3Ue AN ILLUSTRATED QUARTERLY59

V o l u m e 15 N u m b e r 3 W i n t e r 1981-82
&3Ue
G. E . BENTLEY, J R . , o f the U n i v e r s i t y o f T o r o n t o ,
c l a i m s t o be a s t u d e n t o f l e a r n e d p i g s by p r o f e s -
s i o n and a c a t c h e r o f bears by a v o c a t i o n .

M A R T I N B U T L I N i s Keeper o f t h e H i s t o r i c B r i t i s h
C o l l e c t i o n a t t h e Tate G a l l e r y , London, a u t h o r o f
numerous works on Blake and T u r n e r , and f r e q u e n t
c o n t r i b u t o r t o Blake. His c a t a l o g u e o f The Paint-
AN ILLUSTRATED QUARTERLY 5 9 ings and Drawings of William Blake was p u b l i s h e d
by Yale U n i v e r s i t y Press e a r l i e r t h i s y e a r .

Volume 15 Number 3 GREG CROSSAN i s a l e c t u r e r i n E n g l i s h a t Massey

W i n t e r 1981*82 U n i v e r s i t y , New Z e a l a n d , and a u t h o r o f .4 Relish
for Eternity (1976), a study o f the poetry o f
John C l a r e .

CONTENTS D E T L E F DORRBECKER t e a c h e s a r t
University of Trier.
history at the

Emblematic T r a d i t i o n i n B l a k e ' s The Gates of

M I C H A E L FERBER i s an a s s i s t a n t professor of
Paradise
English a t Yale. He has p u b l i s h e d a r t i c l e s on
by Joseph S. S a l e m i , 108
B l a k e , C o l e r i d g e , and Simone Weil and a book on
draft resistance. He i s now w o r k i n g on a book
Innocence Lost & Found: An Untraced Copy Traced
on B l a k e ' s p o l i t i c a l t h o u g h t .
by D e t l e f W. D b r r b e c k e r , 125
THOMAS v . LANGE i s a s p e c i a l i s t in illustrated
MINUTE PARTICULARS books, now w o r k i n g on t h e h i s t o r y o f French book
illustration.
A New A c q u i s i t i o n f o r t h e Tate and a New A d d i t i o n
t o t h e Blake Catalogue
BO O S S I A N L I N D B E R G was born i n A b o , F i n l a n d , in
by M a r t i n B u t l i n , 132
1937. I n 1973 he p u b l i s h e d William Blake's Illus-
trations to the Book of Job. He i s a p a i n t e r and
B l a k e ' s Maiden Queen i n "The A n g e l "
a r t h i s t o r i a n , working a t the I n s t i t u t e o f A r t
by Greg C r o s s a n , 133
H i s t o r y , Lund, Sweden.
A Rediscovered C o l o r e d Copy o f Young's Night
DONALD H . R E I M A N has r e t u r n e d t o h i s work on
Thoughts
by Thomas V. Lange, 134 Shelley and his Circle a t the Pforzheimer L i b r a r y
a f t e r t e a c h i n g d u r i n g t h e summer a t t h e U n i v e r s i t y
Mars and t h e P l a n e t s Three i n America o f Washington. His c u r r e n t and f o r t h c o m i n g pub-
by Michael F e r b e r , 136 l i c a t i o n s i n c l u d e essays i n ELN, TEXT, SiR, and
Blake, as w e l l as r e v i e w s i n SiR, South Atlantic
Quarterly, and Keats-Shelley Journal.
REVIEWS
B l a k e ' s L e t t e r s and L i t e r a l s JOSEPH s . SALEMI i s on t h e a d j u n c t faculty of the
Geoffrey Keynes, K t . , e d . The Letters of William E n g l i s h Department o f Pace U n i v e r s i t y , New York
Blake with Related Documents. Third e d i t i o n . City. He has a l s o t a u g h t a t New York U n i v e r s i t y ,
Reviewed by G. E. B e n t l e y , J r . , 138 B r o o k l y n C o l l e g e , and Marymount Manhattan C o l l e g e .
His f i e l d o f s p e c i a l i z a t i o n i s Renaissance c o n t r o -
Robert N. E s s i c k , William Blake Printmaker v e r s i a l i s t l i t e r a t u r e , but he w r i t e s on a wide
Reviewed by Bo Ossian Lindberg, 140 range o f s c h o l a r l y s u b j e c t s . His a r t i c l e s have
appeared i n Novel, Chaucer Review, Allegorica,
The Least Blake and University Bookman.
Poetry of William Blake
Reviewed by G. E. B e n t l e y , J r . , 148

John D. Baird and C h a r l e s Ryskamp, e d s . , The Poems

of William Cowper. Vol. 1: 1748-1782.
James King and Charles Ryskamp, e d s . , The Letters
and Prose Writings of William Cowper. Vol. 1:
"Adelphi" and Letters, 1750-1781.
Reviewed by Donald H. Reiman, 149

NEWSLETTER

Copyright 1981 by M o r r i s Eaves & Morton D. Paley

CONTRIBUTORS
EDITORS
EDITORS: Morris Eaves, Univ. of New Mexico, and
Morton D. Paley, Univ. of California, Berkeley.

BIBLIOGRAPHER: Thomas L. Minnick, Ohio State Univ.

REVIEW EDITOR: Nelson Hilton, Univ. of Georgia,

Athens.
A S S O C I A T E E D I T O R FOR G R E A T B R I T A I N : Frances A.
Carey, Assistant Curator, Department of Prints
and Drawings, British Museum.

PRODUCTION OFFICE: Morris Eaves, Department of

English, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
NM 87131, TELEPHONE 505/277-3103.
Morton D. Paley, Department of English, University
of California, Berkeley, CA 94720.
Thomas L. Minnick, University College, Ohio State
University, 1050 Carmack Road, Columbus, Ohio
43210. EDITORIAL ASSISTANT IN CHARGE: Marcy Erickson,
Nelson Hilton, Department of English, University Univ. of New Mexico, E D I T O R I A L A S S I S T A N T S : Wayne
of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602. Erickson, Wendy Jones, George Hartley, Univ. of
Frances A. Carey, Department of Prints and Drawings New Mexico.
British Museum, Great Russell Street, London
WC1B 3DG, England. TYPIST: Denise Warren

B L A K E / A N I L L U S T R A T E D Q U A R T E R L Y is published under
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S U B S C R I P T I O N S are $15.00 for 1 year, 1 volume, 4

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Make checks payable to Blake/An Illustrated
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Berkeley, California 94720.

INTERNATIONAL SERIAL NUMBER is 0006-453X. Blake/

An I l l u s t r a t e d Quarterly i s INDEXED in the
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INFORMATION
108

EMBLEMATIC T R A D I T I O N I N
B L A K E ' S THE GATES OF PARADISE

JOSEPH S. SALEMI

I f only in its brevity and reticence, William

Blake's The Gates of Paradise1 differs
noticeably from the expansiveness and epic
scope of his later prophetic works. Critics have
beginnings, and the question that must occupy us
here is this: Does emblem literature provide a
background of reference for The kites of Paradise?
I suggest that Blake's small volume shows a close
marked the terseness and elliptical style of this relation with early emblem books, and I propose to
small book which, symbolically enough, appeared at consider both the structure and the content of The
both the beginning and the end of Blake's career. Gates of Paradise by seeking out specific parallels
In a very detailed and carefully considered study in emblem literature for some of its engravings.
of The Gates of Paradise, George Wingfield Digby
states that "its concise and epigrammatic style At first glance, The Gates of Paradise appears
makes it difficult to understand,"2 and John Beer to be the quintessential emblem book. In both out-
prefaces his discussion of the plates by saying that ward appearance and composition it is remarkably
their obscurity "is partly due to the compression similar to many of the small volumes of symbolic
of thought which lies beneath them."3 Any serious woodcuts and engravings so popular throuihout
study of The Gates of Paradise must not only try to Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
illuminate the meaning of Blake's work, but must As with emblem books, the primary impact of The
also try to account for his choice of a clipped and Gates of Paradise is visual, deriving its evocative
almost hieroglyphic form, and one depending so power from the dominance of the engravings rather
heavily on the reader's intuitive perception of that than their textual accompaniment.5 Most of the
yery meaning. plates do not reveal their meaning immediately;
rather, by themselves they are of uncertain inter-
pretation. This suggests that hieroglyphical
Although commentators have casually mentioned quality so characteristic of emblem literature,
the similarity between The Gates of Paradise and wherein meaning is embedded in visual metaphor and
traditional emblem books, no systematic study of analogy.' Moreover, each engraving is accompanied
the plates in relation to emblematic motifs has by a small, terse phrase or sentence beneath it,
been attempted.'' The faults of emblem books are sometimes only cryptically or obliquely related to
many: their one-to-one symbolism is tiresome and the illustration. Such a phrase or sentence
predictable, their poetry is often mediocre and corresponds to the motto of the conventional emblem:
banal, and their intention is to moralize in the a short proverb, tag, or quotation which provided a
worst sense of the word. It is difficult to think key to the meaning of the symbolic picture. And
of an artist of Blake's stature as doing anything finally, the verse "Keys" or poetic elaborations of
other than transcending such a genre if he chose to each engraving which Blake appended to For the Sexes
work with it. In fact he does so, as I hope to serve the same function as the explanatory verse
demonstrate. But many great things have humble accompanying traditional emblems.
 109
In content, The Gates of Paradise i s also his own ideas can move, and out of which they
reminiscent of emblems. An important function of finally burst.
the emblem book was to be a mirror of the l i f e of
man; i t depicted graphically the v i c e s , f o l l i e s , The frontispiece and Plate 1 of The Gates of
v i r t u e s and strengths of the human race, along with Paradise12 are imaginative portrayals of human
appropriate admonitions and judgments. In a s i m i l a r birth, but this birth must be understood in more
manner, the central concern of The Gates of Paradise than the physical sense. The frontispiece shows two
is man's predicament qua man. Blake's engravings leaves stemming from a single branch; a dark leaf
are a sequential representation of human experience bearing a caterpillar arches over a lighter one on
from infancy to death, designed to i l l u m i n a t e the which a larva-like infant sleeps. Plate 1 reveals
reader with moral and s p i r i t u a l i n s i g h t s . In t h i s a woman stooping to pluck a living child out of the
respect The Gates of Paradise resembles Francis earth by his hair; she carries an infant in her
Quarles's Hieroglyphikes of the life of Man (1638), other arm. We see in these plates two phases
an emblem book which traces in a series of f i f t e e n corresponding not only to fetal growth and to birth,
small engravings the progress of l i f e from b i r t h to but to the psychological states which gestation and
e x t i n c t i o n . 7 Like a l l emblem books, Quarles's work birth symbolize. The chrysalis-child sleeps in a
is d e l i b e r a t e l y d i d a c t i c , and given to pious world totally submerged in unconscious, vegetative
moralizings which are absent from The Gates of existence; hence the dominance of the dark leaf in
Paradise. Yet Blake's book is subtly propaedeutic the plate. Like the caterpillar he is segmented
in many ways. I t s very t i t l e in both versions [For (although this may be a deliberate ambiguity,
Children, For the Sexes) suggests that Blake was suggesting swaddling clothes as well), showing his
consciously d i r e c t i n g his e f f o r t to the i l l u m i n a t i o n unbreakable link to the world of matter, but he
of his readers, and although his enqravings are bears incipient wings 1 3 which hold the promise of
appreciable as works of a r t in themselves, the f a c t flight, i.e. the transcending of purely physical
that Blake provided "Keys" in the l a t e r version existence. It seems that what is symbolized here is
indicates that he thought i t important f o r people the eternal possibility of human consciousness,
to disengage some kind of meaning from them. In hidden in the dark sleep of matter. Similarly, the
s h o r t , The Gates of Paradise was meant to teach birth of the child in Plate 1 is only secondarily
c e r t a i n truths about the human c o n d i t i o n , and t h i s by way of a woman, but primarily from the earth.
is a purpose that i t shares with e a r l i e r emblem This birth is an eruption of consciousness from
1iterature. ageless roots, one which is only paralleled in
physical parturition. Moreover, the child pulled
One easy way of looking at The Gates of Paradise from the earth has hair but the carried child has
(surely too easy a way) is to see i t as a sequential little or none; the face of the child in the earth
bears a look of independence and strength while the
unfolding of the human soul's struggle to break free
carried child is helpless and dependent. If we take
from the cycle of disordered d e s i r e , thereby coming
these children to be one and the same child--as I
to an acceptance of m o r t a l i t y and mortal l i m i t s .
think the "Key" compels us to do--then the inter-
Traditional emblem l i t e r a t u r e could o f f e r many pretation seems to be that although through physical
precedents and p a r a l l e l s to such a conventional birth we are subjected to the dominance of "feminine"
reading. But a c r i t i c always walks on t h i n ice reality, our actual origins are in an impersonal
whenever he imagines that Blake can be reduced to a matrix of existence in reference to which our true
moralist or sermonizer, even i n those places where, strength and independence must develop. Both plates
to the casual reader, he seems to be o f f e r i n g the demand that the reader go beyond the actual
blandest sort of sentimental p i e t y . Blake's angel illustration; they are clearly allegorical in the
was always ready to become a d e v i l . Northrop Frye sense that they point obliquely toward some not
has pointed out that The Gates of Paradise does immediately apparent meaning. This is an emblematic
indeed attempt to end a f u t i l e s t r u g g l e , but that technique which Blake employed frequently, but which
i t is precisely the vicious c i r c l e of unthinking seems to be particularly evident in The Gates of
orthodoxy and raging r e b e l l i o n from which Blake Paradise, where so little text accompanies the
wishes to free the s o u l . 8 The lesson of The Gates engravings.
of Paradise is not f a t a l i s t i c acceptance of the
world as i t i s , but a c a l l "to transform the world
i n t o a human and imaginative f o r m . " 9 According to Just how emblematic the two plates are can be
Frye, "The natural tendency of desire . . . i n judged by comparing them with emblems from two well-
i t s e l f i s to f i n d i t s o b j e c t . Hence the e f f e c t of known texts. An illustration from Andrea Alciati's
the creative impulse on desire is bound to be Emblematum Liber shows an infant in swaddling clothes
r e s t r i c t i v e u n t i l the release of desire becomes the lying beneath an almond tree. The emblem's intent
i n e v i t a b l e by-product of c r e a t i o n . " 1 0 Such a reading is to use the early bloom and flowering of the
of The Gates of Paradise is miles away from the almond as a metaphor for precocious children: both
conventional: Blake i s not arguing for the cessation bear fruit early, but are subject to untimely
or even the control of " e v i l " d e s i r e , but for i t s extinction as well. An illustration from Philip
transmutation i n t o a r t . S i m i l a r l y David Erdman i n Ayres's Emblemata Amatoria (1683) shows the god
his d e t a i l e d study of Blake's Notebook points out Love scattering his "seed" over the earth in the
that although the emblems in The Gates of Paradise form of children. As in Blake's plate, these
series a l l focus on human m o r t a l i t y , the series as children are half-buried in the earth, where they
a whole shows an i r r e s i s t i b l e impulse to break free seem to grow like plants. Although one would be
from the mechanical f i n a l i t y of a b i r t h - t o - g r a v e hard put to establish any connection (either
c y c l e . 1 1 Echoes of the t r a d i t i o n a l memento mori thematic or derivational) between these emblems
run through The Gates of Paradise, but for Blake and Blake's engravings, the curious similarity in
that motif is only a convenient framework in which conception deserves to be noted. But it should
110
also be noted--and t h i s point comes up again and
again when considering The Gates of Paradise in the
l i g h t of s u p e r f i c i a l l y s i m i l a r emblemsthat A l c i a t i
and Ayres attempt merely to v i s u a l i z e a s i m i l e or
metaphor, whereas Blake never allows any of his
plates to be so e a s i l y reduced to a simple f i g u r e
of speech.

The following four plates in the series ( 2 , 3,

4 , and 5) are thematically related as elements, but
i t is useful to consider them i n d i v i d u a l l y . Plate
2 ("Water") presents a man inundated with rain and
s t r i c k e n w i t h sorrow. C r i t i c s have suggested a
number of i n t e r p r e t a t i o n s , from a simple "vale of
tears" motif to a neoplatonic symbolism of water as
i l l u s o r y matter. From Blake's Notebook i t is clear
that Hamlet's g r i e f and S c r i p t u r a l a l l u s i o n s 1 4 have
gone i n t o the p i c t u r e ' s conception, but along with
these v a l i d considerations we must include, I
suggest, the emblematic convention of the weeping
sky or heaven. An emblem from Henry Peacham's
Minerva Britanna (1612) is a good example of t h i s
m o t i f , and the connection is supported by Blake's
caption "Thou Waterest him with Tears," which
suggests t h a t , as an image, the f a l l i n g rain in
Plate 2 is an hypostatization of sorrow. 1 5

Plate 3 of the series depicts " E a r t h , " but

Blake's verse "Key" to the l a t e r version speaks of
t h i s f i g u r e as "Struggling Thro Earths Melancholy."
I t is c l e a r , I t h i n k , that Blake had i n mind not
simply the physical elements of the Ionian t r a d i t i o n
but also the states of the human psyche for which
these elements are metaphoric equivalents. The
f i g u r e in Plate 3 is somehow restrained in dark
stone or e a r t h , and his torment is as much mental
 I l l
as it is physical. Blake may be allegorizing here
the spirit of man trapped in its "garment of flesh,"
struggling to assert itself against the body's
ponderous limitations. It is interesting to compare
the plate with another emblem from Peacham, one of
many stock representations of "Melancholia" in
emblem literature. Here a gagged, solitary figure
sits holding a full purse, with his foot on a stone
block. Although a merely casual comparison reveals
no resemblance, what connects the woodcut and
Blake's engraving is the atmosphere of heaviness and
restraint that pervades both pictures. Plate 3, I
believe, draws on both a visual and verbal tradition
of the sluggish and oppressive qualities of "black
bile."

This is not to say that there is no important

difference between Blake and Peacham. On the
contrary, the two plates also demonstrate how
Blake can use an emblematic commonplace while at the
same time standing it on its head. Emblematic
depictions of melancholy or grief tend to be static;
that is, they portray images of immobility. Blake's
plate, however, suggests an irrepressible energy
breaking through oppressive limitations. The
caption "He struggles into Life" implies as much,
and the composition of Plate 3 follows an upwardly
rising thrust into light and freedom that is a key
to the whole thematic movement of The Gates of
Paradise. Thus the old melancholia of the
emblematists is transformed from a disorder of the
bodily humors into a symbol of those material and
psychic shackles from which the spirit of man must
be freed. As is the case with other plates in The
Gates of Paradise, the characteristically Blakean
theme nearly overwhelms any residual memory of the
emblematic antecedent.

1 Blake, f r o n t i s p i e c e , "What i s Man?".

2 "Amygdalus," A l c i a t i , Emblemata cum Commentariis

(1621). Courtesy of Garland Publications.

3 Blake, Plate 1 , " I found him beneath a Tree."

4 "Amoris semen m i r a b i l e , " Ayres, Emblemata Amatoria

(1683). Courtesy of Scolar Press.

5 Blake, Plate 2 (Water), "Thou Waterest him w i t h

Tears."

6 "Hei mini quod v i d i , " Peacham, Minerva Britanna

(1612). Courtesy of Scolar Press.
 able in the progression from Wa ter to F i r e . Pl a te
5 ha s undergone a meta morphosis between the two
versions of ' e, Bla ke a ppa rently
having decided to empha size the Mil tonic genesis of
his " F i r e " ima ge. 17 Here a ra ging f i g u r e sta nds i n
flames which mirror his own defia nce a nd a nger, a nd
the Sa ta nic touch Bla ke ga ve the pla te in For the
is nota ble a s the only cha nge of s i g n i f i c a n t
d e t a i l between the e a r l i e r a nd l a t e r versions. It
should a lso be noted tha t the "Key" spea ks of t h i s
f i g u r e a s a Herma phrodite, a nd tha t there is a
deliberate a mbiguity in the depiction of the sexua l
organs, especia lly in the e a r l i e r p l a t e .

Plate 5 is nota ble for a nother rea son a s w e l l .

Certainly the ima ge of " F i r e " i s purely Bla kea n in
some wa ys ( i t r e c a l l s the Ore f i g u r e in a l l i t s
various mea nings, a nd the f i g u r e ' s posture echoes
"Albion Rose"), but i t ma y a lso derive some of i t s
Plate 4 shows a na ked figure in a somewha t connotationsand even i t s visua l compositionfrom
contorted pose, s i t t i n g a mid clouds a nd s t a r s . t r a d i t i o n a l emblema tic depictions of "Choler" or
According to Bla ke's Notebook16 the engra ving is "Anger." Comp a re Pla te 5, for insta nce, w i t h two
connected with the Book of E z e k i e l , a nd i t ma y emblems from Pea cha m a nd Whitney. Pe a ch
a m's device
represent the tyra nny of s t e r i l e , Urizenic "re a son." shows a ma n w i t h wea pon a nd s h i e l d , a nd the
I f t h i s is a correct i n t e r p r e t a t i o n , we miqht well explanatory verse s p e c i f i c a l l y mentions tha t he is
consider tha t the use of sta rs a nd c o n s t e l l a t i o n s a youth. On his shield is a fla me, a nd the verse
in the depiction of overweening i n t e l l e c t u a l pride speaks of the resembla nce of ra ge to a n u n c o n t r o l l
is common in emblem l i t e r a t u r e . A l c ai t i ' s emblem able f i r e . The emblem from Geffrey Whitney's
"In Astrologos," f o r exa mple, shows a n a strologer Choiae of Emblermr, (1586) depicting the sa me pa ssion
gazing upwa rd a t the sta rs j u s t a s he is a bout to presents a kinga ga in with wea pon a nd shieldwho
take a fa lse step a nd f a l l . The joke is a n old one, stands with a burning c i t y behind him. Fl a me a nd
as the pejora tive connota tions of phra ses such a s f i r e a re mentioned in the expla na tory verse for t h i s
" s t a r g a z i n g , " " s t a r r y e y e d , " a nd " s t a r s t r u c k " emblem a lso. In both pictures the f i g u r e r a ises
attest. his wea pon a s i f thre a tening to s t r i k e , a nd
symbolizes the eruptive i r a s c i b l e a spect of huma n
The l a s t pla te in the series of elements seems nature in a l l i t s " f i e r y " ma nifesta tions. Bla ke's
to bring to a clima x the a scent tha t i s so n o t i c e c o n f l a t i o n of the element a nd the tempera ment
(which we have noted in Plate 3 as w e l l ) was not
o r i g i n a l with him, but finds i t s p a r a l l e l in these
early devices.

