and the vision came.

He would insist on it, too, that no one could really draw well any imaginary scene who did not see it as a reality in vision. He was surrounded with strange sights and sounds which nobody else saw or heard. "What! when the sun rises do you not see a round disc of fire somewhat like a guinea?" he supposes some one to ask, and he answers, "Oh! no, no! I see an innumerable company of the heavenly host, crying, 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty!' I question not my corporeal eye, any more than I would question a window concerning a sight. I look through, and not with it."

Although this is the side of his character which first fixes our attention, Blake was, after all, not a mere visionary, but had a sharp, observing eye for external nature, and understood perfectly that no one can draw visions well unless he can first draw real things well. He drew well and easily, and he had a quick and clear insight into character. At the age of fourteen his father proposed to bind him as an apprentice to Ryland, the engraver. "Father," he said, "I do not like the man's face; he will live to be hanged." And twelve years afterwards Ryland actually was hanged. He was bound apprentice to Busire, the engraver, and worked hard under him till he was twenty-one years of age. Then he studied in the newly-formed Royal Academy, and began to make original designs, some like those of his friend Stothard, to illustrate books. At the same time he was cultivating poetry. When he was yet fourteen, indeed, he threw off verses of no mean merit, and thenceforward he wrote what, for the time, we must consider very remarkable poems, though, regarding his poetical works as a whole, we cannot share Mr. Gilchrist's surprise that Blake is little known as an English poet. For the most part his poems are wanting in form, or they are difficult to understand, or the sentiment which they convey is out of all proportion to the world of fact. We cannot without long quotations, which no one would much care to read, show the formlessness and the obscurity

of his poems; but we can, in a short example, show what we mean by objecting to the disproportion between his ideas and facts:

A robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all heaven in a rage;

A dove-house filled with doves and pigeons
Shudders hell through all its regions;
A game cock clipped and armed for fight
Doth the rising sun affright.

This is rather a wild way of saying that redbreasts ought not to be caged, that a dovecot is a pretty sight, and that cock-fighting is a barbarous sport. Apart from these faults, which will prevent sober critics from speaking of Blake's poems in the somewhat extravagant terms adopted by Mr. Rossetti and by Mr. Gilchrist, there is a power and an originality in his style which cannot be overlooked, especially when we remember the date to which most of the poems belong.

One of the most curious studies in criticism concerns the rise and fall of Pope's poetical ascendancy in the last century. So much has been written upon this theme that it may seem to be now exhausted; but the truth is, that we are not yet in full possession of the facts that would enable us to trace with perfect accuracy the movement either of flow or of ebb. In the middle of last century we find Pope enthroned in our literature with imperial power. So far as we can trace, the first conscious or critical lapsing from his authority-the first open treason--is to be found in a work published in 1787 by a young man of twenty-two. Henry Headley, of Trinity College, Oxford, then gave to the world a book of beauties, which he entitled, "Select Beauties of Ancient English Poets, with Remarks." Among these remarks will be found a most determined protest against the influence of Pope. He tells us that the translation of Homer, timed as it was, operated like an inundation on our literature; that the consequences which have ensued from the sway of Pope have been full of harm; that "in proportion as his "works were read and the dazzle of his "diction admired, proselytes, who would

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"not originally have been scribblers in verse, were gained, and the art of tagging smooth couplets, without any "reference to the character of a poet, "became an almost indispensable requi"site in a fashionable education;" that hence arose "a spurious taste" which "reprobated and set at defiance our older masters; and that "to cull "words, vary pauses, adjust accents, "diversify cadence, and by, as it were, 66 balancing the line, make the first part "of it betray the second," had become the chief accomplishment of an age whose poetical art seemed to consist entirely "of a suite of traditional "imagery, hereditary similes, readiness "of rhyme, and volubility of syllables." But the revolt thus openly proclaimed by the daring young critic, in 1787, had for some time been secretly fermenting, and it is common in this connexion to fix upon the publication of Percy's "Reliques," in 1765, as the first distinct sign of a change. Now it is universally allowed that the most remarkable specimens in Percy, of what may be termed ballad-thinking, are of Scottish origin; and Mr. Robert Chambers, in a recent tract which has not received the attention it deserves, attempts to make good the position that these famed Scottish ballads are by no means of such ancient origin as Percy imagined; that, in fact, they were produced in the early part of last century. We have not yet examined into this question so closely as to be able to give a decisive answer to it, and we reserve to ourselves the right of hereafter rejecting Mr. Chambers's theory; but in the meantime we cannot help thinking that he has made out a fair case for inquiry. The great difficulty of the question depends on the nature of the evidence which has to be weighed. It turns almost wholly on the delicacies of style and other points of internal evidence, which no cautious critic will care to decide off-hand. To detect and follow out resemblances is always a very ticklish task. The resemblance which strikes us to-day we cannot see tomorrow, and it is necessary to approach

