The Portable William Blake (57 page)

 

He who does not Know Truth at Sight is unworthy of Her Notice.

 

Here is a great deal to do to Prove that All Truth is Prejudice, for All that is Valuable in Knowledge is Superior to Demonstrative Science, such as is Weighed or Measured.

 

He thinks he has proved that Genius & Inspiration are All a Hum.

 

He may as well say that if Man does not lay down settled Principles, The Sun will not rise in a Morning.

Here is a Plain Confession that he Thinks Mind & Imagination not to be above the Mortal & Perishing Nature. Such is the End of Epicurean or Newtonian Philosophy; it is Atheism.

Reynolds’s Eye could not bear Characteristic Colouring or Light & Shade.

Reynolds: A picture should please at first sight, and appear to invite the spectator’s attention; ...

 

Please Whom? Some Men cannot see a Picture except in a Dark Corner.

 

Violent Passions Emit the Real, Good & Perfect Tones.

 

A Fool’s Balance is no Criterion because, tho’ it goes down on the heaviest side, we ought to look what he puts into it.

 

Reynolds: In the midst of the highest flights of fancy or imagination, reason ought to preside from first to last, ...

 

If this is True, it is a devilish Foolish Thing to be an Artist.

 

Burke’s Treatise on the Sublime & Beautiful is founded on the Opinions of Newton & Locke; on this Treatise Reynolds has grounded many of his assertions in all his Discourses. I read Burke’s Treatise when very Young; at the same time I read Locke on Human Understanding & Bacon’s Advancement of Learning; on Every one of these Books I wrote my Opinions, & on looking them over find that my Notes on Reynolds in this Book are exactly Similar. I felt the Same Contempt & Abhorrence then that I do now. They mock Inspiration & Vision. Inspiration & Vision was then, & now is, & I hope will always Remain, my Element, my Eternal Dwelling place; how can I then hear it Contemned without returning Scorn for Scorn?

Rembrandt was a Generalizer. Poussin was a Particularizer.

 

Poussin knew better than to make all his Pictures have the same light & shadows. Any fool may concentrate a light in the Middle.

 

If you Endeavour to Please the Worst, you will never Please the Best. To please All Is Impossible.

 

Bad Pictures are always Sr Joshua’s Friends.

EPIGRAMS AND VERSES CONCERNING SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS

(1808-1811)

Sir Joshua sent his own Portrait to
The birth Place of Michael Angelo,
And in the hand of the simpering fool
He put a dirty paper scroll,
And on the paper, to be polite,
Did “Sketches by Michael Angelo” write.
The Florentines said, “ ’Tis a Dutch English bore,
Michael Angelo’s Name writ on Rembrandt’s door.”

The Florentines call it an English Fetch,
For Michael Angelo did never sketch.
Every line of his has Meaning
And needs neither Suckling nor Weaning.
’Tis the trading English Venetian cant
To speak Michael Angelo & Act Rembrandt.
It will set his Dutch friends all in a roar
To write “Mich. Ang.” on Rembrandt’s Door.
But You must not bring in your hand a Lie
If you mean the Florentines should buy.

 

Ghiotto’s Circle or Apelles’ Line
Were not the Work of Sketchers drunk with Wine,
Nor of the City Clark’s warm hearted Fashion,
Nor of Sir Isaac Newton’s Calculation,
Nor of the City Clark’s Idle Facilities
Which sprang from Sir Isaac Newton’s great Abilities.

 

These Verses were written by a very Envious Man,
Who, whatever likeness he may have to Michael Angelo,
Never can have any to Sir Jehoshuan.

