the fulfilment of the intention postponed till the birth of
the next boy, who did take Blake's name. Both . brothers
were destined to became famous in the picture-loving world.
The art of landscape-painting will be indebted not only to
the John Linnell whom two generations have delighted, and
many more will delight to honour, but to the Linnell family
collectively. Time after time, James and William Linnell
have evinced capabilities which might carry them onward to
almost any point of attainment in the art. In both we
recognise keen, fresh, strong feeling, vivid perception, plen-
teous, expressive, sometimes startling realisation ; qualities
which they are able to develop and combine in a form equally
grateful to the ruralist and to the lover of art.

isi August, 1826.

Dear Sir, —

If this notice should be too short for your convenience,
please to let me know. But finding myself well enough to come,
I propose to set out from here as soon after ten as we can on
Thursday morning. Our carriage will be a cabriolet (a vehicle,
like the hackney coach, extinct these forty years, in which the
driver sat on a sort of perch beside his fare). For though getting



396 LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE. [1824— 1827.

better and stronger, I am still incapable of riding in the stage,
and shall be, I fear, for some time; being only bones and sinews,
all strings and bobbins like a weaver's loom. Walking to and
from the stage would be, to me, impossible ; though I seem
well, being entirely free both from pain and from that sickness to
which there is no name. Thank God ! I feel no more of it,
and have great hopes that the disease is gone.

I am, dear Sir,

Yours sincerely,

William Blake.

The visit to Hampstead was paid, but with little of the
anticipated benefit to Blake's health, who was then sufifering
from diarrhoea, or, perhaps, dysentery. As he had truly said,
that bracing air ill agreed with his constitution. But he
cherished a wilful dislike to Hampstead, and to all the
northern suburbs of London, despite his affection for the
family who made Hampstead a home for him, and the happy
hours he had spent there. He, perhaps from early associa-
tions, could only tolerate the southern suburbs. They who
are accustomed to the varied loveliness of Surrey, Sussex, and
Kent, with their delightful mixture of arable, pasture, wood-
land, waste, and down, one shading off into the other, cannot
but find the unvaried pastures and gentle hills of Middlesex
and Hertfordshire wearisomely monotonous in their pre-
vailing heavy tints and ever-recurring bounding lines ; mono-
tonous and unexhilarating, however agreeable they may be to
the escaped Londoner. Mrs. Collins, of the Farm, always
remembered Blake as ' that most delightful gentleman ! ' His
amiable qualities and ordinarily gentle manner left a lasting
impression on the most humble. During this visit he
was at work upon the Dante. A clump of trees on the
skirts of the heath is still known to old friends as the
' Dante wood.'

At the close of this year died another associate in the
circle of the gifted, with whom Mr. and Mrs. Blake had still,
in Fountain Court, been in the habit of exchanging visits as



^T. 67—70.] DECLINING HEALTH : DESIGNS TO DANTE. 39/

of old : John Flaxman, whose always feeble frame had, for
some time, been visibly affected for the worse. After a
few days' illness from an inflammatory cold which gave his
friends little warning of danger, he passed peacefully away,
on the 7th December, 1826, in his seventy-second year:
somewhat more than six years after the death of his devoted
helpmate ' Nancy,' who had been his companion on equal
terms ; a woman of real gifts and acquirements, of classic
accomplishments and sympathies like himself Not till this
biography was almost completed, in January, i860, did the
last member of Flaxman's refined, happy household, — Mrs.
Flaxman's sister, Maria Denman, — follow her beloved friends
to the tomb. She, also, was a cultivated lady, of much energy
and devotion of character, worshipping Flaxman's memory
with a sisterly enthusiasm to the last. She had lived to
fulfil one cherished object, — the housing a fine selection of
Flaxman's original models in the safe keeping of London
University College ; to which institution she had presented
them. My own obligations to her appear in more than one
page of this volume. As a girl she had seen and reverenced
Blake so long ago as when he was living in Hercules
Buildings.

Under the date of December occurs mention, by Mr.
Crabb Robinson, of another call on Blake : —

' It was, I behave, on the 7th of December (1826) that I saw
' him. I had just heard of the death of Flaxman, a man whom he
' admired, and was curious how he would receive the intelligence.
' He had been ill during the summer, and he said with a smile,
' " I thought I should have gone first." He then added, " I cannot
' think of death as more than the going out of one room into
' another." He relapsed into his ordinary train of thinking. . . .
' This day he said, " Men are bom with an angel and a devil."
' This he himself interpreted as soul and body. ... He spoke of
' the Old Testament as if it were the evil element—" Christ took
' much after His mother." ... He digressed into a condemnation
' of those who sit in judgment on others : " I have never known a
' very bad man who had not something very good about him." . . .



398 LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE. [1824— 1827.

* I have no account of any other call ; but this is probably an
' omission. I took Gotzenberger to see him, and he met the
' Masqueriers in my chambers. Masquerier was not the man to
' meet him. He could not humour B., nor understand the peculiar

* sense in which B. was to be received.'

One kind scheme of Mr. Linnell's was the proposal that
Blake should live in his town-house in Cirencester Place, now
only used professionally. Blake and his wife were to take
charge of the house and live rent free. To which proposal the
following letter (Feb. 1827) refers: —

Dear Sir, —

I thank you for the five pounds received to-day. Am
getting better every morning ; but slowly, as I am still feeble and
tottering ; though all the symptoms of my complaint seem almost
gone. The fine weather is very beneficial and comfortable to me.
I go on, as I think, improving my engravings of Dante more and
more ; and shall soon get proofs of these four which I have ; and
beg the favour of you to send me the two plates of Dante which
you have, that I may finish them sufficiently to make show of
colour and strength.

I have thought and thought of the removal. I cannot get my
mind out of a state of terrible fear at such a step. The more I
think, the more I feel terror at what I wished at first, and thought
a thing of benefit and good hope. You will attribute it to its
right cause — intellectual peculiarity that must be myself alone
shut up in myself, or reduced to nothing. I could tell you of
visions and dreams upon the subject. I have asked and entreated
Divine help; but fear continues upon me, and I must relinquish
the step that I had wished to take, and still wish, but in vain.

Your success in your profession is, above all things to me, most
gratifying. May it go on to the perfection you wish, and more.
So wishes also

Yours sincerely,

William Blake,

Our next letter is dated 15th March, 1827 : —

Dear Sir, —

This is to thank you for two pounds, now by me received
on account. I have received a letter from Mr. Cumberland, in



^T. 67—70.] DECLINING HEALTH : DESIGNS TO DANTE. 399

which he says he will take one copy of yob for himself, but cannot,