Page:Life of William Blake, Gilchrist.djvu/181

 with eighty elegant engravings from drawings made by the author,' was published by Johnson the following year (1796), Of these 'elegant engravings' Blake executed fourteen; Holloway and Bartolozzi were among those employed for the remainder. Negroes, Monkeys, 'Limes, Capsicums, Mummy-apples,' and other natural productions of the country, were the chief subjects which fell to Blake's share.

Also among the fruit of this period should be particularised two prints in which the figures are on a larger scale than in any other engravings by Blake. They are both from his own designs. Under the first is inscribed:—Ezekiel: 'Take away from thee the desire of thine eyes.' Ezek. xxiv. 17. ''Painted and Engraved by W. Blake. Oct''. 27, 1794. 13, Hercules Buildings. Ezekiel kneels with arms crossed and eyes uplifted in stern and tearless grief, according to God's command: beside him is one of those solemn bowed figures, with hidden face, and hair sweeping the ground, Blake often, and with such powerful effect, introduces: and on a couch in the background lies the shrouded corpse of Ezekiel's wife.

The subject of the other, which corresponds in size and style, is from the Book of Job:—'What is man, that thou shouldst try him every moment?' It possesses a peculiar interest as being the first embodiment of Blake's ideas upon a theme, thirty years later to be developed in that series of designs,—the Inventions to the Book of Job, which, taken as a grand harmonious whole, is an instance of rare individual genius, of the highest art with whatever compared, that certainly constitutes his masterpiece. The figure of Job himself, in the early design, is the same as that in the Inventions. But the wife is a totally differnt [sic] conception, being of a hard and masculine type.