PREFACE THIS biography was written as a companion volume to the edition of the complete Poetical Works of William Blake which Messrs. Chatto and Windus have recently issued. Both works were prepared and put in type at the same time, in 1904; but there has been an unavoidable delay in their production. For two years they lay dormant. But as they were already in type the present writer, though author of the one work and editor of the other, could not use this time by making any substantial improvements either in the notes or the narrative. Other works have come out since, but none that attempts to take the place either of the edition of the poems or of the biography, and none that adds anything important to our knowledge of Blake's life or mind. A portraitbiography of Blake is as much needed now as it was in 1904, and by a larger group of readers, as a wider knowledge of his importance has begun to grow up. The present writer regrets not to have seen the edition of the shorter poems published by Mr. Frowde of the Clarendon Press, Oxford, under the editorship of Mr. Sampson, in time to make any use of it in the complete Works. Mr. Frowde's edition notices some few slight errors in the first full edition of Blake, that prepared by the present writer aided by Mr. W. B. Yeats for Mr. Quaritch. These slips of the pen have sometimes found their way into the present edition. Mr. Sampson had much good and careful assistance in preparing his work. He is a professional teacher of bibliography, and gave his whole attention to verbal accuracy. He took plenty of time, and has produced a work which is a monumental record of every error that the hasty pen of Blake himself or any of his previous editors had ever committed. The work shows every ailment from which every text of Blake has suffered, and its long pages of notes are like the wards of a hospital. But Mr. Sampson, so skilled in extracting motes from the eyes of his predecessors, has come before us with a beam or two in his own eye, which may be mentioned here; for it is to be hoped that no serious student of Blake will omit to get his volume, which is well printed and full of bibliographical information, though empty of interpretation or intelligent poetic study. Mr. Sampson says of some pieces in the early collection called Blake's Poetical Sketches: "Mr. W. M. Rossetti (in the Aldine edition) places the pieces in an order of his own, omitting the prose, with the exception of the Prologue to King John and Samson, which he prints as blank verse. Ellis and Yeats follow the Aldine edition, omitting Samson." This is all absurdly wrong. The pieces "printed as blank verse" are blank verse with a few irregularities, not more frequent than those in many of Blake's other poems. They were first printed as prose merely because Mrs. Barbauld, author of the once celebrated Hymns in Prose, was one of the literary people among whom Blake lived at the time of writing. Ellis and Yeats did not "follow the Aldine edition," as they had the advantage of using the exact facsimile of the original issue which was executed for Mr. Quaritch by the lithographer, Mr. Griggs, of Peckham Rye. Mr. Sampson's wildest error is, however, the statement that Ellis and Yeats omit the poem (which he miscalls prose) called Samson. almost covers pages 179 to 182 of their second volume. It was, therefore, not invisible. The Couch of Death, omitted in the Aldine edition, is also to be found on page 183. After this we are not surprised when Mr. Sampson, rashly venturing beyond the bounds of bibliography a very little way into criticism, is equally unfortunate. He accuses Ellis and Yeats of error in saying that Blake's poem called The Everlasting Gospel "terminates, for us, with a loose end," simply because he overlooks the words "for us," and considers that Ellis and Yeats "failed to see" that the last part on the MS. as we have it, which leaves off in the middle of a line with an "&c.," was not meant by Blake for the close of the poem, but implies that there was more, written on another piece of paper, which is lost to us. He considers, in spite of the words "for us" in Ellis and Yeats, that in observing, for himself, that some of the poem must be lost, he is making a critical discovery that had not been made by others before him. He is similarly elate over having noticed one of the many repetitions from Vala to be found in Jerusalem. He should not call Vala, The Four Zoas. This was an early title rejected by Blake. Mr. Sampson's most unpardonable error is in calling his collection Blake's Poetical Works, without any mention of the fact that it contains less than half of these. He excludes all those known as "Prophetic Books," as though that title (not used by Blake in all cases) ranked them as prose; neglecting to recognise the magnificent verse in which most are written, or the fact that the god of whom Blake himself claimed to be a prophet is explained to be the Poetic Genius. By the kindness of Mr. Russell, Mr. Sampson is enabled to give (in a note) these few lines by Blake, which were unknown to the present writer, or they would have been included in the biography, being his own account in brief of the story of his life. TO MY DEAREST FRIEND, JOHN FLAXMAN-THESE LINES I bless Thee, O Father of Heaven and Earth, that ever I saw John Flaxman's face. Angels stand round my spirit in Heaven, the blessed of Heaven are my friends upon Earth. When Flaxman was taken to Italy, Fuseli was given to me for a season. And now Flaxman has given me Hayley, his friend, to be mine-such my lot upon Earth. Now my lot in Heaven is this: Milton loved me in childhood and show'd me his face; Ezrah came with Isaiah the Prophet, but Shakespeare in riper years gave me his hand. Paracelsus and Behmen appeared to me: terrors appeared in the Heavens above. The American war began: All its dark horrors passed before my face |