Page:Life of William Blake, Gilchrist.djvu/465

 what he writes valuable is not to be found in nature. Read Michael Angelo's Sonnet, vol. ii. page 179' (of this edition).

In the margin of the Essay Supplementary to the Preface, against the words, 'By this time I trust the judicious reader,' Blake audaciously writes, 'I do not know who wrote these Prefaces: they are very mischievous, and direct contrary to Wordsworth's own practice.' At p. 341: 'This is not the defence of his own style in opposition to what is called poetic diction, but a sort of historic vindication of the unpopular poets.' Blake's disparaging view of the Prefaces is not shared by myself; but no less a critic than Shelley, one of Wordsworth's warmest contemporary admirers—though outraged by the poet's political and other delinquencies—in his wicked, random skit of Peter Bell the Third (1819), also disrespectfully describes Wordsworth, as in these Prefaces,—

At the end of the Supplementary Essay Blake again breaks out: 'It appears to me as if the last paragraph, beginning with "Is it the result of the whole that, in the opinion of the