The Portable William Blake (24 page)

Yours sincerely,

WILL BLAKE.

P.S. I made a very high finish’d Drawing of Romney as a companion to my drawing of the head of Cowper (you remember), with which Flaxman is very much satisfied, & says that when my Print is like that I need wish it no better, & I am determin’d to make it so at least.

W.B.

Sth. Molton Street,

DEAR SIR,

I cannot omit to Return you my sincere & Grateful Acknowledgments for the kind Reception you have given my New Projected Work. It bids fair to set me above the difficulties I have hitherto encountered. But my Fate has been so uncommon that I expect Nothing. I was alive and in health and with the same Talents I now have all the time of Boydell‘s, Machlin’s, Bowyer’s, & other great works. I was known to them and was look’d upon by 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 & Good opinion has supported me thro’ all hitherto. You, Dear Sir, are one who has my Particular Gratitude, having conducted me thro’ Three that would have been the Darkest Years that ever Mortal Suffer’d, which were render’d thro’ your means a Mild and Pleasant Slumber. I speak of Spiritual Things, Not of Natural; of Things known only to Myself and to Spirits Good and Evil, but Not known to Men on Earth. It is the passage thro’ these Three Years that has brought me into my Present State, and I know that if I had not been with You I must have Perish’d. 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 the 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 till 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. 0 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 its Rank, & 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, & who mocked and Despised the Meekness of True Art (and such, I find, have been the situation of our Beautiful, Affectionate Ballads), I know that such Mockers are Most Severely Punished in Eternity. I know it, for I see it & dare not help. The Mocker of Art is the Mocker of Jesus. Let us go on, Dear Sir, following his Cross: let us take it up daily, Persisting in Spiritual Labours & 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. Sanders the 3 works of Romney, as Mrs. Lambert told 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 Sussex a Merry & Happy Christmas,

I remain, Ever Your Affectionate,

WILL BLAKE and his Wife CATHERINE BLAKE.

SIR,

My indignation was exceedingly moved at reading a criticism in
Bell’s Weekly Messenger
(25th May) on the picture of Count Ugolino, by Mr. Fuseli, in the Royal Academy Exhibition; and your Magazine being as extensive in its circulation as that Paper, and as it also must from its nature be more permanent, I take the advantageous opportunity to counteract the widely diffused malice which has for many years, under the pretence of admiration of the arts, been assiduously sown and planted among the English public against true art, such as it existed in the days of Michael Angelo and Raphael. Under pretence of fair criticism and candour, the most wretched taste ever produced has been upheld for many, very many years; but now, I say, how its end is come. Such an artist as Fuseli is invulnerable, he needs not my defence; but I should be ashamed not to set my hand and shoulder, and whole strength, against those wretches who, under pretence of criticism, use the dagger and the poison.

My criticism on this picture is as follows: Mr. Fuseli’s Count Ugolino is the father of sons of feeling and dignity, who would not sit looking in their parent’s face in the moment of his agony, but would rather retire and die in secret, while they suffer him to indulge his passionate and innocent grief, his innocent and venerable madness and insanity and fury, and whatever paltry, cold-hearted critics cannot, because they dare not, look upon. Fuseli’s Count Ugolino is a man of wonder and admiration, of resentment against man and devil, and of humiliation before Cod; prayer and parental affection fill the figure from head to foot. The child in his arms, whether boy or girl signifies not (but the critic must be a fool who has not read Dante, and who does not know a boy from a girl), I say, the child is as beautifully drawn as it is coloured—in both, inimitable! and the effect of the whole is truly sublime, on account of that very colouring which our critic calls black and heavy. The German flute colour, which was used by the Flemings (they call it burnt bone), has possessed the eye of certain connoisseurs, that they cannot see appropriate colouring, and are blind to the gloom of a real terror.

The taste of English amateurs has been too much formed upon pictures imported from Flanders and Holland; consequently our countrymen are easily brow-beat on the subject of painting; and hence it is so common to hear a man say: “I am no judge of pictures.” But O Englishmen! know that every man ought to be a judge of pictures, and every man is so who has not been connoisseured out of his senses.

A gentleman who visited me the other day, said, “I am very much surprised at the dislike that some connoisseurs shew on viewing the pictures of Mr. Fuseli; but the truth is, he is a hundred years beyond the present generation.” Though I am startled at such an assertion, I hope the contemporary taste will shorten the hundred years into as many hours; for I am sure that any person consulting his own eyes must prefer what is so supereminent; and I am sure that any person con-suiting his own reputation, or the reputation of his country, will refrain from disgracing either by such ill-judged criticisms in future.

Yours,

WM. BLAKE.

17 Sth Molton St.

SIR

A circumstance has occurred which has again raised my Indignation.

I read in the “Oracle & True Briton” of Octr. 13, 1807, that a Mr. Blair, a Surgeon, has, with
the Cold fury of Robespierre,
caused the Police to sieze upon the Person & Goods or Property of an Astrologer & to commit him to Prison. The Man who can Read the Stars often is opressed by their Influence, no less than the Newtonian who reads Not & cannot Read is opressed by his own Reasonings & Experiments. We are all subject to Error: Who shall say, except the National Religionists, that we are not all subject to Crime?

