The Portable Blake

by William Blake

  To Eternity yours,

  WILLM. BLAKE.

  TO WILLIAM HAYLEY

  24 May, 1804.

  DEAR SIR,

  I thank you heartily for your kind offer of reading, &c. I have read the book thro’ attentively and was much entertain’ d and instructed, but have not yet come to the Life of Washington. I suppose an American would tell me that Washington did all that was done before he was born, as the French now adore Buonaparte and the English our poor George; so the Americans will consider Washington as their god. This is only Grecian, or rather Trojan, worship, and perhaps will be revised [?] in an age or two. In the meantime I have the happiness of seeing the Divine countenance in such men as Cowper and Milton more distinctly than in any prince or hero. Mr. Phillips has sent a small poem; he would not tell the author’s name, but desired me to inclose it for you with Washington’s Life....

  Mr. Johnson has, at times, written such letters to me as would have called for the sceptre of Agamemnon rather than the tongue of Ulysses, and I will venture to give it as my settled opinion that if you suffer yourself to be persuaded to print in London you will be cheated every way; but, however, as some little excuse, I must say that in London every calumny and falsehood utter’d against another of the same trade is thought fair play. Engravers, Painters, Statuaries, Printers, Poets, we are not in a field of battle, but in a City of Assassinations. This makes your lot truly enviable, and the country is not only more beautiful on account of its expanded meadows, but also on account of its benevolent minds. My wife joins with me in the hearty wish that you may long enjoy your beautiful retirement.

  I am, with best respects to Miss Poole, for whose health we constantly send wishes to our spiritual friends,

  Yours sincerely,

  WILLIAM BLAKE.

  TO WILLIAM HAYLEY

  23 October, 1804.

  DEAR SIR,

  I received your kind letter with the note to Mr. Payne, and have had the cash from him. I should have returned my thanks immediately on receipt of it, but hoped to be able to send, before now, proofs of the two plates, the Head of R[omney] and The Shipwreck, which you shall soon see in a much more perfect state. I write immediately because you wish I should do so, to satisfy you that I have received your kind favour.

  I take the extreme pleasure of expressing my joy at our good Lady of Lavant’s continued recovery: but with a mixture of sincere sorrow on account of the beloved Counsellor. My wife returns her heartfelt thanks for your kind inquiry concerning her health. She is surprisingly recovered. Electricity is the wonderful cause; the swelling of her legs and knees is entirely reduced. She is very near as free from rheumatism as she was five years ago, and we have the greatest confidence in her perfect recovery.

  The pleasure of seeing another poem from your hands has truly set me longing (my wife says I ought to have said us) with desire and curiosity; but, however, “Christmas is a-coming.”

  Our good and kind friend Hawkins is not yet in town —hope soon to have the pleasure of seeing him, with the courage of conscious industry, worthy of his former kindness to me. For now! 0 Glory! and 0 Delight! I have entirely reduced that spectrous fiend to his station, whose annoyance has been the ruin of my labours for the last passed twenty years of my life. He is the enemy of conjugal love and is the Jupiter of the Greeks, an iron-hearted tyrant, the ruiner of ancient Greece. I speak with perfect confidence and certainty of the fact which has passed upon me. Nebuchadnezzar had seven times passed over him; I have had twenty; thank God I was not altogether a beast as he was; but I was a slave bound in a mill among beasts and devils; these beasts and these devils are now, together with myself, become children of light and liberty, and my feet and my wife’s feet are free from fetters. O lovely Felpham, parent of Immortal Friendship, to thee I am eternally indebted for my three years’ rest from perturbation and the strength I now enjoy. Suddenly, on the day after visiting the Truchsessian Gallery of pictures, I was again enlightened with the light I enjoyed in my youth, and which has for exactly twenty years been closed from me as by a door and by window-shutters. Consequently I can, with confidence, promise you ocular demonstration of my altered state on the plates I am now engraving after Romney, whose spiritual aid has not a little conduced to my restoration to the light of Art. O the distress I have undergone, and my poor wife with me: incessantly labouring and incessantly spoiling what I had done well. Every one of my friends was astonished at my faults, and could not assign a reason; they knew my industry and abstinence from every pleasure for the sake of study, and yet—and yet—and yet there wanted the proofs of industry in my works. I thank God with entire confidence that it shall be so no longer—he is become my servant who domineered over me, he is even as a brother who was my enemy. Dear Sir, excuse my enthusiasm or rather madness, for I am really drunk with intellectual vision whenever I take a pencil or graver into my hand, even as I used to be in my youth, and as I have not been for twenty dark, but very profitable, years. I thank God that I courageously pursued my course through darkness. In a short time I shall make my assertion good that I am become suddenly as I was at first, by producing the Head of Romney and The Shipwreck quite another thing from what you or I ever expected them to be. In short, I am now satisfied and proud of my work, which I have not been for the above long period.

