Page:Life of William Blake, Gilchrist.djvu/62

 dating from these years (1778-9), The Penance of Jane Shore in St. Paul's Church, thirty years later was included in Blake's Exhibition of his own Works (1809). In the Descriptive Catalogue he speaks of it with some complacency as 'proving to the author, and he thinks to any discerning eye, that the productions of our youth and of our maturer age are equal in all essential points.' To me, on inspecting the same, it proves nothing of the kind; though it be a very exemplary performance in the manner just indicated. The central figure of Jane Shore has however much grace and sweetness; and the intention of the whole composition is clear and decisive. One extrinsic circumstance materially detracts from the appearance of this and other water-colour drawings from his hand of the period: viz. that, as a subsittute [sic] for glass, they were all eventually, in prosecution of a hobby of Blake's, varnished—of which process, applied to a water-colour drawing, nothing can exceed the disenchanting, not to say destructive effect.

There is a scarce engraving inscribed 'W. B. inv. 1780' (reproduced at the head of this chapter,) which, within certain limitations, has much more of the peculiar Blake quality and intensity about it. The subject is evidently a personification of Morning, or Glad Day: a nude male figure, with one foot on earth, just alighted from above; a flood of radiance still encircling his head; his arms outspread,—as exultingly bringing joy and solace to this lower world,—not with classic Apollo-like indifference, but with the divine chastened fervour of an angelic minister. Below crawls a caterpillar, and a hybrid kind of night-moth takes wing.

Meanwhile, the Poet and Designer, living under his father the hosier's roof, 28, Broad Street, had not only to educate himself in high art, but to earn his livelihood by humbler art—engraver's journey-work. During the years 1779 to 1782 and onwards, one or two booksellers gave him employment in engraving from afterwards better known fellow designers. Harrison of Paternoster Row employed him for his Novelists'