Page:The poetical works of William Blake; a new and verbatim text from the manuscript engraved and letterpress originals (1905).djvu/108

 (2) There are besides in the Rossetti MS. Book the original designs for two of the Songs of Experience, 'The Angel' and 'The Sick Rose'—the latter different in many respects from the version subsequently engraved. We have no reason to believe that Blake first executed for all the songs coloured sketches which have since disappeared. Probably many of the originals were merely pencil drawings 'with nothing to seek'—to quote Blake's own phrase in his recipe for engraving on pewter—which would naturally be destroyed in the process of rubbing off on to the copper.

The engraved version of the Songs, issued by the author without change during a period of nearly forty years, must of course be regarded as the only authoritative text; even where, as in a few cases, the earlier manuscript readings seem preferable. Original autograph versions of three of the Songs of Innocence are found in the unpublished Blake manuscript known as An Island in the Moon. Manuscript versions of eighteen of the twenty-six Songs of Experience form some of the first entries in the Rossetti MS. Book. Several of the latter have the appearance of being fair copies, transcribed, at one time, from an earlier notebook or from loose scraps of paper, while others, such as 'The Tyger,' are evidently the first rough draft. All these variant readings are here given in the footnotes to the Songs.

The Songs of Innocence was at first issued as a separate work, complete copies of the little book in its original form containing thirty-one plates. These include five—'The Little Girl Lost,' 'The Little Girl Found,' 'The Voice of the Ancient Bard,' and 'The School Boy—which were afterwards generally transferred by Blake to the Songs of Experience, though the two last were still sometimes placed by him among the Songs of Innocence. With the exception of the frontispiece, title-page, and introduction, the plates in this earliest issue were printed upon both sides of octavo paper, the thirty-one plates occupying seventeen leaves. These loose leaves were then stitched by Mrs, Blake into paper covers, in most cases by the rough process known as 'stabbing,' a cord being laced through holes punctured an inch or two apart.

In 1793 Blake completed the engraving of the Songs of Experience. His prospectus, dated Oct. 10 of the same year, addressed 'To the Public,' and giving a list of ten