lost it would have "cut off ten guineas from his next demand on Philips; from which it seems that the plates were paid at twice, as art work often was-"half on order and half on delivery," as the expression used to run.

Blake could have written the ballads much better, of course, for himself, and was rather bothered by having to thank Hayley for them. His "Mental Friend" Los told him

(as he says in Milton)

Let each his own station keep

Nor in pity false, nor in officious brotherhood where

None needs be active.

The sentence is broken. There is no grammar in it, but the meaning is obvious.

We possess one more letter of this series, though June 4, 1805, is the date of the last that is given by Gilchrist, who follows it up by four quotations from Milton and from the MS. book. They are not appropriate. Three of them belong to an earlier date, and one to a later period, when Blake began to suspect Flaxman of being seriously in the Cromek interest against him.

It

Just after the Memoir to the Quaritch edition was in type, and too late to place it in its proper position, Mr. Daniell, of Mortimer Street, London, obligingly and generously placed this letter in the present writer's hands for biographical use. is the latest known of those written to Hayley, and is written, as will be seen, in a softened mood of Christmas kindness after Blake had buried all old resentments and complaints, and when he looked back with exaggerated tenderness from the worries of London, "the city of assassinations," on the quiet fields of Felpham, and saw that Hayley had been, after all, more of a spiritual friend than he had intended or appeared to be. The whole friendship turned into suspicion and enmity through Cromek before another Christmas had gone:

DEAR SIR-I cannot omit to return you my Sincere and Grateful Acknowledgments for the kind Reception you have given to my New Projected Work. It bids fair to set me above the difficulties I have hitherto encountered. [Was this Blair's Grave?] But my fate has been so uncommon that I expect Nothing. I was alive and in health with the same Talents I now have all the time of Brydells, Macklins, Bowyers, and Other Great Works. I was known to them and looked on them as incapable of Employment in those works. It may turn out so again, notwithstanding appearances; I am prepared for it, but at the same time sincerely grateful to those whose kindness and good opinion

has supported me through all, hitherto. You, my dear sir, are one who has my Particular Gratitude, having conducted me through Three that would have been the Darkest years that ever Mortal suffered, which were rendered through your means a Mild and Pleasant Slumber. I speak of Spiritual Things, not of Natural, of things known only to myself and the Spirits Good and Evil, but Not known to Men on Earth. It is the passage through these Three Years that has brought me to my Present State, and I know that if I had not been with you I must have Perished. Those Dangers are now passed and I can see them beneath my feet. It will not be long before I shall be able to present the full history of my spiritual sufferings to dwellers upon Earth and of the Spiritual Victories obtained for me by my Friends. Excuse this Effusion of the Spirit from One who cares little for this World which passes away, whose happiness is Secure in Jesus our Lord, and who looks for suffering until the time of complete deliverance. In the meanwhile I am kept Happy as I used to be because I throw Myself and all that I have on our Saviour's Divine Providence. O what Wonders are the Children of Men! Would to God that they would consider it that they would consider their Spiritual Life regardless of that faint Shadow called Natural Life, and that they would Promote Each other's Spiritual labours, Each according to his Rank, and that they would know that Receiving a Prophet as a Prophet is a Duty which, if omitted, is more Severely Avenged than Every Sin and Wickedness beside. It is the Greatest of Crimes to Depress True Art and Science. I know that those who are dead from the Earth, and who mocked at and Despised the Meekness of True Art (and such I find have been the situation of our Beautiful and Affectionate Ballads), I know that such Mockers are Most Severely Punished in Eternity. I know it, for I see it and dare not help. The Mocker of Art is the Mocker of Jesus. Let us go on, my Dear Sir, following His Cross. Let us take it up daily, Persisting in Spirit Labours and the Use of that Talent which it is Death to Bury, and of that Spirit to which we are called.

Pray Present my sincerest thanks to our Good Paulina, whose Kindness to Me shall receive recompense in the presence of Jesus. Present also my thanks to the generous Seagrave, in whose debt I have been too long, but perceive that I shall be able to settle with him soon what is between us. I have delivered to Mr. Saunders the 3 works of Romney, as Mrs. Lambert (said) to me you wished to have them. A very few touches will finish the Shipwreck. Those few I have added upon a Proof before I parted with the Picture. It is a Print that I feel proud of on a New inspection. Wishing you and all friends in Surrey a Merry and Happy Christmas.-I remain, Ever Your Affectionate WILL BLAKE and his Wife CATHERINE BLAKE.

South Molton Street,

December 11th, 1805.

