tain Court, in the Strand, where he died on the
12th of August 1827. The chief work of these last years was the splendid
series of engraved designs in illustration of the book of Job. Here we
find the highest imaginative qualities of Blake's art united to the
technical means of expression which he best understood. Both the
invention and the engraving are in all ways remarkable, and the series
may fairly be cited in support of a very high estimate of his genius.
None of his works is without the trace of that peculiar artistic
instinct and power which seizes the pictorial element of ideas, simple
or sublime, and translates them into the appropriate language of sense;
but here the double faculty finds the happiest exercise. The grandeur of
the theme is duly reflected in the simple and sublime images of the
artist's design, and in the presence of these plates we are made to feel
the power of the artist over the expressional resources of human form,
as well as his sympathy with the imaginative significance of his
subject.

A life of Blake, with selections from his works, by Alexander
Gilchrist, was published in 1863 (new edition by W.G. Robertson,
1906); in 1868 A.C. Swinburne published a critical essay on his
genius, remarkable for a full examination of the Prophetic Books, and
in 1874 William Michael Rossetti published a memoir prefixed to an
edition of the poems. In 1893 appeared _The Works of William Blake_,
edited by E.J. Ellis and W.B. Yeats. But for a long time all the
editors paid too little attention to a correct following of Blake's
own MSS. The text of the poems was finally edited with exemplary care
and thoroughness by John Sampson in his edition of the _Poetical
Works_ (1905), which has rescued Blake from the "improvements" of
previous editors. See also _The Letters of_ ~~ _William Blake,
together with a Life by Frederick Tatham_; edited by A.G.B. Russell
(1906); and Basil de Selincourt, _William Blake_ (1909).
(J. C. C.)

BLAKELOCK, RALPH ALBERT (1847- ), American painter, was born in New
York, on the 15th of October, 1847. He graduated at the College of the
City of New York in 1867. In art he was self-taught and markedly
original. Until ill-health necessitated the abandonment of his
profession, he was a most prolific worker, his subjects including
pictures of North American Indian life, and landscapes--notably such
canvases as "The Indian Fisherman"; "Ta-wo-koka: or