Page:Life of William Blake 2, Gilchrist.djvu/450

 346 Let us again say, that the style of their execution is of that intense, primeval, severe, and unaffected kind most suited to reproduce scenes of the early world; but bare and dry, and as if centuries had eaten into their substance, and left them as the torrent streams are left among the barren heights. If, with this explanation, the engravings (reduced in the second volume of this biography, but exact facsimiles of the things themselves) should greatly disappoint the observer, let him pass by them, and go forward to something more congenial. Their Runic power and pathos is not for him. Each design has a border, which is a sort of outlined commentary, in harmony with the subject, and often allusive to it. It opens with a family picture of the patriarch, his wife, and children, gathered under a vast tree—the parents sitting, the sons and daughters kneeling in worship; the 'homestead' is seen beyond close-packed flocks of sheep. Some rams of the flock and lambs of the fold lie in the foreground, while the great sun sets and the crescent moon rises over heights stormy and barren. In the next, the vine and fig-tree of home—angel-guarded—overshades the luxurious ease of family love; but above this tender vision is one more awful. The Ancient of Days (who is to be read by the instructed eye in his cramped grandeur rather as an unlettered symbol of Divinity, than as a representation) sits upon His throne, closed in by clouds and bowing cherubim, while Satan presents his malignant plea. It is granted; and in the succeeding scenes he works his fiery will. The darkening page seems to crackle with sulphurous and sudden flame; the strong pillars tremble, and lurch, and fall, crushing the lovely and the strong under their ruins. The rampant, rejoicing demon dances on the cornices, and flaps his dragon wings in glee; while, in the margin, strange glints of issuing claws and eating fires crawl upward. Then the Messengers are seen precipitating themselves one by one on the astonished eye of the patriarch and his wife. In the border, Satan walks majestically on the circle of the earth, and round and below