his public, and patronized him to the extent of | their power. The volume of Songs he sold for thirty shillings and two guineas. Afterwards, with the delicate and loving design of helping the artist, who would receive help in no other way, five and even ten guineas were paid, for which sum he could hardly do enough, finishing off each picture like a miniature. One solitary patron he had, Mr. Thomas Butts, who, buying his pictures for thirty years, and turning his own house into a "perfect Blake Gallery, often supplied the painter with his sole means of subsistence." May he have his reward! Most pathetic is an anecdote related by Mr. H. C. Robinson, who found himself one morning sole visitor at an Exhibition which Blake had opened, on his own account, at his brother James's house. In view of the fact that he had bought four copies of the Descriptive Catalogue, Mr. Robinson inquired of James, the custodian, if he might not come again free. "Oh, yes! free as long as you live!" was the reply of the humble hosier, overjoyed at having so munificent a visitor, or a visitor at all. floating with the utmost self-complacence dowthe smooth current of his time; and Blake sensitive, unique, protestant, impracticable, agt gressive: it was a rare freak of Fate, that brought about such companionship; yet so true courtesy was there that for four years they lived and wrought harmoniously together-Hayley pouring out his harmless wish-wash, and Blake touching it with his fiery gleam. Their joint efforts were hardly more pecuniarily productive than Blake's singlehanded struggles; but his life there had other and better fruits. In the little cottage overlooking the sea, fanned by the pure breeze, and smiled upon by sunshine on the hills, he tasted rare spiritual joy. Throwing off mortal encumbrance-never, indeed, an overweight to him-he revelled in his clairvoyance. The lights that shimmered across the sea shone from other worlds. The purple of the gathering darkness was the curtain of God's tabernacle. Grey shadows of the gloaming assumed mortal shapes, and he talked with Moses and the prophets, and the old heroes of song. The Ladder of Heaven was firmly fixed by his garden-gate, and the angels ascended and descended. A letter written to Flaxman, soon after his arrival at Felpham, is so characteristic that we cannot refrain from transcribing it : We have a sense of incongruity in seeing this defiant, but sincere pencil employed by publishers to illustrate the turgid sorrow of Young's "Night Thoughts." The work was to have been issued in parts, but got no farther than the first (it would have been no great calamity if the poem itself had come to the same premature end!). The sonorous mourner could hardly have recognized himself in the impersonations in which he was presented, nor his progeny in the concrete objects to which they were reduced-only enlarging, not altering, its proportions, and The well-known couplet "Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours And ask them what report they've borne to heaven," is represented by hours, "drawn as aërial and shadowy beings," some of whom are bringing their scrolls to the inquiry, and others are carrying their records to heaven. "Oft burst my song beyond the bounds of life," has a lovely figure, holding a lyre, and springing into the air, but confined by a chain to the earth. Death puts off his skeleton, and appears as a solemn draped figure; but in many cases the clerical poet is "taken at his word," with a literalness more startling than dignified. Introduced by Flaxman to Hayley, friend and biographer of Cowper, favourably known to his contemporaries, though now wellnigh forgotten, Blake was invited to Felpham, and began there a new life. It is pleasant to look back upon this period. Hayley, the kindly, generous, vain, imprudent, impulsive country squire, not at all excepting himself in his love for mankind, pouring forth sonnets on the slightest provocation-indeed, so given over to the vice of verse, that "He scarce could ope His mouth but out there flew a trope❞— "DEAR SCULPTOR OF ETERNITY,-We are safe arrived at our cottage, which is more beautiful than I thought it, and more convenient. It is a perfect model for cottages, and, I think, for palaces of magnificence, adding ornaments, and not principles. Nothing can be more grand than its simplicity and usefulness. Simple, without intricacy, it seems to be the spontaneous expression of humanity, congenial to the wants of man. No other formed house can ever please me it can be improved, either in beauty or use. so well, nor shall I ever be persuaded, I believe, that "Mr. Hayley received us with his usual brotherly affection. I have begun to work. Felpham is a sweet place for study, because it is more spiritual than London. Heaven opens here on all sides her golden gates; her windows are not obstructed by vapours; voices of celestial inhabitants are more distinctly heard, and their forms more distinctly seen; and my cottage is also a shadow of their houses. My wife and sister are both well, courting Neptune for an embrace. had a great deal of luggage, no grumbling. All was "Our journey was very pleasant; and though we cheerfulness and good-humour on the road, and yet we could not arrive at our cottage before half-past eleven at night, owing to the necessary shifting of our