Page:Life of William Blake 2, Gilchrist.djvu/419

Rh with the subject treated as to paint the creaking of a gibbet, or the shriek of a steam-whistle. For our own part, with any such persons we should hesitate until this investigation has been comprehensively and satisfactorily made, to draw forth, on a winter evening, and in the sober quiet of the study, where alone such an action should be performed, that plain, grand, and solemn volume which is called Illustrations of the Book of Job, invented and engraved by William Blake. * * * And yet our inward thought on the subject is that in the whole range of graphic art there is no epic more stately, no intellectual beauty more keen and thrilling, no thinking much more celestial and profound.

The history and career of the designer of this noble poem are as interesting as his work, * * * He was a dreamy child and fond of rambling into the country, to Blackheath, Norwood, and Dulwich. His faculties and proclivities were soon enough seen, and in startling forms. He not only imagined, but said that he actually saw angels nestling in a tree, and walking among the haymakers in a field.

In these country rambles, we have one of the germs of his peculiar character and genius. Human powers and opportunities act and re-act on each other. The fledgling bird has, enfolded in its bosom, the passion for flight and for song, and realises by foretaste, one might think, as the winds rock its nest, the music of the woods and the rapture of the illimitable air. So there are premonitory stirrings, as sweet and inexpressible, in the breast of the heaven-made child of genius. They are its surest sign. Talent grows insensibly, steadily and discreetly. Genius usually has, in early years, a joyous restlessness, a keen, insatiable relish of life; an eye soon touched with the 'fine frenzy,' and glancing everywhere. It is—