of the pastoral age with such penetrating identification. Then the strain changes; we hear Job recount the visions of the night, and the voice from the whirlwind paints the wonders of Almighty power in language of unapproachable sublimity. These are scenes where even the greatest of artists might have been inclined to stay their hands, and withdraw from the hopeless effort of representation; but such scenes were the natural sphere of Blake; and if by their character they transcend all strict representation, it may at least be said that no one has equalled him in the veracity with which his intense imagination saw first, and then set forth for our instruction, the things in the heavens above, or the waters below the earth.'

We have classed the 'Job' with the 'Grave,' not only on account of their common excellence, but of their common origin. Remark that these are Blake's finest productions, after his first youthful 'Songs,' and that both are illustrations of given subjects, not of his own inventions. Similar as they are in quality of art, no contrast can be greater than between the wonderfully illustrative character of the Job' and the vague, helpless dreams which fill the Jerusalem.' This is a real clue to a right comprehension of Blake. When he drew Jerusalem' and its companions, he spoke of transcribing his visions. The result is a magnificent and unintelligible chimera. When he illustrated 'Job' and 'The Grave,' and ultimately Dante's 'Inferno' (also for Mr. Linnell), he was working, on commission, from prescribed materials. He now drew like a Christian, or any ordinary man.' All the fine qualities of his art appeared, and with them a beauty and a sanity, a depth of insight and a power of coherent expression, which are wanting in the visionary series. And this great superiority cannot have been altogether due to the nature of the subjects provided. In real elevation and beauty nothing can be more opposed than the poems of Young and of Blair, and the poems of Job and of Dante. But they each supplied a nucleus of intelligibility, and this was enough. Whether transcending in every line the narrow and prosaic utterances of 'The Grave' and the 'Night Thoughts,' or almost rivalling the old Hebrew poet in the sublimity of his conceptions, Blake could cling fast in every case to the centre of solid thought provided, and save his genius, in his own despite, from wasting itself in wild gyrations through the dim and monster-haunted infinite.

Blake, in truth, may be said to have been least himself when most left to his own free devices. We have already alluded to the visions which, in his latter days, formed a pregnant subject of his conversation, and have ever since formed a favourite text for anecdotic gossip to lovers of the marvellous. Even were not

the

the art of an artist the proper subject for study (a suggestion which some recent biographies provoke), the importance of this matter has been, we think, much exaggerated. It is curious that the series of drawings directly taken from what Blake termed visions, and engraved, in part, in Mr. Gilchrist's book, are precisely the least valuable of the innumerable designs by Blake which we have examined. The heads of Edward I., Wallace, and the rest, are equally wanting in force of drawing and in character. Even the famous 'Ghost of a Flea,' at least as here engraved, we must venture to think a feeble production. Had Blake always worked thus, he would have ranked no higher than the American spiritartists. But the truth seems to be that his language on visions hardly exceeded what a more completely educated man would have simply confessed to be a figure of speech. When annoyed by questions, or when invoked by a credulous friend (as by the astrologer Varley, whom he gratified by the series just noticed), he would, it is true, indulge his bent to the utmost. The curious conversations printed in the 'Life,' from Mr. C. Robinson's notes, give also an idea that, as Blake's bodily strength failed, some half-believing, half-ironical delight in such hallucinations may have grown upon him.

Blake's own words, in some curious writings on art, which have been included in Mr. Gilchrist's second volume, may be taken as the best authority on this subject. They seem (to us at least) entirely to clear up the vision' hypothesis. No such aid appears to have been claimed by Blake for his Illustrations to Job, Dante, and the rest. None such is claimed in the Catalogue of his Exhibition for its most important item, the 'Pilgrimage.' On the contrary, he here analysed Chaucer's intention in his characters, with a sane and penetrating insight which few commentators have approached. As Newton numbered the stars, and as Linnæus numbered the plants, so Chaucer numbered the classes of men. Chaucer's characters live age after age. Every age is a Canterbury Pilgrimage; we all pass on, each sustaining one or other of these characters.' Under the next heading occur also a few words to which we request attention. Blake is speaking of the visions described by the ancient Prophets. He who does not imagine in stronger and better lineaments, and in stronger and better light, than his perishing mortal eye can see, does not imagine at all. The painter of this work asserts that all his imaginations appear to him infinitely more perfect and more minutely organised than anything seen by his mortal eye.' Soon after, in some curious notes on a design of the 'Last Judgment,' Blake remarks:

6

'I assert for myself that I do not behold the outward creation,

and

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.'