Plate 7, which shows a youth r a i s i n g his hat

to capture or s t r i k e down a small f l y i n g creature,
may be d i r e c t l y linked to an emblem book published
during Blake's l i f e t i m e . David Erdman reproduces
an emblem from John Wynne's Choice Emblems (1772)
as a probable source for Blake's d e s i g n . 1 8 Wynne's
woodcut depicts a boy chasing a b u t t e r f l y , and the
emblem allegorizes "Vain P u r s u i t s . " Wynne may have
been the source f o r Plate 7, even though Blake was
interested in depicting f u t i l i t y and f r u s t r a t i o n as
inner states of the s o u l , and not in moralizing
about v a n i t y . But I think i t more l i k e l y that two
emblems from Whitney can provide clues to Blake's
meaning. One shows a man with a winged arm reaching
skyward, while his other arm i s weighed down by a
heavy stone. The emblem i s an image of human desire
and a s p i r a t i o n held in check by want and necessity.
Another emblem depicts a man unsuccessfully s t r i v i n g
to catch a b i r d that f l i e s from his grasp, and i t 7 Blake, Plate 3 ( E a r t h ) , "He struggles i n t o L i f e . "
allegorizes our i n a b i l i t y to r e c a l l a word spoken
h a s t i l y . Both emblems share something of the despair 8 "Melancholia," Peacham, Minerva Britanna (1612).
and helplessness that Blake's plate conveys. The Courtesy of Scolar Press.
contrast of upwardly aspiring desire and downwardly
f a t a l despair, combined with the notion of irrevocable 9 Blake, Plate 4 ( A i r ) , "On Cloudy Doubts and
consequences, might be useful s t a r t i n g points f o r Reasoning Cares."
the i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of Plate 7. 10 "In Astrologos," A l c i a t i , Emblematum Liber (1531).
Other plates i n the series also show curiously 11 Blake, Plate 5 ( F i r e ) , "That end in endless
emblematic reminiscences. In Blake's eighth engrav- Strife."
ing a youth aims a dart at his f a t h e r , who s i t s i n
resigned carelessness; t h i s perhaps a l l e g o r i z e s the 12 "Cholera," Peacham, Minerva Britanna (1612).
r e b e l l i o n of youth against aged a u t h o r i t y . At any Courtesy of Scolar Press.
r a t e , the plate hints at a psychic imbalance that
114
has disrupted the human p e r s o n a l i t y . I t is
s t r i k i n g l y s i m i l a r in composition to an emblem from
Guillaume de la P e r r i e r e ' s Le Theatre des bons engins
(1539). In both cases a younq man's eneray and
impetuosity are contrasted with the slugginess
and languor of old age. Both young men carry
weapons, held a l o f t , and both old men are seated on
thrones i n positions suggesting incapacity or
i r r e s o l u t i o n . In Blake's p l a t e , of course, the anger
of the youth (along w i t h his weapon) i s aimed at the
old man, and the reference in the caption to the
story of David and Absalom gives a more c e r t a i n
context to the engraving. But the close resemblance
that Blake's plate bears to P e r r i e r e ' s woodcut makes
i t tempting to believe that Blake saw a copy of Le
Theatre. 19

Plate 9 shows a man about to ascend a ladder to

the moon. Erdman has pointed out that Blake may
have taken t h i s image from a p o l i t i c a l cartoon of
his day, 2 0 but the idea of representing hopeless
a s p i r a t i o n with an inaccessible moon or stars i s
common in emblem books. A l c i a t i ' s emblem "Inanis
impetus" is a good example: i t shows a dog baying
f r u i t l e s s l y at the moon. This same emblem reappears
i n Whitney's book. Plate 10, which shows a f i g u r e
drowning in a tempestuous sea, has the caption
"Help! Help!" This engraving seems closely related
13 "Furor et r a b i e s , " Whitney, A Choice of Emblemes in meaning to Plate 9, where the caption " I want!
(1586). Courtesy of Scolar Press. I want!" i s s i m i l a r l y urgent. Both plates describe
a desire that overwhelms i t s subject, and Plate 10
14 Blake, Plate 7, " A l a s ! " . i s an image of unbridled desire at i t s catastrophic
conclusion. Compare i t with an emblem from Whitney
showing a shipwrecked merchant tossed in the waves.
The explanatory verse to Whitney's emblem is as
follows:

Desire to haue, dothe make vs muche indure,

In t r a u a i l e , t o i l e , and labour voide of r e s t e :
The marchant man is caried w i t h t h i s l u r e ,
 115

Throughe scorching heate, to regions of the

Easte:
Oh t h i r s t e of goulde, what not? but thou canst
do:
And make mens hartes f o r to consent thereto.

A negative comment, to be sure, on the e v i l effects

of uncontrolled desire.

Plate 12 of The Gates of Paradise is unusual

in that i t is the only one of the series to deal
with a s p e c i f i c h i s t o r i c a l event. The enaraving in
question depicts the brutal starvation-murder of
Count Ugolino and his family in the dungeon at Pisa,
and Keynes, in his commentary on The Gates of
Paradise, suggests that Blake must have been
f a m i l i a r with Dante's Inferno p r i o r to the publica-
t i o n of For Children.21 But even i f Blake had come
across the story elsewhere, he made use of i t in a
way that would have been f a m i l i a r to emblem w r i t e r s .
The portrayal of cruel and h i s t o r i c a l l y infamous
punishments f o r the purpose of e d i f i c a t i o n or to
provide v i v i d exempla was a s t o c k - i n - t r a d e of emblem
l i t e r a t u r e , as two emblems from Whitney demonstrate.
In one, a legendary t y r a n t orders a l i v i n g man to
be bound to a corpse and thrown i n t o a "denne" to

15 "Paupertatem summis ingeniis obesse ne prouehan-

t u r , " Whitney, A Choice of Emblernes (1586). Cour-
tesy of Scolar Press.

16 "Verbum emissum non est r e u o c a b i l e , " Whitney, .4

Choice of Emhlemes (1536). Courtesy of Scolar Press.

17 Blake, Plate 8, "My Son! My Son!".

18 "Pour quoy u o i t . . . , " P e r r i e r e , Le Theatre des

tons engins (1539).
116

d i e ; in the other, the story of the barbarous

execution of Regulus A t t i l i u s is recounted. In
e i t h e r case, the device serves to promote something
apart from i t s own f r i g h t f u l imagerythe second
emblem i l l u s t r a t e s the v i r t u e of d i s i n t e r e s t e d
p a t r i o t i s m ; the f i r s t , the drawbacks of arranged
marriages! Here is where Blake d i f f e r s r a d i c a l l y
from the emblem t r a d i t i o n . In The Gates of Paradise
Plate 12 p r i m a r i l y communicates the horror of i t s
subject matter; i t s "moral" {Does thy God, 0 Priest,
take such vengeance as this?) is v i r t u a l l y
inseparable from the image of human c r u e l t y that
the engraving represents. Blake's refusal to use
e i t h e r i l l u s t r a t i o n or t e x t as a mere instrument
f o r e l u c i d a t i o n of the other i s one important way
in which his a r t transcends the moralizing apparatus
of the emblem books, and part of the compelling
power of c e r t a i n engravings in The Gates of Paradise
rests in the f a c t that t h e i r meanings are simply
not reducible to complete "explanations."

The essential power of Blake's treatment of

the Ugolino episode l i e s in the unanswered question
of the caption of Plate 12, and the d i s q u i e t i n g
implications concerning human depravity and divine
forbearance that such a question brings to mind.
For a t r a d i t i o n a l emblematist to raise t h i s issue
would have been v i r t u a l l y unthinkable; emblems deal
not in doubt, but in the reinforcement of orthodox
wisdom. In the emblematic t r a d i t i o n , c r u e l t y and
pain and s u f f e r i n g are merely aspects of the human
condition to be explained, catalogued, and moralized;
they are never occasions f o r the questioning of
conventional b e l i e f s . But f o r Blake the r e a l i t y

19 Blake, Plate 9, " I want! I w a n t ! " .

20 "Inanis Impetus," A l c i a t i , Emblematum Liber (1531).

21 Blake, Plate 10, "Help! H e l p ! " .

 117
of extreme torment shatters whatever comforting
illusions we might place between ourselves and the
brute fact of human bestiality. And Plate 12 is
uncompromising not only in its depiction of evil,
but also in its refusal to supply any easy answer
to the doubts that such an undistorted vision
raises.
Plate 13 has no specific emblematic antecedent,
although mystical and visionary experiences are
sometimes depicted in religious emblems. 22 The
plate shows a family gathered around the bedside of
a dying man, whose spirit rises up majestically
from his mortal remains. This engraving comes as
the high point of The Gates of Paradise. The
disturbing tension and disorder that have been
building up in the previous plates give way to a
cathartic release of energy, one in which fear and
hope reach a pitch of intensity that resolves
itself in Vision. Plate 13 may have its source in
a painful moment for Blake--the death of his brother
Robert in 1787. Blake's early biographer Alexander
Gilchrist mentions that Blake, at Robert's deathbed,
had a vision of his brother's soul rising heaven-
wards. Plate 13's power and intensity may derive
from the personal catharsis Blake experienced at
that moment. 23
Plate 14 is one of the least troublesome of
the series; it clearly symbolizes the approaching
end of life's journey, and Keynes suggests that it
may represent a conscious acceptance of the
necessity of death following the spiritual vision
of Plate 13.2'* In any case, the engraving is
certainly one of the most traditionally emblematic
in The Gates of Paradise, as comparison with an
emblem from Whitney will show. Both pictures reveal
a traveller with hat, cloak, and walking stick
hastening on his way, and in both the sun seems to

22 "Auri sacra fames quid non?," Whitney, A Choice

o f Emblemes (1586). Courtesy of Scolar Press.
23 Blake, Plate 12, "Does thy God 0 Priest take
such vengeance as this?".
24 "Impar coniuqium," Whitney, A Choice of Emblemes
(1586). Courtesy of Scolar Press.
25 "Regulus Attilius," Whitney, A Choice of Embl ernes 28 Blake, Plate 15, "Death's Door."
(1586). Courtesy of Scolar Press.
29 "Melior est mors quam vita," Holbein, Dance of
26 Blake, Plate 14, "The Traveller hasteth in the Death (1538). Courtesy of Dover Publications.
Evening."
30 "Spiritus meus attenuabitur," Holbein, Dance of
27 "Superest quod supra est," Whitney, A Choice of Death (1538). Courtesy of Dover Publications.
Emblemes (1586). Courtesy of Scolar Press.

set in the background as the traveller proceeds

with fixed determination. The most important
similarity, however, lies in the practically identi-
cal meaning of the two pictures. Blake and Whitney
both present the image of a man taking leave of life
and this world for a higher reality. He is a man
whom experience has instructed regarding the trans-
ience of sublunary things, and one who willingly
accepts his mortality. Nonetheless, there is an
added dimension in Blake's picture; taken in context
with the rest of the engravings in The Gates of
Paradise, Plate 14 seems to suggest that the
traveller has been made aware not so much of the
impermanence of the world as of its illusory quality.
But despite Blake's expansion of the conventional
device to accommodate his own ideas about the "veil"
of mundane reality, Plate 14 remains solidly rooted
in the emblematic tradition. Although the traveller
on the road of life is a conceit which has been a
part of the common vocabulary of metaphors since
the middle ages, the very close resemblance between
Whitney's emblem and Plate 14 leads me to think
that Blake saw A Choice of Emblemes--or some
derivative emblem bookbefore producing The Gates
of Paradise.

Plates 15 and 16 end the series. The former

is a representation of an old man at death's door,
and has numerous thematic antecedents in emblem
 119

literature. 25 Hans Holbein's popular Dance of

Death (although not an emblem book in the strict
sense) contains many possible parallels. Plate 16,
on the other hand, is an extremely thought-provoking
picture that has bedeviled many commentators. It
shows a figure of indeterminate sex--perhaps the
traveller--sitting on the ground in a mesmerized
state. Some critics have suggested that the figure
is actually dead, or representative of death. 2l
Around and behind the figure a large worm coils,
while the faces of buried corpses protrude from the
earth. Blake's caption ("I have said to the Worm:
Thou art my mother and my sister") intensifies this
rather disquieting intimacy of human being and worm.
George Wingfield Digby sees the plate as a
representation of an archetypal "Worm-Mother" whose
dominion must be escaped by regenerate man. 2 One's
immediate reaction to this picture usually colors
all future judgment; to me it suggests an unearthly
detachment from phenomenal reality, a kind of trance-
like nirvana that follows long experience.

All commentators on The Gates of Paradise have

correctly identified the source of the caption of
Plate 16 as a passage in the Book of Job. The
complete context of the quotation is an extended
lament by Job during his dispute with Eliphaz,
Bildad, and Zophar concerning divine justice:
120
I have said to corruption, Thou art my
father: to the worm, Thou art my mother,
and my si ster.
And where is now my hope? as for my hope,
who shall see it?
They shall go down to the bars of the pit,
where our rest together is in the dust.
Job 17:14-16 (AV)

The pain which these lines convey in the biblical

text is absent from Blake's emblem. In The Gates
of Paradise the icon of death is inseparable (at the
completion of the emblem series) from a sense of
wisdom achieved after the long journey of life. For
this reason I am inclined to believe that another
biblical passage has a bearing on Plate 16. This
passage is from the Book of Proverbs, in a chapter
which warns against the blandishments of an
adulteress:
Say unto wisdom, Thou art my sister; and
call understanding thy kinswoman:
That they may keep thee from the strange
woman, from the stranger which flattereth
with her words.
Proverbs 7:4-5 (AV)
The similarity of phrasing between this verse and
the passage from Job which Blake used as his caption
is notable. This particular section of the Book of
Proverbs praises the personified feminine Wisdom
{Sophia), and contrasts her with the guileful and
seductive harlot who leads men to their destruction.
The quoted verse is part of a chapter that concludes
with this final admonition against the whorish
temptress:

Let not thine heart decline to her ways,

go not astray in her paths.
For she hath cast down many wounded: yea,
many strong men have been slain by her.
Her house is the way to hell, going down
to the chambers of death.
Proverbs 7:25-7 (AV)
As in the Job passage, the reference to a descent
into death and hell is related to Blake's basic
concern in Plate 16--the meaning of human mortality.
But once again Blake has radically transcended his
sources. He has conflated the anguish of Job and
the wisdom of Proverbs into a powerfully evocative
image, just as he has done in Plate 13, where fear
and hope unite in vision. Moreover, the quoted
passages from Proverbs invoke precisely the sort of
heaven-hell duality that Blake was so fond of under-
mining, and part of the difficulty of Plate 16 may
lie in the deliberate fusion of death, wisdom,
corruption, understanding, and harlotry that Blake
has made out of his sources.

31 Blake, Plate 16, "I have said to the Worm: The form and meaning of Plate 16 should be
Thou art my mother and my sister." examined in the light of three older emblems. The
first two are from Perriere's Le Theatre, and both
32 "Flateurs de court . . .," Perriere, he Theatre depict a dead man lying on the earth. One shows a
de8 bons engine (1539). body attacked by crows that pick and tear at its
flesh; the other a corpse from which lice and similar
 121
In each of these emblems animal or insect life
serves as an image of the evil, the corrupt, or the
anti-human. By using the insect or the reptile as
a vehicle for derogatory metaphor and invidious
comparison, the emblematists deliberately keep clear
the traditional distinction between high and low,
life and death, good and evil. Blake, however,
transcends these orthodox divisions; he has reached
the point in Plate 16 where simple dualities do not
represent true vision. Snake and worm are not the
repulsive blights familiar in traditional iconography
--they are "mother and sister" to the traveller,
whose perspective on life and death has been
infinitely deepened to include even the darker side
of existence. 28

Blake re-engraved all the plates of For Children

when he reissued his book with the new title For the
Sexes, and he added a page of verses and the final
engraving "To the Accuser." In simple appearance,
the plates in For the Sexes almost all show a sharper
contrast of light and dark than is seen in For
Children. Commentators have pointed out several
changes of detail in the new plates, but none affects
our argument here. There are some visible dif-
ferences between paired plates (as in the two
versions of Plates 5 and 13), but whether the
aggregate of these alterations allows for significant
changes of interpretation is a matter of debate.
Anne K. Mellor believes that For Children betrays
33 "Puces et poulz . . .," Perriere, Le Theatre Blake's nascent pessimism about the possibility of
des bons engins (1539). human redemption, either earthly or spiritual, while
the later For the Sexes reasserts the possibility
34 "Icon Peccati," Peacham, Minerva Britanna (1612). of both.2- Erdman mentions that the earlier For
Courtesy of Scolar Press. Children was "considerably revised" when it became
For the Sexes, though he does not say whether the
changes in any way affected the "universal allegory
of creation, growth, and death" that he sees in the
series.3( Whatever his reason for reissuing The
Gates of Paradise, Blake did not substantially alter
the composition of his engravings. However much or
little Blake's opinions may have changed between
1793 and 1818 has no bearing on how he may have been
influenced by emblematic sources in his original
designs.

The new engraving "To the Accuser" is not

simply another emblem added to the original series.
It illustrates some final epilogue-like verses that
Blake appended to For the Sexes:

To the Accuser who is the God of this World

Truly, my Satan, thou art but a dunce

And dost not know the garment from the man:
Every harlot was a virgin once,
Nor canst thou ever change Kate into Nan.

Though thou art worshipped by the names divine

insects flee. Both emblems are visualizations of Of Jesus and Jehovah, thou art still
the evils of flattery: flatterers are worse than The Son of Morn in weary night's decline,
crows, since crows only attack dead men while The lost traveller's dream under the hill.
flatterers devour the living, and like lice they
desert a corpse once all its vital substance is Blake's engraving shows a bat-like creature
gone. The third emblem (from Peacham) shows a blind (presumably a Satanic spectre) hovering over a
youth girt about the middle with a snake, while a sleeping traveller. The traveller is only momentar-
smaller snake gnaws at his heart. This device ily troubled by the bad "dream" of Satan, who is
represents the enslavement of a youth to his follies, essentially powerless to harm the inner immortal
the "serpents" of bad conscience and bondage to sin. man. This emphasis on Satan's imootence recalls an
122
I f emblem l i t e r a t u r e had one overriding purpose,
emblem from Whitney with a curiously s i m i l a r
i t was to say a great deal w i t h i n a l i m i t e d compass.
resonance. Whitney's device shows Satan shaking
The emblematist used a small d e t a i l to speak about
the chain of Divine Law in a f u t i l e attempt to break
something of i n f i n i t e l y wider s i g n i f i c a n c e . That
it. He i s powerless against the mighty force of
t h i s technique was often used to r e i t e r a t e common-
T r u t h , j u s t as Blake's Satan is helpless against the
place ideas and sentiments does not make the
i n t e r i o r t r u t h t h a t the t r a v e l l e r has gained at the
emblematist any less v i s i o n a r y - - h i s aim was to move
end of The Gates of Paradise. But Blake's
from the senses to abstract and ideal knowledge.
i d e n t i f i c a t i o n of Satan with "the God of t h i s World"
So too does The Gates of Paradise s t r i v e f o r
(the j u d g i n g , accusing, law-giving God whose
s p i r i t u a l v i s i o n through the medium of i t s l i t t l e
commandments are raised up on the " a l t a r s high" of
p i c t u r e s . Each plate suggests to the i n t u i t i v e
Christians) i s a reversal that would t r u l y shock
reader so much more than i t s appearance to the
the orthodoxy of the ordinary emblematist.
sensible organ of sight might i n d i c a t e . I t is t h i s
I hope I have suggested some possible emblematic that compresses the book, that gives such a haunting
backgrounds to s p e c i f i c plates in The Gates of aura to i t s p l a t e s , f o r The Gates of Paradise is an
Paradise. I t would be easy to exaggerate the attempt to put i n t o microcosm an e n t i r e visionary
s i m i l a r i t i e s between individual plates and emblems, outlook on the world and r e a l i t y . That i t succeeds
and I t r u s t that in my enthusiasm f o r my subject I independent of mechanical analogies or labored
have not overstepped the bounds of p r o b a b i l i t y . comparisons is a testimony to Blake's stature as a
Coincidence can account for at least some of the creator of potent symbols.
p a r a l l e l s noted here the vast corpus of emblem
l i t e r a t u r e almost guarantees t h a t . But others seem The author wishes to thank the following
more than f o r t u i t o u s , especially in those cases publishers for allowing i l l u s t r a t i o n s from t h e i r
where emblems and plates coincide i n both p i c t o r i a l books to be reprinted i n t h i s a r t i c l e : Scolar Press
composition and thematic meaning. In such an of 90/91 Great Russell S t r e e t , London; Dover P u b l i -
instance I am f a i r l y c e r t a i n that we f i n d Blake cations of 180 Varick S t r e e t , New York; and Garland
unconsciously remembering an old emblem, or Publications of 136 Madison Avenue, New York.
d e l i b e r a t e l y reshaping i t for his own purposes. In
any case, the mere f a c t that engravings in The Gates
of Paradise may have emblematic antecedents i s not
my main concern. As Peter M. Daly has w r i t t e n
concerning the r e l a t i o n of emblem l i t e r a t u r e to
poetry, "The emblematic way of t h i n k i n g and the
emblematic method of composition are undoubtedly
more important and more pervasive than the instances
of exact p a r a l l e l s w i t h emblem-books." 31 For i t is
not so much the l i g h t which some few emblems can
cast on The Gates of Paradise that I am concerned
w i t h , as with the discovery that a s i n g u l a r l y
d i f f i c u l t work of a r t has been constructed with at
least some of the techniques, t o o l s , and materials
of an e a r l i e r and simpler a r t .

W. J . T. M i t c h e l l , in an essay that discusses

Blake's union of poetry and p a i n t i n g , contrasts the
emblem book's perception of the r e l a t i o n s h i p of
those two arts w i t h Blake's perception:

The emblem book enjoyed a p a r t i c u l a r l y

p r i v i l e g e d p o s i t i o n because i t not only
f u l f i l l e d the c l a s s i c a l ideal of u n i t i n g
the a r t s , but also could be seen as a
means of providing the most comprehensive
possible i m i t a t i o n of a b i f u r c a t e d r e a l i t y
. . . Blake would agree w i t h the attempt
of the emblematists to unite the two a r t s ,
n o t , however, as a means of presenting the
f u l l range of r e a l i t y , but as a means of
exposing as a f i c t i o n the b i f u r c a t e d
organization of that r e a l i t y . 3 2

