the Elect, who cannot believe in Eternal Life until they are born again; the Reprobate, who have always held the true faith; and the Redeemed, who live in fear and doubt. The first class seems to consist of the priests and saints who, seeing only the dead Law, and believing themselves to be the chosen of God, have need of the enlightenment which death will bring them. In the second are the true prophets and the men of genius, whom the world condemns because they cannot submit themselves to the Law. The third class is made up of those devout souls whom the priests have seduced into accepting their doctrine of the Redemption, and who can only find salvation with difficulty. Los destroys the false gods, as time does away with false doctrines. Then all his sons create bodies, which they endow with animal forms: some of them build the minutes, the hours and the ages, while others stretch out the sky like a tent, and unfold the universe that each man owns, the space he can see with his own eyes. To-day they are still at their work; and the universe is ever being created by the poetic genius.

Thou seest the Constellations in the deep and wondrous Night.
They rise in order and continue their immortal courses

Upon the mountains and in vales with harp and heavenly song,

With flute and clarion; with cups and measures fill'd with foaming wine.
Glitt'ring the streams reflect the Vision of beatitude,

And the calm Ocean joys beneath and smooths his awful waves:
These are the Sons of Los, and these the Labourers of the Vintage. 1

The third section shows the working of two forces in Blake's spirit : that of Milton, who has already entered into him, and that of Ololon, who descends from Beulah to inspire him. The journey of Ololon to Blake's cottage is described at length. She traverses and then leaves Beulah, the land of rest; and all Beulah weeps at her going. We hear this harmonious lamentation. The nightingale begins his song in springtime; the lark rises from the waving cornfield. All the birds awake all the flowers open and exhale their scents.2 All this is "a Vision of the lamentation of Beulah over Ololon "; and with these songs is mingled the voice of God, denouncing the sinfulness of those who created the laws of selfishness, and promising redemption through Milton.

Ololon next visits Ulro and the kingdom of the dead, the chaotic universe of the Zoas, and finally comes to Blake's house at Felpham. 1 Milton p. 25, 66. 2 Milton, p. 31, 28. (Quoted in Chapter XVII.)

Here we see a very curious instance of the way in which the poet regarded the symbolism of nature. Ololon descends to Los and Enitharmon, entering the world of time and space, and seats herself by a fountain, close to a plant of wild thyme.

The Wild Thyme is Los's Messenger to Eden, a mighty Demon,
Terrible, deadly and poisonous, his presence in Ulro dark.
Therefore he appears only a small Root creeping in grass,
Covering over the Rock of Odours his bright purple mantle,
Beside the Fount above the Lark's Nest in Golgonooza.
Luvah slept here in death, and here is Luvah's empty Tomb.

The lark also has his part to play. It is he who conveys Los's messages from Eden to our world. One lark rises from his nest of wild thyme in Golgonooza, soaring until he meets a second, to whom he gives Los's message. The second communicates it to a third, and so on. Finally, we see a lark mounting up from the earth to the zenith, where he meets the last of the invisible messengers, and descends to us again, bringing us the words of the Eternals. Thus it is that Blake sees Ololon in his cottage garden. He welcomes her, and bids her comfort his wife, his " Shadow of Delight," who is "sick with fatigue."

But Ololon desires to see Milton, whose "shadow

appears at her call; and thereupon a marvellous vision unfolds itself before Blake's eyes.

Descending down into my Garden, a Human Wonder of God,
Reaching from heaven to earth, a Cloud and Human Form,
I beheld Milton with astonishment, and in him beheld

The Monstrous Churches of Beulah, the Gods of Ulro dark,
Twelve monstrous dishumanised terrors, Synagogues of Satan. 2

He proceeds to enumerate the Twenty-seven Churches, the founders of religions from Adam to Luther (all these forming the covering Cherub," or false doctrine) and also the " Twelve Gods " who are the Spectres of Satan. Then he stands, with Milton, in Satan's bosom. He sees the Satanic universe, the mystery of Babylon, and hears the dispute between Satan and Milton, the former proclaiming his divinity, and the latter preaching the gospel of selfannihilation, and evoking a vision of Albion's awakening. Then Satan and his Spectre fly away across the sea like a storm-cloud, leaving Blake alone with Milton and Ololon. Ololon's eyes are opened: she 1 Milton, p. 35, 54. Milton, p. 37, 13.

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sees how, by her poetry, she has helped to create Natural Religion, and she repents. This leads to the appearance of Rahab, or Moral Virtue, seeking to gain dominion over the Muse: and Milton must needs set forth all the doctrines of the true poet and prophet, and explain his functions.

