Page:William Blake, a critical essay (Swinburne).djvu/54

 to suppress their small feelings and graceful regrets, or be cleared out of his way with all their powers to help or hinder; lucky if they get off without some label of epigram on the forehead or sting of epigram in the flesh. Upon Hayley, as we may see by collation of Blake's note-book with his letters, the lash fell at last, after long toleration of things intolerable, after "great objections to my doing anything but the mere drudgery of business," (as for instance engraving illustrations to Hayley's poems designed by Flaxman's sister—not by his wife, as stated at p. 171 of the "Life" by some momentary slip of a most careful pen), "and intimations that if I do not confine myself to this I shall not live. This," adds Blake, "has always pursued me. You will understand by this the source of all my uneasiness. This from Johnson and Fuseli brought me down here, and this from Mr. H. will bring me back again." In a sharper mood than this, he appended to the decent skirts of Mr. Hayley one of the best burlesque epigrams in the language:—

With this couplet tied to his tail, the ghost of Hayley may perhaps run further than his own strength of wind or speed of foot would naturally have carried him: with this hook in his nose, he may be led by "his good Blake" some way towards the temple of memory.

What is most to be regretted in these letters is the wonderful tone of assertion respecting the writer's own pictures and those of the great Italian schools. This it would be difficult enough to explain, dishonest to overlook, easy to ridicule, and unprofitable to rebuke. All