the friends attending them; and Blake does not seem to have joined any other social circle for some years. One of the most useful acquaintances he made at this time was that of Captain Butts, who became his chief patron, purchasing most of his books and drawings, and paying a fair price for them, though Blake always disliked receiving money for his work. But what most attached him to Butts was that the latter never offered to criticise his work, but allowed him to treat his subjects as he pleased, without attempting to interfere with the artist. Naturally he was always welcomed as a friend in Blake's house; and it is in letters written to him, in prose and verse, that we find most of Blake's personal statements regarding his art and his life. At last, Butts found himself the possessor of so many of Blake's drawings that he had no space left for more of them.

Such a client was indeed a fortune to the artist, whose pecuniary position was far from prosperous. He produced few pictures of any importance during this period: some works for the Academy, illustrations for David Simple and for Bürger's Lenore; Nebuchadnezzar, The Lazar House, The Creation of Adam, and a series of drawings, on which he spent many months, to illustrate Young's Night Thoughts. There were no less than 537 in number. Each illustrated one page of the book, covering the very large margin, and surrounded, in the original, by a red border. Unhappily, only a very few of these about fifty-were published in 1797. They are all extremely remarkable.

In literary work, on the contrary, this period was very rich. And Blake's books are works of art as well as of literature, owing as much to the engraver as to the poet. This is the reason of their extraordinary value at the present day. Mr. Mathew and his friends had paid for the printing of the Poetical Sketches in 1783, but nothing more was to be expected from them. Blake had now, however, many poems ready for publication, and either was too poor to get them printed, or preferred some other way of publishing them. And, as he was able to engrave them himself, he adopted this course. The process he employed has been minutely described by his biographers, and was entirely original.

"It consisted," says Gilchrist, "in a species of engraving in relief both words and designs. The verse was written and the designs and marginal embellishments outlined on the copper with an impervious liquid, probably the ordinary stopping-out varnish of engravers. Then all the white parts or lights, the remainder of the plate that is, were eaten away

with aquafortis or other acid, so that the outline of letter and design was left prominent, as in stereotype. From these plates he printed off in any tint, yellow, brown, blue, required to be the prevailing, or ground colour in his facsimiles; red he used for the letterpress. The page was then coloured up by hand in imitation of the original drawing, with more or less variety of detail in the local hues." 1

Finally, the pages were stitched together by Mrs. Blake, who often assisted in the colouring also, and the book was complete, being thus produced, except for the paper, entirely by themselves. Most of Blake's works were issued in this manner; the pages being of various sizes, often quite small (since copper was expensive and the plates had to be used economically) with text and pictures intermingled, and colour completing the effect produced by the poet and artist.

Among the works thus produced were, in 1789, Songs of Innocence, The Book of Thel, The Ghost of Abel (a single page engraved now, but not issued until 1822) and possibly Tiriel, though the last-named is only known to exist in manuscript. In 1790, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. In 1793, The Gates of Paradise, Visions of the Daughters of Albion, and America: A Prophecy. In 1794, Songs of Experience, Europe and The Book of Urizen. In 1795, The Song of Los, The Book of Ahania, and The Book of Los.

There was also printed, in 1791, the first instalment of a poem entitled The French Revolution; but this does not seem to have been published, the unique copy found quite recently being apparently a printer's proof.

All these were poems or collections of poems, comparatively short. They found very few purchasers, at the price of one or two guineas for each copy. To-day, facsimiles of them cost three or four times as much; and the originals are priceless.

The longer books were not to appear until much later. It was probably about 1797, however, that Blake began his great poem, Vala, the composition of which accounts for his silence during several years, and which has only lately found its way into print. He had, in the meantime, made the acquaintance of Hayley, which brought about an important change in his life.

William Hayley (1745-1820), now almost forgotten, save for a little of his dust, not yet shaken from Blake's shoe," 2 was then a fashionable writer, destined, however, to outlive his popularity.

1 Gilchrist: William Blake: chap. ix.

2 Ellis and Yeats: William Blake, Vol. I, chap. vi.

Among his works were a poem in six cantos, The Triumphs of Temper (1781); various essays (on History, on Epic Poetry, on Old Maids, on Sculpture (1780-1800), and a Life of Milton (1804). He was rich, popular among the great, and generous; and had obtained from Pitt a pension for Cowper, of whom he was a friend and admirer. At the time of his acquaintance with Blake, he was preparing for the press his Life of Cowper, the most important biography of the poet, which appeared with great success in 1803. Though devoid of imagination, he had some judgment and good sense. A bad poet, and a vain, restless man, fond of posing as a celebrity, he was at the same time affectionate and always ready to help his friends; and, recognising Blake's merit, he was moved, partly by generosity and partly by self-interest, to offer him the work of engraving the plates which were to illustrate his Life of Cowper. Blake accepted the offer; and, to be near his patron, took a small thatched cottage at Felpham, near Bognor in Sussex, where Hayley had a house. For this cottage, which was not far from the Downs, and quite close to the sea, Blake paid twenty pounds a year, and there he and his wife remained for three years. He regarded Hayley as his patron, assisted him with his book, accepted orders from him for the work to be done, and learned Greek under his direction." It was an understood thing that Blake had come as a man of genius obeying the call of a man of taste.” 1 For a time, all went well. The fresh air of the country, the nearness of the sea, only a few minutes' walk from his house, were for Blake a novel and enlivening change from the gloomy and stifling atmosphere of Lambeth. He seemed to be transported to Heaven, and his first letters from Felpham are full of enthusiasm.

