Page:Life of William Blake, Gilchrist.djvu/455

 DECLINING HEALTH: DESIGNS TO DANTE. be better to-morrow. Rest does me good. Pray take care of your health this wet weather; and though I write, do not venture ' out on such days as to-day has been. I hope a few more days will bring us to a conclusion.

I am, dear Sir,

Yours sincerely,

Among the new friends to whom Mr. Linnell had introduced Blake was Mr. Aders, a wealthy merchant of an old German family; a liberal and art-loving man, whose doors were always open to literary men and artists. To his house came Coleridge and Lamb and, as we saw, Lawrence, James Ward, Stothard, Linnell; finally Blake, with whom, I think, Coleridge here became acquainted. Of Blake Mr. Aders bought copies of the Songs of Innocence and Experience and a few others of the illustrated books. His house in Euston Square was filled with pictures, chosen with excellent judgment, of a class not commonly selected in those days, viz.: examples of the early Italian and, above all, early Flemish and German schools. It was as much a picture gallery as a house. The walls of drawing-room, bed-rooms, and even staircase, were all closely covered; with gallery railings in front to protect the pictures from injury. The collection was a remarkable and celebrated one, and has left lasting traces of itself in the history of picture-collecting. It comprised many works deeply interesting in the annals ol painting. Among these was a fine old copy of the famous Adoration of the Lamb, of Hubert and Jan van Eyck; one of the chief landmarks in the history of Art (Hubert's sole surviving composition). In this copy—formerly in the Hôtel de Ville, Ghent—could be alone seen the effect of the altarpiece as a whole; for the various compartments, both of the original and of Coxcie's copy, are widely scattered. There were several other precious and authentic pictures of the school of the Van Eycks: a very interesting small altar-piece, attributed to Margaretta van Eyck, but since assigned to