and the Syrens" is one of the most highly appreciated. This would be no place to criticise the art of William Etty, its merits or its defects-suffice it to say, it achieved its own peculiar position in the English school, and rivalled the glories of that of Venice. It possessed graces of conception and beauty of composition in an eminent degree; and we have no other painter, except Mulready, who so perfectly understood the management of vivid colour. This was Etty's great forte-he was the Turner of figure painters.

Etty had that wisdom which few men possess, the wisdom of a contented mind. He loved his quiet home, in his own provincial birthplace, better than the bustle of London, or the notoriety he might obtain by a residence there. His character and his talent would ensure him attention and deference anywhere, but he preferred his own nook by the old church in York. He probably felt with the old poet, that

The wind is strongest on the highest hills,

The quiet life is in the vale below."

EW persons could look upon the portrait prefixed to
Blake's illustrations of Blair's "Grave," without wish-

ing to know something of the artist there pictured; that solid, well-formed face, that expansive forehead, that firm mouth, dreamy eye, and thoughtful eyebrow, could belong to no common man. The knowledge will reward the inquirer, for probably the world of art can scarcely yield a parallel to William Blake. Life with him was a long struggle with spiritualism, which at last

completely mastered him, and the records of his last years are entirely composed of his supposed supernatural experiences.

Blake was born in London, in 1757. His father was a hosier— an unpoetic trade for a son who, at the earliest age, began to draw, and to compose verses, so he was apprenticed to Basire the engraver. He worked hard as if at a trade, but all his spare hours were devoted to allowing his imagination full scope in making drawings, and elucidating them by verse, to be hung in his mother's room, for she it was who first fostered his love of art. He soon afterwards made acquaintance with Flaxman and Stothard, both men of gentle and poetic minds, and they introduced him to many useful friends. It was at the expense of Flaxman and his early friend, the Rev. Mr. Mathew, that Blake's first work, "The Songs of Innocence," was published. But such works are "caviare to the million," and Blake toiled on with his graver for bread, employed daily in uncongenial drudgery, but enjoying all his extra hours in noting down his thoughts in sketches or verse. "My business is not to gather gold," he would say; "but to make glorious shapes, expressing godlike sentiments." He had married at the age of twenty-six, and a happier match was never made, for his wife seemed specially created for him; she idolised his genius, she was uncomplaining over the poverty of their lot, she believed in his spiritualisms, and her thoughts and actions were all devoted to his happiness. Few, indeed, are the instances of such conjugal affection as Blake enjoyed; that, and his day-dreaming, made up a life of great happiness to him, and it was all that either cared for. As an engraver he was but little employed, but a

guinea a week was considered ample by him for subsistence, and he preferred that some leisure should be taken for his own ideal pictures. In all these works there is great originality of conception, and much poetic design, and they are productions of undoubted genius.

Blake's happiest days were passed in the employ of Hayley the poet; while living near him in a cottage at Felpham, in Sussex, he engraved the plates for his edition of Cowper, as well as his original designs for Hayley's "Ballads founded on Anecdotes relating to Animals." In Mr. Park's copy of the latter work, that bibliographer writes:-"These ballads were written to show off the erratic genius of Blake, who tries to out-Fuselize Fuseli. Mr. Hayley is an enthusiastic patron of Blake." The plates to this book are the best examples of Blake's ability, as they possess good general effect and careful engraving. It was Flaxman who had introduced him to Hayley, finding he had been paid so miserably by Edwards, the bookseller, for his marginal illustrations to Young's "Night Thoughts." In the note of his arrival, written to Flaxman, he says,-"Felpham is a sweet place for study, because it is more spiritual than London. Heaven opens here on all sides her golden gates; her windows are not obstructed by vapours; voices of celestial inhabitants are more distinctly heard, and their forms more distinctly seen." This mysticism assumes a more decided tone, as he continues,-“I am more famed in heaven for my works than I could well conceive;" and then adds, "In my brain are studies and chambers filled with books and pictures of old, which I wrote and painted in ages of