Page:Life of William Blake, Gilchrist.djvu/186

 These forty-three plates occupied Blake a year. A complete set of drawings for the Night Thoughts had been made, which remained in the family of Edwards, the publisher, till quite recently, when it passed into the hands of Mr. Bain, of the Haymarket. 'Altogether this enormous series reaches the aggregate of five hundred and thirty-seven designs, of which, as has been said, only forty-three were given in the Engraved Selection. In some, every inch of the available margin is quick with multitudinous invention; and in others the whole interest is gathered to the broadest spaces and the remainder left as great breadths of light or gloom. As might be expected in so vast a task, they are very unequal both in conception and design. In succession they are solemn, tender or playful, broken by frequent bursts of Titanic inspiration under which the pages tremble. Then follow others painfully grotesque, or feebly uninteresting, but these are comparatively few; and the inspection of these unique volumes (which ought to belong to the nation) cannot fail to impress on the mind of every lover of Blake a loftier estimate of his gigantic powers than was before entertained.' Thus writes Mr. Frederick Shields, from whose hand the reader will find, in Vol. II., complete descriptive notes of all the more important designs in this great series.

Edwards' edition was as much a book of design as of type; splendidly printed in folio on thick paper, with an ample margin to each page. Around every alternate leaf Blake engraved wild, allegorical figures; designs little adapted to the apprehension of his public. He so engraved them as to make a picture of the whole page, as in his own illustrated poems; but not with an equally felicitous result, when combined with formal print. To each of the four Nights was prefixed an introductory design or title. The illustrations have one very acceptable aid, and that is, a written 'explanation of the engravings' at the end; drawn up or put into shape by another hand than Blake's—the same possibly which had penned the Advertisement. It would be well if