My desire is that you would Enquire into this Affair & that you would publish this in your Monthly Magazine. I do not pay the postage of this Letter, because you, as Sheriff, are bound to attend to it.

WILLIAM BLAKE.

The design of The Last Judgment, which I have completed, by your recommendation, for the Countess of Egremont, it is necessary to give some account of; and its various parts ought to be described, for the accommodation of those who give it the honour of their attention.

Christ seated on the Throne of Judgment: before His feet and around Him the Heavens, in clouds, are rolling like a scroll, ready to be consumed in the fires of Angels, who descend with the four trumpets sounding to the four winds.

Beneath, the earth is convulsed with the labours of the Resurrection. In the caverns of the earth is the Dragon with seven heads and ten horns, chained by two Angels; and above his cavern, on the earth’s surface, is the Harlot, seized and bound by two Angels with chains, while her palaces are falling into ruins, and her counsellors and warriors are descending into the abyss, in wailing and despair.

Hell opens beneath the Harlot’s seat on the left band, into which the wicked are descending.

The right hand of the design is appropriated to the Resurrection of the Just; the left hand of the design is appropriated to the Resurrection and Fall of the Wicked.

Immediately before the Throne of Christ are Adam and Eve, kneeling in humiliation, as representatives of the whole human race. Abraham and Moses kneel on each side beneath them; from the cloud on which Eve kneels, is seen Satan, wound round by the Serpent, and falling headlong; the Pharisees appear on the left hand, pleading their own Righteousness before the Throne of Christ and before the Book of Death, which is opened on clouds by two Angels; many groups of figures are falling from before the throne, and from the sea of fire which flows before the steps of the throne, on which are seen the seven Lamps of the Almighty, burning before the throne. Many figures, chained and bound together, and in various attitudes of despair and horror, fall through the air, and some are scourged by Spirits with flames of fire into the abyss of Hell which opens beneath, on the left hand of the Harlot’s seat; where others are howling and descending into the flames, and in the act of dragging each other into Hell, and of contending and fighting with each other on the brink of perdition.

Before the Throne of Christ on the right hand, the Just, in humiliation and in exultation, rise through the air with their children and families, some of whom are bowing before the Book of Life, which, is opened on clouds by two Angels; many groups arise in exultation; among them is a figure crowned with stars, and the moon beneath her feet, with six infants around her—she represents the Christian Church. Green hills appear beneath with the graves of the blessed, which are seen bursting with their births of immortality; parents and children, wives and husbands, embrace and arise together, and in exulting attitudes tell each other that the New Jerusalem is ready to descend upon earth; they arise upon the air rejoicing; others, newly awaked from the grave, stand upon the earth embracing and shouting to the Lamb, who cometh in the clouds with power and great glory.

The whole upper part of the design is a view of Heaven opened, around the Throne of Christ. In the clouds, which roll away, are the four living creatures filled with eyes, attended by seven Angels with seven vials of the wrath of Cod, and above these, seven Angels with the seven trumpets; these compose the cloud which, by its rolling away, displays the opening seats of the Blessed; on the right and the left of which are seen the four-and-twenty Elders seated on thrones to judge the Dead.

Behind the seat and Throne of Christ appear the Tabernacle with its veil opened, the Candlestick on the right, the Table with Shewbread on the left, and, in the midst, the Cross in place of the Ark, the Cherubim bowing over it.

On the right hand of the Throne of Christ is Baptism, on His left is the Lord’s Supper—the two introducers into Eternal Life. Women with infants approach the figure of an Apostle, which represents Baptism; and on the left hand the Lord’s Supper is administered by Angels, from the hands of another aged Apostle; these kneel on each side of the throne, which is surrounded by a glory: in the glory many infants appear, representing Eternal Creation flowing from the Divine Humanity in Jesus, who opens the Scroll of Judgment, upon His knees, before the Living and the Dead.

Such is the Design which you, my dear Sir, have been the cause of my producing, and which, but for you, might have slept till the Last Judgment.

WILLIAM BLAKE.

DEAR CUMBERLAND,

I am very much obliged by your kind ardour in my cause, & should immediately Engage in reviewing my former pursuits of painting if I had not so long been turned out of the old channel into a new one, that it is impossible for me to return to it without destroying my present course. New Vanities, or rather new pleasures, occupy my thoughts. New profits seem to arise before me so tempting that I have already involved myself in engagements that preclude all possibility of promising anything. I have, however, the satisfaction to inform you that I have Myself begun to print an account of my various Inventions in Art, for which I have procured a Publisher, & am determin’d to pursue the plan of publishing what I may get printed without disarranging my time, which in future must alone be devoted to Designing & Painting. When I have got my work printed I will send it you first of any body; in the mean time, believe me to be

Your sincere friend,

WILL BLAKE.

DEAR SIR,

You will see in this little work the cause of difference between you & me. You demand of me to Mix two things that Reynolds has confess’d cannot be mixed. You will perceive that I not only detest False Art, but have the Courage to say so Publickly & to dare all the Power on Earth to oppose—Florentine & Venetian Art cannot exist together. Till the Venetian & Flemish are destroy’d, the Florentine & Roman cannot Exist; this will be shortly accomplish’d; till then I remain your Grateful, altho’ Seemingly otherwise, I say your Grateful & Sincere