Here may be the "key" that can unlock the emblematic

o r i g i n s of The Gates of Paradise. Blake may have 35 Blake, "To the Accuser."
used the emblem t r a d i t i o n only to undermine i t s
orthodoxy, but he depended nevertheless on i t s 3G "Veritas inuicta," Whitney, A Choice of Enblemes
s t r u c t u r e and c h a r a c t e r i s t i c modes to achieve at (1586). Courtesy of Scolar Press.
least some of his e f f e c t s . 3 3
123
124
15
1
This small volume was issued in 1793 w i t h the t i t l e For The emblematic image of the "weeping heavens" occurs also i n
Children: The Gates of Paradise. I t was reissued w i t h a Henry Hawkins's Partheneia Sacra, 1633 (Menston, Yorks.: Scolar
number of a l t e r a t i o n s and a d d i t i o n s around 1818, w i t h the new Press, 1971), pp. 59-60. Hawkins explains t h a t "as the showres
t i t l e For the Sexes: The Gates of Paradise (see Keynes, were wrung and drawn from Mag dalen through c o n t r i t i o n o f her sad
I n t r o d u c t o r y Volume i n The Blake Trust f a c s i m i l e , London: and clowdie h a r t : so these Deawes are wrung and s t r a i n e d from
Trianon Press, 1968). In t h i s paper, a reference to The Gates heaven, through compression and mutual c o l l i s i o n of the clowds."
of Paradise i n d i c a t e s an unchanged aspect of both v e r s i o n s , 16
w h i l e s i g n i f i c a n t d i f f e r e n c e s are r e f e r r e d to under the r u b r i c s See Erdman , The Illu minated Blake, p. 270.
of For Children and For the Sexes. 17
See Keynes, The Gates of Paradise, i n t r o . v o l . p. 13. The
2
Symbol and Image in William Blake (Oxford: Clare
n do
n Press, most apposite passage i s Paradise Lost I , 221-22.
1957), p. xvi. 18
Erdman , Notebook, p. 92.
3
Blake's Humanism (Manchester: Manchester U n i v e r s i t y Press, 19
1968), p. 231. This i s not as f a r f e t c h e d as i t may seem. W. Schrickx, i n
Shakespeare's Early Contemporaries (Antwerpen: De Nederlandsche
k
S. Foster Damon, in William Blake: His Philosophy and Symbols Boekhandel, 1956),' pp. 9-10, notes that English t r a n s l a t i o n s of
(Boston and New York: Houghton M i f f l i n , 1924), p. 83, and the he Theatre were prepared i n 1590 and 1593.
i n t r o d u c t o r y note to The Gates of Paradise in W. H. Stevenson's 20
e d i t i o n o f The Poems of William Blaki (London and New York: David Erdman, Blake: Prophet Ag ainst Empire, rev. ed. (New
Longman, Norton, 1972), p. 8 4 1 , both mention the Gates of York: Doubleday, 1969), pp.' 203-04.
in connection w i t h Francis Quarles's emblem books. 21
There is a b r i l l i a n t discussion of the r e l a t i o n of Blake's a r t Keynes, p. 17. The story of Ugolino i s i n inferno, Canto
in general to the emblematic t r a d i t i o n i n J ean H. Hagstrum's XXXIII. A v a r i a n t of Plate 12 appeared i n Blake's The Marriag e
William Blake: Poet and Painter (Chicago and London: U n i v e r s i t y of Heaven and Hell, which was p r i n t e d at about the same time as
of Chicago Press, 1964), pp. 48-57. For Children or perhaps somewhat e a r l i e r .
22
5
This e f f e c t was even more pronounced i n Blake's e a r l i e r version Common motifs are the f i n g e r of God w r i t i n g on a w a l l , a s a i n t
For Children, where the engravings had no t e x t u a l e l a b o r a t i o n w i t h the stigmata, or a l l e g o r i c a l d e p i c t i o n s of the Godhead.
apart from t h e i r short captions. 23
I am indebted to Aileen Ward f o r t h i s suggestion. The death
6
For some discussion of the s t y l i s t i c presuppositions of emblem o f his brother Robert was c r u c i a l in Blake's l i f e and a r t . For
l i t e r a t u r e see the f i r s t chapter of Rosemary Freeman's Eng lish Children was published in 1793, s i x years a f t e r his b r o t h e r ' s
Emblem Books (1948; r p t . New York: Octagon Books, 1966), and death and a f t e r Blake i n h e r i t e d Robert's drawing book, in which
Rosalie C o l i e ' s The Resources of Kind: Genre Theory in the he sketched the emblems t h a t became The Gates of Paradise. As
Renaissance (Berkeley: U n i v e r s i t y of C a l i f o r n i a Press, 1973). l a t e as 1800 Blake would w r i t e to W i l l i a m Hayley: "Thirteen
By f a r the most penetrating study of the " h i e r o g l y p h i c a l " mode years ago I l o s t a brother & w i t h his s p i r i t I converse d a i l y &
i s found i n L i s e l o t t e Dieckmann's h i e s : The History of hourly i n the S p i r i t & See him i n my remembrance i n the regions
a- Li- nbol ( S t . Louis: Washington U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1970). of my Imagination. I hear his advice & even now w r i t e from his
D i c t a t e " (6 May 1800, E 678).
7
David V. Erdman, i n his e d i t i o n of Blake's Notebook (Oxford: 2 (
Clarendon Press, 1973), pp. N23 and 92, points out that Blake ' Keynes, p. 18.
included a design from Quarles's e a r l i e r book Emblemes (1635) 25
among his sketches f o r the Gates s e r i e s , although he did not A v a r i a n t of Plate 15 appeared in Blake's America, A Prophecy
choose to engrave t h a t p a r t i c u l a r sketch i n h i s f i n a l s e l e c t i o n . (1793).
26
8
Northrop Frye, "The Keys to the Gates," i n Some British Erdman i n The Illuminated Blake, pp. 276-77, c a l l s this
Romantics, ed. J ames V. Logan et a l . (Columbus: Ohio State f i g u r e "the human form of natural d e a t h . "
U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1966), pp. 30-32. 27
Digby, p. 50.
9
Frye, p. 35. 28
Erdman suggests another emblem from Wynne (an image of a
10
Frye, p. 38. t r a v e l l e r being b i t t e n by a snake) as a possible source f o r
Plate 16. See his e d i t i o n of the Notebook, Appendix I I , pp. 76
11
Erdman, Notebook, pp. 40-44. and 92.
29
12
Plates of both versions of The Gates of Paradise are reproduced Blake's Human Form Divine (Berkeley and Los Angeles:
i n David V. Erdman's The Illuminated Blake (New York: Doubleday, U n i v e r s i t y o f C a l i f o r n i a Press, 1974), pp. 67 and 230.
1974), pp. 268-79. In r e f e r r i n g to Blake's engravings in t h i s 30
paper, I use Erdman's enumeration. Erdman , Blake: Prophet Against . p. 204.
31
13
As f a r as I can t e l l , the plate i n For children shows no wings, Literatu re in the Light of the Emblem (Toronto: Un iversity
but they are c l e a r l y v i s i b l e i n For the Sexes. Blake may have of Toron to Press, 1979)', p. 186.
wished t o emphasize the embryonic, unrealized p o t e n t i a l o f the 32
c h r y s a l i s - c h i l d , and d i d so by g i v i n g him wings when he r e - W. J . T. M i t c h e l l , "Blake's Composite A r t , " i n Blake's
engraved the p l a t e . Visionaru Forms Dramatic, ed. David V. Erdman and J ohn E. Grant
( P r i n c e t o n , N . J . : Princeton U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1970), pp. 60-61.
lh
The r e l a t i o n of the Book of J ob to The Gates of / . ' . is a 33
subject t h a t deserves s c r u t i n y . In the same year (1818) t h a t I have not dealt w i t h two plates i n The kites of Para:
Blake reissued his emblem book under the t i t l e For ths Sexes, sequence (6 and 11), because I have found no l i k e l y emblematic
he began a series o f watercolors f o r Thomas Butts i l l u s t r a t i n g p a r a l l e l s f o r them. I t i s obvious t h a t Blake d i d not depend
the Book o f J ob. Blake must have f e l t a special a f f i n i t y between s l a v i s h l y on prototypes f o r his designs, and even when he did
the B i b l e ' s moving account of human miseryincluding the e t h i c a l borrow a design his a r t transmuted i t i n t o a new t h i n g a l l his
i m p l i c a t i o n s o f t h a t miseryand his own l i t t l e work. Cf. J ob own.
14:19 and 27:20 to Plate 2.
 125

INNOCENCE LOST & FOUND:

A N UNTRACED COPY TRACED

DETLEF W. DORRBECKER

T he year 1980 has already been described with

numerous e p i t h e t s . For those interested i n
the graphic work of William Blake i t has been
The Cologne copy consists of f i f t e e n p l a t e s ,
printed on f i f t e e n leaves with r e l a t i v e l y wide
margins. The leaves have been f o l i a t e d consecutively
a year of unexpected rediscoveries. This i s 3-17 by Blake in the upper r i g h t corners, j u s t
especially true of Blake's best known work i n outside the framing lines of the designs. 5 Their
illuminated p r i n t i n g , the Songs of Innooenoe and of arrangement coincides with the "standard order" of
Experience. plates 4-18 as established in Bentley's Blake Books,
which of course corresponds with Blake's own late
Some time in Spring 1980, Copy BB of the Songs order. 6
reappeared in a sale at Sotheby's,* and i n autumn^a
series of coincidences led me to the W a l l r a f - R i c h a r t z - Two of the leaves show a d i s t i n c t , though
Museum (WRM), Cologne, where in the c o l l e c t i o n of fragmentary, watermark. Plate 7 as well as plate 16
Dr. Walter Neuerburg I found a fragmented copy of have "BUTTA" i n the lower r i g h t corner of the sheet
the Songs of Innocence which has never been available and in both the o r i g i n a l watermark c e r t a i n l y read
to the scholarly or non-scholarly public before. 2 "BUTTANSHAW" before the leaves were cut down to
The following description of what I believe to be t h e i r present s i z e . Buttanshaw wove paper without
Songs of Innooenoe , Copy Y, attempts to supply a few at least portions of a date has not been recorded
new d e t a i l s about t h i s p a r t i c u l a r copy and thus to otherwise in Blake's oeuvre. 7 Buttanshaw paper with
supplement G. E. Bentley, J r . ' s b i b l i o g r a p h i c a l the f i r s t two d i g i t s of a date, "18[ ] , " was
notes on entry no. 139 in his Blake Books.3 employed by the a r t i s t for his euphoric l e t t e r to
John Flaxman of 19 October 1801. The same make, and
The p r i v a t e c o l l e c t o r ' s typewritten catalogue14 three d i g i t s of a date, "180[ ] , " appear to be
mistakenly assumes that the f i f t e e n handcolored v i s i b l e in three of the leaves of Copy 0 of
p r i n t s which are now preserved at the Cologne museum Innocence (University of Texas), whereas only two
once formed "Seiten 3-17 [ . . . ] der kombinierten copies of the combined Songs (P in an anonymous
Ausgabe aus den beiden T i t e l n 'Songs of Innocence, private c o l l e c t i o n i n B r i t a i n , and Q i n the c o l l e c -
1789' und 'Songs of Experience, 1794'." Since a l l t i o n of Mrs. Dennis of New York, N.Y.) seem to have
the designs, however, belong to the Innooenoe s e r i e s , preserved both the name and date i n t a c t : "BUTTAN-
and since the authentic f o l i a t i o n leaves no room SHAW / 1802." 8 Obviously, Blake made use of Buttan-
f o r the combined t i t l e p a g e of the Son^s--which in shaw paper during a comparatively short period of
most cases was numbered as page 1 by Blake--I think time. The Buttanshaw watermark i n the present cony
i t is much more l i k e l y that this copy in i t s o r i g i n a l of Innocence thus points to the Felpham period and
i n t e g r i t y consisted of the Innocence plates only. the years immediately f o l l o w i n g (up to c. 1807) f o r
Yet Dr. Neuerburg was correct when he stated that an approximate date of the p r i n t i n g .
t h i s copy was s t i l l missing from the Keynes and
Wolf Census, and that the year 1802 is the
Two other facts seem to support 1801-02 as the
approximate terminus post quern for i t s execution.
terminus post quern f o r the production of the Cologne
126
copy: unlike the early copies, the plates were (1) partly eliminated by a brown watercolor wash except
printed on one side of the leaves only, and (2) for its lower portion; there it shows three red
foliated by the artist. At the same time, however, calyxes. The Shepherd's clothes are of a light
the arrangement of the designs as confirmed by the brown. His face and hair, some of the folds of his
autograph pagination in this case poses a new gown, his crook, and the foremost of his sheep have
problem. While Blake "began numbering his copies" all been reworked with the pen. Necessitated by
of Innocence and the Songs from "at least 1806," poor inking and/or printing the text of 11. 1-4 had
the sequence of the fifteen plates at the WRM is occasionally to be strengthened too.
that of the late, post-1818 copies of the combined
edition.9 PI. 6: "The Ecchoing Green," I. Leaf-size 19.8 x
14.0 cm. Behind the green and yellow foliage of the
The contradiction between the extrinsic evidence central tree (which seems to cast light, not shadow,
of the watermarks and the plate order might be on the scene below) and the group of playing
explained if we assume that the copy with which our children, the sky is a mixture of pink and bright
fragment once belonged had been printed (and colored) blue. These hues return in the foreground where
by about 1802-06, but was foliated, bound, and sold they dominate, slightly more saturated and in an
at a much later date (or, very simply, by assuming a-b-a-b-like rhythm the colors of the various
that the pagination was not the work of the artist costumes. The ground is divided into areas of lime-
himself). In this situation, intrinsic evidence green and warm orange which is composed--in an almost
that only stylistic analyses of the coloring can "divisionist" manner--of red and yellow washes. The
supply becomes crucial. A close comparison of the outlines of the tree and of most of the figures have
Cologne copy, especially with the other "Buttanshaw been strengthened with pen and ink. Bright yellow,
copies," may yield the decisive clue; unfortunately, blue, and pink washes (i.e. the classic trias of
however, I have never seen Innocence (0) and Songs primary colors) have been used to structure the lower
(P-Q), and therefore cannot offer more than a few half of the page. The title line, having been thinly
cursory remarks on the use of color in the present inked, had to be painted over (with dark brown
example. watercolor).

THE COLOGNE COPY OF INNOCENCE, PLATE BY PLATE PI. 7: "The Ecchoing Green," II. Leaf-size 20.9 x
14.7 cm. The group of figures is set against a
Note: The printing color is a pale, somewhat sepia- blue background which changes first to pink, and
like brown, unless stated otherwise. All the then to yellow, with some orange added in the upper
strengthening of outlines has been executed with pen part of the design. As in many other copies, the
and gray or black ink. Generally, this pen work and two grape-plucking figures are clothed in pink and
the coloring follow closely the etched lines of the blue dress. Below them, the man wears a gray-green
designs. There is no colorprinting, of course, and overcoat, and the surrounding figures are clad in
the following glosses all apply to watercolor washes dresses of pink, yellow, and orange. Some of the
which have been added to the printed design by hand. contours and faces of the figures have been worked
Blake's foliation, running from 3 to 17, is to be over with pen and ink. The large vine has a brown
found in the upper right corners of each page and stem and green leaves (which, with Blake, is not a
has been written with grayish ink. In the measure- matter-of-fact).
ments height precedes width.
PI. 8: "The Lamb." Leaf-size 20.5 x 14.3 cm.,
PI. 4: "Introduction." Leaf-size 20.1 x 14.5 cm. printed in a somewhat darker brown than the rest of
At three sides the design is surrounded by a light the plates. All in all, the coloring here is more
blue wash; at the bottom, however, there is no subdued; there are yellowish greens for the fore-
indication of "the water clear" (as, e.g., in Copies ground and the tree's foliage in mid-distance, a
T and Z of the Songs), but a simple horizontal strip warm quality of yellow for the upper and rose color
of brown color from which the Tree-of-Jesse foliage for the lower portion of the sky. The same hue of
shoots up into the margins. These vines are colored pink has also been employed for the child's skin.
green and yellow, and, from the tiny panels they The outlines of the child's arms, its hands, and the
enclose, streaks of rose color are drawn horizontally central lamb have all been reworked with the pen,
into the area of the text. On both sides the figures and the child's right hand even shows some
in the third vignette from the bottom, as well as pentimenti.
the foliage itself, have been strengthened with pen
and ink. PI. 9: "The Little Black Boy," I. Leaf-size 20.6
x 14.2 cm., printed in brown. The mother and child
PI. 5 (illus. 1): "The Shepherd." Leaf-size 20.1 are the usual dark brown; the mother's skirt, though
x 14.0 cm. Elaborately colored, with much modulation partly shaded, is of the same color in a brighter,
of the various hues, creating a completely convincing nougat-like mixture. The foliage of the tree,
image of an Arcadian sunset. Behind the ochre printed in brown, has been enriched by yellow and
colored flock extends a line of bushes in varied green washes. These contrast with the blue and
tones of green; the hill in the background is of a reddish tints which have been employed for the sky.
saturated dark blue. Above, pink washes have been The orb of the sun on the horizon of the qreen hills
laid over some gray shading. Behind the text panel does not at all act as a source of light (here then,
the sky has been tinted with a light blue which also the sun itself appears to be "bereav'd of light").
reappears at the top of the design where it has been Its dull yellowish-brown color seems to belie the
applied in a darker pigmentation. The plant twining luminosity of both the sky in the design, and the
up the trunk of the tree in other copies has been bright yellow, pink, and blue washes which streak
 127

h o r i z o n t a l l y across the t e x t panel. The contours

of the tree to the l e f t and the mother's r i g h t arm
have been h a s t i l y re-worked with pen.

PI. 10 ( i l l u s . 2 ) : "The L i t t l e Black Boy," I I .

Leaf-size 20.7 x 13.7 cm. The whole of the page
seems to be bathed i n a s i l v e r y l i g h t ; t h i s l i g h t ,
of course, emanates from the paper which has been
covered with p a r t i c u l a r l y d e l i c a t e layers of p a i n t .
The C h r i s t - l i k e shepherd's garment, the skin of the
English boy, and the flock of sheep have a l l been
treated with only a few gray washes; i n a more
saturated, darker pigmentation the same gray has been
used for the black boy and the t r e e . The water in
the immediate foreground is of a s t e e l - l i k e blue-
gray. The landscape scenery makes a c o l o r f u l
contrast with t h i s almost monochrome center of the
p i c t u r e ; there is green, y e l l o w , and b r i g h t cinnabar
i n the foreground, green and blue (with an i n l a i d
s t r i p of red) in the background h i l l s and f o l i a g e .
For the sky, the primary colors have again been
employed i n t h e i r most luminous s t a t e ; the h a l o - l i k e
sun emanates rose colored rays i n t o the blue ( r i g h t ) ,
b r i g h t gray-blue (area of the t e x t ) , and orange-
yellow "atmosphere." Pen work i s to be seen on the
outlines of the three f i g u r e s , strengthening
especially the shepherd's p r o f i l e , and on the
branches of the arching t r e e .

P I . 11: "The Blossom." Leaf-size 20.8 x 14.4 cm.,

printed in dark blue. The blossoming plant is
colored carmine red and blue, with some brown near
the right-hand border of the design. The s i x
children have pink skin and l i g h t brown wings; the
wings of the central maiden are blue. A warm
q u a l i t y of y e l l o w , tending d i s t i n c t l y towards orange
to the r i g h t of the second stanza, has been washed
in for a background. No additional o u t l i n i n g with
the pen, but some of the t e x t (the t i t l e , 11. 4-6,
and especially 11. 11-12) has been strengthened with
watercolor in b e i g e . 1 0

PI. 12: "The Chimney Sweeper." Leaf-size 21.3 x

14.8 cm. The printed design leaves l i t t l e room f o r
coloring i n t h i s case. There are some blue ( 1 1 .
1-12, 20-24 [ t o the l e f t of the page]), b r i g h t salmon
and carmine red ( 1 1 . 15-20), and yellow ( 1 1 . 20-24
[washed in from the r i g h t ] ) lanciform washes between
the lines of the t e x t . The flourishes between the
stanzas and the background of the design at the
bottom of the page are of a pale yellowish green;
a l s o , some brown is interspersed, which has been
used for the trunk of the tree to the r i g h t as w e l l .
The long-robed f i g u r e , the c h i l d r i s i n g from the

1 "The Shepherd," Songs of Innocence, Copy Y. Relief

etching, hand-colored w i t h additional pen and ink
work. Neuerburg Collection at the W a l l r a f - R i c h a r t z -
Museum, Cologne.

2 "The L i t t l e Black Boy," plate 2, Songs of Innocence,

Copy Y. Relief e t c h i n g , hand-colored with additional
pen and ink work. Neuerburg C o l l e c t i o n at the WRM,
Cologne.
128
dark brown e a r t h , nine of the ten dancing and running orange, and even red f o l i a g e . Only a few d e t a i l s
c h i l d r e n , and the t i t l e l i n e at the top of the page l i k e the shoulders of the man with arms upraised
have been f i r m l y outlined i n pen. and the chair at the r i g h t have been strengthened i n
pen and ink.
PI. 13: "The L i t t l e Boy l o s t . " Leaf-size 20.3 x
14.4 cm.; the l e t t e r i n g of the t e x t has been P I . 16: "A Cradle Song," I . Leaf-size 20.7 x 14.8
re-worked with pen and gray i n k , thus considerably cm. The f l o u r i s h i n g branches are e i t h e r brown ( i . e .
darkening the o r i g i n a l pale brown of the p r i n t i n g . 1 1 the p r i n t i n g c o l o r ) , or a l u s t e r l e s s green; the t i n y
As in most other copies, the design is dominated by figures have not been hand-colored. The t e x t is set
a strong chiaroscuro contrast between the dark, i n o f f against yellow, blue, and rose colored washes
t h i s case blue-gray, background on one side, the which run down the margins (at the l e f t : yellow;
uncolored and only l i g h t l y shaded dress of the boy, at the upper r i g h t : blue, and at the lower r i g h t :
and the b r i g h t yellow and red of the w i l l - o ' - t h e - pinkish r e d ) ; these have also been extended
w i s p - l i k e gleam on the other. The same pink which h o r i z o n t a l l y between the l i n e s of the t e x t . To the
has been used on the boy's face and bare forearms l e f t of the t i t l e and of the fourth stanza a few of
serves to set o f f the t e x t from the ground. The the plant ornaments have been worked over with pen
f l o a t i n g angels are colored y e l l o w , so that together and ink.
with the blue washes at the bottom of the page and
between the stanzas the t r i a s of primary colors is PI. 17 ( i l l u s . 4 ) : "A Cradle Song," I I . Leaf-size
present once more i n the lower portion of t h i s page. 20.8 x 14.3 cm. The p l a n t - l i k e f l o u r i s h e s above,
The outlines and drapery of the boy as well as those below, and between the two remaining stanzas on
of the three angels to the r i g h t of the t e x t , and t h i s page have been colored green, modulating towards
the contours of the tree have been worked over with y e l l o w ; they, as well as the woman carrying a c h i l d
the pen. to the l e f t of 11. 26-28, have been given stronger
outlines with the pen. The design below is composed
PI. 14 ( i l l u s . 3 ) : "The L i t t l e Boy found." Leaf- of only three d i f f e r e n t hues: the f l o o r , c h a i r , and
size 20.7 x 14.5 cm. The t e x t panel has been treated cradle, as well as the mother's h a i r , are colored a
i n much the same way as in the preceding page, with l i g h t brown; the c u r t a i n i s blue and v i v i d l y
the addition of some blue-green for the twining structured by the printed lineament i n pale brown;
plants that surround the two stanzas of the poem. at the leftbehind the woman's b a c k - - i t is covered
The s e t t i n g of the scene with i t s dark brown tree with dark gray-blue shading; f i n a l l y , the woman's
trunks, brownish green bushes, and marine blue sky dress is t i n t e d with the b r i g h t pinkish carmine red
is sombre but nevertheless c o l o r f u l . Thus, patches that has been observed so often in t h i s copy. The
of r e d , creating the e f f e c t of r e f l e c t e d sunset faces of mother and c h i l d , the outlines and drapery
l i g h t , have been introduced on the branches of the folds of the woman's dress, the c h a i r , and even some
tree to the r i g h t . The two f i g u r e s , however, have of the folds in the c u r t a i n have a l l been f o r c e f u l l y
been l e f t almost uncolored, with only a few gray strengthened with pen and black i n k .
washes to indicate l i g h t , shade, and r e l i e f of t h e i r
white robes. The adult figure does not have the PI. 18: "The Divine Image." Leaf-size 20.0 x 13.6
d i s c - l i k e halo of the l a t e copies, though when cm., printed i n blue-gray. Text and design have
washing in the blue sky, the a r t i s t l e f t uncolored been equally set o f f against washes of pink ( l e f t
an oval c i r c l e t above the head. The faces and hands margin and top l e f t ) , b r i g h t blue (top r i g h t ) , yellow
of both figures show some pink f l e s h - c o l o r ; the boy's and orange (lower right-hand p o r t i o n ) , the l a t t e r
hair i s a dark blonde, and the brim of his hat is two gaining in i n t e n s i t y near the " r a i s i n g " scene
dark gray. The pen has been used to define more with the haloed C h r i s t - l i k e f i g u r e . Yellow, cinnabar
c l e a r l y the faces and the o u t l i n e s of the figures red, and the orange which is the product when these
(including the angel to the r i g h t of the t e x t ) , as two are applied on top of each other, are the colors
well as the contours of the three t r e e s . of the flaming p l a n t . The figures have been touched
w i t h pink f o r t h e i r carnations. There i s no
P I . 15: "Laughing Song." Leaf-size 20.6 x 14.8 cm., additional pen work on t h i s design.
p r i n t e d in a darker brown than most of the other
plates i n t h i s copy. Again, the t e x t panel shows I t should be evident from these glosses that
the primary c o l o r s : from the l e f t a b r i g h t b l u e , the Cologne copy of Songs of Innoaenoe is
from the r i g h t a luminous red, and at the bottom a characterized by a p a r t i c u l a r l y luminous transparency
warm q u a l i t y of yellow has been washed i n . There of a l l the various hues of watercolor that have been
the birds with t h e i r red bodies and blue wings take employed in i t s hand-coloring. The combined use of
up once more the colors of the upper part of the the three primary colors (often together with green
t e x t area, and of the dresses of the figures in the as the f o u r t h ) , or at least two of them in weak
design above. The same three c o l o r s , with the s a t u r a t i o n , i s an essential aspect of the formal
addition of some green and orange-red, are arranged unity of the complete set. Also, the extensive use
round the white of the uncolored t a b l e - c l o t h . The of pen and ink on the figures and other important
dress of the woman on the l e f t , s i t t i n g i n f r o n t of d e t a i l s belongs with the c h a r a c t e r i s t i c q u a l i t i e s of
the t a b l e , i s mainly of a b r i g h t blue, but has been t h i s copy. Throughout, the basic rule of t r a d i t i o n a l
sprinkled with pinkish red. Her male pendant at the color perspective has been observed; wherever the
r i g h t (facing the table in t h i s copy) is dressed in printed design allowed f o r i t , "warm" colors and
blue, and two of the women behind the table wear especially reds have been employed in the f o r e -
pinkish red gowns. The central f i g u r e , seen from ground whereas dark blue tones have been reserved
the back, is colored orange-red and thus corresponds f o r the background, and the b r i g h t e r blues mostly
with the autumn-like splendor of the t r e e ' s yellow, f o r the " d i s t a n t " sky.
 129
Though the following paraphernalia c e r t a i n l y according to Bentley was the pseudonym of the a r t
give no clue f o r e i t h e r the dating and the early dealer Nicolas Rauch of Geneva, whose "sale records
h i s t o r y of the Neuerburg copy, or f o r an estimation [ - - u n f o r t u n a t e l y - - ] were not preserved a f t e r his
of i t s aesthetic value, a b i b l i o g r a p h i c a l account death by his successor." 1 6 T hus, s h o r t l y a f t e r the
would be incomplete without i t . So l e t me b r i e f l y illuminated book had made i t s f i r s t appearance on
mention that the leaves have apparently been trimmed the a r t market, we l o s t track of Songs of Innocence,
offhand; t h e i r s l i g h t l y varying s i z e s , which range Copy Y, once again. T he description in the sales
from 19.8 to 21.3 cm. in height, and 13.6 to 14.8 catalogue was detailed enough, however, to allow for
cm. in w i d t h , indicate that a pair of scissors future i d e n t i f i c a t i o n . T he data supplied by the
instead of a chopper was probably used f o r c u t t i n g catalogueand since then incorporated i n t o Blake
them to t h e i r present s i z e . 1 3 Whereas today the Booksincluded the number of plates and t h e i r
p r i n t s are mounted separately with perspex guard contents, watermarks, f o l i a t i o n d e t a i l s , approximate
sheets, they were o r i g i n a l l y stabbed with three l e a f - s i z e s , and p r i n t i n g c o l o r . With the help of
holes in preparation for b i n d i n g . 1 4 T hese s t i t c h - Bentley's superb tables i t is easy to f i n d that
holes are about 5.0 to 6.0 cm. from the top of the these d e t a i l s a l l s u i t the Cologne copy, which, i n
pages, and about 3.0 cm. apart from each other; they
have been closed in the course of the r e s t o r a t i o n
of the p r i n t s (see below), but are s t i l l v i s i b l e on
close examination.
3 "T he L i t t l e Boy found," Songs of Innocence, Copy Y.
As regards the h i s t o r y and i d e n t i f i c a t i o n of Relief e t c h i n g , hand-colored w i t h additional Den and
the Cologne copy, only a few d e t a i l s are known. On ink work. Neuerburg C o l l e c t i o n at the WRM, Cologne.
12 March 1962, "a gentleman" sold an incomplete copy
of Innocence f o r LI000 through Sotheby's to 4 "A Cradle Song," plate 2 , Songs of Innocence, CoDy
" F a i r b r o t h e r . " T his copy had not been recorded Y. Relief e t c h i n g , hand-colored w i t h additional pen
before, and i t was described in the respective and ink work. Neuerburg Collection at the WRM,
Sotheby catalogue under l o t 1 5 1 . 1 5 "Fairbrother," Cologne.

