notice of him which appeared in the Art Jotirnal (or Art
Union, as then called).
Of any affinity in spirit to Blake which might be found
existing in the works of some living artists, it is not necessary
to speak here ; yet allusion should be made to one still alive
and honoured in other ways, who early in life produced a
series of Biblical designs seldom equalled for imaginative
impression, and perhaps more decidedly like Blake's works,
though quite free from plagiarism, than anything else that
could be cited. I allude to One Hundred Copper-plate En-
gravings from original drawings by Isaac Taylor, Junior^
calculated to ornament all qnarto and octavo editions of the
Bible. London: Allan Bell & Co., Warwick Square. 1834.
^
26 LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE.
Strange as it may appear, I believe I am right in stating that
these were produced in youth by the late venerable author of
the Natural History of Enthusiasm, and many other works.
How he came to do them, or why he did no more, I have no
means of recording. They are very small and very unat-
tractively engraved, sometimes by the artist and sometimes
by others. In simplicity, dignity, and original thought,
probably in general neglect at the time, and certainly in
complete disregard ever since, they bear a close affinity to
the mass of Blake's works, and may fairly be supposed to
have been, in some measure, inspired by the study of them.
TJie Witch of Endor, The Plague Stayed, The Death of Samson,
and many others, are, in spirit, even well worthy of his hand,
and from him, at least, would not have missed the admiration
they deserve.
Having spoken so far of Blake's influence as a painter, I
should be glad if I could p'oint out that the simplicity and
purity of his style as a lyrical poet had also exercised some
sway. , But, indeed, he is so far removed from ordinary
apprehensions in most of his poems, or more or less in all, and
they have been so little spread abroad, that it v/ill be im-
possible to attribute to them any decided place among the
impulses which have directed the extraordinary mass of
poetry displaying power of one or another kind, which has
been brought before us, from his day to our own. Perhaps
some infusion of his modest and genuine beauties might add a
charm even to the most gifted works of our present rather re-
dundant time. One grand poem which was, till lately, on the
same footing as his own (or even a still more obscure one) as
regards popular recognition and which shares, though on a
more perfect scale than he ever realized in poetry, the exalted
and primeval, if not the subtly etherealized, qualities of his
poetic art, may be found in Charles Wells's scriptural drama
of Joseph and his BretJiren, published in 1824 under the
assumed name of Howard. This work affords, perhaps, the
SUPPLEMENTARY. 427
solitary instance, within our period, of poetry of the very first
class falHng quite unrecognized and remaining so for a long
space of years. In the first edition of this Life of Blake
it was prophesied that Wells's time would 'assuredly still
'come.' In 1876 Joseph and his Brethren wd^s republished
under the auspices of Mr. Swinburne, and with an introduction
from his pen. Charles Wells lived to see this new phoenix
form of the genius of his youth, but died in 1878. The work
is attainable now, and need not here be dwelt on at any
length. In what may be called the Anglo-Hebraic order of
aphoristic truth, Shakespeare, Blake, and Wells are nearly
akin, nor could any fourth poet be named so absolutely in the
same connection, though from the Shakespearean point of
view alone the ' marvellous,' nay, miraculous, Chatterton must
also be included. It may be noted that Wells's adniir-
able prose Stories after Nature (1822) have not yet been
republished.
A very singular example of the closest and most absolute
resemblance to Blake's poetry may be met with (if only one
could meet with it) in a phantasmal sort of little book,
published, or perhaps not published but only printed, some
years since, and entitled, Improvisations of the Spirit. It
bears no author's name, but was written by Dr. J. J. Garth
Wilkinson, the highly gifted editor of Swedenborg's writings,
and author of a Life of him : to whom, as has been before
mentioned, we owe a reprint of the poems in Blake's Songs of
Innocence and Expci'ierice. These improvisations profess to
be written under precisely the same kind of spiritual guidance,
amounting to abnegation of personal effort in the writer, which
Blake supposed to have presided over the production of his
Jentsalem, &c. The little book has passed into the general
(and in all other cases richly-deserved) limbo of the modern
* spiritualist ' muse. It is a very thick little book, however
unsubstantial its origin ; and contains, amid much that is
disjointed or hopelessly obscure (but then why be the polisher
428 LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE.
of poems for which a ghost, and not even your own ghost,
is alone responsible ?) many passages and indeed whole com-
positions of a remote and charming beauty, or sometimes of
a grotesque figurative relation to things of another sphere,
which are startlingly akin to Blake's writings, could pass, in
fact, for no one's but his. Professing as they do the same
new kind of authorship, they might afford plenty of material
for comparison and bewildered speculation, if such were in
any request.
