Page:The letters of William Blake (1906).djvu/28

 xxii bodies, and a young woman kneeling and embracing her dead knight. A mourning mother and an aged father, who is wiping away his tears with a fold of his mantle (the latter an anticipation of the patriarchal type so often to reappear), stand close by. Through the breach a young woman is seen, searching frantically for her dead lover. High upon the wall is a hungry bird of prey. An intensity of dramatic feeling which belongs to the greatest achievements of Blake's inventive faculty is present in the design: where the woeful state of the fallen on the one side is vividly contrasted with the vertical lines of the mourners and of the wall on the other; while the dismal twilight of the morning serves to increase the lamentable aspect of the scene. It will appear from many of Blake's letters that the admiration evinced by Romney was fully reciprocated, especially in the use of the various historical studies and cartoons which were undertaken by the latter at this period. These have even left a visible mark upon Blake's style. An lndia-ink drawing, done about the date of this meeting, entitled "Har and Heva bathing: Mnetha looking on" (one of a, set of twelve illustrations to his own poem "Tiriel"), is a good example of the Romney influence, which is clearly distinguishable in the curves of the figures, in the breadth of the light effects, and in the character of the forest