Page:The poetical works of William Blake; a new and verbatim text from the manuscript engraved and letterpress originals (1905).djvu/256

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lxxvii

P——— loved me not as he lov'd his friends ; For he lov'd them for gain, to serve his Ends : He loved me, and for no Gain at all, But to rejoice & triumph in my fall.

lxxviii

To forgive enemies H——— does pretend, Who never in his life forgave a friend, And when he could not act upon my wife Hired a Villain to bereave my Life.

MS. Book, at foot of p. 34. First couplet only ptd. by DGR ('Coupl.' xi), WMR (' Coupl.' XXI. i), EY i. 217.

1 H——— ] Hayley DGR, WMR.4 Hired. . . Life] The same line occurs in one of the Poetical Sketches, cp. ' Fair Elenor,' 1. 68. By the phrase 'bereave my Life ' Blake here probably means, deprive me of my means of livelihood ; this is another reference to the critiques in the Examiner (cp. notes to xlix, liv). Cp. Advertisement (MS. Book, p. 52) : 'The manner in which my character has been blasted these thirty years both as an Artist and a Man may be seen particularly in a Sunday paper called the Examiner, published in Beaufort's Buildings, and the manner in which I have rooted out the nest of villains will be seen in a poem concerning my three years' Herculean labours at Felpham, which I shall soon publish. Secret calumny and open professions of friendship are common enough all the world over, but have never been so good an occasion of poetic imagery. When a base man means to be your enemy, he always begins with being your friend. We all know that editors of newspapers trouble their heads very little about art and science, and that they are always paid for what they put in on those ungracious subjects.'