^s
130
5
t u r n , cannot be i d e n t i f i e d with any other of the As i n other copies of the i l l u m i n a t e d books which are generally
untraced copies of e i t h e r the Songs of Innocence or assumed to have been numbered by Blake h i m s e l f , the f o l i a t i o n of
the Neuerburg copy has been executed i n i n k . The color of the
the combined Songs of Innocence and of Experience. ink i s of the same l i g h t gray which was employed f o r the s i n g l e
framing l i n e s in most of the p l a t e s . The numbers themselves I
Obviously, Dr. Walter Neuerburg bought Copy Y have compared w i t h those in facsimiles of the Notebook, the
from Rauch (who may well have acted on behalf of the "Pickering Manuscript" of post1803, and copies of the i l l u m i n a t e d
books where the hand has been accepted as Blake's own. Since the
distinguished German c o l l e c t o r ) or some intermediary character of the s c r i p t i n the Cologne copy o stronaly
agent soon a f t e r the sale at Sotheby's was over. resembles that i n the other examples, I see no reason to doubt
This is confirmed by the correspondence between the the a u t h e n t i c i t y of the present p a g i n a t i o n .
c o l l e c t o r and Mr. and Mrs. Kastner of Wolfenbuttel 6
See Bentley 1977, pp. 37576; according to the Keynes & Wolf
which is s t i l l preserved with the p r i n t s at the WRM. ordering of Tnnocenct , the Cologne copy shows the f o l l o w i n q
The f i r s t of these l e t t e r s i s dated 6 April 1962, sequence of p l a t e s : 3. 15. 1011. 8. 2930. 9. 13. 2021. 28.
and i t refers to the projected r e s t o r a t i o n of Blake's 1819. 12.
newly acquired p r i n t s . This r e s t o r a t i o n had been
'' Bentley's entry under the respective heading i n his table of
brought to a successful end by 19 May 1962. 1 7 The watermarks, ".',>... (3 p i s . ) , " r e f e r s to the three plates i n
present owner himself, however, was r e l u c t a n t to ( Y ) , i . e . our copy (see Bentley 1977, p. 7 1 ; Professor
supply me with f u r t h e r information about the Bentley agreed to t h i s c o r r e c t i o n i n correspondence). The
provenance of his treasure; yet he was kind enough watermark fragments of the Neuerburg copy both appear i n the
lower r i g h t corner of the sheet, and i t seems l i k e l y that w i t h
to t e l l me t h a t " a l l in a l l " t h e reconstruction the edge o f the paper not j u s t h a l f of the maker's name ( t o the
of the l a s t stages i n the h i s t o r y of his copy, as r i g h t ) but also a datewhich o r i g i n a l l y may have been v i s i b l e
offered here, is c o r r e c t . 1 8 belowhas been trimmed o f f . At the same time I ought to point
out that Bentley's source f o r the d e s c r i p t i o n of Copy
Y (see below) mentioned the Buttanshaw watermark f o r plates 6,
Songs, Copy BB, and Innocence, Copy Y, have been 1516 (see Bentley 1977, p. 366); I cannot f i n d any s u f f i c i e n t
merely ^ d i s c o v e r e d . And y e t , the f i r s t of Blake's explanation for t h i s discrepancy, but I hope t h a t the remaining
i l l u m i n a t e d books ever to appear in a c o l l e c t i o n on evidence w i l l prove to be strong enough to confirm my i d e n t i f i c a
t i o n of :>.>. tenet (Y) with the f i f t e e n p r i n t s at Cologne.
the Continent, outside of the Englishspeaking
world, may raise hopes f o r more and even bigger . , pp. 7 1 , 366, 368.
surprises in the f u t u r e . I do not expect the
"Ancient B r i t o n s , " or the painted version of the . , p. 383. An i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of the p l a t e numbers i n the
Cologne copy that concludes that the sequence here chosen by the
"Last Judgement" stored away on the backstairs of p o e t p r i n t e r a c t u a l l y a n t i c i p a t e d the order of the l a t e copies i n
some provincial museum on the Continent. But the f u l l , must remain h y p o t h e t i c a l . The Neuerburg copy i s a fragment,
unexpected f i n d i n g at Cologne c e r t a i n l y h i g h l i g h t s and the order of plates 418 does not necessarily imply that the
another "work needed" in the f i e l d of Blake studies sequence of the remaining pages, now lacking from i t ,
must also have been the same as in the l a t e copies. In t h i s
which is missing from Gerald Bentley's l i s t . Our context i t is of p a r t i c u l a r importance that plates 227 (with
knowledge of the e n t i r e corpus of the graphic work plates 53 and 54 i n t e r p o l a t e d ) i n Copy S of w i t h an
of William Blake w i l l be l i m i t e d i n an almost 1808 Whatman watermarkreally are in the same order as i n the
:
inexcusable way u n t i l a thorough i n v e s t i g a t i o n i n t o l a t e copies and in the fragmented Copy Y (:'. :'.:., p. 377). Thus,
the holdings of at least the major public c o l l e c t i o n s the e x i s t i n g evidence c e r t a i n l y makes the Coloqne copy and
Innoaenae (S) the most l i k e l y candidates to t e s t i f y f o r a much
in France, Germany, I t a l y , and the Scandinavian e a r l i e r date of the s o c a l l e d "standard o r d e r . "
countries has been undertaken. 1 9
I
In the l e f t margin of t h i s sheet the fragment of a lower case
roman l e t t e r , probably a " d , " is v i s i b l e . At f i r s t glance i t
looks as i f p r i n t e d , but i n f a c t i t appears to be the only
s u r v i v i n g part of an ink i n s c r i p t i o n which was cut o f f when the
leaves were prepared f o r binding.
1
See Robert N. Essick's a r t i c l e w i t h "New Information on Blake's II
I l l u m i n a t e d Books.", , 15 (1981), Blake's reason f o r doing t h i s must have been the weak
413. l e g i b i l i t y of the t e x t i n t h i s impression of p l a t e 13, not the
decision to tolor the words themselves ( a s , e . g . , i n the l a t e
The p r i v a t e c o l l e c t i o n of Dr. Walter and Marlis Neuerburg, Copy H o f thi at the F i t z w i l l i a m Museum). I could
which since 1978 has been on permanent loan at the w a l l r a f detect no textual variants caused by t h i s reworking except the
RichartzMuseum, covers European printmaking from Goya to the commas a f t e r the " f a t h e r s " i n 11. 1 and 3, at the end of 1. 4 ,
Brucke masters. Among many other English i l l u s t r a t e d books of and a f t e r "deep" in 1. 7, and the colon at the end of 1 . 8,
t h i s period i t also includes a proof copy of Blake's I which found no consideration in the "strengthened v e r s i o n . "
A preliminary review of the holdings of the
c o l l e c t i o n is given by Barbara C a t o i r , "Panorama der europaischen ' Copy P of .'.. noi (now at Yale) was p r i n t e d on d i f f e r e n t
Graphik: Die Sammlung Neuerburg im Kblner W a l l r a f R i c h a r t z makes of paper, which, however, are dated 1802 and 1804. The
Museum/Von der Dauerleihgabe zum B e s i t z ? " . copy was given by Mai kin to one of his f r i e n d s in 1805, and thus
., 22 July 1980, p. 19. I am much indebted to Dr." i t was e v i d e n t l y produced at about the same time when Blake
Neuerburg f o r his ' . .it the same time, I would l i k e to probably also executed the present copy (see Bentley 1977, pp.
thank Dr. H ella Robels, curator of p r i n t s and drawings at the 366, 409). The sequence of plates in Copy P d i f f e r s l a r g e l y
WRM, and her s t a f f f o r organizational h e l p . Neither the from that of the Cologne fragment, y e t the c o l o r i n g of the two
"rediscovery" nor t h i s p u b l i c a t i o n of the . cries a t copies may have a l o t in common. David Bindman i ' ts an
Cologne would have been possible w i t h o u t H orst Meller of the Artist (Oxford: Phaidon, 1977), p. 59, described Copy P as
Dept. of English at the U n i v e r s i t y of H eidelberg and Robert N. follows: ". . . the o u t l i n e s are f i r m l y o u t l i n e d i n pen. . .
Essick, who both played a v i t a l part in the series of coincidences The predominant color note is a cerulean b l u e , which acts
mentioned above. The reproductions were supplied by the i 1 1 u s i o n i s t i c a l l y , usually over the whole page, g i v i n g the
Rheinisches B i l d a r c h i v , Cologne (where p r i n t s can be ordered, suggestion that the t e x t is f l o a t i n g i n the sky. The e f f e c t s of
quoting t h e i r negative nos. 180629180643). luminosity are correspondingly more s u b t l e . "
1
' G. E. Bentley, J r . . . (Oxford: Clarendon Press, ' This becomes even more evident when the leaves are measured
1977), pp. 364432. My paramount indebtedness to t h i s work w i l l at a l l four sides. In most cases the measurements provided above,
be evident throughout the f o l l o w i n g pages. which have been taken at the l e f t and bottom edges of the paper,
do not e x a c t l y match those of the opposite s i d e s . For p l a t e 8 ,
" The xeroxed TS of the catalogue is a v a i l a b l e at the WRM P r i n t s e . g . , I noted 20.4 ( l e f t ) x 14.6 (bottom) cm., and 20.6 ( r i g h t ) x
Dept.; i t l i s t s the set from Tnnooeno* as i n v . nos. 15611575. 14.1 (top) cm.
 131
14
The o r i g i n a l (?paper) covers or any other remains of a former taken w i t h both the f r a g i l e p r i n t i n g r e l i e f and the d e l i c a t e
binding have not been preserved w i t h the p r i n t s . layers of p a i n t . Consequently her r e s t o r a t i o n concentrated on
lb
cleaning the paper i n the margins, leaving the actual p r i n t i n g
I have not been able to obtain a copy of t h i s p a r t i c u l a r sales surface unaffected.
catalogue from a German l i b r a r y . The sale was probably devoted
e x c l u s i v e l y to books, since there i s also no copy of a Sotheby's Each o f the f i f t e e n leaves has been b l i n d stamped with a
catalogue w i t h t h i s date in the Dept. of Prints and Drawings of c o l l e c t o r ' s mark (showing the Neuerburg coat of arms) in the
the B r i t i s h Museum. I did not go any f u r t h e r ; I have r e l i e d lower r i g h t corner of the sheets. This mark i s b a s i c a l l y the
e n t i r e l y on Bentley's account of the f i r s t s u r f a c i n g of Innocence same as the one described f o r Heinrich Neuerburg, the present
(Y); see Bentley 1977, p. 412. owner's f a t h e r , under no. 1344a i n F r i t s Lugt's'/,ec Marques de
16
collections de dessins et d'estampes, supplement [ i . e . v o l . 2]
Ibid., p. 412, n. 1. (La Haye: Martinus N i j h o f f , 1956), p. 190.
17
The r e s t o r a t i o n was executed by Mrs. Anita Kastner, who has 9
This attempt at b i b l i o g r a p h i c exactness and i t s amateur author
done expert work f o r the Herzog-August-Bibliothek a t Wolfenbuttel have p r o f i t t e d enormously from the help of three f r i e n d s who we
From her reportwhich is s t i l l i n s e r t e d i n the respective box at professionals i n the f i e l d . Wihtout the questions and suggestions
the WRM--and from the p r i n t s themselves one gets the impression of G. E. Bentley, J r . , Robert N. Essick, and S i r Geoffrey Keynes
that she t r e a t e d the fragment of Blake's i l l u m i n a t e d book w i t h my d e s c r i p t i o n would have lacked much relevant i n f o r m a t i o n .
a l l the care and knowledge that are required f o r a d i f f i c u l t job Those flaws in the argument which c e r t a i n l y remain, however, are
l i k e t h i s . From her correspondence w i t h the owner i t i s clear e n t i r e l y my own.
that Mrs. Kastner knew beforehand how much special care must be
132
measuring about 3 1/4 x 6 i n . (9.5 x 15 cm.), i s a

MINUTE
v a r i a n t of the group on the recto of God the Father
and attendant angels. God the Father is shown holding
a s c r o l l that forms a great arc above his head, and

PARTICULARS the number of supporting angels i s reduced. A l t o -

gether the group lacks the dynamic c e n t r i f u g a l force
of the recto and of subsequent developments to be
seen in the pen and wash drawing in the B r i t i s h
Museum and the pencil sketch in the F i t z w i l l i a m
Museum sketchbook. 3 The group of figures is placed
r e l a t i v e l y low on the paper which suggests that t h i s
is an a l t e r n a t i v e t r y - o u t for the group by i t s e l f
rather than the beginning of an a l t e r n a t i v e sketch
f o r the whole design with figures below.
A N E W A C Q U I S I T I O N FOR THE TATE

A N D A N E W A D D I T I O N TO One mystery remains. Graham Robertson, as

reported by Kerrison Preston, 14 states that "behind
THE BLAKE C A T A L O G U E
the e a r t h l y group the sky glows f a i n t l y with tender
gold and rose, t i l l r i s i n g higher i t frames the
Angelic Vision in softest b l u e . " Only the blue
can now be seen and not even a trace of the tender
M a r t i n Butlin
gold and rose could be detected by the Tate's
Conservation Department. S i m i l a r l y with "Job and
his Daughters" in which Graham Robertson described

I t was perhaps to be expected that even in the the colors of the figures as f o l l o w s : "The maiden
short time between the l a s t p o s s i b i l i t y of on his [ J o b ' s ] l e f t is robed in pale pink, she on
making corrections and additions and the his r i g h t in yellow, while the t h i r d , who s i t s
actual p u b l i c a t i o n of my catalogue of The Paintings facing him upon the ground, is in palest b l u e . " 5
and Drawings of William Blake, there would be changes Again only the blue can be seen. However, in the
of ownership and new discoveries. Given that t h i s t h i r d of the group, "Job's S a c r i f i c e , " 6 most of the
had to happen, i t is g r a t i f y i n g that the Tate colors described by Graham Robertson can s t i l l be
Gallery is the beneficiary in both respects. discerned, as has been kindly confirmed by Miss
Miranda Strickland-Constable and Mr. Alexander w.
Robertson of the City Art Gallery, Leeds. Blue i s
The d e l i c a t e pencil and watercolor sketch for usually the f i r s t color to fade from Blake water-
the a l t e r n a t i v e composition of '"Every Man also gave c o l o r s , so the presence of t h i s color and the absence
him a Piece of Money'" has led a checkered career of those described by Graham Robertson i n the f i r s t
since i t was sold from the c o l l e c t i o n of Kerrison two watercolors i s a l l the more mysterious.
Preston at Sotheby's in 1974. Bought by Colnaghi's
and included in t h e i r e x h i b i t i o n of English Drawings,
Watercolours and Paintings i n 1976, i t was stolen only While updating my catalogue I should perhaps
to be recovered two years l a t e r i n a v e r i t a b l e point out that three names of owners, i f not more,
Aladdin's Cave of stolen works of a r t . The drawing are missing from the general index: Besterman, Dr.
'had been acquired by Kerrison Preston at the sale of Theodore, f o r catalogue nos. 119 and 179A; Bindman,
the famous Blake c o l l e c t i o n of W. Graham Robertson David, f o r nos. 147 and 232, with an i n d i r e c t
and i t s h i s t o r y before that can be t r a c e d , with near reference under no. 152; and Clayton-Stamm, M. D. E.,
c e r t a i n t y , back to Frederick Tatham and Blake's widow. for no. 692. I should be most g r a t e f u l f o r any
However, t h i s good and e x c i t i n g h i s t o r y seems not to f u r t h e r errors or omissions to be pointed out to me;
have enhanced i t s i n t e r e s t ; the work f a i l e d to obviously, i f they are of importance, they should
a t t r a c t a single bid when offered again at Sotheby's be published in Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly.
in 1979. I t was at t h i s point in i t s h i s t o r y that
i t was recorded in my catalogue, somewhat d i s i n -
genuously, as being in a "Private C o l l e c t i o n , Great
B r i t a i n . " 1 Thanks to the help of Mr. James M i l l e r
1
of Sotheby's, the sketch has now been bought by the Martin B u t l i n , Th
1981, I , 423-24 no. 553, reproduced i n c o l o r , I I p i . 718;
Friends of the Tate Gallery f o r presentation to the re-examination under ideal conditions i n the Tate Gallery
Tate. Considerably improved i n appearance by Conservation Department has revealed t h a t Blake began to r e i n f o r c e
conservation treatment, i t is now on view in the some of the o u t l i n e s in pen, and has also s l i g h t l y modified the
Tate's Blake g a l l e r y , hanging with the companion dimensions which should read, "framinq l i n e 8 x 7 (22.8 x 17.8)
on paper 9 1 / 2 x 7 1/2 (24.2 x 1 9 ) . "
watercolor of "Job and his Daughters" on long loan
to the Tate from Dr. R. E. Hemphill; 2 both works were B u t l i n no. 556, repr. p i . 757.
executed i n the early 1820s at the time when Blake 3
was repeating his series of Job watercolors for John Butlin nos. 554 and 557;.', repr. pis. 755 and 779.
Linnell and preparing the engravings from them. '* Kerrison Preston, -rsan
, 1952, p. 138 no. 50.
However, in addition to improving the sketch's
5
appearance conservation treatment has also revealed Preston, p. 140 no. 51.
a h i t h e r t o unknown pencil sketch on the back. This, 1
Preston, p. 136 no. 49; Butlin p. 423 no. 552.
 133

BLAKE'S M A I D E N QUEEN I N " T H E A N G E L 1

*
G r e g Crossan
',
*

\ I dreamt a Dream! what can i t mean?

And that I was a maiden Queen:
Guarded by an Angel m i l d :
Witless woe was neer begun"I'd!

And I wept both night and day

And he wip'd my tears away
And I wept both day and night
And hid from him my hearts d e l i g h t
*
i So he took his wings and f l e d :
Then the morn blush'd rosy r e d :

> 1
1
> \
I dried my tears and armd my fears
With ten thousand shields and spears.

Soon my Angel came again;

I was arm'd, he came i n vain:
For the time of youth was f l e d
- And grey hairs were on my head.

"The Angel": William Blake's

Writings, ed. G. E. Bentley, Jr.
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1978), I ,
184.

O n the i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of "The Angel" from

Blake's Songs of Experience there i s
substantial agreement amongst commentators
(notably Wicksteed, Damon, Hirsch, Adams, Keynes,
Bateson, Gleckner, Gillham, Stevenson). The poem i s
appropriately grouped with "An old maid e a r l y " and
"The Golden Net" as an i l l u s t r a t i o n of the theme of
" u n g r a t i f i e d d e s i r e s . " The dreamer enjoys the
angel's a f f e c t i o n s but hides from him her "hearts
d e l i g h t " and plays upon his sympathy by weeping.
When he eventually f l i e s away she resorts to
coguetry to entice him back, but by the time he
returns i t is too l a t e . Some such paraphrase, and
a footnote or two (to lines 4 and 12), w i l l s a t i s f y
most readers, but some may s t i l l want to l i n g e r over
the second l i n e and ask: why a "maiden Queen"?

So f a r as I am aware, two rather d i f f e r e n t

explanations have been o f f e r e d : Joseph Wicksteed
{Blake's Innooenoe and Experience, 1928, p. 158)
describes the dreamer as a "petted c h i l d always being
made a queen o f , " which suggests a degree of vanity
and assertiveness, while Robert Gleckner {The viper
and the Bard, 1959, p. 263) likens her to Thel, who
1 "Every Man also gave him a Piece of Money," is both a v i r g i n and, i n the words of the l i l y and
c. 1821-3. P e n c i l , pen, and watercolor, 22.8 x the matron c l a y , "Queen of the Vales," and t h i s
17.8 cm. Tate Gallery. comparison suggests a character rather more timid
and f r a g i l e .
2 "God the Father w i t h Attendant Angels," verso o f
"Every Man also gave him a Piece o f Money," c. 1821 I would l i k e to add a t h i r d perspective on the
P e n c i l , approx. 9.5 x 15 cm. Tate Gallery. phrase, one which I believe reinforces the poem's
theme of hidden love. There are two famous "maiden
134
Queens" in history, Elizabeth I of England and
Christina of Sweden, both of whom withstood much A REDISCOVERED COLORED COPY
pressure and some inclination to marry. The
remarkable life of Queen Christina was the inspira- OF YOUNG'S NIGHT THOUGHTS
tion of Mme. de ScudeVy's romance The History of
Cleobuline, Queen of Corinth in volume II of Le
Grand Cyrus (1649-53), which in turn became the
basis of Dryden's play Secret Love, or The Maiden Thomas V. Lange
Queen (1668). The nameless Sicilian Queen of this
play is secretly in love with Philocles, whom she
affects to rebuff one moment and entices the next.

