Page:Life of William Blake, Gilchrist.djvu/190

 conventional wings of angel and spirit are dispensed with. The literalness with which the poet's metaphors are occasionally embodied is a startling and not always felicitous invasion of the province of words. As when Death summons the living 'from sleep to his kingdom the grave,' with a hand-bell; or 'plucks the sun from his sphere.' Or again, when a personification of the Sun hides his face at the crucifixion; or another of Thunder, directs the poet to admiration of God; all which difficulties are fearlessly handled. Any less daring man would have fared worse. In Blake's conceptions it is hit or miss, and the miss is a wide one: witness the 'Resurrection of our Saviour,' and 'Our Saviour in the furnace of affliction;' large, soulless figures, quite destitute of Blake's genius.

Excepting one or two such as I have last named, familiarity does much to help the influence of these, as of all Blake's designs; to deepen the significance of our artist's high spiritual commentary on the poet; to modify the monotony of the appeal. The first unpleasant effect wears off of the conventional mannikins which here represent humanity, wherewith gigantic Time and Death disport on the page. Art hath her tropes as well as poetry. At this very time was preparing, and in 1802 was published by Vernor and Hood, and the trade, an octavo edition of Young, illustrated by Stothard, which did prove successful. Blake's Young compares advantageously, I may add, with Stothard's, whose designs, with some exceptions, display a very awkward attempt to reconcile the insignia of the matter-of-fact world with those of the spiritual. Better Blake's nude figures (in which great sacrifices are made to preserve decorum), better his favourite simple draperies of close-fitting garments, and his typical impersonation of 'the author,' than Stothard's clerical gentleman, in full canonicals, looking, with round-eyed wonder, at the unusual phenomenon of winged angels fluttering above.

Returning to Blake's career, I find him, in 1799, exhibiting a picture at the Academy, The Last Supper. 'Verily I say