Page:Life of William Blake, Gilchrist.djvu/365

 force, as Blake himself thought Flaxman to have always been, and as many now think. Some touch of natural sorrow Blake might well feel at having to copy, where he could have invented with far more power and originality. For Blake was as full of ideas as Flaxman of manner, a tender and eloquent, but borrowed, idiom. And while Flaxman relied on the extraneous help (or impediment?) of a conventional and in fact dead language or manner in art, and on archaeological niceties, Blake could address us, in his rude, unpolished way, in an universal one and appeal to the Imagination direct.

During this period Blake engraved some plates for Rees' Encyclopædia, illustrative of the articles on Armour and Sculpture, the latter written by Flaxman, I believe. One example selected was the Laocoon, which carried our artist to the Royal Academy's antique school, for the purpose of making a drawing from the cast of that group. 'What! you here, Meesther Blake?' said Keeper Fuseli; 'we ought to come and learn of you, not you of us!' Blake took his place with the students, and exulted over his work, says Mr. Tatham, like a young disciple; meeting his old friend Fuseli's congratulations and kind remarks with cheerful, simple joy.