I
Inflamed by jealousy of Philocles' love for Candiope, n t h e i r exhaustive research, the editors of
and unwilling to reveal her own love, she so William Blake's Designs for Edward Young's
completely baffles Philocles with her erratic moods Night Thoughts (1980')1 were able to add*
that he decides to flee, but a series of twists in four "new" copies to the two e a r l i e r censuses of
the plot sees him return to court, by now aware of colored copies of the engraved work, 2 and they s t a t e ,
her true feelings and half-inclined to woo her. "At present twenty-three coloured copies are believed
Honor, however, and the conventions of comedy, to e x i s t , a l l but one of which have recently been
determine otherwise, and at the end of the play the studied by one or more of the e d i t o r s of the present
Queen resigns herself to remaining a maid. e d i t i o n . " Somewhat l a t e r i n t h e i r commentary they
continue, " S t i l l untraced i s the w e l l - a t t e s t e d
The parallels between poem and play are naturally Gaisford-Macgeorge copy, called G i n the Bentley
limited, yet Dryden's maiden Queen and Blake's share census and l a s t located i n 1926." The editors
the same basic predicament: obscure t h i s " w e l l - a t t e s t e d " copy, since they choose
to omit a l l mention of i t from t h e i r census of
And I wept both day and niqht, colored copies. The only physical description
And hid from him my hearts delight . . . appears i n footnote 8 1 , some f o r t y pages a f t e r the
census.
("The Angel," 7-8)
While engaged i n research quite unrelated to
. . . I have conceal'd my passion Blake f o r the Lutheran Church i n America, I
With such care from him, that he knows not yet discovered t h i s untraced colored copy of Night
I love . . . Thoughts i n a disused c l o s e t , among the books
bequeathed to the Church by Mrs. William T. Tonner
i n 1971. Upon her death, a portion of Mrs. Tonner's
(Secret Love, III, i,
distinguished Blake c o l l e c t i o n passed to the
48-50, in Beaurline and
Lutheran Church, including one o f the two recorded
Bowers, eds., John Dryden:
impressions of the c o l o r - p r i n t "Newton" ( B u t l i n
Four Comedies, 1967)
307), an early state of the copper engraving, "The
Canterbury P i l g r i m s , " and a drawing, "Moses s t r i k i n g
Philocles is not exactly an "Angel mild," yet when the rock" ( B u t l i n 445). The remainder of the Tonner
he contemplates union with the maiden Queen he is Blake c o l l e c t i o n was given to the Philadelphia
moved to remark: Museum of A r t , and was described by Martin B u t l i n
i n the Museum's Bulletin.3 Hereafter I w i l l r e f e r
Sure I had one of the fallen Angels Dreams; to the Gaisford-Macgeorge copy as the Tonner-
All Heav'n within this hour was mine! Lutheran Church copy.
(V, i, 448-49)
The purpose of t h i s b r i e f note i s to describe
t h i s newly discovered copy of Night Thoughts, and
But the lines from Dryden's play which might provide to correct and update the provenance information.
the most enlightening gloss on Blake's poem are the The following entry follows the format used by the
words of the maiden Queen's song in IV, ii, of which e d i t o r s of the recently published e d i t i o n of Night
I quote here the opening stanza: Thoughts:

I feed a flame within which so torments me I-12A (Moss-Bentley G). White Death.
That it both pains my heart, and yet contents
me: Bound i n three-quarter red-brown morocco over
'Tis such a pleasing smart, and I so love it, greenish-blue marbled paper by R i v i e r e , marbled
That I had rather die, than once remove it. end-papers. The spine i s tooled i n the s t y l e of
Roger Payne. Top edge g i l t , others uncut. Lacks
(IV, ii, 23-26) the Explanation of the Engravings, which i s ,
however, supplied i n 19th century t y p e - f a c s i m i l e .
Watermarks on twelve leaves. 16-3/4 x 12-3/4
Witless woe, i f you l i k e , but not without beguile- inches. (42.5 x 32.8 cm.). Grotesque color on
ment! The "hearts d e l i g h t " that causes Blake's p. 10 (6E), p. 31 (18E), p. 35 (20E). No JC
dreamer to weep is c l e a r l y akin to the "pleasing monogram.
smart" of t h i s l i t t l e song o f secret l o v e , and Blake's
one and only use of the phrase "maiden Queen," I 1) Acquired by Thomas Gaisford (1779-1855) of
suggest, i s a deliberate nod in t h i s d i r e c t i o n . O f f i n g t o n , Worthing. He added his engraved book-
 135

volume was sold by Sessler to Mrs. Tonner, the

accompanying b i b l i o g r a p h i c a l descriptions noted,
"Laid in at the end i s the scarce leaf of 'Explana-
t i o n of the Engravings,'" and pencilled i n an
u n i d e n t i f i e d hand on the f r o n t binder's blank i s the
statement, "At the end is Blake's explanation of the
Engravings, often wanting." The leaf included in
the Tonner-Lutheran Church copy i s , however, a
curious and apparently unrecorded f a c s i m i l e printed
from type and loosely inserted i n the volume,
the source of which has "not been t r a c e d . 5 The t e x t
of t h i s leaf i s a column-for-column and page-for-
page r e p r i n t of the o r i g i n a l , is printed on both
sides of the sheet (as the o r i g i n a l ) , but i s i n a
much-reduced format: 11-1/4 x 8-5/8 inches. There
are no stubs in the volume (other than modern
binder's stubs) to suggest that the o r i g i n a l leaf of
Explanation was ever present. Nor are there marks
at any point to indicate where the f a c s i m i l e leaf
was " l a i d i n at the end," but modern stains from
pressure-sensitive tape show that the leaf was
crudely stuck facing the t i t l e p a g e some time a f t e r
the Bishop sale, since the catalogue entry f o r that
sale was taped below the f a c s i m i l e , and has l e f t
identical stains.

Three f u r t h e r b i t s of penciled notes have not

yet been i d e n t i f i e d ; they may belong to the above-
mentioned owners, or may indicate s t i l l f u r t h e r
owners. On the verso of the f r o n t free endDaper i s
the notation "Cat/3759"; on the f r o n t binder's blank
i s the price code "puuacy" and beneath that can be
seen the erased price "1200.00"; and on the f i n a l
free endpaper i s w r i t t e n "c9901." None of these
notations i s i n Quaritch's form; the volume also
lacks that f i r m ' s usual c o l l a t i o n note. Sessler's
cost code, w r i t t e n by Mabel Zahn but now erased,
Engraved t i t l e - p a g e to the second Nioht. Courtesy can also be c l e a r l y read.
of the Lutheran Church i n America.
This newly-located copy of Night Thoughts i s
t e x t u a l l y complete w i t h a l l engravings colored and
printed in t h e i r correct l o c a t i o n s . Neither "JC"
plate and the volume was sold with his l i b r a r y at monograms nor any other notes appear on the p l a t e s .
Sotheby's, 23 A p r i l 1890, l o t 192, f o r L-40.10.0 to The coloring of t h i s copy of Night Thoughts has been
Quaritch f o r ; compared w i t h t h a t of copy 1-13 (New York Public
2) Bernard Buchanan Macgeorge and l i s t e d i n his L i b r a r y , P r i n t Room of the A r t , P r i n t s , and
p r i v a t e l y - p r i n t e d l i b r a r y catalogues of 1892 (p. Photographs D i v i s i o n ) , and has been found to be
9--not l i s t e d as colored) and 1906 (p. 14--as reasonably consistent. The only notable difference
c o l o r e d ) ; sold w i t h his l i b r a r y at Sotheby's, 1 (other than predictable v a r i a t i o n s in i n t e n s i t y ) i s
July 1924, l o t 118, f o r 1=125 to Quaritch; found on the f i g u r e of Death on the t i t l e p a g e to the
3) Offered by Quaritch in t h e i r catalogue 388 Second Night. In the NYPL and i n other copies, the
(October 1924), item 326, and again in t h e i r long flowing beard and shoulder are c l e a r l y v i s i b l e ;
catalogue 401 (May 1926), item 218, f o r L-175; i n t h i s newly discovered copy that f i g u r e has been
4) Sold to Cortlandt F. Bishop, who added his red overpainted w i t h a black hood and cloak, obscuring
leather bookplate; sold a t the Bishop sale at both hair and shoulder. Copies 1-8 and 1-11 seem
American Art Association, Anderson Galleries (part to have t h i s same f e a t u r e . The engraving of t h i s
I I I , 14-15 November 1938), to Charles Sessler f o r plate i s , as usual, i n the l a t e r state w i t h added
$325; work. 6
5) Sold in December 1938 to Florence Foerderer
Tonner f o r $357.50; she added her d i s t i n c t i v e book- The guestion of placing the Tonner-Lutheran
plate and begueathed the volume i n 1971 to Church copy of Night Thoughts c o r r e c t l y in the census
6) The Lutheran Church i n America.14 prepared by Grant, Rose, T o l l e y , and Erdman, i s
somewhat problematical since those e d i t o r s are
Certain d e t a i l s of the provenance and physical themselves inconsistent and somewhat a r b i t r a r y i n
description do not exactly correspond to those t h e i r arrangement. They note, "There is no i n d i c a -
published by Bentley and Moss, neither of whom ever t i o n as to whether [ t h i s newly-discovered copy] i s
examined the actual volume. The most obvious of a White or Green Death copy. I f i t i s of the former
these differences i s the absence of the Explanation type and should prove not to have been t i n t e d by
l e a f . As l a t e as the Bishop s a l e , and when the Blake, i t w i l l f i t well enough as copy 1-16, yet
136
6
stand somewhat apart since i t uniquely contains the I t i s perhaps worth mentioning t h a t plates vary from copy to
'Explanations' sheet unbound, whereas a l l other copy in the presence or absence of engraved i m p r i n t l i n e s , a
point mentioned by Easson and Essick. GrantRoseTolleyErdman
coloured copies that include t h i s sheet have i t are r i g h t to suggest t h a t uncolored copies e x i s t i n which the
bound i n one of three p o s i t i o n s . " Now that i t i s engraved t i t l e p a g e to the Second Niqht appears in the e a r l i e r
recognized that t h i s copy does not contain the s t a t e ; one such copy was presented to The Pierpont M organ Library
Explanation l e a f , i t cannot be located as copy 116. by M iss Louise Crane in memory of her mother, M rs. W. M urray
Crane, and I have examined two f u r t h e r copies i n p r i v a t e
Even i f i t did contain t h i s leaf i t would not, collections.
according to the e d i t o r i a l c r i t e r i a presented on pp.
7
6062, be appropriately placed as copy 116 since The explanation of t h i s phenomenon w i l l be discussed in a
the surrounding copies, 113 through 115, are a l l f u t u r e a r t i c l e in Blake/An Illus trated Quart-.
seriously imperfect in one regard or another.

Copies 12 through 114 have been arranged

together by GrantRoseTolleyErdman, since a l l
those copies contain what the editors have o p t i m i s t i
c a l l y labeled "grotesque colouring" or "grotesque
p a i n t i n g " 7 ; w i t h i n t h i s group copies 12 throuqh 17
are arranged together since they contain the leaf of
Explanation bound a f t e r p. 95. These copies are M A R S A N D THE PLANETS THREE I N A M E R I C A
f u r t h e r arranged "according to the earliness of
provenance that can be established with some
c e r t a i n t y . " Copies 18 to 110 have the Explanation
leaf bound a f t e r the Advertisement, and copies 111 Michael Ferber
and 112 lack the Explanation leaf e n t i r e l y . Copies
113 through 115 also lack that l e a f , and are
f u r t h e r d e f i c i e n t i n lacking either text or colored

W
engravings. The newlydiscovered copy of Night e are s t i l l \/ery far from understanding the
Thoughts cannot be placed as copy 116 since that passage about M ars in plate 5 of America,
would put i t in the midst of seriously defective despite the recent proposal, put f o r t h by
copies. Since i t contains "grotesque c o l o u r i n g , " Rodney M . and M ary R. Baine i n Englis h Language Notes ,
lacks the Explanation l e a f , and has demonstrable 13 (1975), 1418, that Swedenborg i s behind i t . I
provenance closest to copy 112, t h i s new copy can have been puzzling f o r several years over the Sweden
best be located as copy I12A. I t must be pointed borg quotations they o f f e r , but I cannot see t h e i r
out that the e d i t o r s of Night Thoughts are incon bearing, however i n t e r e s t i n g they may be i n them
s i s t e n t in the arrangement by earliness of pro selves, on the meaning of the America passage. The
venance, and one might at the same time question the idea that the s p i r i t s of M ars are the best s p i r i t s ,
wisdom of organizing a census in part on such s l i g h t the notion that M ars represents a balance of i n t e l l e c t
grounds as the binder's l o c a t i o n of the ExDlanation and emotions, and the other odd Swedenborgian
leaf. speculations seem at best only vaguely relevant and
at worst quite contrary to the tenor of the r e s t of
I t may well be that t h i s colored copy of Night the poem. They come up f i r s t against our i n e v i t a b l e
Thoughts has escaped the notice of Blake b i b l i o association of M ars with warfare, an association
graphers since i t appeared i n the Bishop sale under Blake gives no suggestion we should break. As the
Young's name at the very end of the l a s t catalogue Baines admit, moreover, Swedenborg cannot account
volume, and was not mentioned under the general f o r "the planets t h r e e . " Even, f i n a l l y , i f we some
Blake heading. When one considers the prices how knew that Swedenborg's Earths in our Solar Sys tem
fetched by other Blake works at that sale, i t seems were the "source," we would s t i l l be faced with the
that t h i s copy of Night Thoughts might well have problem, worse than the one we had before, of how
brought more i f catalogued w i t h the other Blakeana i t s meanings f i t together with the rest of the poem.
e a r l i e r i n the sale.
In any case, I have a few t e n t a t i v e suggestions
about the passage. I cannot make i t a l l cohere, but
the connections I o f f e r are the s o r t of thing we
1
William Blake' s Ui Edward Yi '," ought to do to i t ; someone with a fresher eye w i l l
edited w i t h conmentary by John E. Grant, Edward J . Rose, M ichael doubtless recast these suggestions to make b e t t e r
J . T o l l e y , c o o r d i n a t i n g e d i t o r David V. Erdman (Oxford Univ. sense of the passage.
Press, 1980).

' W. E. M oss, "The Coloured Copies of Blake's Night '.' When the wrathful Prince of Albion arises dragon
Blake .7. ,v.\ v, 2 (1968), 1923; G. E. Bentley, J r . , "A Census l i k e at midnight, he "flam'd red meteors" (3:1416);
of Coloured Copies of Young's . (1797),"
, 2 (1968), 4145.
t h i s alone would make him resemble the red planet
with i t s t e r r i b l e wandering comets ( 5 : 2 3 ) . When
3
"The Blake C o l l e c t i o n of M rs. W i l l i a m F. Tonner," Philadelphia Albion's Angel sees the t e r r i b l e Ore r i s i n g over the
Museum of A r t , 67 (JulySeptember 1972), 5 3 1 . A t l a n t i c , Ore f i r s t seems a comet and then seems the
' I am g r a t e f u l to M r. Donald Trued, Lutheran Church i n America red planet M ars which once enclosed such t e r r i b l e
(New York), f o r permission to p u b l i s h t h i s note. Inquiries comets in i t s sphere. At that time "the planets
concerning t h i s volume should be addressed to him at 231 M adison three" flew round the crimson disk. I take i t that
Avenue, New York, NY 10016. Blake is not d i s t i n g u i s h i n g comets from p l a n e t s ,
I t i s possible that t h i s leaf was p r i n t e d to complete t h i s copy
except f o r the planet red i t s e l f ; the t e r r i b l e comets
of the book, and that i t is not t h e r e f o r e otherwise recorded. are "wandering," a f t e r a l l , and "wanderer" is what
 137
"planet" means. To be enclosed in Mars's sphere, as 'Ares, took Priam's side in the Trojan War. In
as the comets are, and to fly round the disk, as the his first appearance in western literature, in fact,
three planets do, are the same thing, for "sphere" Ares arrives on the plain of Troy with three com-
probably has something of its older cosmological panions about him, Phobos, Deimos, and Eris, or Fear,
meaning as one of the concentric transparent globes Terror, and Strife {Iliad 4.439-41). Britain,
around the earth; it can mean "orb" or "orbit" but founded by a son of a royal Trojan who founded Rome,
probably not "disk." So we have the suggestion that became, in John of Gaunt's words, "this seat of
Ore was once one of these three planets revolving Mars" {Richard I I , II, i, 41), and Gaunt should know,
about Mars. having fought beside the Black Prince, whom Blake
portrays in his King Edward the Third as insatiably
But then the Sun becomes a problem. It too battle-hungry: "It is my sin to love the noise of
seems to have been orbiting Mars, either as one of war" (3:232).
the three or, as I think, a fourth planet-comet,
before it was "rent" from the red sphere. Two lines Whether the passage in America 5 can be brought
later a voice comes forth and gives the great speech into line with other astronomical passages in Blake
on plate 6 beginning "The morning comes." Isn't I am not sure. In cancelled plate b of America
this speech about the arrival of the sun from its itself there are some difficult lines about a
orbit about Mars? True, the song the redeemed comparable eruption, but they bring in the stars and
captives sing begins "The Sun has left his blackness," the moon as well. The cancelled lines seem less
not "redness," but from an earthly vantage the former susceptible of a political reading than the Mars
age seemed black, a dark age of Empire dominated by section, and may be about the altering of perceptions
warfare, or Mars, which of course is only visible at when reason subjugates the stars and creates a
night. Since Ore presides over this dawn, we may theory of a heliocentric system governed by laws of
associate him with the Sun, once of Mars's sphere. gravity. Whatever the lines mean, Blake did cancel
Now he seems, to Albion's Angel or Prince, to be them.
Mars, because he rises warlike against him, but it
is the wrathful Prince himself who is the original I think Blake did not care \/ery much about
Mars. It is he who "burns in his nightly tent" astronomy or astrology or cosmological speculations
before he rises at midnight flaming the red meteors of the Swedenborgian sort. All of his astronomical
like comets (3:1, 3:14-16). passages seem to be functions of his phenomenology
of consciousness or his political and historical
When Ore the Sun (and son) leaves Mars the myth. The Mars passage has an ad hoc character that
wrathful Prince, Ore presumably takes the three tempts one to seek a source, but that character is
planets with him, or threatens to. Who are they? due to its nonce role as a political allegory.
Since Ore-America is wandering out of the British Whatever the details of this allegory, the language
Empire, we should look to see who else may be drawn of stars and planets has been the common vehicle
into orbit around him. I think Blake tells us: it since ancient times of discourse about political
is "Ireland and Scotland and Wales" (15:13), who made events, as the phrase "sphere of influence" should
up the original Empire. (A less likely threesome is doubly remind us. In Blake's day "revolution" still
"France Spain & Italy" (16:16), but they seem to be had more to do with "revolving" than with "revolting,1
little empires themselves.) The "burning winds" of and the vast wheels of blood over the Atlantic (4:6)
revolutionary fervor driven by Ore and the fierce may alert us to the cyclical paradigm that governed
Americans cause the Guardians of the three original most of Blake's thinking about political change.
colonies to forsake their frontiers (abandon the The American colonists themselves were happy to evoke
original Empire) and "deform their ancient heavens" ancient astronomical terms for their revolution.
(15:11-15). "Ancient heavens," which brings back The "Novus Ordo Saeclorum" on the back of our dollar
the astronomical theme, is a phrase we have met bill hearkens to the theory of the apocatastasis or
before, when the frightened Angel of Albion addresses cosmic renewal in Virgil's Fourth Eclogue, and with
Ore: "Ah rebel form that rent the ancient / Heavens" each new state we add a new star to the blue firma-
(9:14-15). And "rent" we have met once before this, ment of our flag.
when "the Sun was rent from thy red sphere." The
connections seem clear enough. America is the new
center, the new sun, for the satellite nations that
once revolved around warlike, imperial England, but
in erupting out of England's sphere of influence
America has taken on the features of its father, at
least from the father's point of view.

We need resort to no arcane source to map things

thus far, but a few reminders of the common tradition
may help fill in the map. The "Archetype of mighty
Emperies" may be the ancient palace of Ariston (10:
8 ) , but the prototype of mighty Emperies is certainly
Rome, which worshipped Mars and waged almost constant
war. Rome even set its calendar by Mars, beginning
each year on March first: "now the times are
return'd upon thee" (9:19). Of course Rome learned
from Greece, and especially Troy, to follow after
"the detestable Gods of Priam" {Milton 14:15); Mars,
138

REVIEWS THE LETTERS OF

WILLIAM
BLAKE
BLAKE'S LETTERS AND LITERALS WITH RELATED DOCUMENTS

Geoffrey Keynes, Kt., ed. The L e t t e r s o f

William Blake w i t h Related
D o c u m e n t s . Third edition. Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1980. xxviii + 235 pp., EDITED BY
28 reproductions (including 6 of Related GEOFFREY KEYNES Kt.
THIRD EDITION
Documents). 1 8.50, $ 5 5 . 0 0 .
r

Reviewed by G. E. Bentley, Jr.

T here have been separate e d i t i o n s of William Documents than there were in the 1956 or 1968
Blake's l e t t e r s edited by A. G. B. Russell editions.
in 1906 and by Geoffrey Keynes in 1926
(facsimiles of those to B u t t s ) , 1956, 1968 (second The chief addition in the 1980 edition is thus
e d i t i o n ) , and now 1980 ( t h i r d e d i t i o n ) , and of course in the related documents, which are all valuable,
a l l the l e t t e r s are p r i n t e d in Writings of William though most have been printed previously; almost
Blake, ed. Geoffrey Keynes (1925 f f . ) ' a n d William all are in Blake Records (1969), and a number derive
Blake's Writings, ed. G. E. Bentley, J r . (1978). directly from it. In a few cases, Sir Geoffrey has
given a whole document, whereas only the part re-
What are the differences among the Keynes lating to Blake had previously been printed. One
e d i t i o n s of the Letters? Well, the 1956 e d i t i o n of the documents reproduced though not reprinted
had 261 pages, 13 p l a t e s , and 151 numbered related is the lines by R. B. Sheridan copied for unknown
l e t t e r s and documents; the 1968 e d i t i o n had 224 reasons by Blake and previously referred to only
smaller, denser pages, 13 p l a t e s , and 151 l e t t e r s (I believe) in Sir Geoffrey's Bibliotheca Biblio-
e t c . ; the 1980 e d i t i o n has 235 yet denser pages, graphiai (1964). The additions in the 1980 edition
28 reproductions, and 183 numbered l e t t e r s e t c . In are thus small in novelty but of distinct interest
each there are Blake's surviving receipts as well to Blake students and scholars.
as his l e t t e r s , plus an elaborate Register of
Documents (pp. 181-227 in 1980), g i v i n g , normally,
address, date, description ("A single l e a f , w r i t t e n The standards of the edition are those which
on one side. No watermark"), size ( o c c a s i o n a l l y ) , Sir Geoffrey has made his own since he first began
l o c a t i o n , where p r i n t e d , and source of t e x t , though publishing Blake seventy years before: extraordinary
the e d i t i o n omits the postmark and whether sealed industry, a wonderfully shrewd instinct for
with wax or a wafer, and missing l e t t e r s are alluded discovering new materials, and a deep respect for
to ( e . g . , 1980 p. x i x ) rather than i d e n t i f i e d or his subject. In the transcriptions of the letters,
l i s t e d . The 1980 e d i t i o n adds to that of 1968 two the substantive features of meaning are very
l e t t e r s from Mrs. Blake to the Earl of Egremont reliable; I have carefully proofread the letters of
f i r s t printed i n the Times Literary Supplement in 12 September 1800, 14 September 1800, and 12 April
1978, a l e t t e r from Blake to Flaxman of 31 July 1801 1827 and have identified no reading with which I
f i r s t printed in Harvard Library Bulletin i n 1972, disagree substantially. As to accidental features
a receipt of 29 June 1809 recorded i n a Sotheby such as punctuation and capitalization, Sir Geoffrey
catalogue of 19 December 1932, and 25 more Related has allowed himself rather more latitude:
 139

