Page:The Poems of William Blake (Shepherd, 1887).djvu/13

 Rh in 1798, 1800, and 1807, such pieces as Goody Blake and Harry Gill, Poor Susan, The Two Thieves, Rural Architecture, Alice Fell, and all that class of poems which drew down on Wordsworth the ridicule of Jeffrey and other self-constituted critics of the period. There is precisely the same exquisite tenderness and noble simplicity in Blake. Some dozen of his Songs of Innocence might assuredly have been printed in the Lyrical Ballads and have passed for Wordsworth's, and on the whole the attentive student who follows out this hint, with the two books before him, will discover coincidences of thought and expression which are very remarkable.

Nevertheless, the fame of Blake as a poet has not kept pace with his fame as an artist. His original volumes, it is true, are sold for fabulous prices; but probably more on account of the embellishments than the poetry. Certain it is that no poet can expect to survive who depends on illustrated or illuminated editions for his celebrity. We think, however, that the poems of William Blake are destined at length to meet with a full though tardy recognition, and that they will therefore be welcome without such adventitious aid; that they will be cherished by children for their