Page:William Blake, painter and poet.djvu/86

70 history of the commission is thus related by Linnell's biographer, Mr. Story. "Although the Job had been paid for, Linnell continued to give him money weekly. Blake said, 'I do not know how I shall ever repay you.' Linnell replied, 'I do not want you to repay me. I am only too glad to be able to serve you. What I would like, however, if you do anything for me, is that you should make some designs for Dante's Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. ' Blake entered upon the work with alacrity, concurrently with the engraving of the Job designs, and the two together occupied the old man for the rest of his life." During all this period Linnell was remitting Blake money, as the latter's notes in acknowledgment prove. Linnell undoubtedly acquired the designs at a low price, but immediately upon Blake's death he endeavoured to dispose of them for the benefit of the widow. Failing in this he kept them, never attempting to make anything by them; and they are still in the possession of his family.

Blake studied Italian to qualify himself more effectually for his task, and is said to have acquired it; when Robinson saw him, however, at an early stage of the commission it is true, he was working by the aid of Cary's English version. He executed no less than ninety-eight drawings, several of which were left in an unfinished state. Seven have been engraved. The merits of the series have been variously estimated. Mr. Rossetti considers them "on the whole a very fine series, though not uniformly equal in merit." Mr. Yeats, so well qualified by his own imaginative gift to enter into the merit of Blake's work, thinks them the finest of all his productions. Robinson, who saw Blake at work upon them, says, "They evince a power I should not have anticipated of grouping, and of throwing grace and interest over conceptions monstrous and horrible." For our own part, we must regretfully admit that when we saw them at the Old Masters' exhibition the monstrosity and horror appeared more evident than the grace and interest. We could not deem Dante's conceptions adequately rendered; the colour, too, often seemed harsh and extravagant. Blake went on working upon them until his death, when Mrs. Blake sent them to Linnell. They thus escaped the fate of Blake's other artistic and literary remains left in his widow's possession, which after her death were appropriated, apparently without any legal authority, by a person named Tatham, who had been much about