I have followed Russell [1906} in supplying (printed on pp. 147-150) are said to be "now f i r s t
punctuation where i t seems to help the sense, p r i n t e d " (p. 218), but a l l are in Blake Books (1969),
even though Blake so frequently omitted i t . pp. 584-97. Further, the readings here from the
To humour him in t h i s respect seemed to place Cash Account Book are sometimes rather approximate.
an unnecessary obstacle in the way of his The e n t r i e s f o r payments to Blake i n 1818-1821 are
readers. . . .l omitted, as are a number of receipts from customers
f o r Job; "M r Behnes" (p. 149) should be "M r Bonnes",
When a sentence seems to require a f u l l stop, Sir i . e . , John Bohn, who offered the copy of Job he
Geoffrey c a p i t a l i z e s the next word as w e l l , even i f bought here in his Catalogue (1829) f o r L-3.3.0;
Blake l e f t i t lower-case. He has both added the entry f o r 5 May 1825 ("of coals to be sent to
punctuation extensively and changed i t , added Mr Blake") should read "to W Palmer f o r one chaldron
apostrophes ( " a r r i v ' d " ) , lowered some but not a l l of Coals to be sent to Mr B l a k e . - - " (and a s i m i l a r
superscript l e t t e r s ( " M r s " ) , and generally normalized entry f o r 27 January 1826 i s omitted e n t i r e l y ) . In
the accidental features of Blake's t e x t . For sum, there i s valuable information here, but i t s
instance, in the poem i n Blake's l e t t e r of 14 currency and completeness are sometimes uncertain.
September 1800 Blake o f f e r s not a single mark of
punctuation, and Sir Geoffrey has supplied twenty- No e d i t i o n of Blake's l e t t e r s is ever complete.
four. In no case, i t seems to me, does the added The l e t t e r (or rather sentence of g i f t ) from
punctuation s i g n i f i c a n t l y a l t e r Blake's meaning, and Catherine Blake to C. H. Tatham [ o f ?4 August 1824]
f o r many general readers i t w i l l be a real is omitted here (see Blake Records [1969], 288).
convenience. But the apparatus of the e d i t i o n 2 is And of course each new e d i t i o n of Blake's l e t t e r s
aimed at scholars, and the best practice of scholars, appears on the eve of the discovery of more l e t t e r s ;
today and f o r many years past, has been to l e t the Dr. Stanley Gardner has recently found an important
author's punctuation stand or to i d e n t i f y in detail l e t t e r from Blake's brother James which he w i l l
where and how i t has been changed. Judged by the publish in his new book on Blake's Songs.
standard of the general p u b l i c , the 1980 e d i t i o n is
considerably richer than that of 1968 (though at Sir Geoffrey has been publishing e d i t i o n s of
$55.00 i t should be very r i c h i n d e e d - - i t s English Blake for almost three quarters of a century, and
price o f L-18.50 is a good deal cheaper). For the each has added something to our knowledge. For such
scholar, most of t h i s material is e a s i l y available endless labor, no praise and honor can be enough.
elsewhere, though some i s new. For at least f i f t y years his name has been synonymous
with Blake scholarship. Long may they both f l o u r i s h .
The work is handsomely produced and a pleasure
to handle, and the typographical blemishes are r a r e . 3
1
Many of the footnotes are improved commendably P. x v i i i . Indeed, in a l e t t e r from Hayley about Blake,
from the e a r l i e r e d i t i o n s , but some of the informa- omissions and . . . misspellings . . . have been silently
formalized" (p. 94).
t i o n i s rather out of date. For example: (1)
Blake's t r a n s c r i p t of Tasso, said to be "now in 2
The index leaves a great deal to be d e s i r e d ; most of the proper
private hands in America" (p. 4 3 ) , was given by names checked i n the Register of Documents were not i n the index.
Grace Lambert to Princeton University in 1960. (2) 3
E . g . , p. 3 1 , n. 1 ("This r e f e r s o t water-colour
The 1 A p r i l 1800 l e t t e r , which i s here l a s t traced p a i n t i n g " ) ; p. 207 (No. 99: "rperduced"; No. 100: "BLAKE {letter]
in 1934 (p. 185), has been for years i n The B r i t i s h to THOMAS BUTTS" f o r "BLAKE [account] w i t h THOMAS BUTTS"), p.
Library (see Blake Books [1977], 275). (3) The 209 (No. 106, the leading has risen t y p e - h i g h ) ; pp. 209, 210 n. 1
l e t t e r of 16 July 1804, said to be "Now in the ( " J . R. Smith" f o r " J . T. S m i t h " ) .
c o l l e c t i o n of Prof. F. W. H i l l e s " (p. 201), was
bequeathed by Professor H i l l e s to Yale in 1976.
(4) The prospectus f o r B l a i r ' s Grave "presumably
naming Blake as the engraver" (which i s referred to
i n Blake's l e t t e r of 27 November 1805) is "not . . .
known" to Sir Geoffrey (p. 119 n. 1 ) , though he
c i t e s (p. 208) the a r t i c l e in Modern Philology (1971)
in which t h i s prospectus was r e p r i n t e d . (5) The
receipt of 9 September 1806, said merely to have
belonged to Ruthven Todd "In 1942" (p. 207), was
sold at Parke Bernet on 23 May 1979, l o t 1 ($2,500)
and offered in 1980 in The Rendells Catalogue 152,
l o t 3 ($25,000.00). (6) The untraced (indeed,
unmentioned) address leaf f o r Blake's l e t t e r to
Ozias Humphry [May 1809] has been in the Huntington
Library since 1926. (7) The l e t t e r of 26 July 1826
"Now in the possession of Mrs. Edward L. Doheny"
(p. 221) was given by Countess Doheny to St. John's
Seminary, Camarillo, C a l i f o r n i a , in 1940. (8)
George Richmond's eloquent l e t t e r of 15 August 1827
about Blake's death is scarcely traced since 1928
(p. 226), but i t has long been in the c o l l e c t i o n of
Mr. Joseph Holland (see Blake Records [1969], 347 n.
1). (9) Parts of "John L i n n e l l ' s Cash Account Book"
140

Robert N. Essick. W i l l i a m B l a k e
P r i n t m a k e r . Princeton, New Jersey:
Princeton University Press, 1980. $ 5 0 . 0 0 .

Reviewed by Bo Ossian Lindberg

A 283-page study of Blake's graphical methods

by an American professor of English? Hardly
seems possible. Yet, such a thing does
exist, profusely illustrated with 236 reproductions,
appendices, namely a catalogue of states and
impressions of Blake's political prints of 1793-1794,
and an analysis of the medium of a 1795 colorprinted
drawing. There are eight pages of bibliograohy, and
including some from Professor Essick's own experi- two indexes. The reproductions are good (only one
mental plates. On first learning of such a production in color), the paper, printing and binding are first-
one is tempted to quote Dr. Johnson on female rate, and the book is a joy to handle.
preachers and dancing dogs ("It is not done well;
but you are surprised to find it done at all") and Essick's study is \/ery thorough, almost
look no further. Essick's work deserves a better exhaustive, as far as Blake's methods of engraving
fate. It is a major contribution to the literature and etching are concerned, and it contains, also,
on Blake, and the first serious study of Blake's interesting sections on lithography and xylography.
engraving and etching techniques since Todd's and His treatment of printing techniques, however, is
Hayter's works of the 1940s. In my view it is the less thorough, and there are a few glaring inconsis-
best work on the subject so far published. Essick's tencies in Essick's calculation of the niveau of his
practical experience of printmaking equals that of readers. He finds it necessary, for instance, to
the best of his predecessors, and he surpasses them inform us that a copper-plate is purchased from the
in his knowledge of the history of graphical methods, plate-maker, who in turn has acquired the copper
and of the minutiae of Blake's productions in from the brass-founder, and he also describes in
graphical media. detail the conventional methods for polishing the
plates, laying the grounds for etching, etc. Good.
The book is divided into five parts, tracing The book is addressed to an audience professionally
Blake's development as a graphical artist: interested in Blake, and this audience includes
"Connoisseur and Apprentice, 1768-1779," "Artist and people with a scanty knowledge of graphic techniques.
Craftsman, 1780-1800," "Graphic Experiments, 1788- But he does not explain what an India proof is, nor
1822," "Prints, Patronage and Poetry, 1800-1818," does he try to establish when printing on laid India
and "Synthesis and Mastery, 1818-1827." Each part paper was invented, although he has found evidence
is divided into three or four chapters. The notes that Blake did not take up the technique until the
and the lists of illustrations are surprisingly 1820s. How many scholars have noticed the India
rich in information, and there are two ^jery useful papers, larger than the designs, but smaller than
 141

the plate-marks, i n the Job India proofs? How many iron pot. Let i t b o i l u n t i l i t fumes and gives o f f
know that t h i s paper is of extremely smooth surface, smoke, then set f i r e to i t w i t h a match and l e t i t
capable of receiving more detailed and b r i l l i a n t burn, s t i r u n t i l the o i l becomes so thick that you
impressions than ordinary copper p r i n t e r ' s papers, have great d i f f i c u l t y in grinding i t . " 1 After t h i s
but too b r i t t l e to allow p r i n t i n g , unless i t i s l a i d the pigment, lampblack burnt without the access of
on top of an ordinary copper p r i n t e r ' s paper, both a i r , should be mixed with a decoct of g a l l apples
wetted, and pulled through the press, thereby in water, and allowed to dry. Ultimately the lamp-
pasting the India paper to the supporting paper? black should be ground i n t o the burnt o i l .
I have asked about 15 trained a r t h i s t o r i a n s , some
of them experts i n graphic techniques, and only the This process of burning w i l l make the o i l as
l a t e Arnold Fawcus knew anything about the process, t h i c k as honey, but at the same time as black as
and he was the one who informed me about i t . coffee. Such a binding medium i s sure to d i s c o l o r
every d e l i c a t e t i n t mixed with i t . I t is suitable
Generally, Essick does not go wery deep i n t o only f o r blacks and other dark pigments. This is
the technology of papermaking. Watermarks are dealt why color p r i n t i n g has been rare i n the west u n t i l
with in many places, but there i s no attempt at a quite recent times. Today i t is possible to increase
general estimation of the information offered by the v i s c o s i t y of an o i l without d i s c o l o r i n g i t , by
them. The same is true of w e t t i n g , and the reason b o i l i n g the o i l i n vacuum. Such stand oil is used
why wetting i s necessary is not s u f f i c i e n t l y i n modern color p r i n t i n g , but i t was not available'
explained. A l l these omissions are not necessarily in Dossie's or Blake's t i m e . 2 I t i s , however, much
defects (although I think that the omission of the slower in drying than the burnt o i l , and a s i c c a t i v e
India proofs i s ) ; they are mentioned mainly in order must be added to i t f o r p r i n t i n g .
to indicate along which lines f u r t h e r research miqht
be p r o f i t a b l e . The binder used, f o r instance, f o r Japanese
color woodcuts is starch s i z e . Such a binder is of
The binding media used in p r i n t i n g are hardly l i g h t color and moreover does not attack the paper.
mentioned at a l l . This needs special consideration, I strongly suspect that whenever Blake wanted to
because the neglect of binders occasionally leads p r i n t in colors he used an aqueous binder. This
Essick i n t o e r r o r . On p. 24 Essick w r i t e s , quoting problem w i l l have to be dealt with more f u l l y l a t e r .
Dossie's Handmaid to the Arts (1764), that the
engraver could make his own p r i n t i n g ink from "burnt Since color p r i n t i n g was practiced i n the
''nut o i l ' . . . and 'Frankfort b l a c k , ' " and explains eighteenth century, p r i n t e r s and engravers must have
the "nut o i l " as " o i l rendered from kernels of hazel had recipesmore or less secret onesfor s u i t a b l e
or walnut." As f a r as I am aware, hazelnut o i l i s binders. Some of the pioneers of color p r i n t i n g
a non-drier, and I do not know of any method of published t h e i r methods. In the 1720s Jacob
making i t d r y i n g . I t could be added in small Christoph Le Blon's Coloritto appeared, and in 1753-
q u a n t i t i e s to o i l paint in order to f a c i l i t a t e 57 Jacques Fabien Gautier d'Agoty's Observations sur
painting wet i n wet over a long periodthough o l i v e I 'histoire naturelle, sur la physique3 et sur la
o i l or o i l of cloves i s more commonly used for that peinture. George Baxter described his process of
purposebut in p r i n t i n g every retarding of drying color p r i n t i n g in his Pictorial Album or Cabinet of
times would be undesirable. I f Essick knows of any Paintings, 1837. I cannot here attempt any i d e n t i f i -
method of making hazelnut o i l suitable for p r i n t i n g cation of binders used by the above mentioned
he should have quoted the evidence. To my knowledge, w r i t e r s . 3 Be i t s u f f i c i e n t to say that none of them
whenever "nut o i l " is mentioned in connection with i s mentioned in Essick's book.
painting or p r i n t i n g , walnut o i l is meant.
One should consider especially the p o s s i b i l i t y
When Essick adds that the "manufacture of of making a l i g h t - c o l o r e d , viscous, f a s t d r y i n g o i l
colored inks required only the s u b s t i t u t i o n of by cooking i t over white lead in the sun. Such o i l s
another pigment f o r the Frankfort b l a c k , " I doubt are mentioned i n medieval sources, though they are
the p r a c t i c a b i l i t y of t h i s simple recipe. F i r s t i t there recommended for painting rather than f o r
must be realized that the normal binder f o r p r i n t i n g printing.4
ink in the west was and i s o i l , mostly linseed and
walnut o i l , which are the best d r i e r s . I f o i l color For black-and-white p r i n t s Blake probably
i s printed on paper, the paper w i l l absorb more or preferred the customary b u r n t - o i l binder, e s p e c i a l l y
less of the o i l . This would hinder the p r i n t i n g f o r i n t a g l i o p r i n t i n g . In t h i s case p r i n t i n g would
and also make the paper stained and d i s c o l o r e d , and have to be done on wet paper, and then a water-
i n the end brown and b r i t t l e , since o i l accelerates soluble binder would e a s i l y cause b l u r r i n g of the
the decomposition of the c e l l u l o s e f i b e r s in the o u t l i n e s . I have never seen t h i s e f f e c t i n any of
paper to oxycellulose. Blake's i n t a g l i o engravings. In i n t a g l i o p r i n t i n g
wetting is necessary; otherwise i t would be yery
In order to make the o i l s u i t a b l e f o r p r i n t i n g d i f f i c u l t to force the paper i n t o the incised lines
on paper i t i s necessary to increase i t s v i s c o s i t y to receive the ink. In stereotype p r i n t i n g wetting
beyond the point where the paper ceases to imbibe i t . i s often omitted, especially when the ink contains
The established method f o r doing so was, as Dossie a water-soluble binder.
e x p l i c i t l y w r i t e s , to burn i t ; that i s , to cook i t
i n an open vessel f o r a long time and, i n the end, I t is l i k e l y that Blake used aqueous binders
to set i t a f i r e . Theodore de Mayerne gives the f o r most o f his stereotype p r i n t s . Printed surfaces
following d i r e c t i o n s , said to be those of C a l l o t : i n the i l l u m i n a t e d books seem to have taken water-
"Burn also some nut o i l ( t r y that of linseed) in an color washes remarkably w e l l , which would hardly be
142
the case if an oily vehicle had been used (it is, of intaglio would preclude the usual way of making
course, possible to paint in watercolor on oil, if corrections by cutting away the copper around
only the oily surface is prepared beforehand with defective lines and levelling the hollows by
ox gall or the juice of garlic, onions or potatoes, hammering from the back--this process would disfigure
but there is no indication that Blake ever did this). the back. It would have been very difficult for
The reticulation of the surface in many of Blake's Blake to use both sides of the same plate for such
stereotype prints indicates that the paper was not extensively reworked engravings as the second states
wetted. Why? Most probably because the binder was of Job and Ezekiel. In that case Blake would have
soluble in water, and would have caused blurring on had to spoil the first state of one of them, say,
moist paper. the Job, in order to rework the Ezekiel; pull all
the prints needed, and then destroy it, in order to
It seems that Essick in passing over the rework the Job. Very cumbersome! And how get rid
difficulties of color printing was misled by the of the plate-maker's stamp? He would have had to
remove it in the same way as above, alternately from
light-colored stand oils available today. the back and from the front, and that already in the
first states, even if he did no other corrections at
It should be noted that Essick on p. 102 says this early stage. For this reason I cannot agree
that "well soaked paper usually tends to absorb the with Essick's suggestion that the companions Ezekiel
ink."5 This is what many experienced practitioners and Job were done on both sides of the same plate.
believe, but it is only what seems to happen.
Actually the reverse is true, as long as oily binders The use of both sides of the plate is rational
are used. The wet paper assists the effect of the only for stereotype etchings, and only in this case
viscous oil and hinders absorption of ink. It is can it be proved that Blake did so. Whenever he did
common knowledge that oil and water do not mix intaglio work on the back of a used plate the
easily. For this reason printing on wet paper gives original design was treated as something that could
a smoother result. It is just because dry paper be sacrificed without lossin some cases inartistic
absorbs some of the oily binder that printing in oil illustrations done by others than Blake, such as
on dry paper results in rough reticulation of the plates 14 and 16 of the Job series.
printed surface. Part of the binder leaves the
pigment, and the ink gets so stiff that it adheres Essick's solution of the difficult problem of
to the plate. It should also be noted, as already dating Albion Rose is a great improvement upon
pointed out, that the dry paper is more difficult previous attempts (pp. 70 ff.). The ruled sky is
to bring into uniform contact with the plate. For recognized as a survivor from the lost first state,
these two reasons the plate regularly remains dirtier and the final state is dated after 1803. The color-
after printing on dry paper, than if well soaked prints, printed in stereotype from the intaglio plate
paper is used. 1794-95, show much of the intaglio work in white
line against the color. This fact has made possible
the reconstruction of the appearance of the plate
Essick's chapter 8 deals admirably with before the work that was added after 1803. The worm
technical evidence for dating some of Blake's and the moth are missing in this state, and, of
intaglio engravings. I am happy to see that he course, the caption. Yet Essick has missed the fact
dates the first state of the Job (the companion of that the BM color print does show a "worm," or what
Ezekiel) 1793, and I think that his redating of the looks like a worm, below Albion's left foot. It is
second state probably after 1820 is a great improve- not engraved in the plate, and is possibly only an
ment on my own tentative dating 1797-98. Especially accident of color printing. I think that this
valuable is Essick's remark (p. 220) that no datable accident is the origin of the introduction of the
prints by Blake are on laid India paper until the worm in the final intaglio state. The date 1780
published proofs of the Job series printed in the belongs, according to Essick, to the invention of
winter of 1825-26. But four of the six known copies the design, not to the execution. I would like to
of Job and its companion Ezekiel are on that paper. suggest another possibility: that the date and the
Essick also thinks, rightly, that all extant states ruled sky belong to a lost first state, actually
of Ezekiel are second states, and that the date 1794 executed in 1780, that the lines underlying the
is a survival from the lost first state. The two colorprints of 1794-95 show added work from an other-
companion plates seem to have been reworked at about wise lost second state, and that the final state is
the time Blake was engraving the Job set. the third. The radical juxtapositions of style
visible in Essick's "second" state are as much a
part of his "first" state. This indicates that
Essick's remark on p. 67 about the bevelling there was a state earlier than Essick's first.
of the edges of copperplates is a memento to anyone Notice also that the signature "WB inv" is not on a
who, by measuring the plate-marks, tries to establish line'with the date, and that spacing indicates that
which prints were done from the recto or verso of it is a later addition. Therefore I believe that the
the same plate. Since the necessary bevelling could date is a survivor from the first state, and that the
vary, the platemarks from both sides of a bevelled signature was added in the third.
plate are unlikely to correspond exactly. Printing
from unbevelled plates is not safe, because the
sharp edges are then likely to damage the paper--in A minor carelessness on pp. 70, 71, should be
fact they often cut off the margins. pointed out. Blake certainly did not print with
"pigment" alone, without a binder; an expert on
I would like to add that the use of both sides technique of Essick's capacity should write "ink" or
of the plate for works meant to be printed in "paint."
 143
I feel that Essick is r i g h t when he says that placed, face down, on a hot copper plate and passed
the i l l u s t r a t i o n s for Young were published in an through the press. The stopping melted and stuck
unfinished s t a t e . I also agree with him that most to the p l a t e . After t h i s the plate was immersed i n
of them are unsuccessful. water, the gum was dissolved and the paper f l o a t e d
o f f , leaving the l e t t e r i n g in reverse on the p l a t e .
Essick 1 s chapter on Blake's r e l i e f and white- Then the design could be drawn with the stopping
l i n e etching (pp. 85-120) is by f a r the best t r e a t - d i r e c t l y on the copper and the t e x t could be
ment of the subject so far published: excellent corrected i f necessary. F i n a l l y the f l a t s were
research along both h i s t o r i c a l and experimental etched down, leaving l e t t e r i n g and design in
paths. Appropriate quotes from manuals and t r e a t i s e s stereotype. I t should be noted that in some early
that were known to Blake and his contemporaries are p r i n t s the t e x t is s l i g h t l y slanted compared to the
followed by a step-by-step reconstruction of Blake's design, which seems to support the hypothesis that
methods. Essick has s c r u t i n i z e d Blake's p r i n t s and the l e t t e r i n g was not transferred to the copper at
the one surviving plate fragment f o r technical the same time as the d e s i g n . 1 1
evidence, and has himself executed graphic works
according to the processes l i k e l y to have been There is no d i r e c t documentary evidence in
employed by Blake. He is able to show that Blake support of t h i s r e c o n s t r u c t i o n , but i t i s clear that
could step-etch his stereotype plates in order to Blake knew an o f f s e t process for t r a n s f e r r i n g a
hinder underbiting and insure s u f f i c i e n t depth of drawing to a metal p l a t e . In his Note-Book Blake
b i t i n g , that he could make corrections by b u i l d i n g wrote a memorandum on how to "Engrave on Pewter.
up l e t t e r s , e t c . , on bitten-down areas, that he Let there be f i r s t a drawing made c o r r e c t l y with
could p r i n t successfully from extremely low r e l i e f s , black lead pencil [on a sheet of paper]. Let nothing
that he could control the effects of granulation i n be to seek. Then rub i t o f f on the plate covered with
p r i n t i n g , and much more. There is also an excellent white wax, or perhaps pass i t through the press.
account of how electrotype replicas of copperplates This w i l l produce c e r t a i n & determind forms on the
are made, which explains why the electrotype Songs plate & time w i l l not be wasted in seeking them
cannot be used as evidence f o r estimating the depth a f t e r w a r d s . " 1 2 The o f f s e t t r a c i n g would then serve
of b i t i n g in Blake's stereotype p l a t e s : the hollows as a guide f o r the graver. The same process could
were deepened in order to f a c i l i t a t e clean i n k i n g . be used on copper, and the traced l i n e s e i t h e r f o l -
lowed w i t h the etching needle, which would cut
Yet I s t i l l think that Blake did not w r i t e the through the wax ground and lay the copper bare, ex-
l e t t e r i n g backwards as Essick maintains, and I posing i t to the subsequent action of the a c i d , or
believe that more could be made of Cumberland's cut w i t h the graver d i r e c t l y into the metal. L e t t e r -
l e t t e r s and Blake's own technical memoranda than ing could be transferred in t h i s way as well as de-
Essick does. s i g n , but in the case of l e t t e r i n g the p r i n t i n g
would appear uncolored against an inked background,
According to John L i n n e l l , i n a l a t e r - d e l e t e d which would make them d i f f i c u l t to read.
annotation i n his copy of J . T. Smith, an " e x t r a -
ordinary f a c i l i t y seems to have been attained by We are thus brought back to Cumberland's method
Blake in w r i t i n g backwards." 6 Notice the force of of p r i n t i n g t e x t in i n t a g l i o , but with the essential
the word "seems": Linnell was not sure about Blake's addition of a r e l i a b l e method for t r a n s f e r r i n g
way of working. Cumberland wrote that Blake excelled l e t t e r i n g , w r i t t e n rightways on a sheet of paper, to
i n the a r t of "perusing backwards"--whatever that the etching ground, thus overcoming the d i f f i c u l t y
may mean.7 Essick thinks that Blake in Cumberland's Cumberland experienced in g e t t i n g the printed t e x t
view wrote backwardsbut why did Cumberland not reversed. I t i s only natural that Blake should
say so? inform Cumberland of t h i s method, which he did in
his l e t t e r of 9 December 1795: "Take a cake of
Whatever Blake's method, he was l u c k i e r than V i r g i n ' s Wax ( I don't know what animal produces i t )
Cumberland himself, whose invention of etching t e x t & stroke i t r e g u l a r l y over the surface of a warm
on copper-plates l a t e r to be printed i n i n t a g l i o plate (the Plate must be warm enough to melt the
produced reversed l e t t e r i n g , which had to be read Wax as i t passes o v e r ) , then immediately draw a
w i t h the aid of a m i r r o r . 8 I t is i n t e r e s t i n g to see feather over i t & you w i l l get an even surface which,
that Cumberland had a remedy for t h i s : to o f f s e t when cooled, w i l l recieve any impression m i n u t e l y . " 1 3
the l e t t e r i n g by taking counter-proofs of the This is c e r t a i n l y how Blake did those of his
reversed p r i n t s before they had d r i e d . This was, illuminated books which were printed in i n t a g l i o ,
of course, a makeshift: such counter-proofs look namely The Book of Ahania, The Book of Los (both
weak and t h i n , and have no a r t i s t i c value, as Hind etched), For Children (etched) and For the Sexes
points o u t . 9 Blake would not have found t h i s method (engraved). These works were therefore done i n
satisfactory. Cumberland's method, perfected by Blake.

