dignified presence and manner, made all seem natural and of course. Conversing with him, you saw or felt nothing of his poverty, though he took no pains to conceal it; if he had, you would have been effectually reminded of it. What in description sounds mean and miserable wore, to Blake's intimates, a delightful aspect. Such an expression as his wretched rooms,' as by some they have been described, is to them quite unintelligible. I should only like to go in this afternoon!' declared one friend, while talking of them to me. And, ah! that divine window!' exclaimed another. Charming and poetic the view from it seemed to those accustomed to associate Blake's person and conversation with it. While a third with brisk emphasis affirms, 'There was no "misery" in Blake's rooms, for men who love art, a good table' (not, of course, in the epicure's sense), and warmth.' 'I never look upon him as an unfortunate man of genius. He knew every great man of his day, and had enough.'

Happening to read to the author of the letter lately quoted a passage from a MS. in which the word 'squalor' was used in connexion with Blake's home, the following quaint remonstrance was elicited

'MY DEAR SIR,

'May 3d, 1860.

'Late as we parted last night, I awaked at dawn with the question in my ear, Squalor ?-squalor?

'Crush it; it is a roc's egg to your fabric.

'I have met with this perverse mistake elsewhere. It gives a notion 'altogether false of the man, his house, and his habits.

'No, certainly ;-whatever was in Blake's house, there was no squalor. Himself, his wife, and his rooms, were clean and orderly; everything was in its place. His delightful working corner had its implements readytempting to the hand. The millionaire's upholsterer can furnish no enrich'ments like those of Blake's enchanted rooms.

Believe me, dear Sir,

'Yours most truly,

'S. PALMER.'

Simplicity and natural dignity such as Blake's can confer refineExternal discordances vanished before the

ment on any environment. spiritual concords of the man. There was a strange expansion,' says one of his friends, and sensation of FREEDOM in those two rooms very seldom felt elsewhere.' Another who, as a little girl, visited the rooms with her father, can only remember the beautiful things she saw on the walls, and Blake's kind manner to herself. Had there been anything sordid or poverty-stricken to remember, she would have done so, for children are keenly sensitive to such impressions. Blake, I may here mention, was especially fond of children, and very kind to them; his habitual quiet gentleness assuming a new beauty towards them. He was kind to the young generally; and, as a lady (Miss Maria Denman), to whom in youth this fostering behaviour had been, in slight ways, shown, observed to me with some emotion, 'One remembers even in age the kindness of such a man.'

Blake knew nothing,' writes the valued correspondent whom I have so frequent occasion to quote, of dignified reserve, polite "hauteur, "bowings out, or condescension to inferiors," nor had he 'dressed himself for masquerade in "unassuming manners." Some'where in his writings occur these lines, droll, but full of meaning

"The fox, the owl, the spider, and the bat,

By sweet reserve and modesty grow fat."

The courtly and politic were denied Blake. But he was not among those who fancy genius raises them above the courtesies and humanities of life. Competent judges describe him as essentially 'the politest of men.' To this gentlemanliness, and to what I may call the originality of his manners or mental dress, observers of various habits agree in speaking. Very courteous,' 'very polite; and 'withal there was great meekness and retirement of manner, such as belong to the true gentleman and commanded respect,' says one. In society he was more urbane than many of greater pretension, and

in the face often of uncourteous opposition. At Hampstead, one day, Collins the painter,-after having said very rude things such as people of the world, under the consciousness of superior sense and sanity, will indulge in towards those they call enthusiasts,'was obliged to confess Blake had made a very gentlemanly and temperate return. Nobody, to look at or listen to him in society, would have taken him for the knock-me-down assertor he was in his writings. Crudities there may, in fact, be set down to his never having won real ease or freedom in that mode of expression. In more intimate relations again, his own goodness and sweetness of nature spoke still more eloquently. And if he had received a kindness, the tender heart was so sensitive, he could hardly do enough to show his consciousness of it.