luggage from one chaise to another; for we had seven different chaises, and as many different drivers. set out between six and seven in the morning of Thursday, with sixteen heavy boxes and portfolios full of prints. We "And now begins a new life, because another covering of earth is shaken off. I am more famed in heaven for my works than I could well conceive. In my brain arc studies and chambers filled with books and pictures of old, which I wrote and painted in ages of Eternity, before my mortal life, and those works are the delight and study of archangels. Why, then, should I be anxious about the riches or fame of mor tality? The Lord our Father will do for us and with us according to his Divine will, for our good. "You, O dear Flaxman, are a sublime archangel,my friend and companion from Eternity. In the Divine bosom is our dwelling-place. I look back into the regions of reminiscence, and behold our ancient days, before this earth appeared in its vegetated mortality to my mortal vegetated eyes. I see our houses of eternity, which can never be separated, though our mortal vehicles should stand at the remotest corners of heaven from each other. "Farewell, my best friend! Remember me and my wife in love and friendship to our dear Mrs. Flaxman, whom we ardently desire to entertain beneath our thatched roof of rusted gold. And believe me forever to remain your grateful and affectionate "WILLIAM BLAKE." Other associations than spiritual ones mingle with the Felpham sojourn. A drunken soldier one day broke into his garden, and, being great of stature, despised the fewer inches of the owner. But between spirits of the earth and spirits of the skies there is but one issue to the conflict, and Blake " laid hold of the intrusive blackguard, and turned him out neck and crop, in a kind of inspired frenzy." The astonished ruffian made good his retreat, but in revenge reported sundry words that exasperation had struck from his conquerer. The result was a trial for high treason at the next Quarter Sessions. Friends any definite provocation, become presently insufferable to such a man as Blake. Returned to London, he resumed the production of his oracular works,-" prophetic books" he called them. These he illustrated with his own peculiar and beautiful designs, "all sanded over with a sort of golden mist." Among much that is incoherent and incomprehensible may be found passages of great force, tenderness, and beauty. The concluding verses of the Preface to "Milton" we quote, as shadowing forth his great moral purpose, and as revealing also the luminous heart of the cloud that so often turns to us only its gray and obscure exterior :— "And did those feet in ancient time Walk upon England's mountain green ? Shine forth upon our clouded hills? Among these dark, Satanic hills? Bring me my arrows of desire! "I will not cease from mental fight, Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, In England's green and pleasant land." gathered about him, testifying to his previous The same lofty aim is elsewhere expressed in Lord!" Our rapidly diminishing space warns us to be brief, and we can only glance at a few of the remaining incidents of this outwardly calm, yet inwardly eventful life. In an evil hour-though to it we owe the "Illustrations to Blair's Grave" say that he was triumphantly acquitted. But" I touch the heavens as an instrument to glorify the fifty years ago such a matter wore a graver aspect. In his early life he had been an advocate of the French Revolution, an associate of Price, Priestly, Godwin, and Tom Paine, a wearer of white cockade and bonnet rouge. He had even been instrumental in saving Tom Paine's life, by hurrying him to France, when the Government was on his track; but all this was happily unknown to the Chichester lawyers, and Blake, more fortunate than some of his contemporaries, escaped the gallows. The disturbance caused by this untoward incident, the repeated failures of literary attempts, the completion of Cowper's Life, which had been the main object of his coming, joined, doubtless, to a surfeit of Hayley, induced a return to London. He feared, too, that his imaginative faculty was failing. "The visions were angry with me at Felpham," he used afterwards to say. We regret to see, also, that he seems not always to have been in the kindest of moods towards his patron. Indeed, it was a weakness of his to fall out occasionally with his best friends; but when a man is waited upon by angels and ministers of grace, it is not surprising that he should sometimes be impatient with mere mortals. Nor is it difficult to imagine that the bland and trivial Hayley, perpetually kind, patronizing, and obvious, should, without he fell into the hands of Cromek, the shrewd Yorkshire publisher, and was tenderly entreated, as a dove in the talons of a kite. The famous letter of Cromek to Blake is one of the finest examples on record of long-headed worldliness bearing down upon wrong-headed genius. Though clutching the palm in this case, and in some others, it is satisfactory to know that Cromek's clever turns led to no other end than poverty; and nothing worse than poverty had Blake, with all his simplicity, to encounter. But Blake, in his poverty, had meat to eat which the wily publisher knew not of. In the wake of this failure followed another. Blake had been engaged