The Cripple every Step Drudges & labours,
And says: “Come, learn to walk of me, Good Neighbours.”
Sir Joshua in astonishment cries out:
“See, what Great Labour! Pain in Modest Doubtl”

That God is Colouring Newton does shew,
And the devil is a Black outline, all of us know.
Perhaps this little Fable may make us merry:
A dog went over the water without a wherry:
A bone which he had stolen he had in his mouth;
He cared not whether the wind was north or south.
As he swam he saw the reflection of the bone.
“This is quite Perfection, one Generalizing Tone!
Outline! There’s no outline! There’s no such thing!
All is Chiaro Scuro, Poco Pen, it’s all colouring.”
Snap, Snap! he has lost shadow & substance too.
He had them both before: now how do ye do?
“A great deal better than I was before.
Those who taste colouring love it more & more.”
“O dear Mother outline, of knowledge most sage,
What’s the First Part of Painting?” she said: “Patronage.”
“And what is the second?” to please & Engage,
She frown’d like a Fury & said: “Patronage.”
“And what is the Third?” she put off Old Age,
And smil’d like a Syren & said: “Patronage.”

MARGINALIA, II

(1819)

 

Cowper came to me and said: “0 that I were insane always. I will never rest. Can you not make me truly insane? I will never rest till I am so. O that in the bosom of God I was hid. You retain health and yet are as mad as any of us all—over us all—mad as a refuge from unbelief—from Baoon, Newton and Locke.”

(1826)

 

I see in Wordsworth the Natural Man rising up against the Spiritual Man Continually, & then he is No Poet but a Heathen Philosopher at Enmity against all true Poetry or Inspiration.

There is no such Thing as Natural Piety Because The Natural Man is at Enmity with God.

I cannot think that Real Poets have any competition. None are greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven; it is so in Poetry.

 

Natural Objects always did & now do weaken, deaden & obliterate Imagination in Me. Wordsworth must know that what he Writes Valuable is Not to be found in Nature.

 

I Believe both Macpherson & Chatterton, that what they say is Ancient Is so.

I own myself an admirer of Ossian equally with any other Poet whatever, Rowley & Chatterton also.

 

Imagination has nothing to do with Memory.

(1827)

 

I look upon this as a Most Malignant & Artful attack upon the Kingdom of Jesus By the Classical Learned, thro’ the Instrumentality of Dr. Thornton. The Greek & Roman Classics is the Anthichrist. I say Is & Not Are as most expressive & correct too. [
on the title-page
]

 

Christ & his Apostles were Illiterate Men; Caiaphas, Pilate & Herod were Learned.

If Morality was Christianity, Socrates was The Savior.

The Beauty of the Bible is that the most Ignorant & Simple Minds Understand it Best—Was Johnson hired to Pretend to Religious Terrors while he was an Infidel, or how was it?

 

The only thing for Newtonian & Baconian Philosophers to Consider is this: Whether Jesus did not suffer himself to be Mock’d by Caesar’s Soldiers Willingly, & to Consider this to all Eternity will be Comment Enough.

 

It is the learned that Mouth, & not the Vulgar.

 

Lawful Bread, Bought with Lawful Money, & a Lawful Heaven, seen thro’ a Lawful Telescope, by means of Lawful Window Light! The Holy Ghost, & whatever cannot be Taxed, is Unlawful & Witchcraft.

Spirits are Lawful, but not Ghosts; especially Royal Gin is Lawful Spirit. No Smuggling real British Spirit & Truth!

 

Give us the Bread that is our due & Right, by taking away Money, or a Price, or Tax upon what is Common to all in thy Kingdom.

 

Jesus, our Father, who art in thy heaven call’d by thy Name the Holy Ghost, Thy Kingdom on Earth is Not, nor thy Will done, but Satan’s, who is God of this World, the Accuser. Let his Judgment be Forgiveness that he may be cursed on his own throne.

Give us This Eternal Day our own right Bread by taking away Money or debtor Tax & Value or Price, as [
words illegible
] have all the Common [
several words illegible
] among us. Every thing has as much right to Eternal Life as God, who is the Servant of Man. His Judgment shall be Forgiveness that he may be consum’d on his own Throne.

