Page:The poetical works of William Blake; a new and verbatim text from the manuscript engraved and letterpress originals (1905).djvu/367

Rh iii

When France got free, Europe, 'twixt fools & Knaves, Were Savage first to France, & after— Slaves.

Reynolds, vol. i, p. ciii. Suggested by the following footnote in Malone's memoir of Reynolds prefixed to the Discourses: — 'How justly may we apply the immediately following lines of the same great Poet to those demagogues among us, who since the era above mentioned, have not only on all occasions gratuitously pleaded the cause of the enemies of their country with the zeal of fee'd advocates, but by every other mode incessantly endeavoured to debase and assimilate this free and happy country to the model of the ferocious and enslaved Republick of France ! —

This couplet is printed only by EY ii. 323.

iv

When Sr Joshua Reynolds died All Nature was degraded ; The King drop'd a tear into the Queen's Ear, And all his Pictures Faded.

Reynolds, vol. i, p. cix, below the account of Reynolds' death. Only in Gil. i. 259 and EY ii. 323. Cf. MS. Book xlvi. 3 The. . . Ear] Gil. prints as two lines.

v

When Nations grow Old, the Arts grow Cold, And Commerce settles on every Tree ; And the Poor & the Old can live upon Gold, For all are Born Poor, Aged Sixty-three.

Reynolds, vol. i, p. [iv], beneath Reynolds' dedicatory letter to the Members of the Royal Academy and following Blake's prose comment : — 'The Rich Men of England form themselves into a society to Sell & Not to SAMPSON                                        Y