Page:The letters of William Blake (1906).djvu/51

 Rh of the Earth," may be left to be told by Tatham himself. On the 12th August 1827, Blake's body died; and we may leave his work with a few beautiful words about the man from a letter written by Linnell to Bernard Barton three years later: "He was more like the ancient patterns of virtue than I ever expected to see in this world; he feared nothing so much as being rich, lest he should lose his spiritual riches. He was at the same time the most sublime in his expressions, with the simplicity and gentleness of a child."

Frederick Tatham, author of the Life which follows, was the son of an architect to whom Blake had been introduced by Linnell; he was himself a sculptor and miniature-painter. He was about twenty years of age when he made Blake's acquaintance, only two or three years before the death of the latter. He soon became on most intimate terms with him, and saw him continually until the end. He thus enjoyed unique opportunities of gathering reliable material for the Life, which, together with the brief sketch of the early life given by Malkin in his Father's Memoirs of His Child, must always remain the principal contemporary sources, outside his own writings, for the particulars of Blake's biography. After the death of the widow, the whole stock of drawings,