Considering the interval of seventeen years which has now
elapsed since the first publication of this Life, it may be well
to refer briefly to such studies connected with Blake as have
since appeared. This is not the place where any attempt
could be made to appraise the thanks due for such a work as
Mr. Swinburne's Critical Essay on Blake. The task chiefly
undertaken in it — that of exploring and expounding the
system of thought and personal mythology which pervades
Blake's ' Prophetic Books ' has been fulfilled, not by piecework
or analysis, but by creative intuition. The fiat of Form and
Light has gone forth, and as far as such a chaos could respond
it has responded. To the volume itself, and to that only,
can any reader be referred for its store of intellectual wealth
and reach of eloquent dominion. Next among Blake-labours
of love let me here refer to Mr. James Smetham's deeply sym-
pathetic and assimilative study (in the form of a review article
on the present Life^ published in the London Quarterly Review
for Jan. 1869. As this article is reprinted in our present
Vol. II., no further tribute to its deHcacy and force needs to be
made here : it speaks for itself. But some personal mention,
however slight, should here exist as due to its author, a painter
and designer of our own day who is, in many signal respects,
very closely akin to Blake; more so, probably, than any other
living artist could be said to be. James Smetham's work
— generally of small or moderate size — ranges from Gospel
subjects, of the subtlest imaginative and mental insight, and
SUPPLEMENTARY. 429
sometimes of the grandest colouring, through Old Testament
compositions and through poetic and pastoral themes of every
kind, to a special imaginative form of landscape. In all
these he partakes greatly of Blake's immediate spirit, being
also often nearly allied by landscape intensity to Samuel
Palmer, — in youth, the noble disciple of Blake. Mr. Smetham's
works are very numerous, and, as other exclusive things have
come to be, will some day be known in a wide circle. Space
is altogether wanting to make more than this passing mention
here of them and of their producer, who shares, in a remark-
able manner, Blake's mental beauties and his formative short-
comings, and possesses besides an individual invention which
often claims equality with the great exceptional master
himself.
Mr. W. B. Scott's two valuable contributions to Blake
records — his Catalogue Raisonne of the Exliibition of Blake's
Works, as held at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1876,
and his Etchings from Blake s Works, with Descriptive Text, —
are both duly specified in the General Catalogues existing in
our Vol. II. We will say briefly here that no man living has
a better right to write of Blake or to engrave his work than
Mr. Scott, whose work of both kinds is now too well known
to call for recognition. Last but not least, the richly con-
densed and representative essay prefixed by Mr. W. M.
Rossetti to his edition (in the Aldine series) of Blake's Poetical
Works, demands from all sides — as its writer has, from all
sides, discerned and declared Blake — the highest commenda-
tion we can here briefly ofi^er.
The reader has now reached the threshold of the Second
Volume of this work, in which he will be fortunate enough
to be communicating directly with Blake's own mind, in
a series of writings in prose and verse, many of them
here first published. Now, perhaps, no poet ever courted
a public with more apparent need for some smoothing of
the way, or mild forewarning, from within, from without, or
/
430
LIFE OF WILLIAM BLAKE.
indeed from any region whence a helping heaven and four
bountiful winds might be pleased to waft it, than does Blake
in many of the ' emanations ' contained in this our Second
Volume. Yet, on the other hand, there is the plain truth
that such aid will be not at all needed by those whom these
writings wzV/ impress, and almost certainly lost upon those whom
they ivill not. On the whole, I have thought it best to preface
each class of these Selections with a few short remarks, but
neither to encumber with many words their sure effect in the
right circles, nor to do battle with their destiny in the wrong.
Only it may be specified here, that whenever any pieces occur-
ring in Blake's written note-books appeared of a nature on the
privacy of which he might have relied in writing them, these
have been passed by, in the task of selection. At the same
time, all has been included which seemed capable in any
way of extending our knowledge of Blake as a poet and
writer, in the manner he himself might have wished. Mere
obscurity or remoteness from usual ways of thought were, as
we know, no bar to publication with him ; therefore, in all
cases where such qualities, even seeming to myself excessive,
are found in conjunction with the lyrical power and beauty
of expression so peculiar to Blake's style as a poet (and this,
let us not forget, startlingly in advance of the time at which
he wrote), I have thought it better to include the compositions
so qualified. On the other hand, my MS. researches have
often furnished me with poems which I treasure most highly,
and which I cannot doubt will dwell in many memories as
they do in mine. But, as regards the varying claims of these
selections, it should be borne in mind that an attempt is
made in the present volume to produce, after a long period of
neglect, as complete a record as might be of Blake and his
works ; and that, while any who can here find anything to
love will be the poet-painter's welcome guests, still such a
feast is spread first of all for those who can know at a glance
that it is theirs and was meant for them ; who can meet their
SUPPLEMENTARY.
431
host's eye with sympathy and recognition, even when he
ofifers them the new, strange fruits grown for himself in
far-off gardens where he has dwelt alone, or pours for them
the wines which he has learned to love, in lands where
they never travelled.
END OF VOL. I.
LONDON :
R. Clay, Sons, and Taylor,
BREAD STREET HILL.
^
)
v9^^
^
K>^
d<
^
>l
Sffi Kii.ff
'mm
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES Vp;.^P'
^^
^â– S'a^*?
0044156421
SA
::t'i^