to make twenty drawings to illustrate Ambrose Philip's "Virgil's Pastorals" for schoolboys. The publishers saw them, and stood aghast, declaring he must do no more. The engravers received them with derision, and pronounced sentence, "This will never do." Encouraged, however, by the favourable opinion of a few artists who saw them, the publishers admitted, with an apology, | to his songs, and left with him their legacy to the seventeen which had already been executed, Earth. There was no looking back mournfully and gave the remaining three into more docile on the past, nor forward impatiently to the hands. Of the two hundred and thirty cuts, future, but a rapturous, radiant, eternal now. the namby-pambyism, which was thought to be Every morning came heavy-freighted with its the only thing adapted to the capacity of child- own delights; every evening brought its own ren, has sunk to the level of its worthlessness, exceeding great reward. and the book now is valued only for Blake's small contribution. Of an entirely different nature were the "Inventions from the Book of Job," which are pronounced the most remarkable series of etchings on a scriptural theme that have been produced since the days of Rembrandt and Albrecht Dürer. Of these drawings we have copies in-flouting at Bacon, the great philosopher, and the second volume of the "Life," from which one can gather something of their grandeur, their bold originality, their inexhaustible and often terrible power. His representations of God the Father will hardly accord with modern taste, which generally eschews all attempt to embody the mind's conceptions of the Supreme Being; but Blake was far more closely allied to the ancient than to the modern world. His | portraiture and poetry often remind us of the childlike familiarity-not rude in him, but utterly reverent-which was frequently, and sometimes offensively, displayed in the old miracle and moral plays. So, refusing to the last to work in traces,flying out against Reynolds, the bland and popular President of the Royal Academy, yet acknowledging with enthusiasm what he deemed to be excellence,-loving Fuseli with a stedfast love through all neglect, and hurling his indignation at a public that refused to see his worth, fighting for Barry, the restorer of the antique, he resolutely pursued his appointed way unmoved. But the day was fast drawing on into darkness, The firm will never quailed, but the sturdy feet faltered. Yet, as the sun went down, soft lights overspread the heavens. Young men came to him with fresh hearts, and drew out all the freshness of his own. Little children learned to watch for his footsteps over the Hampstead hills, and sat on his knee, sunning him with their caresses. Men who towered above their time, reverencing the god within, and bowing not down to the dæmon à la mode, gathered around him, listened to his words, and did obeisance to his genius. They never teased him with unsympathetic questioning, or enraged him with blunt contradiction. They received his visions simply, and discussed them rationally, deeming them worthy of study rather than of ridicule or vulgar incredulity. To their re These drawings, during the latter part of his life, secured him from actual want. A generous friend, Mr. Linnell, himself a struggling young artist, gave him a commission, and paid him a small weekly stipend: it was sufficient to keep the wolf from the door, and that was enough so the wolf was kept away, his lintel was un-quests the spirits were docile. Sitting by his crossed, 'gainst angels. It was little to this piper that the public had no ear for his piping, -to this painter, that there was no eye for his pictures. side at midnight, they watched while he summoned from unknown realms long-vanished shades. William Wallace arose from his " gory bed," Edward I, turned back from the lilies of France, and, forgetting their ancient hate, stood before him with placid dignity. The man who built the Pyramids lifted his ungainly features from the ingulfing centuries; souls of bloodthirsty men, duly forced into the shape of fleas, lent their hideousness to his night; and the Evil One himself did not disdain to sit for his portrait to this undismayed magician. That these are actual portraits of concrete objects is not to be affirmed. That they are portraits of what Blake saw is as little to be denied. We are assured that his whole manner was that of a man copying, and not inventing, and the simplicity and sincerity of his life forbid any thought of intentional deceit. No criticism affected him. Nothing could shake his faith. "It must be right: I saw it so," was the beginning and end of his defence. The testimony of these friends of his is thst he was of all artists most spiritual, devoted, and single-minded. Ope of them says, if asked to point out among the intellectual a happy man, he should at once think of Blake. One, a young artist, finding his invention flag for a whole fortnight, had recourse to Blake. "It is just so with us," he exclaimed, turning to his wife, "is it not, for weeks together, when the visions forsake us? What do we do then, Kate?" "We kneel down and pray, Mr. Blake." To these choice spirits, these enthusiastic and confiding friends, his house was the House of the Interpreter. The little back-room, kitchen, bedroom, studio, and parlour in