Page:The letters of William Blake (1906).djvu/220

 154 promised to get the number and prices of all Romney s prints as you desired. He has sent a catalogue of all his collection, and a scheme of his lottery. Desires his compliments to you; says he laments your absence from London, as your advice would be acceptable at all times, but especially at the present. He is very thin and decayed, and but the shadow of what he was; so he is now a shadow s shadow;—but how can we expect a very stout man at eighty-five, which age he tells me he has now reached? You would have been pleased to see his eyes light up at the mention of your name.

Mr. Flaxman agrees with me that somewhat more than outline is necessary to the execution of Romney's designs, because his merit is eminent in the art of massing his lights and shades. I should propose to etch them in a rapid but firm manner, somewhat, perhaps, as I did the "Head of Euler"; the price I receive for engraving Flaxman's outlines of Homer is five guineas each. I send the "Domenichino," which is very neatly done. His merit was but little in light and shade; outline was his element, and yet these outlines give but a faint idea of the finished prints from his works, several of the best of which I have. I send also the French Monuments, and inclose with them a Catalogue of Bell's Gallery, and another of the