  If our excellent and manly friend Meyer is yet with you, please to make my wife’s and my own most respectful and affectionate compliments to him, also to our kind friend at Lavant.

  I remain, with my wife’s joint affection,

  Your sincere and obliged servant,

  WILL BLAKE.

  TO WILLIAM HAYLEY

  4 December, 1804.

  “Proofs of my plates will wait on you in a few days. I have mentioned your proposals to our noble Flaxman, whose high & generous spirit relinquishes the whole to me—but that he will overlook and advise.... I have indeed fought thro’ a Hell of terrors and horrors (which none could know but myself) in a divided existence; now no longer divided nor at war with myself, I shall travel on in the strength of the Lord God, as Poor Pilgrim “says”. [Extracts from sale catalogue.]

  TO WILLIAM HAYLEY

  South Molton Street,

  28 Decr., 1804.

  DEAR SIR,

  The Death of so Excellent a Man as my Generous Advocate is a Public Loss, which those who knew him can best Estimate, & to those who have an affection for him like Yours, is a Loss that only can be repair’d in Eternity, where it will indeed with such abundant felicity, in the meeting Him a Glorified Saint who was a suffering Mortal, that our Sorrow is swallow’d up in Hope. Such Consolations are alone to be found in Religion, the Sun & the Moon of our Journey; & such sweet Verses as yours in your last beautiful Poem must now afford you their full reward.

  Farewell, Sweet Rose ! thou hast got before me into the Celestial City. I also have but a few more Mountains to pass: for I hear the bells ring & the trumpets sound to welcome thy arrival among Cowper’s Glorified Band of Spirits of Just Men made Perfect.

  Now, My Dear Sir, I will thank you for the transmission of ten Pounds to the Dreamer over his own Fortunes: for I certainly am that Dreamer; but tho’ I dream over my own Fortunes, I ought not to Dream over those of other Men, & accordingly have given a look over my account Book, in which I have regularly written down Every Sum I have receiv’d from you; & tho’ I never can balance the account of obligations with you, I ought to do my best at all times & in all circumstances. I find that you was right in supposing that I had been paid for all I have done; but when I wrote last requesting ten pounds, I thought it was Due on the Shipwreck (which it was), but I did not advert to the Twelve Guineas which you Lent Me when I made up 30 Pounds to pay our worthy Seagrave in part of his Account. I am therefore that 12 Guineas in your Debt: Which If I had consider’ d, I should have used more consideration, & more ceremony also, in so serious an affair as the calling on you for more Money; but, however, your kind answer to my Request makes me Doubly Thank you.

&nb
sp; The two Cartoons which I have of Hecate & Pliny are very unequal in point of finishing: the Pliny is a Sketch, tho’ admirably contrived for an Effect equal to Rembrandt. But the Hecate is a finish’d Production, which will call for all the Engraver’s nicest, attention; indeed it is more finish’d than the Shipwreck; it is everybody[‘s] favourite who have seen it, & they regularly prefer it to the Shipwreck as a work of Genius. As to the Price of the Plates, Flaxman declares to me that he will not pretend to set a price upon Engraving. I think it can only be done by some Engraver. I consulted Mr. Parker on the subject, before I decided on the Shipwreck, & it was his opinion, & he says it still is so, that a Print of that size cannot be done under 30 Guineas, if finish’d, &, if a Sketch, 15 Guineas; as, therefore, Hecate must be a Finish’ d Plate, I consider 30 Guineas as its Price, & the Pliny 15 Guineas.

