Page:William Blake, painter and poet.djvu/70

54 and he reviles Stothard, Woollett, and others in a strain inconsistent with self-respect on his own part, even had his criticism been well founded. As a matter of fact, it seems to have had no foundation, and assuredly has not affected the reputation of his antagonists in the smallest degree. At the same time it is impossible not to be moved by his earnestness. He is evidently contending for principles of great importance to himself, and through the mist of his confused and ungrammatical expression we seem to catch glimpses of high and serious truth. A refreshing contrast is afforded by the passages devoted to Chaucer, which are truly admirable for their felicitous insight into the old poet. "For all who have read Blake," justly say Messrs. Ellis and Yeats, "Chaucer is something more than the sweet spinner of rhyming gossip that he seems to most." Like Ruskin, and indeed all men of creative power, Blake is on much safer ground when he extols than when he censures. To much the same period belongs a remarkable paper on his Last Judgment, published by Gilchrist from his MS. Nothing of his admits us so fully into the sanctuary of his mind. "The Last Judgment" he begins, "is not fable or allegory, but vision. Fable, or allegory, is a totally distinct and inferior kind of poetry. Vision, or imagination, is a representation of what actually exists, really and unchangeably." Then follows an extremely graphic and vivid description of the painting, interspersed with profound remarks, such as "Man passes on, but states remain for ever; he passes through them like a traveller, who may as well suppose that the places he has passed through exist no more as a man may suppose that the states he has passed through exist no more; everything is eternal." "I have seen, when at a distance, multitudes of men in harmony appear like a single infant." "In Hell all is self-righteousness; there is no such