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 CHAPTER XXIII.

GLEAMS OF PATRONAGE, 1806—1808. [. 49—51.]

'discoverer' of Blake's singular and ignored genius was Dr. Malkin, Head-Master of Bury Grammar School, to whose account of the artist's early years we were indebted at the outset. It was, probably, after the return from Felpham, and through Cromek, they were made known to one another. Dr. Malkin was the author of various now all but forgotten works,—Essays on Subjects connected with Civilization, 1795: Scenery, Antiquities, and Biography of South Wales, 1804, which was his most popular effort, reaching, in 1807, to a second edition: also, Almahide and Hamet a Tragedy, 1804. His name may likewise be found to a current revision of Smollett's Translation of Gil Blas, the earlier editions of which contain illustrations by Smirke.

Blake designed, and originally engraved, the 'ornamental device' to the frontispiece for Malkin's Father's Memoirs of his Child, but it was erased before the appearance of the work, and the same design re-engraved by Cromek. The book was published February, 1806; in which month, by the way, died Barry, whom Blake knew and admired. The frontispiece consists of a portrait of the precocious infant, when two years old, from a miniature by Page, surrounded by an emblematic design of great beauty. An Angel is conducting the child heavenward; he takes leave, with consoling gesture, of his kneeling mother, who, in a half-resigned,