Page:The letters of William Blake (1906).djvu/47

 Rh arose between the two, and it was at Varley's instigation that Blake embarked upon the remarkable series, alluded to by Tatham in the Life, of visionary portraits of historical personages and others, which covers the years 1818—1820. The facsimiles given in Gilchrist will be sufficient to show the character of these productions. Two of the finest of those which I have seen are the heads of King John, and of Lais of Corinth, mistress of Apelles,—the former, a noble visage with a grim look, the head narrowing curiously above the eyes, with a short beard, waving hair down to the neck, and large eyes; the latter, a strangely Lionardesque representation of a woman of very low type. About 1820, Blake took in hand his last and most elaborate picture of "The Last Judgment," 7 feet by 5 feet in dimensions, and containing upwards of a thousand figures, but did not complete it until the year of his death. It has not been seen for a good many years, but it is said to have been sumptuously coloured and much worked up with gold. In 1822 he did replicas of some of his early Paradise Lost designs for Linnell. About the same time he was engaged upon one of his last commissions for Butts, a set of water-colour drawings illustrating the Book of Job. He had been attracted from early days by the history of the patriarch, which he would often parallel by the course of his own