one, plain and neat, had for them a kind of enchantment. That royal presence lighted up the "hole" into a palace. The very walls widened with the greatness of his soul. The windows that opened on the muddy Thames seemed to overlook the river of the water of life. Among the scant furnishings, his high thoughts, set in noble words, gleamed like apples of gold in pictures of silver. Over the gulf that yawns between two worlds he flung a glorious arch, and walked tranquilly back and forth. Heaven was as much a matter-of-fact to him as earth. Of sacred things he spoke with a familiarity which, to those who did not understand him, seemed either madness or blasphemy; but his friends never misunderstood. With one exception, none who knew him personally ever thought of calling his sanity in question. To them he was a sweet, gentle, loveable man. They felt the truth of his life. They saw that "Only that fine madness still he did retain Which rightly should possess a poet's brain." Imagination was to him the great reality. The external, that which makes the chief consciousness of most men was to him only an incumbrance, and uncouth, but to be endured and made the most of. The world of the imagination was the true world. Imagination bodied forth the forms of things unknown in a deeper sense, perhaps, than the great dramatist meant. 'His poet's pen, his painter's pencil turned them to shapes, and gave to airy nothings a local habitation and a name. Nay, he denied that they were nothings. He rather asserted the actual existence of his visions,-an existence as real, though not of the same nature, as those of the bed or the table. Imagination was a kind of sixth sense, and its objects were as real as the objects of the other senses. This sense be believed to exist, though latent, in every one, and to be susceptible of development by cultivation. This is surely a very different thing from madNeither is it the low superstition of ghosts. He recounted no miracle, nothing supernatural. It was only that by strenuous effort and untiring devotion he had penetrated beyond the rank and file-but not beyond the possibilities of the rank and file-into the unseen world. Undoubtedly this power finally assumed undue proportions. In his isolatlon it led him on too unresistingly. His generation knew him not. It neglected where it should have trained, and stared where it should have studied. was not wily enough to conceal or gloss over his views. Often silent with congenial companions, he would thrust in with boisterous assertion in the company of captious opponents. Set upon by the unfriendly and the conventional, he wilfully hurled out his wild utterances, exag ness. He gerating everything, scorning all explanation or modification, goading peculiarities into reckless extravagance, on purpose to puzzle and startle, and so avenging himself by playing off upon those who attempted to play off upon him. To the gentle, the reverent, the receptive, the simple, he, too, was gentle and reverent. Nearest and dearest of all, the "beloved Kate" held him in highest honour. The ripples that disturbed the smooth flow of their early life had died away and left an unruffled current. To the childless wife, he was child, husband, and lover. No sphere so lofty, but he could come quickly down to perform the lowliest duties. The empty platter, silently placed on the dinner-table, was the signal for his descent from Parnassus to the money-earning graver. No angel-faces kept him from lighting the morning fire and setting on the breakfast-kettle before his Kitty awoke. Their life became one. Her very spirit passed into his. By day and by night her love surrounded him. In his moments of fierce inspiration, when he would arise from his bed to sketch or write the thoughts that tore his brain, she, too, arose and sat by his side, silent, motionless, soothing him only by the tenderness of her presence. Years and wintry fortunes made havoc of her beauty, but love renewed it day by day for the eyes of her lover, and their hands only met in firmer clasp as they neared the Dark River. It was reached at last. No violent steep, but a gentle and gracious slope led to the cold waters that had no bitterness for him. Shining already in the glory of the celestial city, his eyes rested upon the dear form that had stood by his side through all these years, and with waning strength he cried, "Stay! Keep as you are! You have been ever an angel to me: I will draw you." And, summoning his forces, he sketched his last portrait of the fond and faithful wife. Then, comforting her with the shortness of their separation, assuring her that he should always be about her to take care of her, he set his face stedfastly towards the Beautiful Gate. So joyful was his passage, so triumphant his march, that the very sight was to them that could behold it as if heaven itself were come down to meet him. Even the sorrowing wife could but listen enraptured to the sweet songs he chanted to his Maker's praise; but, "They are not mine, my beloved!" he tenderly cried; "No! they are not mine!" The strain he heard was of a higher mood; and continually sounding as he went, with melodious noise, in notes on high, he entered in through the gates into the City. SOCIALITY.