Page:Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Lamb, etc., being selections from the Remains of Henry Crabb Robinson.djvu/35

 DIARY ACCOUNT OF BLAKE

I. 1811. July 24th. . . Late to C. Lamb's. Found a very large party there. Southey had been with Blake & admired both his designs & his poetic talents at the same time that he held him for a decided madman. Blake, he says, spoke of his visions with the diffidence that is usual with such people & did not seem to expect that he shd. be believed. He shewed S[outhey] a perfectly mad poem called Jerusalem. Oxford Street is in Jerusalem.

II. 1812. May 24 ... I read W[ordsworth] some of Blake's poems; he was pleased with some of them & considered B[lake] as having the elements of poetry a thousand times more than either Byron or Scott, but Scott he thinks superior to Campbell. I was for carrying down the descent to Rogers but W. wd. not allow it. R[ogers] has an effeminate mind, but he has not the obscure writing of C[ampbell]. . ..

III. 1815. Jan. 30. Flaxman was very chatty and pleasant. He related some curious anecdotes of Sharp the engraver, who seems the ready dupe of any and every religious fanatic & impostor who offers himself. . . . Sharp, tho' deceived by Brothers, became a warm partisan of Joanna Southcott. He endeavoured to make a convert of Blake the engraver, but as Fl. judiciously observed, such men as B[lake] are not fond of playing the 2d. fiddle. Hence B[lake] himself a seer of visions & a dreamer of dreams would not do homage to a rival claimant of the privilege of prophecy. B[lake] told F[laxman] that he had had a violent dispute with the Angels on some subject and had driven them away. . . . Excessive pride equally denoted Blake & Barry [another seer of visions].

IV. 1825. Dec 10. Dined with Aders. A very remarkable & interesting evening. The party Blake the 1