a more moderate outlay. They are once again printed in Part II. of this volume, in the succession, so far as can be ascertained, in which their author first issued them. Consisting, as they did, of loose sheets, the Songs have seldom been bound up twice alike, and are generally even numbered wrong. Dr. Wilkinson printed them in an order of his own, and too often with words of his own; alterations which were by no means improvements always. They are now given in strict fidelity to the original, the correction of some few glaring grammatical blemishes alone excepted, which seemed a pious duty.

A few words of bibliographic detail may perhaps be permitted for the collector's sake, considering the extreme beauty, the singularity, and rarity of the original book.

The illustrated Songs of Innocence and Experience was issued to Blake's public, to his own friends that is, at the modest price of thirty shillings and two guineas. Its selling price now, when perfect, varies from ten and twelve guineas upwards. From the circumstance of its having lain on hand in sheets, and from some purchasers having preferred to buy or bind only select portions, the series often occurs short of many plates-generally wants one or two. The right number is fifty-four engraved pages.

Later in Blake's life,--for the sheets always remained in stock,— five guineas were given him, and in some cases, when intended as a delicate means of helping the artist, larger sums. Flaxman recommended more than one friend to take copies, a Mr. Thomas among them, who, wishing to give the artist a present, made the price ten guineas. For such a sum Blake could hardly do enough, finishing the plates like miniatures. In the last years of his life, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Sir Francis Chantrey, and others, paid as much as twelve and twenty guineas; Blake conscientiously working up the colour and finish, and perhaps over-labouring them, in return; printing off only on one side of the leaf, and expanding the book by help of

margin into a handsome quarto. If without a sixpence in his pocket, he was always too justly proud to confess it: so that, whoever desired to give Blake money, had to do it indirectly, to avoid offence, by purchasing copies of his works; which, too, might have hurt his pride, had he suspected the secret motive, though causelessly; for he really gave, as he well knew, far more than an intrinsic equivalent.

The early, low-priced copies,-Flaxman's for instance, though slighter in colour, possess a delicacy of feeling, a freshness of execution, often lost in the richer, more laboured examples, especially in those finished after the artist's death, by his widow. One of the latter I have noticed, very full and heavy in colour, the tints laid on with a strong and indiscriminating touch.

Other considerable varieties of detail in the final touches by hand exist. There are copies in which certain minutiæ are finished with unusual care and feeling. The prevailing ground-colour of the writing and illustrations also varies. Sometimes it is yellow, sometimes blue, and so on. In one copy the writing throughout is yellow, not a happy effect. Occasionally the colour is carried further down the page than the ruled space; a stream say, as in The Lamb, is introduced. Of course, therefore, the degrees of merit vary greatly between one copy and another, both as a whole and in the parts. A few were issued plain, in black and white, or blue and white, which are more legible than the polychrome examples. In these latter, the red or yellow lettering being sometimes unrelieved by a white ground, we have, instead of contrasted hue, gradations of it, as in a picture.

Out of the destruction that has engulfed so large a portion of Blake's copper-plates, partly owing to the poverty which compelled him often to obliterate his own work, that the same metal might serve again, partly to the neglect, and worse than neglect, of some of those into whose hands they fell, we have happily been able

to enrich our pages from a remnant,-ten plates, taking off sixteen impressions (a few having been engraved on both sides),—of the Songs of Innocence and Experience. The gentleman from whom they were obtained had once the entire series in his possession; but all save these ten were stolen by an ungrateful black he had befriended, who sold them to a smith as old metal.