uld not have mistaken sounds the like of which
had not, as has been said, been heard since the deaths of Herrick and
Vaughan. The merit of the contents is unequal to a degree not to be
accounted for by the mere neglect to prepare carefully for press, and
the influence of _Ossian_ is, as throughout Blake's work, much more
prominent for evil than for good. But the chaotic play of _Edward the
Third_ is not mere Elizabethan imitation; and at least half a dozen of
the songs and lyrical pieces are of the most exquisite quality--snatches
of Shakespeare or Fletcher as Shakespeare or Fletcher might have written
them in Blake's time. The finest of all no doubt is the magnificent "Mad
Song." But others--"How sweet I roamed from Field to Field" (the most
eighteenth century in manner, but showing how even that manner could be
strengthened and sweetened); "My Silks and Fine Array," beautiful, but
more like an Elizabethan imitation than most; "Memory Hither Come," a
piece of ineffable melody--these are things which at once showed Blake
to be free of the very first company of poets, to be a poet who for real
essence of poetry excelled everything the century had yet seen, and
everything, with the solitary exception of the _Lyrical Ballads_ at its
extreme end, that it was to see.

Unfortunately it was not by any means as a poet that Blake regarded
himself. He knew that he was an artist, and he thought that he was a
prophet; and for the rest of his life, deviating only now and then into
engraving as a mere breadwinner, he devoted himself to the joint
cultivation of these two gifts, inventing for the purpose a method or
vehicle of publication excellently suited to his genius, but in other
respects hardly convenient. This method was to execute text and
illustrations at once on copper-plates, which were then treated in
slightly different fashions. Impressions worked off from these by
hand-press were coloured by hand, Blake and his wife executing the
entire process. In this fashion were produced the lovely little gems of
literature and design called _Songs of Innocence_ (1789) and _Songs of
Experience_ (1794); in this way for the most part, but with some
modifications, the vast and formidable mass of the so-called
"Prophetic" Books. With the artistic qualities of Blake we are not here
concerned, but it is permissible to remark that they resemble his
literary qualities with a closeness which at once explains and is
explained by their strangely