In Jerusalem, page 91, line 11: He who envies or calumniates, which is murder and cruelty, The whole context of the ninety-first page should be read with this. In Milton also, in the extra page 32, we read: The idiot reasoner laughs at the Man of Imagination And from laughter proceeds to murder by undervaluing calumny. Flaxman's view of such expressions is found in a letter dated August 2, 1804, to Hayley, which begins about a Cupid and Psyche by Romney and goes on, evidently to remove from Hayley's mind a possible suspicion that Cromek was not recommended to him as a good engraver, but in order to shift a charitable burden from Flaxman's own shoulders, or perhaps that he was going to have a commission for doing so, and was therefore nothing less than a paid tout: .. And, above all, I beg you will remember that I had no motive of interest in the mention of Mr. Cromek, for he is abundantly employed and sought after, and unless you think such engraving as (that of) the specimens he sent will be creditable to your book, you will do wrong to employ him. Concerning Caroline Watson's engraving, I should have acted more judiciously if I had desired you to see her last works for the education of your own judgement, rather than have sent any opinion of my own. I confess my own want of taste in (sic) Richardson's portrait, for though it is delicately engraved it don't come up to my idea of Highmore's portraits. Notwithstanding (this) if you are inclined to have a plate engraved by this artist, the only sentiment I can feel on the occasion will be satisfaction at seeing an ingenious lady engaged in a respectable employment. This is the only kind of "atonement" which seems requisite for an opinion delivered upon works publicly exhibited. It is here, of course, that we gather that Hayley has evidently been taking up arms for Caroline Watson in a knight-errant spirit, and hacking at Flaxman with swords taken from Blake's armoury, for the letter goes on: With respect to Blake's remark upon "assassinations," I suppose he may have been acquainted with wretches capable of such practices, but I desire it may be understood that I am not one of them, and though I do not deal in "barbarous stilettoes" myself (Hayley has been improving on Blake while quoting him), I am willing to acknowledge the benevolence and soundness of Blake's general observations, as well as the point and keenness with which it was applied: but this was only a poetic jeu d'esprit which neither did, nor intended to do, harm. So Flaxman puts aside Hayley's foolish gallantry and petulant attempt to sow mischief between him and Blake. But it must have rankled. The letter goes on with Olympian calm : Now to serious business. I must shortly go once or twice to Winchester and Cambridge. Where I shall go, how long I shall stay, or when return I do not know, but in case you should have reason to consult Mr. Cromak (sic) in the meantime, who is gone to Yorkshire for six weeks or a month, I have sent you his address, No. 37 Charles Street, opposite the New river head, Tottenham Court Road. Nancy unites with me in kindest wishes, and I have the honour to remain, your much obliged and affectionate, JOHN FLAXMAN. It is clear that if we are to use the French maxim, Cherchez la femme, when trying to understand the estrangement that ended Blake's affection for Hayley, we must seek her in Caroline Watson-not, as Mr. W. M. Rossetti maintained, in Mrs. Blake. Hayley's attempt to "murder the Holy One" in Blake, "by undervaluing calumny," is to be traced from Caroline, through Flaxman (of whose objection to her, of course, no one ever dreamed of telling Blake) and through Cromek (whom Flaxman brought on the scene as her rival, not Blake's) to Leigh Hunt and the "Examiners," and it unites all these together at last, as we shall presently see. Of course, Blake did not find any one to buy his drawings for £60. He was always the worst of bargainers.. It was a serious professional loss to him to have to make a bargain at all, for the nervousness into which he fell when his pride was suffering under any attempt to do business would make him utterly incapable of artistic work, for this (as the public never realises) must be done with the nerves as certainly as the music of a piano is produced by its wires. If these are jangled, the best tuners may tune and the best pianist may finger as much in vain as the best intellectual portion of a man's genius may give directions and suggest subjects to his artistic portion, which is no longer able to give them forth as works of art. Blake was not bragging but telling the plainest truth when he said, as we learn from Allan Cunningham, "Were I to love money, I should lose all power of thought. Desire of gain deadens the genius of man. My business is not to gather gold, but to make glorious shapes, expressing God-like sentiments." To this period of Blake's life, though, it is to be feared, not to this period only, may be referred the well-known anecdote that tells how Mrs. Blake