As he spoke of frequently seeing Milton, I ventured to ask, half ashamed at the time, which of the three or four portraits in Hollis’s Memoirs (vols. in 4to) is the most like. He answered, “They are all like, at different ages. I have seen him as a youth and as an old man with a long flowing beard. He came lately as an old man—he said he came to ask a favour of me. He said he had committed an error in his Paradise Lost, which he wanted me to correct, in a poem or picture; but I declined. I said I had my own duties to perform.” It is a presumptuous question, I replied—might I venture to ask—what that could be. “He wished me to expose the falsehood of his doctrine, taught in the Paradise Lost, that sexual intercourse arose out of the Fall. Now that cannot be, for no good can spring out of evil.” But, I replied, if the consequence were evil, mixed with good, then the good might be ascribed to the common cause. To this he answered by a reference fo the androgynous state, in which I could not possibly follow him. At the time that he asserted his own possession of this gift of Vision, he did not boast of it as peculiar to himself; all men might have it if they would.
27/2/52.
On the 24th I called a second time on him. And on this occasion it was that I read to him Wordsworth’s Ode on the supposed pre-existent State, and the subject of Wordsworth’s religious character was discussed when we met on the 18th of Feb., and the 12th of May. I will here bring together Blake’s declarations concerning Wordsworth, and set down his marginalia in the 8vo. edit. A.D. 1815, vol. i. I had been in the habit, when reading this marvellous Ode to friends, to omit one or two passages, especially that beginning:But there’s a Tree, of many one,
lest I should be rendered ridiculous, being unable to explain precisely what I admired. Not that I acknowledged this to be a fair test. But with Blake I could fear nothing of the kind. And it was this very stanza which threw him almost into a hysterical rapture. His delight in Wordsworth’s poetry was intense. Nor did it seem less, notwithstanding the reproaches he continually cast on Wordsworth for his imputed worship of nature; which in the mind of Blake constituted Atheism.
28/2/52.
The combination of the warmest praise with imputations which from another would assume the most serious character, and the liberty he took to interpret as he pleased, rendered it as difficult to be offended as to reason with him. The eloquent descriptions of Nature in Wordsworth’s poems were conclusive proofs of atheism, for whoever believes in Nature, said Blake, disbelieves in God. For Nature is the work of the Devil. On my obtaining from him the declaration that the Bible was the Word of God, I referred to the commencement of Genesis—In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth. But I gained nothing by this, for I was triumphantly told that this God was not Jehovah, but the Elohim; and the doctrine of the Gnostics repeated with sufficient consistency to silence, one so unlearned as myself.
The Preface to the Excursion, especially the verses quoted from book i. of the Recluse, so troubled him as to bring on a fit of illness. These lines he singled out:Jehovah with his thunder, and the Choir
Of shouting Angels, and the Empyreal throne,
I pass them unalarmed.
Does Mr. Wordsworth think he can surpass Jehovah? There was a copy of the whole passage in his own hand, in the volume of Wordsworth’s poems sent to my chambers after his death. There was this note at the end: “Solomon, when he married Pharaoh’s daughter, and became a convert to the Heathen Mythology, talked exactly in this way of Jehovah., as a very inferior object of Man’s contemplations; he also passed him unalarmed, and was permitted. Jehovah dropped a tear and followed him by his Spirit into the abstract void. It is called the Divine Mercy. Sarah dwells in it, but Mercy does not dwell in Him.”
Some of Wordsworth’s poems he maintained were from the Holy Ghost, others from the Devil. I lent him the 8vo edition, two vols., of Wordsworth’s poems, which he had in his possession at the time of his death. They were sent me then. I did not recognise the pencil notes he made in them to be his for some time, and was on the point of rubbing them out under that impression, when I made the discovery.
The following are found in the 3rd vol., in the fly-leaf under the words: Poems referring to the Period of Childhood.
29/2/52.
“I see in Wordsworth the Natural man rising up against the Spiritual man continually, and then he is no poet, but a Heathen Philosopher at Enmity against all true poetry or inspiration.”
Under the first poem:And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety,
he had written, “There is no such thing as natural piety, because the natural man is at enmity with Cod.” P. 43, under the Verses “To H. C., six years old”—“This is all in the highest degree imaginative and equal to any poet, but not superior. I cannot think that real poets have any competition. None are greatest in the kingdom of heaven. It is so in poetry.” P. 44, “On the Influence of Natural Objects,” at the bottom of the page. “Natural objects always did and now do weaken, deaden, and obliterate imagination in me. Wordsworth must know that what he writes valuable is not to be found in Nature. Read Michael Angelo’s sonnet, vol. iv. p. 179 ” That is, the one beginningNo mortal object did these eyes behold
When first they met the placid light of thine.
