Page:The poetical works of William Blake - lyrical and miscellaneous.djvu/144

 cxxxii PREFATORY MEMOIR.

poems from the mrne series. Thee emendations were indeed gret improvement, and they rectify various anoying and inexcusable laxities in point of metre or syntax, or here and there of expression. It is therefore with considerable reluctance that I abandon them, and do Blake the disservice of again presenting him without their aid. My brother felt that he could introduce them (a observed in his prefatory note) "without once in the slightest degree affecting the originality of the text": nor do I intend to express here any opinion o the contrary effect. There is, however, I conceive, certain degree of difference between the treatment which may be legitinmtely applied to extracted poems reprlntcl for the first time, and ervin p.rtly to illustrate and adorn a biographical re. cord, and the ame poems when they form portion of an edition of the author's works, simply as such. t any rate, as the compositions in question have been Mready reproduced at a intomediate between that of my brother's editing and of the present volume, and were then printed in their original shape (which erm includes their occasional original slmpelessnees), I he not felt justified in recurring to nother fore of the same poems, which, if better, as it ass/redly is, is also less absolutely exact. Let me but hope thn.t Bln.ke's spirit, if conscious of wht is here being done for the maintenance of his nme and fme, would not resent this dmaging adherence to authenticity. Blake imes (a we may remember), when limning his visionary sitters, hcl to exclaim, "He frowns-- he is displeased with my portrait of him." in his turn might now peach,nee frown ad be