CHAPTER XXV.

APPEAL TO THE PUBLIC. 1808-10. [ET. 51-53.]

SCHIAVONETTI was, by 1808, engaged on the plate from Stothard's Canterbury Pilgrimage. At the end of the Blair, published, as we saw, in the autumn of 1808, appeared, to indignant Blake's unspeakable disgust doubtless, a flowery Prospectus of Cromek's, for publishing by subscription and under the immediate patronage of H.R.H. the 'Prince of Wales, a line engraving after' the now well-known 'Cabinet Picture;' which, in fact, Cromek had exhibited throughout the three kingdoms, at a shilling a head.

It was now Blake finished his 'fresco' of the Canterbury Pilgrimage, with the view of appealing to the public,'-the wrong kind of tribunal for him. To this end, also, he painted or finished some other 'frescos' and drawings. The completion of the Pilgrimage was attended by adverse influences of the supernatural kind—as Blake construed them. He had hung his original design over a door in his sitting-room, where, for a year perhaps it remained. When, on the appearance of Stothard's picture, he went to take down his drawing, he found it nearly effaced: the result of some malignant spell of Stothard's, he would, in telling the story, assure his friends. But as one of them (Flaxman) mildly expostulated, 'Why! my dear sir! as if, after having left a pencil drawing so long exposed to air and dust, you could have expected otherwise!' The fresco was ultimately bought by a customer who seldom failed-Mr. Butts; and is now in the possession of Mr. Stirling, of Keir.

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Thinking to take a leaf out of Cromek's book, Blake determined to show his work, and 'shame the fools' who preferred Stothard; to show it under more advantageous conditions than were to be had in the Academy Exhibitions. In May, 1809,-the year in which our old friend Hayley brought out his Life of Romney, and made a second marriage even more ill-advised than the first ;-in May, Blake opened an Exhibition of his own, on the first floor of his brother the hosier's house, at the corner of Broad Street. The plan had the merit of cheapness, at any rate, involving little outlay or risk; the artist, in fact, not having money to venture. The Exhibition comprised sixteen Poetical and Historical Inventions,' as he designated them,— eleven 'frescos,' seven drawings: a collection singularly remote from ordinary sympathies, or even ordinary apprehension. Bent on a violent effort towards justifying his ways to men and critics, he drew up and had printed a Descriptive Catalogue of these works, in which he interprets them, and expounds at large his own canons of art. Of which more anon. The price of this Catalogue, which included admission to the Exhibition, was half a crown.

A singular enterprise, for unpractised Blake, was this of vying with adroit, experienced Cromek! As if a simple-minded visionary could advertise, puff, and round the due preparatory paragraphs for newspaper and magazine, of 'latest fine arts intelligence.' An exhibition set going under such auspices was likely to remain a profound secret to the world at large. A few, however, among the initiated were attracted by curiosity to see a picture which was the subject of a notorious quarrel between two friendly artists, and which had been painted in rivalry of Stothard's already famous work. A gentleman still among us, of singularly wide intercourse with the distinguished men of two generations, a friend of Wordsworth and of Lamb,-Mr. Henry Crabb Robinson,-has related to me the visit some such motives as these induced him to pay. On entering the room, he found himself alone. With a wise prescience of the

inevitable future scarcity of that remarkable brochure, the Descriptive Catalogue, he purchased four copies for himself and friends-Charles Lamb among them. When, after that wholesale purchase, he inquired of James Blake, the custodian of the unique gallery, whether he could not come again free?-Oh! yes; free as long as you as you live!' was the reply of the humble hosier, overjoyed at having so munificent a visitor, or a visitor at all.

This James Blake is characterised, by those who remember him, as an honest, unpretending shopkeeper in an old-world style, ill calculated for great prosperity in the hosiery, or any other line. In his dress he is described to me as adhering to knee-breeches, worsted stockings, and buckles. As primitive as his brother he was, though very unlike: his head not in the clouds amid radiant visions, but bent downwards, and studying the pence of this world-how to get them, which he found no easy task, and how to keep. He looked upon his erratic brother with pity and blame, as a wilful, misguided man, wholly in a wrong track; while the latter despised him for his grovelling, worldly mind, as he reckoned it. Time widened the breach. In after years, when James had retired on a scanty independence and lived in Cirencester Street, becoming a near neighbour of Mr. Linnell, at whose house Blake was then a frequent visitor, they did not even speak. At James's shop, ladies yet living, friends of Blake's, remember to have made their little purchases of gloves and haberdashery.

