Page:The poetical works of William Blake; a new and verbatim text from the manuscript engraved and letterpress originals (1905).djvu/180

 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE

TO THE

ROSSETTI MANUSCRIPT

Rossetti MS. is the name used in this edition as a descriptive title for Blake's book of notes and sketches, commonly called 'The MS. Book,' and sometimes, less correctly, 'Ideas of Good and Evil.' The latter title, partially covered by a pencil sketch, is found written, in bold script characters, on the verso of the second leaf. In all probability Blake intended it to refer to the series of designs, beginning on p. 15, afterwards engraved and published as The Gates of Paradise. The poems which some editors include under this title had not then been written.

The Rossetti MS. is a foolscap quarto volume (7$3/4$x6$3/8$ inches) of 58 leaves, paginated consecutively 1-116 by its present owner. The drawing paper is without watermark; but the stitching in the centre of the quires after ff. 5, 18, 30, 42, and 54, shows that the book is made up of one gathering of 10 leaves and four gatherings of 16 and 8 leaves alternately. Bound in at the end is a folded sheet of different and smaller paper forming two leaves, upon which are written part of 'The Everlasting Gospel' and part of the first draft of Blake's description of his 'Canterbury Pilgrims.'

A pencil note on the verso of the flyleaf, signed 'D.G.C.R.,' Rossetti's earlier signature, tells how he became possessed of the volume: 'I purchased this original MS. of Palmer, an attendant in the Antique Gallery at the British Museum, on the 30th April, '47. Palmer knew Blake personally, and it was from the artist's wife that he had the present MS. which he sold me for 10s. Among the sketches there are one or two profiles of Blake himself.'

Rossetti transcribed certain of the contents, heading them 'Verse and Prose by William Blake (Natus 1757: obiit 1827). All that is of any value in the foregoing