Leave us not in Parsimony, Satan’s Kingdom; liberate us from the Natural Man & [
words illegible
] Kingdom.

For thine is the Kingdom & the Power & the Glory & not Ceasar’s or Satan’s. Amen.

 

Doctor Thornton’s Tory Translation, Translated out of its disguise in the Classical & Scotch languages into the vulgar English.

Our Father Augustus Ceasar, who art in these thy Substantial Astronomical Telescopic Heavens, Holiness to thy Name or Title, & reverence to thy Shadow. Thy Kingship come upon Earth first & then in Heaven. Give us day by day our Real Taxed Substantial Money bought Bread; deliver from the Holy Ghost whatever cannot be Taxed; for all is debts & Taxes between Caesar & us & one another; lead us not to read the Bible, but let our Bible be Virgil & Shakespeare; & deliver us from Poverty in Jesus, that Evil One. For thine is the Kingship, [or] Allegoric Godship, & the Power, or War, & the Glory, or Law, Ages after Ages in thy descendants; for God is only an Allegory of Kings & nothing Else. AMEN.

(1820)

[Engraved beneath a print
of
the first subject
illustrating Milton’s L’Allegro
.]

 

Solomon says, “Vanity of Vanities, all is Vanity,” & What can be Foolisher than this?

(1822)

 

The Pope supposes Nature & the Virgin Mary to be the same allegorical personages, but the Protestant considers Nature as incapable of bearing a Child.

(1825-1827)

[On design no. 7, a map of the classical conception of the Universe, written in the circles surrounding the central figure of Homer
.]

 

Every thing in Dante’s Comedia shews That for Tyrannical Purposes he has made This World the Foundation of All, & the Goddess Nature Mistress; Nature is his Inspirer & not ... the Holy Ghost. As Poor Shakspeare said: “Nature, thou art my “Goddess.”

Round Purgatory is Paradise, & round Paradise is Vacuum or Limbo, so that Homer is the Center of All—I mean the Poetry of the Heathen, Stolen & Perverted from the Bible, not by Chance but by design, by the Kings of Persia & their Generals, The Greek Heroes & lastly by the Romans.

Swedenborg does the same in saying that in this World is the Ultimate of Heaven. This is the most damnable Falshood of Satan & his Antichrist.

 

The Goddess Fortune is the devil’s servant, ready to Kiss any one’s Arse.

 

On design no.
101,
a diagram of the Circles of Hell.

 

It seems as if Dante’s supreme Good was something Superior to the Father or Jesus; for if he gives his rain to the Evil & the Good, & his Sun to the Just & the Unjust, He could never have Built Dante’s Hell, nor the Hell of the Bible neither, in the way our Parsons explain it—It must have been originally Formed by the devil Himself; & So I understand it to have been.

This [
the diagram
] is Upside Down When view’d from Hell’s gate, which ought to be at top, But right When View’d from Purgatory after they have passed the Center.

In Equivocal Worlds Up & Down are Equivocal.

 

Whatever Book is for Vengeance for Sin & Whatever Book is Against the Forgiveness of Sins is not of the Father, but of Satan the Accuser & Father of Hell.

EPIGRAMS, VERSES, AND FRAGMENTS

(1808-1811)

 

You don’t believe—I won’t attempt to make ye:
You are asleep—I won’t attempt to wake ye.
Sleep on, Sleep on! while in your pleasant dreams
Of Reason you may drink of Life’s clear streams.
Reason and Newton, they are quite two things;
For so the Swallow & the Sparrow sings.
Reason says “Miracle”: Newton says “Doubt”.
Aye! that’s the way to make all Nature out.
“Doubt, Doubt, & don’t believe without experiment”:
That is the very thing that Jesus meant,
When he said, “Only Believe! Believe & try!
”Try, Try, and never mind the Reason why.”

“Madman” I have been call’d: “Fool” they call thee
I wonder which they Envy, Thee or Me?