Page:The sanity of William Blake.djvu/55

 Rh only. To Blake, such task was wellnigh impossible. Yet his instinctive valuation of things was so true that we can ill bear the thought of even his mere intellect judging them. For, had he possessed that critical faculty which is elicited only by patient submission to scholastic method, we most assuredly had never known this Jerusalem. He hated going over his own work, as is known, because probably the very descent of his spirit to the level of mere intellectuality, as distinguished from creative labour, entirely changed the point of view; it made the eagle's outlook seem quite inaccessible, and therefore of doubtful value.

And this sort of suffering attends all genius that would reform its own offspring. Though Blake was no critic, he generally knew what was good and bad; but, like the child again, he would judge their work by his love or dislike of the artists. His praise of Fuseli's and Flaxman's work was the inevitable consequence of their flattery, which lasted just so long as they could pick his brains. He even found great merit in Wainwright the poisoner's Academy picture, seemingly because Wainwright admired and