Page:Life of William Blake, Gilchrist.djvu/333

 later, still a popular English classic. Blake's designs form a strangely spiritual commentary on the somewhat matter-of-fact homily of the dry, old Scottish divine: they belong to a more heavenly latitude. Running parallel to the poem rather than springing out of it, they have, in some cases, little foundation in the text, in others absolutely none; as, for instance, the emblematic ' Soul exploring the recesses of the Tomb. ' The Series in itself forms a poem, simple, beautiful, and exalted: what tender eloquence in 'The Soul hovering over the Body; ' in the passionate ecstasy of ' The Re-union of Soul and Body; ' the rapt felicity of mutual recognition in ' The meeting of a Family in Heaven. ' There meet husband and wife, little brothers and sisters; two angels spread a canopy of loving wings over the group, one remarkable for surpassing, sculturesque beauty. Such designs are, in motive, spirit, manner of embodiment, without parallel, and enlarge the boundaries of art. Equally high meaning has the oft-mentioned allegory, Death's Door, into which 'Age on crutches is hurried by a tempest,' while above sits a youthful figure, 'the renovated man in light and glory,' looking upwards in joyful adoration and awe. And again the Death of the Strong Wicked man: the still-fond wife hanging over the convulsed body, in wild, horror-struck sympathy, the terrified daughter standing beside, with one hand shutting out the scene from her eyes; while the wicked soul is hurried, amid flames, through the casement. What unearthly surprise and awe expressed in that terrible face, in those uplifted deprecating hands! The Last Judgment, unlike the other designs, is a subject on which great artists had already lavished imagination and executive skill. But Blake's conception of it is an original and homogeneous one, worthy of the best times of art. What other painter, since Michael Angelo, could have really designed anew that tremendous scene?

These are not mere exercises of art, to be coldly measured by the foot-rule of criticism, but truly inventions to be read and entered into with something of the spirit which conceived