Our cottage is more beautiful than I thought it, and more convenient. It is a perfect model for cottages, and I think for palaces of magnificence. . . . No other formed house can ever please me so well; nor shall I ever be persuaded, I believe, that it can be improved either in beauty or use. 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 most distinctly heard, and their forms more distinctly seen; and my cottage is also a shadow of their houses. . . . And now begins a new life, because another covering of earth is shaken off." "

1 Ellis and Yeats: William Blake, Vol. I, chap. vi. 2 Letter to Flaxman: 21 Sept. 1800.

His wife, and his sister, who lived with them, were both as happy as himself. But a man of independent genius, incapable of restricting his intellect or his will, cannot long endure any patronage, however protective. Blake was soon to see that his state was less celestial than he thought. The widening of his horizon gave a fresh impulse to his genius, filled his soul with visions hitherto unknown, and opened to him new ideas and a new field of work. At Felpham, Vala was continued, and there he also conceived and began the two great poems which he himself regarded as his most important works, the Jerusalem and the Milton. For their writing, he needed leisure and freedom of mind. But, just at the moment when he felt his inspiration stirring with new force in him, Hayley would come and give him some servile and mechanical piece of work to do ; engravings for his books, drawings for purchasers, all requiring to be carried out to order, or in accordance with the fashion of the day. We are even told that he was once asked to paint a fire-screen for a lady: but this he absolutely refused to do. However, there were the necessities of life to be satisfied he had to gain his daily bread, and, as a consequence, to spend most of his time in what he called drudgery. This was quite enough to chill his enthusiasm and make him alter his opinion of Hayley.

Soon, his paradise grew gloomy, and he was only sorry that he could not at once return to London. In 1803 he wrote to Butts :

Mr. Hayley approves of my designs as little as he does of my poems, and I have been forced to insist on his leaving me, in both, to my own self-will; for I am determined to be no longer pestered with his genteel ignorance and polite disapprobation. . . . Indeed, by my late firmness I have brought down his affected loftiness, and he begins to think I have some genius; as if genius and assurance were the same thing!

And about the same time he wrote in his note-book:

When Hy finds out what you cannot do,

That is the very thing he'll set you to.1

It was high time, therefore, for Blake and Hayley to part, if their former friendship was not to change into cold neglect on the one side and proud contempt, mixed with aversion, on the other.

One incident belonging to this period deserves notice, and that is Blake's encounter with the soldier Scholfield, which came near to costing him dear. His gardener had, without notice, sent this soldier 1 Rossetti MS.: No. 8o. (Sampson ed.)

to do some light work in the garden attached to the cottage. Blake, seeing him there, first civilly desired him to go, and then, when the man returned an insolent refusal, forcibly ejected him. Scholfield retaliated by accusing Blake of having insulted the king and expressed a wish to see England invaded by Bonaparte. Blake's advanced ideas and his hatred of militarism might well have given some colour to the charge; and he was arrested and brought before the magistrates. Hayley became bail for him, and at his trial (11th January, 1804) gave evidence in his favour; and Blake was acquitted amidst the applause of the court. This circumstance revived all their former friendship, but did not prevent Blake from returning to London the same year. He established himself first in South Molton Street, near Oxford Street, and a few years later moved to Fountain Court, in the Strand. Separated from Hayley, he now only remembered his patron's generosity, his own happiness at Felpham, and the moments of enthusiasm he had experienced there. In December, 1804, he wrote to Hayley :

My wife joins me in wishing you a merry Christmas. Remembering our happy Christmas at lovely Felpham, our spirits seem still to hover round our sweet cottage. I have said seem, but am persuaded that distance is nothing but a phantasy. We are often sitting by our cottage fire, and often we think we hear your voice calling at the gate. Surely these things are real and eternal in our eternal mind, and can never pass

away.

It was not until later that he was to find Hayley among his real enemies.

With his return to London begins the third and last period of his life. The results of his dreams and of the happy hours spent at Felpham now made themselves felt. The long walks on the seashore had filled his spirit with fancies and visions. He had returned charged with ideas for new work. And moreover his genius, perhaps because of Hayley's direct opposition, had become more clearly conscious of itself. Whatever the cause, Blake from this moment wrote as if he had at last really found his way; he felt not only the desire to produce, but the delight of the artist in his own creations. All the years that followed were marked by some new work, either from his pen or from his graver.

This period witnessed the publication of the two long poems which were begun at Felpham and occupied several years in their composition; the Jerusalem and the Milton. The former consists of a

D