Page:William Blake, a critical essay (Swinburne).djvu/188

 172 or stung by some dealer or other such dangerous craftsman of the Hebrew kind; for that any mortal Jew—or for that matter any conceivable Gentile—would have credited him to the amount of a penny sterling, no one will imagine. Let the reader meanwhile endure him a little further, suppressing if he is wise any comment on Blake's "insanity" or "blasphemous doggrel"; for he should now at least understand that this literal violence of manner, these light or grave audacities of mere form, imply no offensive purpose or significance, except insomuch as offence is inseparable from any strange kind of earnestly heretical belief. Neither is Blake here busied in fetching milk to feed his babes and sucklings. This he could do incomparably well on occasion, with such milk as a nursing-goddess gave to the son of Metaneira; but here he carves meat for men—of a strange quality, tough and crude: but not without savour or sustenance if eaten with the right sauce and prefaced with a proper grace.)

Here follow as given by Caiaphas the old charges of Sabbath-breach, blasphemy and strange doctrine; given again almost word for word, but with a nobler frame of context, in the Marriage of Heaven and Hell, where, and not here, we will prefer to read them. One charge will be allowed to pass as new coin, having Blake's image and superscription in lieu of Caesar's.