This closes the Hayley and the Flaxman friendship. Blake, with a burst of fury, decided that they were not friends at all, since they had been, while pretending to patronise him, quietly conspiring to reduce his prices, when he was looking twice at each mouthful of bread that he ate.

Until we have understood this, the story of Jerusalem must wait, though Gilchrist takes it at this point, and produces an unfortunate chapter, beginning with a repetition of the old error that Jerusalem was written at Felpham, and going on to treat of Milton, giving extracts among which are included the lines which tell us that Blake was especially given his cottage at Felpham that he might write this poem there. Gilchrist also quietly describes Milton as a poem in two books. Perhaps he never saw the title-page of the copy now in the British Museum where Blake has engraved in Arabic numerals the number twelve-" 12 books." The numerals are half-an-inch in height, and cannot be mistaken.

The trouble that led to the division between Hayley and Flaxman and Blake had its sources in what was said and done as far back as the year of Blake's first coming to Felpham. Flaxman, who introduced him, was also consulted by Hayley about patronising Caroline Watson. He wrote to Hayley about this on June 18, 1800; he is cautious, and not at all desirous to seem to be a go-between where a woman is concerned-Hayley being a man of gallantry. It might be unpleasant afterwards. Flaxman is Greek enough to

remember Pandarus.

DEAR AND KIND FRIEND-Notwithstanding your apparent determination and reasons given for having the drawing engraved by the lady you have mentioned, I cannot communicate the commission until I have given my reasons for delay. I, like you, delight in paying a large portion of preference and respect to female talent. But if I am to execute a commission for a friend it ought to be done faithfully, with a view to his satisfaction and advantage, at least not to his hurt, and really I have seen two children's heads, with the above lady's name, lately copied from a picture by Sir William Beechey, but so miserably executed that a similar engraving instead of being a decoration would be a blemish to your book. I am very sure that the fault could not be in the pictures, for the painter is a man of great merit. If after this information you still continue in the same resolution as at first I will deliver your commission, but there my interference must cease, and all further communication must be between the engraver and yourself, because I foresee that the conclusion of such an engagement must be unsatisfactory to all parties concerned.

From which we see again how habitually Hayley was not only ready to be useful to his friends, but to make them useful also, and that Flaxman knew his way of sending people on errands. Hayley, however, is determined to employ Caroline Watson, and does so. But it is not until April 25, 1805, that Blake seems to know about it. He then learns that she is to do a head of Cowper that he has already

done, and takes this affront quite impersonally, without resentment, looking at it altogether in the artistic spirit,for he then writes:

The idea of seeing an engraving of Cowper by Caroline Watson is, I assure you, a pleasing one to me. It will be highly gratifying to see another copy by another hand, and not only gratifying but improving, which is much better.

Two more sentences from this letter may be added-one to show Blake's austere renunciation of popular amusements at this busy time, and his resistance of fashionable enthusiasm, the other to indicate how high Fuseli and Flaxman stood then in the world of art:

The town is mad. Young Roscius (Master Betty), like all prodigies, is the talk of everybody. I have not seen him, and perhaps never may. I have no curiosity to see him, as I well know what is within the compass of a boy of fourteen; and as to real acting, it is, like historical painting, no boy's work.

Fuseli is made Master of the Royal Academy. Banks the sculptor is gone to his eternal home. I have heard that Flaxman means to give a lecture on sculpture at the Royal Academy on the occasion of Banks's death. He died at the age of seventy-five of a paralytic stroke, and I conceive that Flaxman stands without a competitor in sculpture.

Flaxman had already introduced to Hayley a man who was to be one of Blake's bitterest aversions. This was Cromek, who had been educated as an engraver, but who had become a publisher. He is now very well known through Blake, though he once boasted that Blake was hardly known at all except through him. He was, as Gilchrist tells us, a native of Hull, had been a pupil of Bartolozzi, and had engraved many plates for books after Stothard. He found that engraving did not suit his health, and, with little or no capital, he decided to begin publishing. He knew Blake, it may be inferred, through Stothard, to whom Blake had been introduced many years before, in his apprentice days, by Trotter, to whom he had given lessons. Trotter was an engraver who used to draw patterns for calico-printers. He had also engraved a plate or two after Stothard. It is Stothard from whom we learn that the engraving made of the "Portrait of Queen Philippa from her Monument," which he spoke highly of long afterwards when hearing of Blake's death, was really Blake's, though it bears beneath it the signature of Blake's master, Basire.

Cromek, knowing of the success of the Young's Night