It is remarkable that Blake, whose judgements were on most points so very singular, on one subject closely connected with Wordsworth’s poetical reputation should have taken a very commonplace view. Over the heading of the “Essay Supplementary to the Preface” at the end of the vol. he wrote, “I do not know who wrote these Prefaces; they are very mischievous, and direct contrary to Wordsworth’s own practice” (p. 341). This is not the defence of his own style in opposition to what is called Poetic Diction, but a sort of historic vindication of the unpopular poets. On Macpherson, p. 364, Wordsworth wrote with the severity with which all great writers have written of him. Blake’s comment below was, “I believe both Macpherson and Chatterton, that what they say is ancient is so.” And in the following page, “I own myself an admirer of Ossian equally with any other poet whatever. Rowley and Chatterton also.” And at the end of this Essay he wrote, “It appears to me as if the last paragraph beginning ‘Is it the spirit of the whole,’ etc., was written by another hand and mind from the rest of these Prefaces; they are the opinions of [a] landscape-painter. Imagination is the divine vision not of the world, nor of man, nor from man as he is a natural man, but only as he is a spiritual man. Imagination has nothing to do with memory.”
1826
1/3/52.
19th Feb. It was this day in connection with the assertion that the Bible is the Word of God and all truth is to be found in it, he using language concerning man’s reason being opposed to grace very like that used by the Orthodox Christian, that he qualified, and as the same Orthodox would say utterly nullified all he said by declaring that he understood the Bible in a Spiritual sense. As to the natural sense, he said Voltaire was commissioned by God to expose that. “I have had,” he said, “much intercourse with Voltaire, and he said to me, ‘I blasphemed the Son of Man, and it shall be forgiven me, but they (the enemies of Voltaire) blasphemed the Holy Ghost in me, and it shall not be forgiven to them.”’ I ask him in what language Voltaire spoke. His answer was ingenious and gave no encouragement to cross-questioning : “To my sensations it was English. It was like the touch of a musical key; he touched it probably French, but to my ear it became English.” I also enquired as I had before about the form of the persons who appeared to him, and asked why he did not draw them. “It is not worth while,” he said. “Besides there are so many that the labour would be too great. And there would be no use in it.” In answer to an enquiry about Shakespeare, “he is exactly like the old engraving —which is said to be a bad one. I think it very good.” I enquired about his own writings. “I have written,” he answered, “more than Rousseau or Voltaire—six or seven Epic poems as long as Homer and 20 Tragedies as long as Macbeth.” He shewed me his ‘Version of Genesis,’ for so it m
ay be called, as understood by a Christian Visionary. He read a wild passage in a sort of Bible style. “I shall print no more,” he said. “When I am commanded by the Spirits, then I write, and the moment I have written, I see the words fly about the room in all directions. It is then published. The Spirits can read, and my MS. is of no further use. I have been tempted to burn my MS., but my wife won’t let me.” She is right, I answered; you write not from yourself but from higher order. The MSS. are their property, not yours. You cannot tell what purpose they may answer. This was addressed ad hominem. And it indeed amounted only to a deduction from his own principles. He incidentally denied causation, every thing being the work of God or Devil. Every man has a Devil in himself, and the conflict between his Self and God is perpetually going on. I ordered of him to-day a copy of his songs for 5 guineas. My manner of receiving his mention of price pleased him. He spoke of his horror of money and of turning pale when it was offered him, and this was certainly unfeigned.
In the No. of the Gents. Magaxine for last Jan. there is a letter by Cromek to Blake printed in order to convict Blake of selfishness. It cannot possibly be substantially true. I may elsewhere notice it.
13th June. I saw him again in June. He was as wild as ever, says my journal, but he was led to-day to make assertions more palpably mischievous, if capable of influencing other minds, and immoral, supposing them to express the will of a responsible agent, than anything he had said before. As, for instance, that he had learned from the Bible that Wives should be in common. And when I objected that marriage was a Divine institution, he referred to the Bible—“that from the beginning it was not so.” He affirmed that he had committed many murders, and repeated his doctrine, that reason is the only sin, and that careless, gay people are better than those who think, etc. etc.
It was, I believe, on the 7th of December that I saw him last. I had just heard of the death of Flaxman, a man whom he professed to admire, and was curious to know how he would receive the intelligence. It was as I expected. He had been ill during the summer, and he said with a smile, “I thought I should have gone first:, He then said, ”I cannot think of death as more than the going out of one room into another.” And Flaxman was no longer thought of. He relapsed into his ordinary train of thinking. Indeed I had by this time learned that there was nothing to be gained by frequent intercourse. And therefore it was that after this interview I was not anxious to be frequent in my visits. This day he said, ”Men are born with an Angel and a Devil.” This he himself interpreted as Soul and Body, and as I have long since said of the strange sayings of a man who enjoys a high reputation, ”it is more in the language than the thought that this singularity is to be looked for.” And this day he spoke of the Old Testament as if [it] were the evil element. Christ, he said, took much after his mother, and in so far was one of the worst of men. On my asking him for an instance, he referred to his turning the money-changers out of the Temple—he had no right to do that. He digressed into a condemnation of those who sit in judgement on others. ”I have never known a very bad man who had not something very good about him.”