Nor was Blake one of that numerous class who reserve their civility for their social superiors or mental equals, the distinguished and celebrated, those recommended, in short, by the suffrages of others. 'He was equally polite (and that is rare indeed) to men of every age and rank; honouring all men.' In which he resembled Flaxman, who addressed his carvers and workmen as friends,' and made them such by his kindness. Of this spontaneous courtesy to all, the following is an instance :-Once, while his young friend Calvert was with him in Fountain Court, a man brought up a sack of coals, knocked at the door, and asked, 'Are these coals for here?' 'No, Sir,' answered Blake, in quiet, courteous tones, as to an equal; 'but I'll ask whose they are.' Blake's fellow-lodgers were humble but respectable. The court did not, in those days, present, as now, its idle groups of women, hanging about outside the doors, with free and easy, not to say unfinished, toilets. There was no excessive noise of children in the court. Children at play there doubtless often were, as one of Mr. Palmer's anecdotes would indicate.

Vehement and outrageous as Blake could at times be (in words), his ordinary habit of mind was-at all events in these

latter years-one of equable gentleness. He was no longer angry with the world and its often unworthy favourites, or rebellious against its awards; jostled though he were in his quiet course by thousands of coarse, eager men, 'famous' and prosperous in their day. I live in a hole here,' he would say, but God has a beautiful mansion for me elsewhere.' 'Poor, dear man,' exclaimed one of his friends to me, 'to think how ill he was used, and yet he took it all so quietly.' Surely the world,' if it had a conscience to be pricked, might blush at a few of its awards. 'The public,' say some, 'may be compared to a reigning beauty, whose favour is hard to win, and who often gives it to a fool in the end.'

6

Blake, however, was rich in poverty. They pity me,' he would say of Lawrence and other prosperous artists, who condescended to visit him; but 'tis they are the just objects of pity: I possess my 'visions and peace. They have bartered their birthright for a mess 'of pottage.' For he felt that he could have had fame and fortune, if he had chosen; if he had not voluntarily, and with his eyes open, cleaved to the imaginative life. 'If asked,' writes Mr. Palmer, 'whether I ever knew among the intellectual a happy man, Blake would be the only one who would immediately occur to me.' And this feeling of happiness communicated itself as a serene, beneficent influence to others. His disciples would often wonder thereat, and wish they had within themselves the faculty, unhelped by him, to feel as he did.

There is a short poem in the MS. note-book which speaks eloquently on this head of unworldliness with its resultant calm elevated joy. Let us listen to it :

I rose up at the dawn of day:
'Get thee away! get thee away!

Prayest thou for riches? away! away!
This is the throne of Mammon grey!'

Said I 'This, sure, is very odd;
I took it to be the throne of God.
Everything besides I have:

It's only riches that I can crave.

'I have mental joys and mental health,
Mental friends and mental wealth;

I've a wife that I love, and that loves me,
I've all but riches bodily.

'Then if for riches I must not pray,

God knows, it's little prayers I need say.
I am in God's presence night and day;
He never turns His face away.

'The accuser of sins by my side doth stand,
And he holds my money bag in his hand;
For my worldly things God makes him pay;
And he'd pay for more, if to him I would pray.

'He says, if I worship not him for a god,
I shall eat coarser food, and go worse shod;
But as I don't value such things as these,

You must do, Mr. Devil, just as God please.'

A lady tells a pretty and very characteristic story of her first and only interview with the spiritual man, which illustrates, in another way, how he came by this happiness. The lady was thought extremely beautiful when a child, and was taken to an evening party and there presented to Blake. He looked at her very kindly for a long while, without speaking; and then, stroking her head and long ringlets, said: 'May God make this world to you, my child, as beautiful as it has been to me!' She thought it strange, at the time-vain little darling of Fortune-that such a poor old man, dressed in shabby clothes, could imagine that the world had ever been so beautiful to him as it must be to her, nursed in all the elegancies and luxuries of wealth. But, in after years, she understood