-We are but passengers of a day, whether it is in a stage-coach or in the immense machine of the universe. In GOD's name, then, why should we not make the way as pleasant to each other as possible? Short as our journey is, it is long enough to be tedious to him who sulks in his corner, sits uneasy himself, and elbows his neighbour to make him uneasy also. SENTENCED TO DEATH. A True Story. I became acquainted with the following curious story from an old grey-headed man, who used to stand some years ago at the footway at Charing Cross with a crossing-sweeper's broom, soliciting alms from the passers-by. I have said that my informant was an old man in point of fact he was not much past middle age, but care and trouble had whitened his hair and furrowed his cheek, so that he appeared when I knew him an aged and broken man. His melancholy face and sadly wistful eyes had often attracted my attention before I learnt from a friend that there was a strange story connected with the old crossing-sweeper. I managed in time to become familiar with him, and learnt his name, and that he had been reduced to his present condition by a strange and tragical accident. What this accident was I could not for a long time persuade him to disclose, but at length, moved by my kindness and attention, he consented to come to my house and relate his story, which is the history contained in the following pages. Late on a certain dark and gusty night in November, more than forty years ago, two travellers arrived at the "Spaniard Inn," Dover, then a small tavern near the sea-side. One of the travellers was a pedlar or travelling merchant, and carried with him a well-filled pack of various goods; the other was a young man, and seemed to be an acquaintance of the pedlar, as they supped together before retiring to bed. The name of the pedlar was William Selford, and his companion was known as Philip Pycroft. The bed-rooms of these two travellers communicated with each other by means of a door secured by a bolt on either side, and to these rooms the travellers retired about twelve o'clock. On the following morning the servant whose duty it was to arouse the guests of the Inn knocked repeatedly at the door of Selford's room, but without receiving any response. Alarmed at the silence within, she summoned the landlord, who at once proceeded into the room and found it untenanted. The bed was tumbled, the pedlar's pack lay by the pillow, and the door of communication was fastened; but William Selford was gone. The landlord and his servant, without disturbing the other sleepers, at once commenced a search, and their worst fears were realized when they discovered in the passage below several marks of fresh blood; the same guilty stains were observable on the door leading to the yard. They followed the crimson track and traced it half across the stone yard to the very brink of an old well of immense depth which supplied the house with water; here the stains ceased, "Merciful Heavens !" exclaimed the landlord; "the poor fellow has been murdered for a certainty, and they've thrown him down the old well!" All was now excitement in the "Spaniard Inn;" the landlord was zealously eager to discover the murderer, and his suspicions at once pointed to the companion of the pedlar. "It's some rascal that the poor fellow picked up on the road," he said, "who has wormed himself into his confidence, and has murdered him in the night; though why he hasn't taken his pack is a mystery. Run, Jane, and fetch a constable, whilst I go and see the man myself." On entering the room of Philip Pycroft the landlord discovered him still sound asleep, and to all appearance sleeping the sleep of the just.' Mine host of the Spaniard Inn" however, awakened his guest somewhat roughly, and when Pycroft demanded what he wanted, answered that he wished to know where Mr. Selford the travelling merchant was. "Why, in his bed, is he not?" replied Pycroft, with what seemed to be well-feigned surprise. He rose from his bed as he spoke, and the pillow rolling on the floor disclosed to the astonished eyes of the landlord a silver watch and antique chain and seals, which mine host recollected to have seen the night before in Selford's possession. "Then it is as I expected!" exclaimed the landlord; "Mr. Selford has been murdered, and you are the murderer." Philip Pycroft, who was standing by the side of the bed, turned deadly pale at these ominous words, and staggered back as if about to faint. At the same moment two constables entered the room. 66 "I give this person into your charge," said the landlord, pointing to Pycroft, on very strong suspicion of having murdered a traveller in my house." "But hear me a moment," cried Philip Pycroft, in an agonized tone; "the charge is absurd; the man was my particular friend, and we parted last night on the best of terms." "It may be as you say, Master," said the landord, in a doubting tone; "but what do you say to my finding Mr. Selford's watch and chain under your pillow?" 66 'Good Heavens! How unfortunate!" exclaimed Pycroft, again becoming very pale. "But I can easily account for it-I," "You'd best say no more here," interposed one of the constables; "you'll only do yourself harm. Give me the watch, Mr. Taply, and when we've secured the prisoner, we'll come back and search for the body, and any other proofs of the murder." Philip Pycroft said no more, but having dressed himself, with a deep groan of anguish |