Speaking of the Atonement in the ordinary Calvinistic sense, he said, “It is a horrible doctrine; if another pay your debt, I do not forgive it.”
I have no account of any other call—but there is probably an omission. I took Götzenberger to see him, and he met the Masqueriers in my chambers. Masquerier was not the man to meet him. He could not humour Blake nor understand the peculiar sense in which he was to be received.
1827
My journal of this year contains nothing about Blake. But in January 1828 Barron Field and myself called on Mrs. Blake. The poor old lady was more affected than I expected she would be at the sight of me. She spoke of her husband as dying like an angel. She informed me that she was going to live with Linnell as his housekeeper. And we understood that she would live with him, and he, as it were, to farm her services and take all she had. The engravings of Job were his already. Chaucer’s “Canterbury Pilgrims” were hers. I took two copies—one I gave to C. Lamb. Barron Field took a proof.
Mrs. Blake died within a few years, and since Blake’s death Linnell has not found the market I took for granted he would seek for Blake’s works. Wilkinson printed a small edition of his poems, including the “Songs of Innocence and Experience,” a few years ago, and Monkton Mylne talks of printing an edition. I have a few coloured engravings—but Blake is still an object of interest exclusively to men of imaginative taste and psychological curiosity. I doubt much whether these mems. will be of any use to this small class. I have been reading since the Life of Blake by Allan Cuningham, vol. ii. p. 143 of his Lives of the Painters. It recognises more perhaps of Blake’s merit than might be expected of a Scotch realist.
BLAKE CHRONOLOGY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Complete Writings of William Blake, ed. Geoffrey, Keynes. London and New York, 1957; rev. ed., 1966. The standard text, with variant readings.
The Poetry and Prose of William Blake, ed. David V. Erdman and Harold Bloom. New York, 1965. A scholarly text, with Blake’s original punctuation, full textual notes, and critical commentary.
Blake Trust Facsimiles. London. Jerusalem, 1951 (black and white, 1952); Songs of Innocence, 1954; Songs of Innocence and Experience, 1955; The Book of Urizen, 1958; Visions of the Daughters of Albion. 1959; The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 1960; America, 1963; The Book of Thel, 1965; Milton, 1967. Superb color reproductions. invaluable for study of the poems.
Bentley, C. E., Jr., and Martin K. Nurmi. A Blake Bibliography. Minneapolis, Minn., 1964; London, 1965.
Gilchrist, Alexander. The Life of William Blake, Piclor Ignotus, ed. Ruthven Todd. London and New York, 1945. Everyman’s Library. The earliest (1863) and still the most important biography
Wilson, Mona. The Life of William Blake. London, 1927; rev. ed., 1948. The standard modern biography.
Binyon, Laurence. The Drawings and Engravings of William Blake. London, 1922.
Damon, S. Foster. William Blake’s Illustrations of the Book of Job. Providence, R.I., 1966.
Figgis, Darrell. The Paintings of William Blake London, 1925.
Blunt. Anthony. The Art of William Blake. New York and London, 1959.
Digby, George Wingfield. Symbol and Image in William Blake. Oxford, 1957.
Hagstrum, Jean 11. William Blake, Poet and Painter: An Introduction to the Illuminated Verse. Chicago and London, 1964.
Roe, Albert S. Blake’s Illustrations to the Divine Comedy. Princeton, N.J., and London, 1953.
Wicksteed, joseph H. Blake’s Vision of the Book of Job. London, 1910; rev. ed., 1924.
Adams, Hazard. William Blake: A Reading of the Shorter Poems. Seattle, Wash., 1963.
Blackstone, Bernard. English Blake. Cambridge, 1949. A study of the eighteenth-century intellectual background.
Bloom, Harold. Blake’s Apocalypse. New York and London. 1963. A close reading of the Prophetic Books.
Bronowski, Jacob. William Blake and the Age of Revolution. New York, 1965. Revision of A Man Without a Mask, 1943. Illaminating on the social and political background.
Damon, S. Foster. William Blake: His Philosophy and Symbols . Boston and London, 1924. A monumental work of explication.
—A Blake Dictionary Providence, R.I., 1965.
Davies, J. G. The Theology of William Blake. Oxford, 1948.
Erdman, David V. Blake: Prophet Against Empire. Princeton, N.J., and London, 1954. A detailed and illuminating study of the historical background.
Fisher, Peter F. The Valley of Vision. Toronto, 1961.
Frye, Northrop. Fearful Symmetry. Princeton, N.J., and London, 1947. A brilliant study of Blake’s mythology and symbolism.
—, ed. William Blake: Modern Essays in Criticism. Englewood Cliffs, N.J and London, 1966.
Cardner, Stanley. Infinity on the Anvil: A Critical Study of Blake’s Poetry. Oxford, 1964.
Gleckner, Robert F. The Piper and the Bard. Detroit, 1959. A close reading of the earli
er poems.
Grant, John E., ed. Discussions of William Blake. Boston, 1961.
Harper, George Mills. The Neoplatonism of William Blake. Chapel Hill, N.C.,and London, 1961.
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