  Our Dear Friend Hawkins is out of Town, & will not return till April. I have sent to him, by a parcel from Col. Sibthorpe’s, your Desirable Poetical Present for Mrs. Hawkins. His address is this—To John Hawkins, Esqr., Dallington, near Northampton. Mr. Edwards is out of Town likewise.

  I am very far from shewing the Portrait of Romney as a finish’d Proof; be assured that with our Good Flaxman’s good help, & with your remarks on it in addition, I hope to make it a Supernaculum. The Shipwreck, also, will be infinitely better the next proof. I feel very much gratified at your approval of my Queen Catherine: beg to observe that the Print of Romeo & the Apothecary annex’d to your copy is a shamefully worn-out impression, but it was the only one I could get at Johnson’s. I left a good impression of it when I left Felpham last in one of Heath’s Shakespeare: you will see that it is not like the same Plate with the worn-out Impression. My wife joins me in love & in rejoicing in Miss Poole’s continued health. I am, dear Sir,

  Yours sincerely,

  WILL BLAKE.

  P.S. I made a very high finish’d Drawing of Romney as a companion to my drawing of the head of Cowper (you remember), with which Flaxman is very much satisfied, & says that when my Print is like that I need wish it no better, & I am determin’d to make it so at least.

  W.B.

  TO WILLIAM HAYLEY

  Sth. Molton Street,

  11 December, 1805.

  DEAR SIR,

  I cannot omit to Return you my sincere & Grateful Acknowledgments for the kind Reception you have given my New Projected Work. It bids fair to set me above the difficulties I have hitherto encountered. But my Fate has been so uncommon that I expect Nothing. I was alive and in health and with the same Talents I now have all the time of Boydell‘s, Machlin’s, Bowyer’s, & other great works. I was known to them and was look’d upon by them as Incapable of Employment in those Works; it may turn out so again, notwithstanding appearances. I am prepared for it, but at the same time sincerely Grateful to Those whose Kindness & Good opinion has supported me thro’ all hitherto. You, Dear Sir, are one who has my Particular Gratitude, having conducted me thro’ Three that would have been the Darkest Years that ever Mortal Suffer’d, which were render’d thro’ your means a Mild and Pleasant Slumber. I speak of Spiritual Things, Not of Natural; of Things known only to Myself and to Spirits Good and Evil, but Not known to Men on Earth. It is the passage thro’ these Three Years that has brought me into my Present State, and I know that if I had not been with You I must have Perish’d. Those Dangers are now passed and I can see them beneath my feet. It will not be long before I shall be able to present the full history of my Spiritual Sufferings to the dwellers upon Earth and of the Spiritual Victories obtained for me by my Friends. Excuse this Effusion of the Spirit from One who cares little for this World, which passes away, whose happiness is Secure in Jesus our Lord, and who looks for suffering till the time of complete deliverance. In the meanwhile I am kept Happy, as I used to be, because I throw Myself and all that I have on our Saviour’s Divine Providence. 0 what wonders are the Children of Men! Would to God that they would consider it,—that they would consider their Spiritual Life, regardless of that faint Shadow called Natural Life, and that they would Promote Each other’s Spiritual labours, each according to its Rank, & that they would know that Receiving a Prophet as a Prophet is a Duty which If omitted is more Severely Avenged than Every Sin and Wickedness beside. It is the Greatest of Crimes to Depress True Art and Science. I know that those who are dead from the Earth, & who mocked and Despised the Meekness of True Art (and such, I find, have been the situation of our Beautiful, Affectionate Ballads), I know that such Mockers are Most Severely Punished in Eternity. I know it, for I see it & dare not help. The Mocker of Art is the Mocker of Jesus. Let us go on, Dear Sir, following his Cross: let us take it up daily, Persisting in Spiritual Labours & the Use of that Talent which it is Death to Bury, and of that Spirit to which we are called.