the comparison many fresh times before we can quite make up our minds. In this case we start back with astonishment from the conclusion that "the grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spens" is a veritable product of Pope's own day and generation. Yet Mr. Chambers has made out a strong case in favour of that conclusion. And if in accordance with this theory it should in the end prove that some of the best ballads in Percy-those which secured for his three volumes their chief influencewere produced in Scotland at the very time when Pope was in England elaborating his style and establishing his supremacy, it will then follow that the seeds of the revolt against the English poet were being sown at the very same time when his authority began to be planted in the hearts of the people. Parallel with the movement of poetry in England there began a movement of poetry in Scotland. Nothing could be more splendid or self-asserting than the beginnings of the former; nothing more humble and retiring than the beginnings of the latter. But ere long the influence of the unpretending crept into the domain of pretentious song, grew there into favour, at length overthrew the giant, and great was the downfall.

Now Blake asserted his originality at a time when it was an extraordinary merit to do so-when as yet the ballad style which Percy favoured had not thoroughly told upon the public ear. Blake was eight years of age when, in 1765 (Mr. Gilchrist is wrong in the date 1760), Percy published his ballads, and he began to write in his eleventh year. His poems show a remarkable precocity, that does not suffer by comparison with the similar precocity of Chatterton, who was but four years ahead of him in age. By the year 1770 Chatterton had done his work and died at the age of seventeen. His younger compeer had begun to compose two years before, and had produced some strains which, for his age, are quite wonderful. The following piece was written certainly before the boy was fourteen, and shows a rare precocity

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"not originally have been scribblers in verse, were gained, and the art of "tagging smooth couplets, without any "reference to the character of a poet, "became an almost indispensable requi"site in a fashionable education;" that hence arose "a spurious taste" which "reprobated and set at defiance our older masters;" and that "to cull "words, vary pauses, adjust accents,

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diversify cadence, and by, as it were, balancing the line, make the first part "of it betray the second," had become the chief accomplishment of an age whose poetical art seemed to consist entirely "of a suite of traditional "imagery, hereditary similes, readiness "of rhyme, and volubility of syllables." But the revolt thus openly proclaimed by the daring young critic, in 1787, had for some time been secretly fermenting, and it is common in this connexion to fix upon the publication of Percy's "Reliques," in 1765, as the first distinct sign of a change. Now it is universally allowed that the most remarkable specimens in Percy, of what may be termed ballad-thinking, are of Scottish origin; and Mr. Robert Chambers, in a recent tract which has not received the attention it deserves, attempts to make good the position that these famed Scottish ballads are by no means of such ancient origin as Percy imagined; that, in fact, they were produced in the early part of last century. We have not yet examined into this question so closely as to be able to give a decisive answer to it, and we reserve to ourselves the right of hereafter rejecting Mr. Chambers's theory; but in the meantime we cannot help thinking that he has made out a fair case for inquiry. The great difficulty of the question depends on the nature of the evidence which has to be weighed. It turns almost wholly on the delicacies of style and other points of internal evidence, which no cautious critic will care to decide off-hand. To detect and follow out resemblances is always a very ticklish task. The resemblance which strikes us to-day we cannot see tomorrow, and it is necessary to approach

In

the comparison many fresh times before we can quite make up our minds. this case we start back with astonishment from the conclusion that "the grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spens" is a veritable product of Pope's own day and generation. Yet Mr. Chambers has made out a strong case in favour of that conclusion. And if in accordance with this theory it should in the end prove that some of the best ballads in Percy-those which secured for his three volumes their chief influencewere produced in Scotland at the very time when Pope was in England elaborating his style and establishing his supremacy, it will then follow that the seeds of the revolt against the English poet were being sown at the very same time when his authority began to be planted in the hearts of the people. Parallel with the movement of poetry in England there began a movement of poetry in Scotland. Nothing could be more splendid or self-asserting than the beginnings of the former; nothing more humble and retiring than the beginnings of the latter. But ere long the influence of the unpretending crept into the domain of pretentious song, grew there into favour, at length overthrew the giant, and great was the downfall.

Now Blake asserted his originality at a time when it was an extraordinary merit to do so-when as yet the ballad style which Percy favoured had not thoroughly told upon the public ear. Blake was eight years of age when, in 1765 (Mr. Gilchrist is wrong in the date 1760), Percy published his ballads, and he began to write in his eleventh year. His poems show a remarkable precocity, that does not suffer by comparison with the similar precocity of Chatterton, who was but four years ahead of him in age. By the year 1770 Chatterton had done his work and died at the age of seventeen.

His younger compeer had begun to compose two years before, and had produced some strains which, for his age, are quite wonderful. The following piece was written certainly before the boy was fourteen, and shows a rare precocity: