WILLIAM BLAKE.

PAINTING, like poetry, has followers, the body of whose genius is light compared to the length of its wings, and who, rising above the ordinary sympathies of our nature, are, like Napoleon, betrayed by a star which no eye can see save their own. To this rare class belonged William Blake.

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He was the second son of James Blake and Catharine his wife, and born on the 28th of November 1757, at 28 Broad Street, Carnaby Market, London. His father, a respectable hosier, caused him to be educated for his own business, but the love of art came early upon the boy; neglected the figures of arithmetic for those of Raphael and Reynolds; and his worthy parents often wondered how a child of theirs should have conceived a love for such unsubstantial vanities. The boy, it seems, was privately encouraged by his mother. The love of designing and sketching grew upon him, and he desired anxiously to be an artist. His father began to be pleased with the notice which his son obtained, and to fancy that a painter's study might, after all, be a fitter place than a hosier's shop for one who drew designs on the backs of all the shop bills, and made sketches on the counter. He consulted an eminent artist, who asked so large a sum for instruction that the prudent shopkeeper hesitated; and young Blake declared he would prefer being an engraver-a profession which would bring bread at least, and through which he would be connected with painting. It was, indeed, time to dispose of him. In addition to his attachment to art he

had displayed poetic symptoms-scraps of paper and the blank leaves of books were found covered with groups and stanzas. When his father saw sketches at the top of the sheet and verses at the bottom, he took him away to James Basire, the engraver, in Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, and bound him apprentice for seven years. He was then

fourteen years old.

It is told of Blake that at ten years of age be became an artist, and at twelve a .poet. Of his boyish pencillings I can find no traces; but of his early intercourse with the Muse the proof lies before me in seventy pages of verse, written, he says, between his twelfth and his twentieth year, and published, by the advice of friends, when he was thirty. There are songs, ballads, and a dramatic poemrude, sometimes, and unmelodious, but full of fine thought and deep and peculiar feeling. To those who love poetry for the music of its bells, these seventy pages will sound harsh and dissonant; but by others they will be more kindly looked upon. John Flaxman, a judge in all things of a poetic nature, was so touched with many passages that he not only counselled their publication, but joined with a gentleman of the name of Matthews in the expense, and presented the printed sheets to the artist to dispose of for his own advantage. One of these productions is an address to the Muses-a common theme, but sung in no common

manner:

"Whether on Ida's shady brow,

Or in the chambers of the east,
The chambers of the sun, that now
From ancient melody have ceased;

"Whether in heaven ye wander fair,
Or the green corners of the earth,
Or the blue regions of the air,

Where the melodious winds have birth;

"Whether on crystal rocks ye rove,
Beneath the bosom of the sea,
Wandering in many a coral grove,
Fair Nine! forsaking poesie ;

"How have ye left the ancient love,
That Bards of old enjoy'd in you,—
The languid strings now scarcely move,

The sound is forced-the notes are few."

The little poem called "The Tiger" has been admired for the force and vigour of its thoughts by poets of high name. Many could weave smoother lines-few could stamp such living images:

"Tiger! Tiger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Framed thy fearful symmetry?

"In what distant deeps or skies
Burn'd that fire within thine eyes?
On what wings dared he aspire-
What the hand dared seize the fire?

"And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
When thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand formed thy dread feet?

"What the hammer! what the chain!
Knit thy strength and forged thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dared thy deadly terrors clasp?

"When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,

Did he smile, his work to see ?

Did he who made the lamb make thee?"

In the dramatic poem of "King Edward the Third there are many nervous lines, and even whole passages of high merit. The structure of the verse is often defective, and the arrangement inharmonious; but before the ear is thoroughly offended, it is soothed by some touch of deep melody and poetic thought. The princes and earls of England are conferring together on the eve of the battle of Cressy. The Black Prince takes Chandos aside, and says

"Now we're alone, John Chandos, I'll unburthen
And breathe my hopes into the burning air-
Where thousand Deaths are posting up and down,
Commission'd to this fatal field of Cressy:
Methinks I see them arm my gallant soldiers,
And gird the sword upon each thigh, and fit
The shining helm, and string each stubborn bow,
And dance to the neighing of the steeds ;-
Methinks the shout begins-the battle burns ;--
Methinks I see them perch on English crests,
And roar the wild flame of fierce war upon
The throng'd enemy."

In the same high poetic spirit Sir Walter Manny converses with a genuine old English warrior, Sir Thomas Dagworth

"O, Dagworth!-France is sick !-the very sky,
Though sunshine light it, seems to me as pale
As is the fainting man on his death-bed,
Whose face is shown by light of sickly taper-
It makes me sad and sick unto the heart;
Thousands must fall to-day."

Sir Thomas answers:

"Thousands of souls must leave this prison-house
To be exalted to those heavenly fields

Where songs of triumph, palms of victory,
Where peace, and joy, and love, and calm content,
Sit singing on the azure clouds, and strew
The flowers of heaven upon the banquet table.
Bind ardent hope upon your feet, like shoes,

Put on the robe of preparation.

The table, it is spread in shining heaven,
The flowers of immortality are blown ;

Let those who fight, fight in good steadfastness;
And those who fall shall rise in victory."

I might transcribe from these modest and unnoticed pages many such passages. It would be unfair not to mention that the same volume contains some wild and incoherent prose, in which we may trace more than the dawning of those strange, mystical, and mysterious fancies on which Blake subsequently misemployed his pencil. There is much that is weak, and something that is strong,

and a great deal that is wild and mad, and all so strangely mingled that little or no meaning can be assigned to it—it seems like a lamentation over the disasters which came on England during the reign of King John.

Though Blake lost himself sometimes in the enchanted region of song, he seems not to have neglected to make himself master of the graver, or to have forgotten his love of designs and sketches. He was a dutiful servant to Basire, and he studied occasionally under Flaxman and Fuseli; but it was his chief delight to retire to the solitude of his room, and there make drawings, and illustrate these with verses, to be hung up together in his mother's chamber. He was always at work-he called amusement idleness, sight-seeing vanity, and money-making the ruin of all high aspirations. "Were I to love money," he said, "I should lose all power of thought; desire of gain deadens the genius of man. I might roll in wealth and ride in a golden chariot were I to listen to the voice of parsimony. My business is not to gather gold, but to make glorious shapes, expressing god-like sentiments." The day was given to the graver, by which he earned enough to maintain himself respectably; and he bestowed his evenings upon painting and poetry, and intertwined these so closely in his compositions that they cannot well be separated.

When he was six-and-twenty years old he married Katherine Boutcher, a young woman of humble connections-the dark-eyed Kate of several of his lyric poems. She lived near his father's house, and was noticed by Blake for the whiteness of her hand, the brightness of her eyes, and a slim and handsome shape, corresponding with his own notions of sylphs and naïads. As he was an original

in all things, it would have been out of character to fall in love like an ordinary mortal. He was describing one evening in company the pains he had suffered from some capricious lady or another, when Katherine Boutcher said, "I pity you from my heart." "Do you pity me?" said Blake, "then I love you for that." "And I love you," said the frank-hearted lass, and so the courtship began.