Famous American Belles of the Nineteenth Century

e, the well-known engraver, whose house was close by at No. 31 in the same street. Basire's residence has gone the way of

ng. When he was four or five years older, you hear of him taking long rambles into the country; and it was on Peckham Rye that other visions came to him. Once he saw a tree there "filled with angels, bright angelic wings bespangling every bough like stars"; and once, on a summer morning, he saw "t

ademy in the Strand, taking drawing lessons. He was already writing poetry, too, and before he

roamed from f

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he set up housekeeping for himself at 23 Green Street, Leicester Square, and began to move abroad in literary society. Flaxman, already his friend, introduced him to Mrs. Mathew, a lady of blue-stocking tendencies, who held a sort of salon at 27 Rathbone Place; and here, in 1784, "Rainy Day" Smith made his acquaintance. "At Mrs. Mathew's most agreeable conversaziones," he says, "I first met the late William Blake, to whom she and Mr. Flaxman had been truly kind. There I have often heard him read and sing several of his poems. He was listened to by the company with profound silence, and allowed by most of his

S HOUS

t remained in communion with him, and directed him, "in a nocturnal vision, how to proceed in bringing out poems and designs in conjunction"; and the Songs of Innocence, published in 1789, was the result of this inspiration. The method, as Alexander Gilchrist has it, "consisted in a species of engraving in relief both words and designs. The verse was written, and the designs and marginal embellishments outlined on the copper with an impervious liquid. Then all the white parts, or lights (the remainder of the plate, that is), were eaten away with aquafortis or other acid, so that the outline of lette

ies, however, it became clear that, instead of being on the west side of the street, as Gilchrist supposed, No. 13 was on the east side, next door but one to Hercules Hall Yard. Somewhere between 1830 and 1842 the whole road was renumbered, and Blake's house had become No. 63, and was in 1890 renumbered again, and became, and is still, No. 23 Hercules Road. Whilst he was living here, Mr. Thomas Butts,

3 HERCUL

ncomprehensible imagery and allegory, and what Swinburne has called their "sunless and sonorous gulfs." From Hercules Buildings also came "Tiger, tiger, burning bright, in the forests of the night," and the rest of the Songs of Experience. Then, in 1800, Hayley, the poet of the dull and unrea

USE. SOUTH

a time, without premeditation, and even against my will"; and in a later letter, speaking of it as "the grandest poem that this world contains," he excuses himself by remarking, "I may praise it, since I dare not pretend to be any other than the secretary-the authors are in eternity." Much of Jerusalem is turgid, obscure,

rom Islington

ill and Saint

that

Vision sti

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ill the for

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nds, and fee

ough the gat

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e Deists," the first version of his ballad

is an intell

the sword of

er groan of

from the Alm

those authors in eternity and get some more of such stuff as this, even if we h

d Mary-these were among Blake's spiritual visitants at South Moulton Street. They came and sat to him, and he worked at their portraits, "looking up from time to time as though he had a real sitter before him." Sometimes he would leave off abruptly, and observe in matter-of-fact tones, "I can't go on. It is gone; I must wait till it returns"; or, "It has moved; the mouth is gon

ng an exhibition of his frescoes and drawings on the first floor of his brother's hosiery shop in Broad Street. Very few visitors attended; but among the few was Lamb's friend, Crabb Robinson, and when he went he had the room to himself. He paid for admission, recognised that these pictures were the work of no ordinary artist, and bought four of the catalogues, one of which he sent to Lamb; and when, on leaving, he asked the custodian whether he might come again free, James Blake, delighted at having a visitor, and one, moreover, who had bought something, cried, "Oh yes-free as long as you live!" But the exhibition was a failure. The popular painters of Blake's day were Reynolds, Gainsborough, and men of their schools. Blake was born out of his time, and contemporary society had nothing in common with him-no comprehension of his aim or his outlook-and dismissed him as an astonishing lunatic. When some drawin

piled-up brow, very full and rounded at the temples, where, according to phrenologists, ideality or imagination resides. His eyes were fine ('wonderful eyes,' some one calls them), prominently set, but bright, spiritual, visionary-not restless or wild, but with a look of clear, heavenly exaltation. The eyes of some of the old men in his Job recall his own to surviving friends. His nose was insignificant as to size, but had that peculiarity which gives to a face an expression of fiery energy, as of a high-mettled steed-a little clenched nostril, a nostril that opened as far as it could, but was tied down at one end. His mouth was wide, the lips not full, but tremulous, and expressiv

ved, you must read this letter that was written to Gilchrist b

rwards, and his wants few; so he was free, noble, and happy. His voice and manner were quiet, yet all awake with intellect. Above the tricks of littleness, or the least taint of affectation, with a natural dignity which f

o illustrate. His eye was the finest I ever saw; brilliant, but not roving, clear and intent, yet susceptible; it flashed with genius, or melted in tenderness. It could also be terrible.... Nor was the mouth less expressive, the lips flexible and quivering with feeling. I ca

e depressed by neglect, and to whose name rank and station could add no lustre. Moving apart, in a sphere above the attraction of worldly honours, he did not accept greatness, but

; and it is in the splendid sculptures with which he has beautified Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's, and many other of our cathedrals and churches that his genius found its highest expression. In his work as an artist Blake was largely influenced by Flaxman. They and Stothard used to meet at Mrs. Mathew's; but there came a day when the friendship between these three wa

a genius th

Hayley, nor by

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nergetic man, though he remained feeble in appearance, so high-shouldered as to seem almost deformed, with a head too large for his body, and a queer sidelong gait in walking. He married in 1782, and, after living for five years in a very small house at 27 Wardour Street, Soho-where he was elected collecto

circle; for though he went little into society, he was unpretentiously hospitable, fond of entertaining his chosen friends, greatly esteemed and beloved by his pupils, models, and servants, and the poor of the neighbourhood, e

ched, old, dreary little house, that is yet transfigured when you remember the glorious visitors who have crossed its threshold, and that it was at this same dead door the postman knocke

gun to work. 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 celest

BUCKINGHAM STRE

and chambers filled with books and pictures of old, which I wrote and painted in ages of eternity before my mortal life; and these works are the delight and study of ar

the regions of reminiscence, and behold our ancient days, before this earth appeared in its vegetable mortality to my mortal vegetated eyes. I se

and friendship to our dear Mrs. Flaxman, whom we ardently d

n too seriously. Their houses of eternity were not separated, though their mortal vehicles were estranged; and it was on