the public, which
found more edification in the drunken courtship and brutal squabbles of
"the First Gentleman of Europe" than in Songs of Innocence or Sculptures
for Eternity. The poet's own friends constituted his public, and
patronized him to the extent of their power. The volume of Songs he sold
for thirty shillings and two guineas. Afterwards, with the delicate and
loving design of helping the artist, who would receive help in no other
way, five and even ten guineas were paid, for which sum he could hardly
do enough, finishing off each picture like a miniature. One solitary
patron he had, Mr. Thomas Butts, who, buying his pictures for thirty
years, and turning his own house into "a perfect Blake Gallery, often
supplied the painter with his sole means of subsistence." May he have
his reward! Most pathetic is an anecdote related by Mr. H.C. Robinson,
who found himself one morning sole visitor at an Exhibition which Blake
had opened, on his own account, at his brother James's house. In view of
the fact that he had bought four copies of the Descriptive Catalogue,
Mr. Robinson inquired of James, the custodian, if he might not come
again free. "Oh, yes! _free as long an you live_!" was the reply of the
humble hosier, overjoyed at having so munificent a visitor, or a visitor
at all.

We have a sense of incongruity in seeing this defiant, but sincere
pencil employed by publishers to illustrate the turgid sorrow of Young's
"Night Thoughts." The work was to have been issued in parts, but got no
farther than the first. (It would have been no great calamity, if the
poem itself had come to the same premature end!) The sonorous mourner
could hardly have recognized himself in the impersonations in which he
was presented, nor his progeny in the concrete objects to which they
were reduced. The well-known couplet,

"'Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours
And ask them what report they've borne to heaven,"

is represented by hours "drawn as aerial and shadowy beings," some of
whom are bringing their scrolls to the inquirer, and others are carrying
their records to heaven.

"Oft burst my song beyond the bounds of life"

has a lovely figure, holding a lyre, and springing into the air, but
confined by a chain to the earth. Death puts off his skeleton, and
appears as a solemn, draped figure; but in many cases the clerical poet
is "taken at his word," with a literalness more startling than
dignified.

Introduced by Fl