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^^^'
PHILURA
GOULD
BALDWIN
MEMORIAL
LIBRARY
Gift
of
Dr..
J5.
L,..9.r?.?.?H9.?
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Digitized
by
the Internet
Archive
in
2010
http://www.archive.org/details/williamblakeOOsymo
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WILLIAM
BLAKE
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ND
497
.B6 S85
Symonsj
Arthur* 1865-1945.
l^i I
Li
am Blake ?
WILLIAM
BLAKE
BY
ARTHUR
SYMONS
LONDON
AECHIBALD
CONSTABLE
AND
COMPANY
LTD.
1907
nimum
mm
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Edinburgh
: T.
and
A. Constaiile,
Printers to His
Majesty
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TO
AUGUSTE
RODIN
WHOSE
WORK
IS
THE
MARRIAGE
OF
HEAVEN
AND HELL
'^
LIBRARY
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PEEFACE
It was
when
Mr. Sampson's
edition of Blake
came into
my
hands
in
the
winter of 1905
that
the
idea of writing a
book on
Blake
first
presented
itself
to
me.
From
a
boy
he
had
been one of
my
favourite poets,
and
I
had
heard
a
great deal
about
him
from
Mr.
Yeats as
long
ago
as 1893,
the year
in
which
he and Mr. Ellis brought
out their vast
cyclopaedia, The
Works
of
William
Blake,
Poetic, Symbolic, and
Critical.
From
that
time to this Blake
has
never
been out
of
my
mind,
but
I
have
always
hesitated to
write
down
anything on a subject
so
great in
itself,
and
already
handled
by
great
poets. Things
have
been
written
about
Blake
by
Rossetti
which no
one will
ever
surpass
;
and in
Mr.
Swinburne's
book
Blake
himself
seems
to
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viii
WILLIAM
BLAKE
speak
again, as
through
the
mouth
of a
herald.
I
read
these,
I
read
everything
that
had
been
written
about
him
;
gradually
I
got
to
know
all his
work,
in
all its
kinds
;
and
when
I
found,
in
Mr.
Sampson's
book,
the
rarest
part of
his
genius,
disentangled
at last
from
the
confusions
of
the
commen-
tators,
I caught
some
impulse
was it
from
the
careful
enthusiasm
of
this
editor,
or
perhaps straight
from
Blake
?
and
began
to
write
down
what
now
filled
and
over-
flowed
my
mind.
Having
begun
on
an
impulse, I
laid
my
plans as
strictly as
I
could,
and
decided
to
make a
book
which
would
be,
in its
way,
complete.
There
was
to be,
first,
my own
narrative,
containing,
as
briefly
as
possible,
every
fact
of
import-
ance, with
my
own
interpretation
of what
I
took
to
be
Blake's
achievements
and
in-
tentions. But
this was to
be
followed
by
a
verbatim
reprint
of
documents.
These
docu-
ments
were
the
material
of
Gilchrist, but,
even after
Gilchrist's
use
of
them, they
remain
of
primary
and
undiminished
im-
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PREFACE
ix
portance
:
they
are
the
main
evidence in
our
case.
The
documents
which
form the
second
part of my
book contain every
personal
account
of Blake which was
printed
during
his lifetime, and
between the
time
of
his
death and the publication
of
Gilchrist's
Life
in
1863,
together
with the
complete
text
of
every reference
to
Blake in the
Diary,
Letters, and Reminiscences of
Crabb
Kobin-
son,
transcribed
for
the
first
time
from
the
original manuscripts.
All these I
have
given
exactly
as
they
stand,
not
correcting
their
errors, for even
errors
have their
value
as
evidence.
The
only
other document
of
the
period
which
exists was
written
by
Frede-
rick
Tatham,
within
two
years of the
appear-
ance
of
Cunningham's
Life,
and
bound
up
at
the
beginning of
a
coloured copy
of Blake's
Jerusalem, now
in
the
possession
of Captain
Archibald
Stirling.
This manuscript
was
consulted by Mr.
Swinburne and
afterwards
by
Mr.
Ellis and Mr.
Yeats
;
but
though
many
extracts
have been
made
from it, it
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X
WILLIAM
BLAKE
was
printed
for
the
first time
by Mr.
Archi-
bald
G.
B.
Russell in
his
edition of
The
Letters
of
William Blake
(Methuen,
1906).
This
very
important volume
completes
the
task which
I
have
here
undertaken
:
the
reprint
of
every
record
of
Blake
from
con-
temporary
sources.