These passages appear to us conclusive as to Blake's real view of his art. Translated into ordinary language from his Swedenborgian or Lavater-like style, they assert his absolute reliance on the inner eye of imagination as his guide. As Mr. Gilchrist notes, they are phrases much like the vision and the faculty,' which the sanest of all our modern poets applied to poetry. The remark that to him the outward creation was a hindrance, is in conformity with other similar expressions, and is fully borne out by Blake's work in its strength and its weakness. It has the wild, mystic, alluring power which belongs only to imaginative intensity. But it wants, to take Mr. Rossetti's phrase, the lovely impression of natural truth.' He had an indestructible animosity towards what, to his devout old-world imagination, seemed the keen polar atmosphere of modern science. In society, once, a cultivated stranger was showing him the first number of The Mechanic's Magazine.' 'Ah, Sir,' remarked Blake, with bland emphasis, these things we artists HATE!' (Life, p. 328). This hatred to the mechanical he seems to have carried into an aversion from anything which seemed like merely transcribing nature. He has the rarer gift, indeed, yet only one of the two main gifts which are required for the perfect artist. When a centre of fact and truth was provided, as in the Job,' the deficient balance of his faculties is almost supplied. Yet even here, when we compare him with a man like Flaxman, he leaves us with an impression of unique and glorious Incompleteness.

In the preceding pages we have anticipated most of Blake's achievements during the last third of his life. The story of his latter years, as told by Mr. Gilchrist, is indeed one of eminent interest: a tale of high and noble pathos, not uncheered by many of the consolations which rarely fail a man who, even with certain of the infirmities of genius, pursues his course in singleness of heart and utter unworldliness. Here, too, we reach what in the earlier part of the 'Life' is wanting—an abundance of details upon Blake, given by the attached observers, who were naturally gathered together by the sight of so much genius, united to so much simplicity. Our space will not admit of minute illustration, but we must notice a few characteristic touches. The quarrel with Cromek led to a worse result. Blake, who in spite of his desultory and imperfect education had a true

passion

passion for literature, appears, before his connection with the publisher was broken off, to have shown him a sketch, representing Chaucer's Pilgrims on the Road to Canterbury. What followed is matter of dispute. But it is possible that the subject, as if on his own suggestion, was mentioned by Cromek to Stothard, who, probably without any idea that Blake had preoccupied it, saw its capabilities, and set to work forthwith to paint it after his own fashion. Of course, it is also possible that the Pilgrimage may have been suggested to Stothard in perfect good faith by Cromek, or even by Blake himself, in whom narrow jealousy had no place. At any rate, Stothard's honest disposition is alone quite enough to clear him of any dealing in the matter which could be open to censure. Blake, however, irritated with Cromek, and, like all guileless people, apt to see deceit everywhere when he fancied himself once deceived, included his old friend in his condemnation of the publisher, and, not satisfied with producing a more powerful design before Stothard's was ready, attacked him in the Catalogue already noticed. The breach thus made-in which for a while even Flaxman was included (vol. ii. p. 156)—was never healed. Flaxman's unwearied and unwearyable kindness indeed reconquered Blake; but Stothard, according to Mr. Gilchrist's report, would not be reconciled. This, even on the least favourable construction, was not a case of decided, still less of ill-intentioned plagiarism. It was much less, for example, than the aid which Stothard gave to Chantrey, and was far indeed from such assistance as at least one sculptor of our day (under the very highest patronage) is understood to receive. In the absence of more than our present hearsay information we can only suspend our judgment, and regret the human weaknesses which, even for a time, divided three friends, so long attached and so worthy of each other's friendship. They have now passed where beyond these voices there is peace;' and it is only the Immortals, in the phrase of Homer, who, at whatever distance, never fail to recognise each other.

This transient storm is, however, almost the single break in the lofty and admirable tranquillity of the artist's career. The world was not his friend, nor the world's law. We turn gladly from the uncongenial dispute to the contemplation of Blake's latter days, where, whilst his noble endurance of poverty and unflagging creative genius give elevation to the picture, it is also cheered by the troops of friends who, during his latter years, paid honour to the 'old man eloquent.' Beside the 'Job' and the woodcuts to Malkin's 'Eclogues,' Blake now produced a long series of designs to Dante's Commedia,' still in possession of

Mr.

Mr. Linnell, whose liberality thus a second time did Blake and us good service. Of these drawings Blake engraved seven. We give one specimen (reduced), which may be profitably compared with Flaxman's version, remembering that the artist was now approaching his seventieth year :

Meanwhile the House of the Interpreter,' as the younger circle of friends named one who, certainly, himself was in no small need of interpretation, was the scene of a calm and happy old age, such as might well be called the Euthanasia of a true artist. One story preserved by Mr. Gilchrist is eminently characteristic. A lovely child of wealthy parents was one day brought to Blake, sitting in his old worn clothes, amidst poverty, decent indeed, but only one degree above absolute bareness. He looked at her very kindly for a long while without speaking, and then, stroking her head and long ringlets, said, "May God make this world to you, my child, as beautiful as it has been to me!"' We hardly know a tale of more pathetic beauty:

'Sunt lacrymæ rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt.'

Not less characteristic is the anecdote preserved by Mr. C. Robinson, how he read Wordsworth's great Ode aloud to Blake, almost ready to omit (for fear of unsympathy), as with a sensitive man of fine feeling it always must be, the most imaginative and

transcendental