CHAPTER XVI. A NEW LIFE. 1799-1800. [ET. 42-43.] ABOUT this time (1800) the ever-friendly Flaxman gave Blake an introduction which had important consequences; involving a sudden change of residence and mode of life. This was in recommending him to Hayley, 'poet,' country gentleman, friend and future biographer of Cowper; in which last capacity the world alone remembers him. Then, though few went to see his plays, or read his laboured Life of Milton, he retained a traditional reputation on the strength of almost his first poem,-still his magnum opus, after nearly twenty years had passed since its appearance,—the Triumphs of Temper. He held, in fact, an honoured place in contemporary literature; his society eagerly sought and obtained, by lovers of letters; to mere ordinary squires and neighbours sparingly accorded; to the majority point-blank refused. His name continued to be held in esteem among a slow-going portion of the world, long after his literary ware had ceased to be marketable. People of distinction and position in society,' princesses of the blood, and others, when visiting Bognor, would, even many years later, go out of their way to see him, as if he had been a Wordsworth. Between Flaxman and the Hermit of Eartham, as the book-loving squire delighted to subscribe himself, friendly relations had, for some twenty years, subsisted. During three of these, Hayley's acknowledged son (he had no legitimate children), Thomas Alphonso, had been an articled pupil of the sculptor's. Early in 1798, beginnings L of curvature of the spine had necessitated a return from Flaxman's roof into Sussex. There, after two years' more suffering, he died of the accumulated maladies engendered in a weakly constitution by sedentary habits; a victim of forcing, I suspect. In 1799, the author of the Triumphs of Temper was seeing through the press one of his long Poetical Essays, as smooth and tedious as the rest, on Sculpture; in the form of 'Epistles to Flaxman.' It was published in 1800, with three trivial illustrations. Two of these are engraved by Blake: The Death of Demosthenes, after a bald outline by Hayley junior, whom the father easily persuaded himself into believing, as well as styling, his youthful Phidias;' and a portrait of the 'young sculptor,' after a medallion by his master, Flaxman, the drawing of which was furnished Blake by Howard; the combined result being indifferent. On April 25th, 1800, the long intermittent tragedy of Cowper's life came to an end, amid dark and heavy clouds: the last years of suffering having been smoothed by a pension obtained through Hayley's intercession. A week later died Hayley's hapless son. And our poor bard had to solace himself in his own way, by inditing sonnets to his child's memory, on his pillow,' at four o'clock in the morning; a daily sonnet or two soon swelling into MS. volumes. As further consolation, Hayley resolved on ample memoirs of son and friend. To the biography of Cowper he was ultimately urged by Lady Hesketh herself. During one of his frequent flying visits to town, and his friends the Meyers, at Kew, in June, 1800, and while he, nothing loth, was being coaxed to the task of writing Cowper's life, the idea was mooted of helping a deserving artist, by the employment of Blake to engrave the illustrations of the projected quarto. And in the same breath followed the proposal for the artist to come and live at Felpham, that, during the book's progress, he night be near 'that highly respected hermit,' as Smith styles the squire; a generous, if hot-headed hermit, who thought to push Blake's fortunes, by introducing him to his numerous well-connected friends. All Hayley's projects were hurried, into execution in the very hey-day of conception, or as speedily abandoned. Blake at once fell in with this scheme, encouraged perhaps by the prospect of a patron. And his friend, Mr. Butts, rejoiced aloud, deeming his protégé's fortune made. A copy of the Triumphs of Temper (tenth edition), illustrated by Stothard, which had belonged to the poet's son, and was now given to Blake, contains evidence,-in verse of course,-of Hayley's esteem for him. Perhaps the fact can palliate our insertion of rhymes so guiltless of sense otherwise. It is Smith who is answerable for having preserved them : : Accept, my gentle visionary Blake, Whose thoughts are fanciful and kindly mild ; Rich in more grace than fancy ever won, For it belonged to my departed son; So from an angel it descends to thee. W. H. July, 1800. After seven productive years in Lambeth, the modest house in Hercules Buildings was exchanged for a cottage by the sea, where Blake spent four years; the only portion of his life passed in the country. He was now in his forty-third year, Hayley in his fiftyseventh. In August, Blake went down to Felpham to look at his future home, and secure a house; which he did at an annual rent of twenty pounds: not being provided with one rent-free by Hayley, as some supposed,—a kind of patronage which would have ill suited the artist's independent spirit. The poet was not even his landlord, owning, in fact, no property in the village beyond what he had bought to build his house on. Blake's cottage belonged to one Archdeacon Webber, Vicar of Boxgrove. Hayley, whose forte was not economy nor prudent conduct of any kind, had, by ill-judged generosities and lavish expenditure, seriously incumbered the handsome estate inherited from his father. Felpham, his present retreat, lay some six miles off the patrimonial 'paradise,' as he, for once, not hyperbolically styled it,-romantic Eartham, a peaceful, sequestered spot among the wooded hills stretching southward from the Sussex Downs; a hamlet made up of some dozen widely-scattered cottages, a farm-house or two, a primitive little antique church, and the comfortable modern 'great house,' lying high, in the centre of lovely sheltered gardens and grounds, commanding wide, varied views of purple vale and gleaming sea. At Felpham, during the latter years of his son's life, he had built a marine cottage, planned to his own fancy, whither to retire and retrench, while he let his place at Eartham. It was a cottage with an embattled turret; with a library fitted up with busts and pictures; 'a covered way for equestrian exercise,' and a well laid-out garden; all as a first step in the new plans of economy. His son passed the painful close of his ill-starred existence in it; and here Hayley himself had now definitely taken up his abode. He continued there till his death in 1820; long before which he had sold Eartham to Huskisson, the statesman; whose widow inhabited it until five years ago. On the eve of removing from Lambeth, in the middle of September, was written the following characteristic letter from Mrs. Blake to Mrs. Flaxman,-the 'dear Nancy' of the sculptor. I am indebted for a copy of it to the courtesy of Mrs. Flaxman's sister, the late Miss Denman. Characteristic, I mean, of Blake; for though the wife be the nominal inditer, the husband is obviously the author. The very iting can hardly be distinguished from his. The verses with 1 which it concludes may, in their artless spiritual simplicity, almost rank with the Songs of Innocence and Experience. From Mrs. Blake to Mrs. Flaxman. 'MY DEAREST FRIEND, 'I hope you will not think we could forget your services to us, or any way neglect to love and remember with affection even the 'hem of your garment. We indeed presume on your kindness in 'neglecting to have called on you since my husband's first return 'from Felpham. We have been incessantly busy in our great removal; 'but can never think of going without first paying our proper 'duty to you and Mr. Flaxman. We intend to call on Sunday 'afternoon in Hampstead, to take farewell; all things being now 'nearly completed for our setting forth on Tuesday morning. It is only sixty miles and Lambeth one hundred; for the terrible desert ' of London was between. My husband has been obliged to finish 'several things necessary to be finished before our migration. The 'swallows call us, fleeting past our window at this moment. O! how 'we delight in talking of the pleasure we shall have in preparing 'you a summer bower at Felpham. And we not only talk, but behold the angels of our journey have inspired a song to you :- To my dear Friend, Mrs. Anna Flaxman. This song to the flower of Flaxman's joy; Away to sweet Felpham, for Heaven is there; |