Page:Life of William Blake, Gilchrist.djvu/149

 the necessary adjunct of colour. The specimens given in this chapter and elsewhere can at best only show form and arrangement—the groundwork of the pages; the frames as it were in which the verses are set; Blake never intending any copies to go forth to the world until they had been coloured by hand. Facing pages 109 and 110, however, we give facsimiles of two whole pages from the America, exact facsimiles both as regards drawing and writing (though reduced to about half the size of the original), and in a colour as near as possible to that frequently used by Blake for the groundwork, as we said before, of his painted leaves. Similar examples we shall give when we come to other books of the same character,—the Europe, and that yet more remarkable, the Jerusalem.

Whatever may be the literary value of the work, the designs display unquestionable power and beauty. In firmness of outline and refinement of finish, they are exceeded by none from the same hand. We have more especially in view Lord Houghton's superb copy. Turning over the leaves, it is sometimes like an increase of daylight on the retina, so fair and open is the effect of particular pages. The skies of sapphire, or gold, rayed with hues of sunset, against which stand out leaf or blossom, or pendant branch, gay with bright plumaged birds; the strips of emerald sward below, gemmed with flower and lizard and enamelled snake, refresh the eye continually. Some of the illustrations are of a more sombre kind. There is one in which a little corpse, white as snow, lies gleaming on the floor of a green overarching cave, which close inspection proves to be a field of wheat, whose slender interlacing stalks, bowed by the full ear and by a gentle breeze, bend over and inclose the dead infant. The delicate network of stalks (which is carried up one side of the page, the main picture being at the bottom), and the subdued yet vivid green light shed over the whole, produce a lovely decorative effect. Decorative effect is in fact never lost sight of, even when the motive of the design is ghastly or terrible. As for instance at page 13, which represents the different fate