Page:Life of William Blake, Gilchrist.djvu/410

 Cottage, where he was received by host and hostess with the most cordial affection. Mr. Linnell's manner was as that of a son; Mrs. Linnell was hospitable and kind, as ladies well know how to be to a valued friend. The children, whenever he was expected, were on the qui vive to catch the first glimpse of him from afar. One of them, who has now children of her own, but still cherishes the old reverence for 'Mr. Blake,' remembers thus watching for him when a little girl of five or six; and how, as he walked over the brow of the hill and came within sight of the young ones, he would make a particular signal; how Dr. Thornton, another friend and frequent visitor, would make a different one,—the Doctor taking off his hat and raising it on a stick. She remembers how Blake would take her on his knee, and recite children's stones to them all: recollects his kind manner; his putting her in the way of drawing, training her from his own doings. One day he brought up to Hampstead an early sketch-book, full of most singular things, as it seemed to the children. But, in the midst of them, they came upon a finished, pre-Raphaelite-like drawing of a grasshopper, with which they were delighted.

Mr. Linnell had first taken lodgings at Hampstead in June, 1822; and in March, 1824, moved his family to a farm-house there, part of which was let off as a separate habitation, as it is to this day. For Collins's Farm yet stands, altered by the erection of new out-buildings, and the loss of some of its trees, but not so much altered as most things in Hampstead. It is on the north, or countryward side, beyond the Heath, between North End and the 'Spaniards.' North End, as every cockney knows, lies in a hollow over the Heath,—a cluster of villa residences, amid gardens and pleasure-grounds, their roofs embosomed in trees. As you walk from it towards the 'Spaniards,' a winding lane to the left brings you back into the same high road. A little off this, there is another winding way, in the middle of which stands Collins's Farm, at the bottom of another hollow. The