The mere
contact with Blake
seems to
awaken
the
natural
generosity
of
those
who
have
concerned
themselves
with
him. To
Mr. John Sampson,
the
editor of
the only
accurate
edition
of
Blake's poems,
I am
indebted
for
more
help
and encouragement
than
I can hope
to express in
detail
;
and
particularly for prompting me
to
a search
among
birth and
marriage
and
death
regis-
ters,
by
which
I
have
been
enabled
to
settle
several
disputed
points
of some
interest.
To
Mr.
A.
G.
B.
Bussell
I owe
constant
personal
help,
and
the
very
generous loan
of
the
proofs of his edition of
Blake's
Letters,
and
of
Tatham's
Life,
with
free leave
to use
them
in the
narrative
which I was
writing
at
a
time when
his
book
had not
yet
appeared.
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PREFACE
xi
Through
this
favour
I
have
been able
to
take
such
facts as
Tatham
is responsible
for
directly
from
Tatham,
and
not
at
second-
hand.
I
am
also indebted
to
Mr.
Russell
for reading my proofs and
saving me
from
some errors of
fact.
I
have to
thank
Mr.
Buxton
Forman
for
allowing me
to
read
and describe the
unpublished
manuscript
in Blake's
handwriting
in his possession.
Finally,
my particular
thanks
are
due
to
the
Librarian
of
Dr.
Williams's
Library,
Mr.
Francis
H.
Jones, for
permission
to
copy
and
the
full text of
all
the
references to
Blake in
the
Crabb
Bobinson Manuscripts.
London, April
1907.
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xiv
WILLIAM BLAKE
Butler
Yeats.
Three
yolumes.
Quaritch,
1893.
8.
The
Poems
of
JVilliam Blake.
Edited by
W.
B.
Yeats. 'The
Muses'
Library.' Lawrence &
Bullen,
1893.
9.
William
Blalce
:
his
Life,
Character,
mid
Genius.
By
Alfred T.
Story.
Sonnenschein
& Co.,
1893.
10.
William
Blake : Painter
and
Poet.
By
Richard
Garnett.
'Portfolio,'
1895.
11.
Ideas
of
Good
and
Evil.
By
W.
B.
Yeats.
(William Blake
and
the Imagination,
William
Blake
and
his Illustrations to
the
Divine
Comedy.)
A.
H.
Bullen,
1903.
12.
The Rossetti
Papers
(1862
to
1870);
a
Compilation
by
W.
M.
RossETTL Sands
& Co.,
1903.
13.
The Pro2)hetic
Books
of
JFilliam
Blake:
Jerusalem.
Edited
by
E. R.
D. Maclagan
and
A. Gr.
B.
Russell.
Bullen, 1904.
14.
The
Poetical
Works
of
William
Blake.
Edited
by
John
Sampson. Oxford,
1905.
15.
The
Letters
of
William,
Blake
;
together
with
a
Life
by
Frederick
Tatham.
Edited
by Archibald
G.
B.
Russell.
Methuen,
1906.
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LIST OF BOOKS CONSULTED
xv
16.
The
Poetical JForlcs
of
William Blake.
Edited
and
annotated
by
Edwin J. Ellis.
Two
volumes.
Chatto
& Windus, 1906.
(The only edition
containing
the
Prophetic
Books.)
17. JVilliam Blake.
Vol.
L
Illustrations of
the
Book of
Job,
with
a
general
Introduction
by
Laurence
Bin
YON. Methuen,
1906.
18. The Real Blake.
A
Portrait
Biography.
By
Edwin
J.
Ellis.
Chatto &
Windus,
1907.
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PAGE
CONTENTS
PART I
WILLIAM
BLAKE,
1
PART II
RECORDS
FROM
CONTEMPORARY SOURCES :
(I.)
Extracts
from the
Diary,
Letters,
AND
Reminiscences of Henry Crabb
Robinson, transcribed frojm
the
Original
MSS.
in
Dr. Williams's
Library,
1810-1852,
.
. .251
(1)
From
Crabb Robinson's
Diary, 253
(2)
From a
Letter
of
Crabb Robin-
son to
Dorothy
Wordsworth, 272
(3)
From
Crabb Robinson's
Remi-
niscences,
.... 278
(II.)
From
'A Father's
Memoirs
of his
Child,'
by
Benjamin
Heath
Malkin
(1806),
307
b
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xviii
WILLIAM
BLAKE
PAGE
(III.) From
Lady
Charlotte
Bury's
Diary
(1820),
331
(IV.)
Blake's
Horoscope
(1825),
.
337
(V.)
Obituary
Notices
in the
'Literary
GrAZETTE
'
AND
'
GeNTLEMAN'S MAGA-
ZINE,'
1827,
343
(VI.)
Extract
from
Varley's Zodiacal
Physiognomy
(1828),
.
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