combined method of production. That Blake
was not entirely sane has never been doubted except by a few fanatics of
mysticism, who seem to think that the denial of complete sanity implies
a complete denial of genius. And though he was never, in the common
phrase, "incapable of managing" such very modest affairs as were his,
the defect appears most in the obstinate fashion in which he refused to
perfect and co-ordinate his work. He could, when he chose and would give
himself the trouble, draw quite exquisitely; and he always drew with
marvellous vigour and imagination. But he would often permit himself
faults of drawing quite inexplicable and not very tolerable. So, too,
though he had the finest gift of literary expression, he chose often to
babble and still oftener to rant at large. Even the _Songs of Innocence
and Experience_--despite their double charm to the eye and the ear, and
the presence of such things as the famous "Tiger," as the two
"Introductions" (two of Blake's best things), and as "The Little Girl
Lost"--show a certain poetical declension from the highest heights of
the _Poetical Sketches_. The poet is no longer a poet pure and simple;
he has got purposes and messages, and these partly strangle and partly
render turbid the clear and spontaneous jets of poetry which refresh us
in the "Mad Song" and the "Memory." And after the _Songs_ Blake did not
care to put forth anything bearing the ordinary form of poetry. We
possess indeed other poetical work of his, recovered in scraps and
fragments from MSS., and some of it is beautiful. But it is as a rule
more chaotic than the _Sketches_ themselves; it is sometimes defaced
(being indeed mere private jottings never intended for print) by
personality and coarseness; and it is constantly puddled with the jargon
of Blake's mystical philosophy, which, borrowing some of its method from
Swedenborg and much of its imagery and nomenclature from _Ossian_,
spreads itself unhampered by any form whatever over the Prophetic
Books. The literary merit of these in parts is often very high, and
their theosophy (for that is the best single word for it) is not seldom
majestic. But despite the attempts of some disciples to evolve a regular
system from them, students of philosophy as well as of literature are
never likely to be at much odds as to their real character. "Ravings"
they are not, and they are very often the reverse of "nonsense." But
they are the work of a man who in the first