To cast off Rational Demonstration by Faith in the Saviour
To cast off the rotten rags of Memory by Inspiration,

To cast off Bacon, Locke and Newton from Albion's covering.
To take off his filthy garments and clothe him with Imagination,

To cast aside from Poetry all that is not Inspiration

That it no longer shall dare to mock with the aspersion of Madness. 1

Then Ololon realises that she is the opposite of Milton, his Emanation; and she flies "into the depths of Milton's Shadow." Henceforth, the imagination will reign supreme in poetry. Man is regenerated through it: the eight Eternals appear before Blake as one man-Jesus. Albion and his cities arise upon their thrones to judge the earth.

But at this moment the poet awakes from his trance. He is once more in his " vegetative body," and his sweet" Shadow of Delight stands trembling beside him. All is ended. The lark soars heavenward from Felpham's vale, and the wild thyme sheds its perfume over the hills of Wimbledon. Los and his sons make ready to reap the great harvest of the nations. Poetry, restored to new life, is to regenerate the whole world.

This last of Blake's poems contains fewer beautiful passages than any of its predecessors: the finest being the description of the awakening of the birds and the flowers, quoted above. 2 On the other hand Milton is not so encumbered as Jerusalem with obscure symbolism and tangled narrative. Blake seems, among other things, to have abandoned the symbolic geography which was responsible for so many difficulties. Moreover, he often tries, in this book, to explain his myths, and to give a clear statement of his views on the subject of poetry. Was this a reversion to some simpler mythological system? Was his mind coming back to a saner conception of literature? Did the poet, when he spoke of poetry, forget his obligation to express himself only in enigmatic parables? There are certain pages in Milton that almost tempt us to take this view.

Nevertheless, the book as a whole, composed as it is of visions foreshadowed in earlier poems, of phrases and theories that have 1 Milton, p. 43, 3. 2 Chapter XVII.

often been made use of before, forces on us the question whether Blake's consciousness of his prophetic mission had not by this time entirely destroyed the poetic faculty so abundant in his earlier years, and now become so attenuated. Vala was a marvel of epic poetry obscured by clouds of mysticism: Jerusalem a masterpiece of enigmatic symbolism, of dim visionary beauty, lighted by frequent gleams of superb poetry. In Milton the mysticism has become much less profound, but the poetry is much less splendid. If we except a few pages, we find here only doctrines that have grown dull with repetition and pictures reminding us of others that we have already seen. Was this indeed the end, this mingling of an enfeebled mysticism with the ashes of the poetic fire that it has itself extinguished? What could have come after this? We cannot say. Milton is the last example of Blake's poetry that we possess. The remaining years of his life were entirely consecrated to those two superb creations of his pencil and his graver: the illustrations for the Book of Job and those for the Divine Comedy.

XXII: HIS LITERARY MODELS AND HIS IMITATORS

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UCH a chapter as the present one must be almost superfluous, since it can only show that Blake really had no models and no imitators. His poetry is distinguished by so much originality; it is the expression of a state of mind so singular, and the result of such imaginative power, joined with such a lack of the more solid qualities possessed by most writers, that it remains unique in English literature.

There have been many mystics, before and after him; but very few of them have possessed the poetic spirit which gave his visions their colour and vitality. Of all the poets, no other has ever disregarded so completely the most elementary laws of composition, nor manifested such gross defects: none has ever torn himself so entirely away from this world, in order to draw his readers into the quicksands of mysticism. He followed no school, nor did he found any, either in poetry or in painting.

This does not mean that he was altogether uninfluenced by others, that he evolved his art with no aid from external sources, and ignored all the literature of the past. Though he had neither means nor leisure for much reading, he was not an ignorant man. All the great names and the great works of English literature were known to him, if not absolutely familiar. The comments that he has here and there made upon them-his criticism of Chaucer, his invectives against Pope, even his imitations of Ossian-are sufficient proof of this. He does not seem to have been well acquainted with the Greek and Latin classics; but he could read the Italian of Dante, and the Greek of the New Testament. His knowledge of Boehme, Swedenborg and the Bible was profound.

Of the mystical writings which had preceded his own in English literature, he appears to have been almost entirely ignorant. It is remarkable that no trace of any of them is to be found in his works. He must certainly have been unacquainted with the English visionaries of the Middle Ages; with that Saxon dreamer who saw, in his "Vision of the Cross," the crucifix growing to such gigantic size that it reached from earth to heaven, and dripping with blood; or Cadmon, who also was visited by angels, and who sung of the

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