I t would be b e t t e r to put i n the o f f s e t stage I t would, of course, be possible to p r i n t

e a r l i e r , in t r a n s f e r r i n g the t e x t to the p l a t e . I plates of t h i s nature as woodcuts, i n stereotype,
agree that t h i s second o f f s e t process, suggested by to produce a w h i t e - l i n e p r i n t . Examples are frequent
Hayter and Todd in t h e i r attempt at reconstructing especially i n America, Europe, Milton and Jerusalem,
Blake's methods, 10 is to some degree h y p o t h e t i c a l . but only f o r designs, not f o r l e t t e r i n g . The only
In t h e i r o p i n i o n , the w r i t i n g was done with an notable exceptions to t h i s r u l e are the t i t l e of
asphalturn-based medium rightways on a sheet of paper Milton and p i . 26 of Jerusalem, bearing only short
which had been previously soaked i n a s o l u t i o n of texts i n large l e t t e r i n g ; while the w h i t e - l i n e
gum arabic and allowed to dry. Then the sheet was l e t t e r i n g in the f i r s t state of the f r o n t i s o i e c e f o r
144
Jerusalem is almost illegible, as witnessed by a in stereotype. The bare mentioning of the process
surviving trial proof; 14 the texts were wisely in The Marriage and in his Prospectus 1793 betrays
suppressed in the final state. no details. 17

In two memoranda in the Note Book Blake described We still do not know if he wrote the text
the method of such "woodcuts on pewter" and "woodcuts directly on the copper backwards, or if he used an
on copper": "To Woodcut on Pewter. Lay a ground on offset process similar to that reconstructed by Todd
the Plate & smoke it as for Etching, then trace your and Hayter, and also, it should be noted, similar to
outlines [& draw them in with a needle del.'}, and the transfer process Blake used for etching on a
beginning with the spots of light on each object wax ground. We only know that he could not have
with an oval pointed needle scrape off the ground, used the wax ground for the lettering of works
[& instead of etching the shadowy strokes del.] as a printed in stereotype.
direction for your graver then proceed to graving
with the ground on the plate being as careful as Personally I doubt that Blake wrote the bulk of
possible not to hurt the ground because it being the lettering directly on the plates. There are no
black will shew perfectly what is wanted [word del.]" mistakes characteristic of backwards writing in, for
"To Woodcut on Copper Lay a ground as for Etching, instance, the 50 plates of Milton and the 100 plates
trace & c & instead of Etching the blacks Etch the of Jerusalem. But there are reversed letters in
whites & bite it in." 1 5 short texts, such as titles. The "Y" is reversed in
the title of AMERICA A PROPHECY (Y instead of Y ) ,
Evidently the tracing on the black ground was likewise in Europe pi. 3 "A PROPHECY," and in the
to be done in the same way as on the white ground. title of Job the "A" in "ILLUSTRATIONS" is reversed
In that case red chalk lines would show better than (Ainstead of A ) . The most likely explanation is
black lead pencil lines, but also black lead lines that these texts requiring only a few letters were
would be plainly visible, especially facing the done directly on the copper, with the result that
lightand it is known that Blake worked facing the Blake got a few letters reversed, but that the bulk
light. 16 Both of the processes described are meant of the lettering of Blake's illuminated books, not
for white line work, that is, stereotype. But Blake showing any reversed letters, was written rightways
almost never used the process for etching lettering, on paper and transferred to the plates in an offset
for obvious reasons: since the whole plate was process.
covered with a wax ground, inked lettering of the
kind forming the bulk of Blake's illuminated printing My main reason for supposing that Blake used a
could have been done only by removing the ground transfer process for lettering is that the bulk of
around the letters. Considering the amount of text text in his illuminated books does not have the
in most of Blake's books, and its minute size, this characteristics of reversed writing. The uniform
would have been impossible. The processes described right-hand slant typical of his mature penmanship
in the two memoranda quoted above were suitable only never occurs in texts known to have been executed
for making designs. I think that most of Blake's directly on the copper (e.g., Job marginalia of the
white line etchings were made according to his recipe 1820s). It does not occur, either, in his earliest
for "woodcut on copper": the frontispiece of America* experiments with illuminated printing, such as the
most of the whole-page designs for Milton and tractates on religion (1788) or The Songs of
Jerusalem, etc. It would also be possible to cover Innocence (1789). It is first seen in Thel (1789),
only part of a plate with the wax ground and execute and from then on remains a constant feature of his
plates combining white-line designs with inked work. Therefore I think that Blake's illuminated
lettering done with the asphaltum stopper. printing, invented in 1788, was perfected in 1789,
when he added a method for transferring lettering
Whichever combinations were used or not used, to the plates. 18
for work on the plates, the plate was printed in
I agree that we cannot be one hundred percent
stereotype, and had to go through the press only once.
sure about how Blake proceeded, but in the light of
the evidence available today I would prefer the
I know of only two possible examples of lettering above interpretation to Essick's.
to be printed black from a stereotype plate, and not
painted on the plate but picked out by removing the To summarize the preceding discussion: Blake
black-printing ground around the letters. One is used two types of ground for his stereotype plates:
the title of Jerusalem* showing large lettering, and (1) an ordinary wax etching ground, white or smoked,
the other is the line afterwards added to the top of capable of receiving a counterproof impression of a
plate 33 [37]: "And One stood forth from the Divine pencil study, mainly used for the execution of
Family & said." In this case Blake etched the black- pictorial designs in white line etching, and (2) a
printing text free of the ground as far as the word stopper of asphaltum and linseed oil, much more
"the," the rest of the line being in white on black. fluid, and, after drying, harder than the wax ground,
Thus we know that Blake found it too cumbersome to intended for lettering and black line illustrations
pick out even a single line of normal-sized lettering. for Blake's poems.
For other such additions he preferred simple white-
line against black: the words "SHEEP" "GOATS" on pi. That Blake's work was divided thus is made
3, the quotation "Movos o Lsous" on pi. 4, and the clear by the appearance of his books. Ii the
line added at the bottom of pi. 40 [45]. This should white-line etching is reserved for separate plates
make it clear that none of Blake's surviving recipes bearing whole-page designs similar to the
for etching gives us any information about his main frontispiece, in Jerusalem for clearly defined parts
technical invention, that of etching text and design of plates (4, 11, 28, 31 [35], 33 [37], 41 [46], 50,
 145

53) or f o r whole-page designs ( f r o n t i s p i e c e , t i t l e , On p. 123 there is an excellent quote from

26, 5 1 , 76). Rees' Cyclopedia on "distemper": " a l l ancient
pictures are said to have been painted before the
The interpenetration of white l i n e and black year 1410" in that medium. I t i s i n t e r e s t i n g to
l i n e work occurs only in the period 1789-94, in see that Blake's view was shared by his contempora-
some of the Songs, and, notably, in America and r i e s , though in t h i s context one should have wished
Europe. Here Blake has used white l i n e work on f o r a reference to Vasari's story of Jan van Eyck
areas covered with the stopper, i n order to add inventing o i l colors about 1410. 2 3
modelling and d e f i n i t i o n to the blacks. That his
stopping medium did not e a s i l y y i e l d i t s e l f to the On p. 124 Essick says that Blake could have
etching needle is witnessed by the fact that most made his colors more opaque by adding "less water
of t h i s work was done with the graver {America 8, 9, or more s i z e . " This i s an oversight. More size
11, Europe 2, 3, 4, 8 ) . would e f f e c t the opposite, namely greater t r a n s -
parency, as anyone knows who has t r i e d i t . What i s
The poems printed in i n t a g l i o {Ahania, Book of needed is more pigment. This, of course, i s e a s i l y
Los) were done on a wax ground onto which the text accomplished by adding less water.
had been counterproofed i n accordance with Blake's
memorandum. ^ery i n t e r e s t i n g is Essick's account of Blake's
color p r i n t i n g process (pp. 126 f f . ) . The shallow
In chapter 10, on c o l o r i n g , Essick ignores the etching of the plates permitted Blake to p r i n t
properties of some aqueous binders, namely gum and simultaneously from b i t t e n and r e l i e f surfaces, that
glue. On p. 122 he quotes J . T. Smith who w r o t e - - i s , in stereotype and i n t a g l i o at the same time. In
r i g h t l y - - t h a t gum has a tendency to crack and peel using t h i s process Blake seems to have been more
o f f a f t e r d r y i n g . 1 9 But Essick does not mention the than 100 years ahead of his time. I t is often
f a c t that gum is the normal binding medium in employed in modern color etching. He was also one
western transparent watercolor painting (including of the f i r s t to employ consciously the chance e f f e c t s
wash drawing i n i n k ) , and that the paint layer in of inking and p r i n t i n g .
such watercolors never cracks. This is so because
of the extreme thinness of layers i n transparent Essick's c r i t i c i s m s of Tatham's account of the
watercolor. As soon as the layers achieve any color p r i n t i n g process and of W. Graham Robertson's
appreciable thickness they w i l l crack more or l e s s , experiments in color p r i n t i n g with pigments bound
depending upon the thickness of the layers and the with egg yolk are valuable. That Tatham was wrong
nature of the support. The rougher and more i n assuming t h a t Blake p r i n t e d i n o i l i s clear. 2 1 4
absorbent the l a t t e r i s , the b e t t e r . Both the c o l o r p r i n t s pulled from copper plates and
the large p r i n t s pulled from cardboards have taken
Thus gum is an excellent binder f o r t h i n watercolor washes w e l l , and Blake inscribed some of
aquarelle, but unsafe for opaque p a i n t i n g . For such the l a t t e r " f r e s c o , " which with him meant water-
work glue has always been p r e f e r r e d , but since glue c o l o r . 2 5 These i n s c r i p t i o n s do not allow us to
water has to be used hot (otherwise i t would i d e n t i f y the binder with c e r t a i n t y ; Blake would have
g e l a t i n i z e and become unmanageable), painting i n called any watermiscible paint " f r e s c o . " The t h i c k -
glue size i s somewhat cumbersome. The pot with ness of application in some of the color p r i n t s
binding medium must be kept over coals c o n t i n u a l l y , would exclude gum arabic and tragacanth, which would
y e t i t must not be allowed to b o i l . B o i l i n g would have cracked and scaled o f f i f so applied. Glue
diminish the binding power e r r a t i c a l l y . The pigment size would have been good, but would have needed
has to be ground beforehand with pure water, and the heating. This would not be very d i f f i c u l t when
pigment pastes should be heated, t o o , expecially in p r i n t i n g from copperplates, but how heat the card-
cold weather. I t is true that f i s h glue is known boards which Blake used for the large color p r i n t s ?
to remain l i q u i d at room temperature, but Blake never Here a t h i r d type of binder would be needed. I
mentions such glues, and a l l grades of f i s h glue, think t h i s is the reason why Graham Robertson assumed
save Russian sturgeon's glue, are considered that Blake printed with yolk of egg--but i t is also
i n f e r i o r as media f o r a r t i s t i c p a i n t i n g . They are evident that his suggestion was wrong.
highly hygroscopic, and Blake's glue was not, as J .
T. Smith informs u s . 2 0 In t h i s context i t is of great i n t e r e s t to read
the analysis by John W. Twilley (Department of
For t h i s reason I think that Blake used glue Chemistry, University of C a l i f o r n i a , R i v e r s i d e ) , of
only when he had t o , f o r opaque p a i n t i n g . The t h i n the binding medium in Essick's color p r i n t of Lamech.
washes employed f o r f i n i s h i n g p r i n t s by hand were I t was found to be gum, but none of the ordinary gums.
most probably executed with the more convenient gum I t was e i t h e r of Cochlospermum gossypium, of Astra-
medium. galus verus or of a S t e r c u l i a species. These gums
respond to chemical tests i n the same way, so f u r t h e r
Essick has c o r r e c t l y i d e n t i f i e d the passage in i d e n t i f i c a t i o n was impossible. These gums can be
dissolved in water only with strong heating, remain
Cennino Cennini which Linnell had in mind when he
l i q u i d a f t e r c o o l i n g , become almost insoluble i n
said that Blake had found his own binder mentioned
water a f t e r d r y i n g , are not hygroscopic, do not crack
in Tambroni's e d i t i o n of Cennini's t r a c t a t e . 2 1 In
e a s i l y , and do not d i s c o l o r d e l i c a t e t i n t s . They
his note 6, p. 122, Essick queries Rossetti's mention are exactly the r i g h t type of binder for a large
of an 1822 e d i t i o n of Cennini and w r i t e s that he had p r i n t in opaque c o l o r s .
been unable to f i n d i t . I can inform him that none
e x i s t s . 2 ? Rossetti's reference is a simple mistake Essick warns the reader that more tests have to
f o r 1821. be made before we can be sure about which media
 146
Blake employed for his c o l o r p r i n t s ; Blake could have Chapter 15, "Printmaker as Poet," deals with
used other binders f o r other p r i n t s . Yet I cannot graphic allegories in Blake's poetry, and is on the
r e s i s t the temptation to jump to conclusions: that whole the least convincing part of the book. Essick
the binder in Essick's Lantech was used for a l l the manages to prove his point only by not d i s t i n g u i s h i n g
large c o l o r p r i n t s , and for the color p r i n t s from between hammering and casting (p. 209) and between
copper plates e i t h e r t h i s same gum or an ordinary ploughing and harrowing (p. 212).
glue s i z e . At least technical evidence favors t h i s
assumption. But I wonder where Blake obtained these Part 5, "Synthesis and Mastery 1818-1827" is
exotic gums. They do not seem to have been in e x c e l l e n t . In chapter 16, " L i n n e l l , " Essick demon-
ordinary use by a r t i s t s . strates the extent and nature of L i n n e l l ' s influence
on Blake, underrated or ignored by previous w r i t e r s .
On p. 161 Essick quotes an i n s c r i p t i o n , probably He shows that the s t y l e of Blake's f i n a l i n t a g l i o
by Cumberland, from the back of the Croft-Murray masterpieces such as the Job and Dante engravings
copy of the lithograph Enoch. I t begins: "White evolved out of L i n n e l l ' s and Blake's collaboration
Lyas--is the Block / draw with Ink composed of on L i n n e l l ' s p o r t r a i t p l a t e s . This chapter was a
Asphaltum dissolved in dry? / linseed Oil . . . " real eye-opener to me; I am now convinced that
I have not seen the p r i n t , but I think that the Linnell helped Blake to realize his own powers and
queried "dry" should read " d r y i n g . " No one could surpass his previous achievements in i n t a g l i o
draw with dry linseed o i l - - n o t to speak of dissolving engraving.
asphaltum in i t - - w h i l e drying linseed o i l means an
o i l , made more drying by b o i l i n g , perhaps even In the chapter on the V i r g i l wood engravings
burning, with or without the addition of a s i c c a t i v e Essick j u s t l y remarks that "even some modern admirers
(lead oxide or white lead). Such an o i l is commonly of the V i r g i l blocks [Raymond L i s t e r ] have found them
called a varnish, and since asphaltum is often used t e c h n i c a l l y d e f i c i e n t , but nothing could be f u r t h e r
as a dark brown pigment, Blake's composition is from the t r u t h " (p. 227). Yet, on p. 226, he himself
closer to J . T. Smith's l i t h o g r a p h i c ink "compounded comes close to the error he c r i t i c i z e s , in his
of black mixed with varnish" than Essick t h i n k s . comment on the two versions of cut 3, one by Blake,
Blake f u r t h e r powdered "rotten stone" to the wet the other by a journeyman engraver. He writes of the
design, I think in order to raise the lines over the "great difference between the highly dramatic
surface of the stone, which would make inking easier. o r i g i n a l and the competent but d u l l copy," and adds
He did no e t c h i n g ; the Lias stone is porous enough that a l l "the journeyman's care . . . cannot r e t a i n
unetched. This is of great i n t e r e s t , because Essick the vigor and i n t e n s i t y of Blake's work." I would
r i g h t l y assumes that t h i s lithographic ink was l i k e two corrections here: "incompetent and d u l l "
s i m i l a r in composition to Blake's stopping varnish f o r "competent but d u l l " and "the journeyman's lack
f o r making stereotypes on copper. Whether a burnt of care" for "the journeyman's c a r e . "
o i l works better than a boiled one remains to be
tested. Personally I doubt the necessity of adding
a drier. These p r i n t s r e a l l y o f f e r the best opportunity
f o r demonstrating that invention and execution are
one, or, more properly, that execution i s the
I n c i d e n t a l l y , some of the t e x t on the verso of organization of form that makes the invention v i s i b l e .
the Croft-Murray copy shows through the reproduction
of the recto in p i . 166. I have t r i e d to read i t Look c a r e f u l l y at the journeyman version
with the aid of a m i r r o r , but f a i l e d . The verso (Essick, p i . 206): Begin with the d e t a i l s : the
should have been reproduced, too, especially since hands and f e e t , and the lineaments of the
the correct reading of the annotation is i n doubt. countenances. Examine Thenot's r i g h t hand: i t has
been squeezed out of shape, the l i t t l e finger and
Part four (chapters 12-15) covers Blake's career the index finger are d i s l o c a t e d , the thumb cut away,
as a graphic a r t i s t 1800-1818. the palm is too t h i n and too concave. The other
hands and the feet are too s m a l l ; C o l i n e t ' s feet are
Desideratum in chapter 13: that a s p e c i a l i s t badly formed out of some kind of too sloppy dough.
would analyze thoroughly Blake's penmanship--the In the o r i g i n a l a l l these d e t a i l s are p e r f e c t ; hands
short notes appended to Mona Wilson's Life are not and feet are c o r r e c t l y formed, the r e l a t i o n s h i p
enough. between t h e i r parts is r i g h t , the members are s o l i d ,
give a sense of volume, and seem a l i v e . The same i s
On p. 204 Blake's notes on "Demonstration true of the faces. In the copy C o l i n e t ' s head is
Similitude & Harmony" as "Objects of Reasoning" supported by his hand: he is t i r e d . In the o r i g i n a l
opposed to "Invention I d e n t i t y & Melody [which] are his hand is under his chin: he i s brooding. And
objects of I n t u i t i o n " are misunderstood. "Similitude" consider Thenot's change of gesture: in the copy
s i g n i f i e s s i m i l i t u d e w i t h i n a work of a r t : a l l l i n e s , he is shown speaking about some unspecified topic to
f o r instance, are s i m i l a r , and do not discriminate Colinet; in the o r i g i n a l his body and arms are one
character. I t does not mean s i m i l i t u d e between with the tree laden with f r u i t and with the sun;
model and copy, as Essick t h i n k s . " I d e n t i t y " means they express most eloquently the message of his
i d e n t i t y of execution and character. Moreover, speech: look, I am l i k e an old tree in the
Blake did not organize the elements of his execution autumn. . . .
i n t o "a rhythmic whole," which would necessitate
r e p e t i t i v e patterns and monotony. The whole he aimed Now examine the execution of the whole: the
at was, to use his own word, "melodious." I t appears
figures of the o r i g i n a l have volume, look s o l i d ,
from p. 206 that Essick understands t h i s . Perhaps
his remarks above are merely s l i p s of the pen. monumental and grand, and also give the impression
of having real bodies circumscribed by the folds of
 147
t h e i r garments. I n the journeyman version they look unfinished states been preserved. Here we come
f l a t and d i s i n t e g r a t e d , l i k e sheets of cardboard closer to the actual labors of Blake the engraver
streaked with p r i n t e r ' s i n k . And n o t i c e , i n the than ever before.
o r i g i n a l , the e f f e c t of strong l i g h t shining i n
darkness, while the copy is grey, and lacking in Some of my c r i t i c i s m s above may seem b u l k y , but
contrast. t h i s does not mean that I have not enjoyed the book
immensely. I t should be realized that most of the
Blake's own wood engraving is not only more disagreements are about a single t o p i c , the binding
s p i r i t e d than the copy: i t is the only one that can media used f o r p r i n t i n g and p a i n t i n g . I f Essick's
be praised f o r any mechanical correctness. This i s treatment of binding media is not quite s a t i s f a c t o r y ,
made clear i f we imagine both designs blown up to there is much in his book to make up f o r the
the size of a w a l l : the o r i g i n a l would make a good deficiency.
design for a monumental f r e s c o , while the copy would
look ludicrous, l i k e a matchbox t i c k e t of elephantine Essick's prose i s v i v i d , powerful and c l e a r ,
s i ze. his argument sound, his pages t i g h t l y packed w i t h
information, his way of thinking new, o r i g i n a l and
I f i n d i t inconceivable that anyone at any time closely k n i t to a r t i s t i c p r a c t i c e . I n technical
could have preferred anything i n the journeyman enthusiasm he goes f u r t h e r and deeper than any
version to Blake's o r i g i n a l . I would have l i k e d to professional a r t h i s t o r i a n I know o f .
see t h i s comparison made i n Essick's book, to silence
forever those who think that Blake's execution of
the V i r g i l wood engravings is amateurish, or at "BruslSs aussi de l ' h u i l e de noix (essayed c e l l e de Lin) dans
least to make them examine the works c a r e f u l l y vn pot de f e r la f a i s a n t b o u i l l i r tant q u ' e l l e s'exale & face
before they pass t h e i r judgment. I n my view i t is fume, alors auec vne allumette mettes y le feu en le remuant
very d i f f i c u l t to f i n d woodcuts that equal Blake's brusls jusques a tant que l ' h u i l e deuienne f o r t espaisse de sorte
que vous aure"s beaucoup de peine a b r o y e r . " Theodore Turquet de
i n mechanical excellence. Mayerne, Pictorja Sculptorja & quae sub alternarum artium (1620),
B. M. Sloane Ms. 2052, f o l . 36 verso, quoted from the ed. by
What is at issue here i s not Blake's V i r g i l Ernst Berger, Beitr'dge zur Entwickelungsgeschichte der Malteahnik,
IV Folge (Munich, 1901), p. 166. See also p. 160, where de Mayerne
woodcuts alone. I t is a question of the way we look says t h a t he had the C a l l o t recipes from Jehan P e t i t o t , who in
at a r t . The idea that execution is d i f f e r e n t from turn had obtained them from "Vignon e x c e l l e n t graueur qui a long
and i n f e r i o r to invention or conception is a product temps serui C a l o t . "
of academical a r t school ideology, which Blake 2
combatted in his marginalia to Reynolds and his The p a r t i c u l a r s of the invention do not seem to be d e f i n i t e l y
known, but i t is assumed t h a t the Dutch introduced t h i s o i l in
Public Address. To no a v a i l ! Expressions such as the l a s t century. See Ralph Mayer, A Dictionary of Art Terms and
"correctness," "technical b r i l l i a n c y " and "mechani Techniques, (London, 1969), p. 375.
cal excellence" are s t i l l considered p e j o r a t i v e , and 3
a r t i s t s we l i k e are rather praised f o r t h e i r Le Blon's Coloritto: or the Harmony of Colouring in Painting:
Reduced to Mechanical Practice, under Easy Precepts, and Infalli
b le
"dramatic q u a l i t y , " t h e i r " i n t e n s i t y of f e e l i n g " or Rules, London, n . d . , is inaccessible to me. Gautier d'Agoty's
something l i k e t h a t . This abuse of language has Observations mentions no technical d e t a i l s t h e binder i s only
influenced even the strongest minds of our day. described as "une c o l l e & un v e r n i s " ( I , o. 139), i t s workinq
Conceptual a r t has f i n a l l y divorced the brain from oroperties are p r a i s e d , but nothing f u r t h e r i s said about i t s
composition. There i s a reference on I I , p. 127 to an a r t i c l e
the hand and l e f t the former alone without adequate exDlaining "1"Art d'imprimer des Tableaux en c o u l e u r s , " i n
means of a r t i c u l a t i o n . Blake knew that the essence cure, July 1749, but I have been unable to check t h i s
of a r t is the fusion of i n t e l l e c t and h a n d i c r a f t , reference.
and we should consider his message c a r e f u l l y :
The e a r l i e s t s u r v i v i n g recipe f o r cooking an o i l i n the sun over
"Daughters of Beulah! Muses who i n s p i r e the Poets white lead is in H e r a c l i u s , De artibus romanorum, Book Three,
Song / . . . Come i n t o my hand / By your mild power added about 1200 to the f i r s t two books, which are o l d e r . For a
descending down the Nerves of my r i g h t arm / From succinct summary of e a r l y recipes see Rolf E. Straub, "Zur fr'uhen
out the Portals of my Brain where by your m i n i s t r y / Geschichte der Olfarbe i n der Tafelmalerei n o r d l i c h der A l p e n , "
Von Faroe und Farb en ( A l b e r t Knoepfli F e s t s c h r i f t ) ( Z u r i c h , 1980),
The Eternal Great Humanity Divine planted his pp. 2129.
Paradise." 2 6
1
"A. ; sorb" i s possibly a m i s p r i n t f o r "absorb."
Essick's f i n a l chapters on the Job and Dante 6
G. E. Bentley, J r . , Blake Records (Oxford, 1969), p. 460 n. 1.
are among the best in the book. The use of the 7
s t i p p l e for the f i r s t lines in the Job and of the George Cumberland, "Hints on Various Modes of P r i n t i n g from
Autographs," A Journal of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, and the
drypoint i n the Dante is c a r e f u l l y analyzed. Essick ., 28 (1811), p. 56. Cumberland wrote "perusing backwards,"
f u r t h e r i d e n t i f i e s the burin in the margin of Job n o t , as Essick says on p. 90, "to w r i t e backwards on copper."
p i . 18 as an eighteenth century knife tool of the See also Blake Records, p. 212 n. 1 .
type Blake was accustomed to from his apprenticeship
at B a s i r e ' s . I n c i d e n t a l l y , I think that the gravers See George Cumberland, "New Mode of P r i n t i n g , " A New Review;
Blake used f o r his wood engravings were of t h i s type, cities, and Literary Intelligence for the Year
34, 6 (1784), pp. 318 f . ; r e p r i n t e d i n Mona Wilson, Life of
and i t i s therefore i n t e r e s t i n g to know that he owned Villi (London, 1948), p. 330. For Cumberland's l e t t e r s ,
such a t o o l . They work b e t t e r on wood than lozenge see Geoffrey Keynes, Blaki studies (Oxford 1971), pp. 231 f f .
gravers, and modern tools f o r work on end wood are
generally of the same type. A. M. Hind, A History of Engraving and Etching, Dover r e p r i n t
(New York, 1963), p. 15.
Essick's description of the progress of work in
' Rutnven Todd, "The Techniques of W i l l i a m Blake's I l l u m i n a t e d
the d i f f e r e n t states of the Job makes f u l l use of P r i n t i n g , " Print Collector's Quarterly, 29 (1948), pp. 25 f f . S
the r i c h m a t e r i a l i n no other instance have so many W. Hayter, New Ways of Gravure (Oxford 1966), pp. 64, 130.
 148
11
See David V. Erdman, The Illuminated Blake (London 1975), pp.
25 {Relig ions 8 ) , 29 {B lig i n a 7 , a 9 ) , 29 ( ' . b 9 ) , 55 THE LEAST BLAKE
[Songs 14). I t should be noted that t h i s t i l t i n g only occurs i n
Blake's e a r l i e s t attempts a t i l l u m i n a t e d p r i n t i n g , and that i t
could have been produced by a number o f d i f f e r e n t accidents.
12
Note-Book, p. 10, K 440.
13
K 790. I t i s odd that Blake d i d not know t h a t v i r g i n ' s wax i s
produced by the honey bee. I t was o r i g i n a l l y made from honeycombs
unused by the bees, and therefore unsoiled and almost w h i t e .
Since t h i s grade i s very expensive, i t i s common p r a c t i c e to l e t
the bees use the combs, and afterwards wish the wax by b o i l i n g
i t i n water with alum, and e v e n t u a l l y bleach i t i n the sun. This
p u r i f i e d bee's wax i s commonly, though improperly, sold under the
name v i r g i n ' s wax.
lM
Repr. Keynes, Blake Studies (1971), p i . 29. P o e t r y o f W i l l i a m B l a k e . Winterport,
15
Note-Book, p. 10, K 440.
Maine: Borrower's Press, 1 978. 34 pp., no
6
See the d e s c r i p t i o n o f Blake's working room a t Fountain Court
i n H. H. G i l c h r i s t ( e d . ) , Anne Gilchrist Her Life and Writin
g s plates.
(London 1887), pp. 261 f . (Bentley, Blake Records, p. 566).
17
K 154, 207.
18
Blake wrote i n 1822 that h i s "Original Stereotype was 1788"
Reviewed by G. E. Bentley, Jr.
(K 781). According to J . T. Smith the recipe was revealed t o
Blake by the s p i r i t o f h i s brother Robert, who died i n 1787
(Blake Records, p. 460). The f i r s t dated works i n i l l u m i n a t e d
p r i n t i n g are the Song s of innocence and Thel, both 1789. The

