Page:Life of William Blake, Gilchrist.djvu/502

 Strange as it may appear, I believe I am right in stating that these were produced in youth by the late venerable author of the Natural History of Enthusiasm, and many other works. How he came to do them, or why he did no more, I have no means of recording. They are very small and very unattractively engraved, sometimes by the artist and sometimes by others. In simplicity, dignity, and original thought, probably in general neglect at the time, and certainly in complete disregard ever since, they bear a close affinity to the mass of Blake's works, and may fairly be supposed to have been, in some measure, inspired by the study of them. The Witch of Endor, The Plague Stayed, The Death of Samson, and many others, are, in spirit, even well worthy of his hand, and from him, at least, would not have missed the admiration they deserve.

Having spoken so far of Blake's influence as a painter, I should be glad if I could point out that the simplicity and purity of his style as a lyrical poet had also exercised some sway. But, indeed, he is so far removed from ordinary apprehensions in most of his poems, or more or less in all, and they have been so little spread abroad, that it will be impossible to attribute to them any decided place among the impulses which have directed the extraordinary mass of poetry displaying power of one or another kind, which has been brought before us, from his day to our own. Perhaps some infusion of his modest and genuine beauties might add a charm even to the most gifted works of our present rather redundant time. One grand poem which was, till lately, on the same footing as his own (or even a still more obscure one) as regards popular recognition and which shares, though on a more perfect scale than he ever realized in poetry, the exalted and primeval, if not the subtly etherealized, qualities of his poetic art, may be found in Charles Wells's scriptural drama of Joseph and his Brethren, published in 1824 under the assumed name of Howard. This work affords, perhaps, the