Page:Life of William Blake, Gilchrist.djvu/217

 CHAPTER XVIII.

WORKING HOURS. LETTERS TO BUTTS. 1801—1803. [ÆT, 44-46.]

the latter part of 1801 Hayley began spinning a series of Ballads on Anecdotes relating to Animals, of very different merit from Little Tom the Sailor of the previous year; empty productions, long-winded, bald, devoid of every poetic virtue save simplicity,—in the unhappy sense of utter insipidity. What must the author of the Songs of Innocence have thought of them? On these Ballads hung a project, as usual with Hayley. They were to be illustrated by Blake, printed by another protégé, Seagrave, a Chichester book-seller, and published for the artist's sole benefit; in realising which they were fated to have but ill success. Our hermit sincerely believed in contributing verse of his he was giving money's worth; in that serene faith meaning as generously as when handing over tangible coin.

During the progress of the Life of Cowper, and of the Ballads, the letters of Hayley to the Rev. John Johnson supply glimpses, here and there, of Blake, at his engraving, or in familiar intercourse with his patron; and they supply more than glimpses of the writer himself, in his accustomed undress of easy, slip-shod vanity and amiability. This Johnson was Cowper's cousin, his right-hand man in latter years, and faithful guardian ultimately. The letters are entombed in Hayley's Memoirs of himself and his son, edited