T
t r a c t a t e s on r e l i g i o n , w i t h o u t date, are s t y l i s t i c a l l y e a r l i e r his l i t t l e work seems to have been overlooked
than these, and generally assigned to the year 1788. Thus a l l
evidence supports the year 1788, and nothing but confusion could
in the bibliographies o f Blake i n Blake: An
a r i s e i f we suppose that Blake could have invented the method Illustrated Quarterly, the MLA annual
e a r l i e r . I t i s true that p a r t o f a recipe f o r i l l u m i n a t e d bibliography, The Romantic Movement bibliography, and
p r i n t i n g has survived i n An Island in the Moon, almost c e r t a i n l y elsewhere. The reason f o r such oversight i s p l a i n
w r i t t e n i n the w i n t e r o f 1784-85, but the reference i s c l e a r l y t o enough, f o r i t i s only the size o f a thumb-nail:
Cumberland's method, not t o Blake's own.
5/3" x 3/4" (1.5 x 2.0 cm.), and i t i s " l i m i t e d to
19
Blake Records, p. 472. Tatham supports t h i s , ibid,, p. 517. 300 numbered, signed copies," according to the
20
colophon.
Blake Records, p. 472.
21
Blake Records, p. 33 n. 3, and p. 472. The contents are moderately s t r a i g h t f o r w a r d ; an
anonymous "I n t r o d u c t i o n " (pp. 5-6) and "many" (nine)
Giuseppe Tambroni's e d i t i o n o f Cennini was the f i r s t , and bears poems from the Song s. The " In t r o d u c t i o n " says, on
the date 1821 ( r e p r i n t e d 1965). The next was by Carlo and Gaetano
Milanesi i n 1859, r e p r i n t e d 1975 a aura di Fernando Tempesti .
the whole t r u l y enough, that the t e x t "retains h i s
The t h i r d was by Renzo S i m i , 1913, r e p r i n t e d without notes and archaic s p e l l i n g and unconventional c a p i t a l i z a t i o n
i n t r o d u c t i o n i n 1943; and the second e d i t i o n of Renzo Simi supplied where p o s s i b l e . " The second most s t r i k i n g feature
the t e x t f o r Franco B r u n e l l o ' s annotated e d i t i o n o f 1971. The o f the t i n y t e x t , however, i s the way i t has been
most recent e d i t i o n from the o r i g i n a l mss. i s by Daniel V.
Thompson, 1932. Blake scholars should quote Tambroni. Later abbreviated. The t i t l e and the word " I " i n 1 . 18
e d i t i o n s , based on manuscripts inaccessible to him (he knew o f have dropped out o f the " In t r o d u c t i o n " t o Innocence,
the B i b l i o t e c a Laurenziana ms., but had not seen i t ) are very and h a l f o f "I nfant Joy," the second stanza, has
d i f f e r e n t from Tambroni's. disappeared.
3
Giorgio V a s a r i , Le pit ' eooelenti pittori, scultori
ed architettori (ed. Milanesi) (Florence 1878-79), I , 184, II, The price o f the work, at least the price paid
pp. 565 f . , 569. for i t to an antiquarian bookseller (k29 = about $70),
2U may make i t the most expensive uncolored l i t e r a r y
Alexander G i l c h r i s t , Life of William Blake (1942), p. 366;
(1863), p. 376. See Blake Records, p. 34 n. 1 . work by Blake per square centimeter ever sold--68c7
cm2. I t i s f a r beyond the Blake Trust facsimiles
25
K 562, 563, 577. and even surpasses uncolored Blake o r i g i n a l s ; Song s
2t of Innocence and of Experience copy h, which sold
' K 481 ( ' : p i . 2 ) . A s i m i l a r idea was put forward by
Michelangelo i n h i s sonnett no. XV i n the Guasti e d i t i o n : "Non ha for $15,000 i n 1981, comes to only 47c per square
l ' o t t i m o a r t i s t a alcun concetto, / Ch' un marmo solo i n se non centimeter.
c i r c o n s c r i v a / Col suo soverchio; e solo a q u e l l o a r r i v a / La man
che ubbidisce a l l ' i n t e l l e t t o . " See Louisa Maclehose and G.
Baldwin Brown, Vaecan on (1907; r p t . New York: Dover,
1960), p. 180.
 149

The Poems of

WILLIAM
John D. Baird and Charles Ryskamp, eds.
COWPER
The P o e m s o f W i l l i a m C o w p e r . V o l . 1: VOLUME I
1 7 4 8 - 1 7 8 2 . Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1748-1782

1980. xliii + 5 9 7 pp. $ 7 4 . 0 0 .

E D I T E D BY

James King and Charles Ryskamp, eds. The JOHN D. BAIRD A N D

CHARLES RYSKAMP
L e t t e r s a n d Prose W r i t i n g s o f W i l l i a m
C o w p e r . V o l . 1: " A d e l p h i " a n d
L e t t e r s , 1 7 5 0 - 1 7 8 1 . Oxford: Clarendon OXFORD
A t the Clarendon Press
Press, 1979. xliii + 598 pp. $ 5 8 . 0 0 .

Reviewed by Donald H. Reiman

A s Morton D. Paley has shown, not only did

Blake admire William Cowper as a poet, but
Blake learned Cowper's l i f e - s e c r e t s through
his intimacy with William Hayley, Cowper's f r i e n d "
This is an e d i t i o n of a l l Cowper's o r i g i n a l
poems and t r a n s l a t i o n s , with two exceptions:
his t r a n s l a t i o n of Homer . . . and his j o i n t
t r a n s l a t i o n with William Hayley of Andreini's
and o f f i c i a l biographer, and w i t h the Reverend Adamo. . . . which, as we have i t , is c e r t a i n l y
Joseph Johnson of Norfolk. Indeed, Paley finds more Hayley's than Cowper's. The t r a n s l a t i o n
Blake portraying Cowper as the pathetic "Spectre" on of Homer, however, was Cowper's most ambitious
plate 10 of Jerusalem ("Cowper as Blake's Spectre," and extended poetical undertaking. . . . It
Eighteenth-Century Studies, I [1968], 236-52). has been passed over on grounds of expediency.
Joseph A. W i t t r e i c h , J r . , f i n d s that Blake's concep- . . . To e d i t t h i s material properly would be
t i o n of John Milton had been "sharpened" and "relayed" a vast labour; to publish the r e s u l t would be
to him by Cowper and Hayley [Blake's Sublime Alle- p r o h i b i t i v e l y expensive.
gory, ed. Stuart Curran and W i t t r e i c h [1973], D. 27).
(p. x x v i i )
Thus the appearance of new Oxford English Text e d i -
t i o n s of Cowper's poetry and l e t t e r s (Blake called Because both Cowper's l e t t e r s and poems are
them " C e r t a i n l y , the yery best l e t t e r s that ever s u p e r l a t i v e l y i n t e l l i g e n t and entertainingurbanely
were published") cannot be a matter of indifference polished, k i n d l y , s e n s i t i v e , and simply wise--the
to serious students viewing Blake w i t h i n his h i s t o r i - best e d i t o r i a l policy is to introduce Cowper to his
cal context. readers and t a c t f u l l y withdraw to the edge of the
conversation, explaining and commenting on only
These two e d i t i o n s have not only a common those things that the modern reader would have some
publisher but a common senior partner in Charles d i f f i c u l t y comprehending without assistance. Baird
Ryskamp, the leading Cowper scholar of our time. and Ryskamp do exactly t h a t . Though the obtuse
The "Textual I n t r o d u c t i o n " {Poems) and "Textual designers a t Clarendon Press--who recently brouqht
P r i n c i p l e s " {Letters) set an e d i t o r i a l program and us a l l four cantos of Byron's Childe Harold (1812,
stated method f o r each e d i t i o n that i s sound and 1816, and 1818) with the unchanging and unmeaning
conservative (though there are minor differences running heading "Poetical Works 1 8 1 2 " - - f a i l to cross
between them); each e d i t i o n evidences a law of reference the page numbers between the texts of the
parsimony. Baird and Ryskamp state t h i s p o l i c y of poems and the "Commentary" at the end of the volume
l i m i t a t i o n in the f i r s t paragraph of t h e i r "Textual (pages 461-564), the search f o r the notes to
I n t r o d u c t i o n " to the Poems: i n d i v i d u a l poems repays the e f f o r t . The Kinq/Ryskamp
 ISO
notes to the l e t t e r s appear at the bottom of the faction in the misfortunes of those he should have
page, but they are not as uniformly h e l p f u l . The comforted. Clearly he was a much w i t t i e r , kinder,
reader need only compare the r e l a t i v e l y uninformative more s e n s i t i v e , humane person a f t e r he f e l t himself
biographical sketch of Cowper's cousin Martin Madan to be damned than when he had t r i e d to save others
{Letters, I , x x x i x - x l ) with the clear commentary by from damnation. These l e t t e r s , by the way, reveal
Baird/Ryskamp to Cowper's "Poems against Madan's John Newton to be a p o s i t i v e rather than a negative
Thelyphthora, 1780" (Poems, I , 501-02) to see how influence on Cowper; theories that t r y to hang the
much more p e r t i n e n t l y Baird/Ryskamp focus on the albatross of Cowper's despair on Newton are simply
central issues of the r e l a t i o n s h i p than do King/ mistaken.
Ryskamp. Occasionally in Poems, there is a sense
of two hands at work, without one knowing what the Cowper's early l e t t e r s and poems are of greatest
other is doing: the Introduction (p. x x i i i ) and i n t e r e s t to the student of Romantic poetry. In
Commentary on the poems (p. 502) disagree on whether Cowper's c a r e f u l l y wrought occasional verses and
Cowper read the whole of the second volume of Madan's d i d a c t i c poems and f i n e l y a r t i c u l a t e d l e t t e r s we f i n d
Thelyphthora ( f o r the evidence, see Letters, I , 466). many themes, ideas, and even idioms l a t e r employed
But such factual s l i p s are much less frequent i n by the Romantics. Cowper was at least a French
Poems than in Letters, where we f i n d two notes to Revolution apart from them in p o l i t i c a l persuasion,
one l e t t e r (Cowper to Unwin, 13 February 1780) that yet bound to a l l but Blake by a common classical
badly misinterpret the clear statements and implica- education and the social prejudices of the upper
tions of the l e t t e r i t s e l f (Letters, I , 314-15, f n s . middle class and to these and Blake by English
5 and 7). At Letters, I , 516, there is another p a t r i o t i s m and a common humane l i t e r a r y t r a d i t i o n .
apparent m i s i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of Cowper's prose. The Though the tone of Cowper's fables is l i g h t e r and
source of Cowper's reference to "a sevenfold Shield" more p l a y f u l , his poem on "The Poet, the Oyster, and
( I , 431) was surely Iliad, V I I , rather than the Sensitive Plant" (Poems, I , 435-36) bears
Shakespeare's echo of i t ( f n . 2 ) . While these over- comparison with both Blake's "The Clod & the Pebble"
sights do not stop the reader from straightening and with Shelley's "The Sensitive P l a n t . " Cowper's
out the issues involved, they and other factual "Ode to Peace" ( I , 406) best i l l u s t r a t e s the great
errors cast doubt upon e d i t o r i a l alertness to matters differences i n focus and in tone that separate
where the evidence is not as e a s i l y a v a i l a b l e . Cowper's prediluvian world from that of his
successors. As Morse Peckham pointed out i n 1961,
The most important omission from the annotation the Romantics and the poets of Cowper's era "used the
of Letters is any substantial account of Edward same words, but sang them to a d i f f e r e n t tune."
Thurlow, l a t e r f i r s t Baron Thurlow. F i r s t mentioned "Peace" in Cowper's ode means only his own peace of
on page 127, he i s not i d e n t i f i e d u n t i l his second mind; he was so eager that B r i t a i n not lose i t s
appearance on page 164, and that footnote merely American colonies t h a t , even a f t e r Cornwall i s '
extracts from--and omits the most important informa- surrender at Yorktown, he welcomed the ( f a l s e ) news
t i o n i n - - t h e DNB account. For Thurlow, besides that the B r i t i s h government intended to pursue the
being "an energetic and t i r e l e s s man who busied war "with the utmost v i g o u r , " including the use of
himself with his p r o f e s s i o n , " became legendary as 40,000 Russian troops (see Letters, I , 556-57 and f n .
the most i r r e l i g i o u s , foul-mouthed, c o r r u p t , and 3). Cowper--one of the k i n d l i e s t i n d i v i d u a l s of
reactionary p o l i t i c i a n of his time (see my I n t r o - his era--would have appeared a p o s i t i v e Cossack even
duction to the three volumes of the poems of his to Coleridge at his height as a Tory spokesman.
nephew, Edward, Lord Thurlow, in Romantic Context:
Poetry, Garland Publishing, 1976-79). To know Though i t would be pleasant when examining
Thurlow i s to know something about William Cowper's textual scholarship (one's own or another's) to f i n d
" s i n f u l " youth--and to f i n d Cowper s t i l l admiring that there are no errors at a l l , B a i r d , King, and
Thurlow long a f t e r he stopped associating with him Ryskamp seem not to be exempt from the human
shows how far Cowper's sympathies extended beyond c o n d i t i o n . In Letters, the editors have made the
his evangelical convictions. Indeed, I think that dubious decision to employ the printed colon (usually
from the evidence of Cowper's l e t t e r s i n t h i s volume but not always) to represent the two dots Cowper
and "Adelphi," Cowper's strange account of his early intended to represent the hyphen. See, f o r example,
psychological-religious t u r m o i l s , one could develop "to:day" and "to:morrow" ( I , 310), and "Grey:headed"
a psycho-biographical explanation for his breakdowns and "Giddy:headed" ( I , 355). Where the spacing of
and his ultimate conviction of damnation. Cowper's a l i n e was d i f f i c u l t , we f i n d "Breeches: maker"
dead father had never accepted the narrow f a i t h t h a t , ( I , 349). King and Ryskamp state as p r i n c i p l e s that
Cowper had been persuaded, was r e q u i s i t e f o r even when reproducing holograph l e t t e r s , they
salvation {see Letters, I , 183-84). Cowper's silently "adjust" punctuation "when required for
temperamental incapacity to compete i n worldly smooth reading," expand abbreviations, raise and
matters with his brother John and with such early lower capital l e t t e r s , and add (and omit) apostrophes
r i v a l s as Thurlow and Martin Madan (or even to win to accord "with modern p r a c t i c e . " These decisions
the bride of his choice) c e r t a i n l y encouraged him are debatable both on t h e o r e t i c a l grounds (vide
to choose a f a i t h that elevated pious retirement Bowers and Tanselle) and on a p r a c t i c a l l e v e l ,
above the a c t i v i t i e s of such worldly men. But a f t e r inasmuch as the occurrence of informal abbreviations
the deaths of two of his most d i r e c t r i v a l s , Morely often provides clues about the intimacy of the
Unwin and John Cowper, both of whom Cowper s e l f - correspondents, and c a p i t a l i z a t i o n r e f l e c t s emphasis.
righteously converted to his f a i t h on t h e i r painful
deathbeds, Cowper's better nature reemerged from My c o l l a t i o n s with selected o r i g i n a l sources,
beneath these repressed hatreds, leaving him w i t h a holograph and p r i n t e d , suggest t h a t , these technical
much deeper sense of g u i l t for having taken s a t i s - matters aside, the level of accuracy in the Letters
 151
is very high. I have found a mere handful of Though the p r i c i n g p o l i c i e s of the Clarendon
oversights i n the t e x t s : the most noteworthy were Press seem designed to return us to the early days
one verbal omission ( I , 484, l i n e 28, f o r "send of Oxford U n i v e r s i t y , when books were chained to
f o r t h " read "send them f o r t h " ) and a f a i l u r e to l i b r a r y shelves, we can be grateful that the contents
i t a l i c i z e the l a s t four words on I , 70. The t e x t of these two volumes w i l l reward the scholar who
o f Poems also seems to be very accurate, and again seeks them out. I am less happy with the q u a l i t y
my chief concern i s the omission of a detailed record of binding, which (as was the case with Shelley's
of c o l l a t i o n s (including punctuation and orthography) Letters, as issued by Clarendon some years ago)
with a u t h o r i t i e s other than the copy-text. Other- seems in danger of coming to pieces as I f i n i s h
wise, the few questions I have a f t e r s p o t - c o l l a t i n g w r i t i n g t h i s review. The management of a h i s t o r i -
do not r i s e above the level of the problems in c a l l y great press--one that s t i l l a t t r a c t s some of
"Hymn 10" ( I , 149), where Baird and Ryskamp give a the world's best scholarshipought to be able to
semi-colon (instead of a colon) at the end of l i n e employ book designers, p r i n t e r s , and binders capable
20 and f a i l to c a p i t a l i z e "there" in the c o l l a t i o n of producing a physical a r t i f a c t commensurate i n
to l i n e 9. Throughout, t h e i r copy-texts are q u a l i t y with i t s i n t e l l e c t u a l content.
t h o u g h t f u l l y chosen and conservatively followed.

NEWSLETTER SANTA CRUZ

B L A K E A CRITICISM
CONFERENCE:

Kl
The conference w i l l take place from Thursday
evening, 19 May, through Saturday, 21 May. With the
The second p r i n t i n g of Blake's Poetry and Designs: exception of an opening address by Hazard Adams,
A Norton Critical Edition appears to have a secure there w i l l be no formal paper presentations. I n -
binding. Anyone whose duly purchased copy of the stead, papers w i l l be turned in by l a t e March so
f i r s t p r i n t i n g f e l l apart may receive a new book by that they may be c i r c u l a t e d among the p a r t i c i p a n t s
w r i t i n g to Mr. James L. Mairs, W. W. Norton & Com- well before the conference. At the conference i t s e l f ,
pany, I n c . , 500 F i f t h Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10036. each author w i l l o f f e r a precis of the paper; t h i s
I t is necessary to return the f i r s t two pages of w i l l be followed by the s o l i c i t e d response of
any damaged copy (the f a l s e t i t l e and t i t l e pages) another p a r t i c i p a n t , and then general discussion.
for replacement. I t would be appreciated i f teachers "Audience" and " p a r t i c i p a n t s " w i l l be one and the
would batch the necessary pages for a l l students 1 same.
copies needing replacing and mail in bulk to Mr. Those c o n t r i b u t i n g papers and/or responses
Mairs' a t t e n t i o n . These pages must be returned so include Hazard Adams, Donald A u l t , Vince De Luca,
that Norton can back up i t s complaints to the sub- Morris Eaves, Gavin Edwards, Michael Fischer,
contractor who provided the "Perfect B i n d i n g , " as Geoffrey Hartman, Nelson H i l t o n , Paul Mann, Jerome
the trade name has i t . Complimentary copies, except McGann, W. J . T. M i t c h e l l , A l i c i a O s t r i k e r , Morton
f o r l e g i t i m a t e desk copies, cannot be replaced. The Paley, David Simpson, Daniel Stempel, Thomas Vogler,
editors apologize f o r the inconvenience to a l l con- and Hayden White.
cerned and urge that r e c i p i e n t s of replacement copies Accomodations have been arranged at the Holiday
request the second (corrected) p r i n t i n g from Norton. Inn in Santa Cruz, which is o f f e r i n g a special rate
o f $35 single/$40 double f o r reservations made up
to one month before the conference; please specify
that you w i l l be attending the conference.
HUNTINGTON S Y M P O S I U M & EXHIBITION Please address any questions to "Blake &
C r i t i c i s m , " L i t e r a t u r e Board, UCSC, Santa Cruz,
In conjunction with an e x h i b i t i o n of "Prints by the CA 95064 ( t e l . 408-429-4591).
Blake Followers" to be held November through February
1982, the Henry E. Huntington Library and A r t Gallery
is holding a symposium on Saturday, 13 February. The
t e n t a t i v e program includes papers by G. E. Bentley,
Jr. ("Blake and the Blake Followers: Biographical HILP M l M
I n f o r m a t i o n " ) , Robert N. Essick ("John Linnell as
a Printmaker"), Shelley M. Bennett ("The Blake
Followers i n the Context of Contemporary English According to a notice in G i r l About Town magazine,
A r t " ) , and Morton D. Paley ("Samuel Palmer's I l l u s - St. James's Church i n P i c c a d i l l y was to stage "the
t r a t i o n s to M i l t o n " ) . There w i l l be a r e g i s t r a t i o n f i r s t ever continuous reading of the complete works
fee o f $3.00. For reservations to attend the sym- of William Blake" on 10-11 November. The reading,
posium, w r i t e to the Henry E. Huntington A r t Gallery, called "A Day and a Night in the L i f e of William
1151 Oxford Rd., San Marino. CA 91108, or c a l l Blake," was part of the P i c c a d i l l y F e s t i v a l .
(213) 792-6141, e x t . 317. Admission was 75p, and food and drink were a v a i l a b l e .