found him so irritable when she mentioned that there was no more money,-exclaiming, "Damn the money! It's always the money!" that she would silently place on the table all the food there was in the cupboard until only empty dishes could be served up. Then Blake would leave the poetry that we all cherish now, and go back to the engraved plates of other people's designs that, but for the name that his poetry has left, would now be waste-paper. Bread earned by labour that is not "above payment" is always paid in fairy's gold, of which tradition says that, however bright and authentic it may look to-day, it will be a heap of dead leaves to-morrow. BLAKE'S next affliction, and the cause of an anger that kept him in a more or less constant state of wrath for years, was in connection with a drawing representing Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims, which he seems to have made at Felpham, where he could see and ride horses, as his grateful message to Miss Poole about "Bruno" shows, though he never learned to draw a horse even decently. In Felpham also he could, and did, read and meditate upon Chaucer. Cromek saw this sketch in South Molton Street, and liked it. He saw business in it, and (Gilchrist says) "wanted to secure a finished drawing from it for the purpose of having it engraved, without employing Blake to do so, just as he had served him over the designs to the Grave, as I learn from other sources on sifting the matter." We now know how touchy Blake was in his dealings with Cromek, and what good cause Cromek had to approach him cautiously if he would escape the accusation of imposture. Gilchrist continues, "but Blake was not to be taken in a second time," without adding that Cromek was not to be caught promising the work of engraving to a man whom he now knew not to be able to obtain a sale for his prints, as the Hayley Ballads had shown him. "But as Blake understood the matter, he received a commission, tacit or express, from Cromek to execute the design." The words are Gilchrist's. The italics are ours. One can guess the conversation: "An admirable drawing you have there, Mr. Blake! Could I not persuade you to carry it a little further? I should like to see an engraving of that. I think it would pay." While speaking aloud he was wondering to himself who would be the best man to use for engraving such a subject. That Blake had a sole and exclusive right to make designs from Chaucer, and that it was Cromek's duty to keep secret a drawing that Blake left about loose where any one in the world might see it and talk of it, would be the last ideas to recommend themselves to a tradesman, though Cromek has been called many hard names for not acting as though it were incumbent upon him to understand the difference between a studio and a shop. Does a man, by making a sketch on a theme that has been before his country for several hundred years, earn a right to complain if any other man uses the same subject? Does such a sketch, hung on a wall or left on his table or in his open portfolio, become a confidential document that no one is to speak of lest the artist should lose some possible advantage which might be obtained from it, but which he is taking no steps to obtain? An injured man, or any man who lets opportunity slip, will have his own view, but evidently there is a good deal to be said on both sides, and the Blake view of this, as of any subject that touched either himself or any friend of his personally, was not in the least likely to be an impartial view. Infected with Blake's wrath, the world has been very hard on Cromek and on Stothard. It was to Stothard that Cromek seems to have spoken next of the subject; not as violating a confidence. There seems no reason to suppose that Blake himself was at all likely to have kept the sketch secret from Stothard. In the end, Stothard painted the picture now in our National Gallery, and more than one engraver laboured on a plate which gave an admirable and even a slightly flattered rendering of it. Blake would have been altogether incapable of doing anything of the kind. But he attacked the subject with enthusiasm, believing it to be his own, and not thinking that Cromek was likely to speak about it to any one else. In fact, it did not occur to him that Cromek had any interest in doing so. He thought himself supreme in every department of art. Even when Blake knew that Stothard was painting a Canterbury Pilgrims, he did not at once take alarm, or see any direct rivalry in this. He called on Stothard, saw him at work, and spoke with his usual urbanity, politely praising anything that he could praise in the work. This afterwards made him look like a hypocrite. Stothard does not seem to have mentioned that he was painting for Cromek. This afterwards made Stothard look like a false friend. Two artists chatting over the technique of a picture are the last men in the world to turn aside the thread of their conversation to bring in the name of the business man who is to see to |