Lamb preferred Blake's Canterbury Pilgrimage to Stothard's. 'A work of wonderful power and spirit, hard and dry, yet with grace,' he says of it, on one occasion. That rare critic was delighted also with the Descriptive Catalogue. The analysis of the characters in the Prologue-the Knight, the Prioress, the Friar, &c.-he pronounced the finest criticism of Chaucer's poem he had ever read.

In Southey's Doctor, special allusion is made to one of the pictures in this exhibition. That painter of great but insane genius,

'William Blake, of whom Allan Cunningham has written so inter'esting a memoir, took this Triad' (the story of the three who escaped from the battle of Camlan, where Arthur fell- the strongest man, the beautifullest man, and the ugliest man') for the subject of a picture, which he called the Ancient Britons. It was one of his worst pictures, which is saying much; and he has 'illustrated it with one of the most curious commentaries in his very curious and very rare Descriptive Catalogue of his own ' pictures.'

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The Catalogue is excessively rare. I have seen but three copies; heard of, perhaps, three more. Here is the title: A Descriptive Catalogue of Pictures; Poetical and Historical Inventions; Painted by William Blake in Water-colours, being the ancient method of Fresco Painting resumed: and Drawings, for Public Inspection and 'for Sale by Private Contract. London: printed by D. N. Shury, '7, Berwick Street, Soho, for J. Blake, 28, Broad Street, Golden Square. 1809.' It is reprinted entire in Part II.

In treacherous Cromek's despite, Blake had resolved to engrave, as well as exhibit, the Pilgrimage. On opening his exhibition, he issued a printed prospectus of his intended engraving, almost as curious as the Catalogue. It is a literary composition which halts between the monologue of a self-taught enthusiast and the circular of a competing tradesman. Observe how he girds, parenthetically, at Cromek and Schiavonetti. Date, May 15th, 1809.

BLAKE'S CHAUCER,

THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS.

THE FRESCO PICTURE,

Representing CHAUCER'S Characters, painted by
WILLIAM BLAKE,

As it is now submitted to the Public.

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The Designer proposes to engrave [it] in a correct and finished line manner of engraving, similar to those original copper-plates ' of Albert Durer, Lucas, Hisben, Aldegrave, and the old original 'engravers, who were great masters in painting and designing; whose 'method, alone, can delineate Character as it is in this Picture, where 'all the lineaments are distinct.

'It is hoped that the Painter will be allowed by the public '(notwithstanding artfully disseminated insinuations to the contrary) to be better able than any other to keep his own characters ' and expressions; having had sufficient evidence in the works of ' our own Hogarth, that no other artist can reach the original spirit 'so well as the Painter himself, especially as Mr. B. is an old well'known and acknowledged engraver.

The size of the engraving will be three feet one inch long, by 'one foot high. The artist engages to deliver it, finished, in one 'year from September next. No work of art can take longer than a year it may be worked backwards and forwards without end, and 'last a man's whole life; but he will, at length, only be forced to bring it back to what it was, and it will be worse than it was at 'the end of the first twelve months. The value of this [the?] artist's 'year is the criterion of Society; and as it is valued, so does Society 'flourish or decay.

The price to Subscribers, FOUR GUINEAS; two to be paid at the time of subscribing, the other two, on delivery of the print.

Subscriptions received at No. 28, corner of BROAD STREET, GOLDEN SQUARE, where the Picture is now exhibiting, among other works, by the same artist.

The price will be considerably raised to non-subscribers.'

Singularly artful announcement,-surely a suggestion of brother James's The swan walks very ungracefully. Cromek had little cause for alarm at such naïve self-assertion; so innocent an attempt to divide the public favour. In reading this, and similar effusions of