  Pray Present My Sincerest Thanks to our Good Paulina, whose kindness to Me shall receive recompense in the Presence of Jesus. Present also my Thanks to the generous Seagrave, In whose debt I have been too long, but perceive that I shall be able to settle with him soon what is between us. I have delivered to Mr. Sanders the 3 works of Romney, as Mrs. Lambert told me you wished to have them. A very few touches will finish the Shipwreck; those few I have added upon a Proof before I parted with the Picture. It is a Print that I feel proud of, on a New inspection. Wishing you and All Friends in Sussex a Merry & Happy Christmas,

  I remain, Ever Your Affectionate,

  WILL BLAKE and his Wife CATHERINE BLAKE.

  TO RICHARD PHILLIPS

  [June, 1806.]

  SIR,

  My indignation was exceedingly moved at reading a criticism in Bell’s Weekly Messenger (25th May) on the picture of Count Ugolino, by Mr. Fuseli, in the Royal Academy Exhibition; and your Magazine being as extensive in its circulation as that Paper, and as it also must from its nature be more permanent, I take the advantageous opportunity to counteract the widely diffused malice which has for many years, under the pretence of admiration of the arts, been assiduously sown and planted among the English public against true art, such as it existed in the days of Michael Angelo and Raphael. Under pretence of fair criticism and candour, the most wretched taste ever produced has been upheld for many, very many years; but now, I say, how its end is come. Such an artist as Fuseli is invulnerable, he needs not my defence; but I should be ashamed not to set my hand and shoulder, and whole strength, against those wretches who, under pretence of criticism, use the dagger and the poison.

  My criticism on this picture is as follows: Mr. Fuseli’s Count Ugolino is the father of sons of feeling and dignity, who would not sit looking in their parent’s face in the moment of his agony, but would rather retire and die in secret, while they suffer him to indulge his passionate and innocent grief, his innocent and venerable madness and insanity and fury, and whatever paltry, cold-hearted critics cannot, because they dare not, look upon. Fuseli’s Count Ugolino is a man of wonder and admiration, of resentment against man and devil, and of humiliation before Cod; prayer and parental affection fill the figure from head to foot. The child in his arms, whether boy or girl signifies not (but the critic must be a fool who has not read Dante, and who does not know a boy from a girl), I say, the child is as beautifully drawn as it is coloured—in both, inimitable! and the effect of the whole is truly sublime, on account of that very colouring which our critic calls black and heavy. The German flute colour, which was used by the Flemings (they call it burnt bone), has possessed the eye of certain connoisseurs, that they cannot see appropriate colouring, and are blind to the gloom of a real terror.

  The taste of English amateurs has been too much formed upon pictures imported from Flanders and Holland; consequently our countrymen are easily brow-beat on the subject of painting; and hence it is so common to hear a man say: “I am no judge of pictures.” But O Englishmen! know that every man ought to be a judge of pictures, and every man is so who has not been connoisseured out of his senses.

  A gentleman who visited me the other day, said, “I am very much surprised at the
dislike that some connoisseurs shew on viewing the pictures of Mr. Fuseli; but the truth is, he is a hundred years beyond the present generation.” Though I am startled at such an assertion, I hope the contemporary taste will shorten the hundred years into as many hours; for I am sure that any person consulting his own eyes must prefer what is so supereminent; and I am sure that any person con-suiting his own reputation, or the reputation of his country, will refrain from disgracing either by such ill-judged criticisms in future.

  Yours,

  WM. BLAKE.

  TO RICHARD PHILLIPS

  17 Sth Molton St.

  Oct 14 [1807]

  SIR

  A circumstance has occurred which has again raised my Indignation.

  I read in the “Oracle & True Briton” of Octr. 13, 1807, that a Mr. Blair, a Surgeon, has, with the Cold fury of Robespierre, caused the Police to sieze upon the Person & Goods or Property of an Astrologer & to commit him to Prison. The Man who can Read the Stars often is opressed by their Influence, no less than the Newtonian who reads Not & cannot Read is opressed by his own Reasonings & Experiments. We are all subject to Error: Who shall say, except the National Religionists, that we are not all subject to Crime?

  My desire is that you would Enquire into this Affair & that you would publish this in your Monthly Magazine. I do not pay the postage of this Letter, because you, as Sheriff, are bound to attend to it.