Page:William Blake (Chesterton).djvu/53

 WILLIAM BLAKE in a scarlet coat, surveying the landscape with a satisfied air of possession. Blake expressed a desire that the dragoon should leave the garden. The dragoon expressed a desire to knock out Blake's eyes, "with many abominable imprecations." Blake sprang upon the man with startling activity, and catching him from behind by both elbows ran him out of the garden as if he were a perambulator. The man, who was probably drunk and must certainly have been surprised, went off with many verbal accusations, but none of a political nature. A little while afterwards, however, he turned up with a grave legal statement to the effect that Blake had taken the opportunity to utter these somewhat improbable words: "Damn the king, damn all his subjects, damn his soldiers, they are all slaves: when Bonaparte comes it will be cut-throat for cut-throat. I will help him." The impartial critic will be inclined to say that few persons would have even the breath to utter such political generalisations while at the same time running one of the Dragoon Guards bodily out of the gate; and it was not alleged that the incident took more than half a minute.