Page:William Blake (IA williamblake00ches).pdf/61

 of production, because decorative art is expended on the one and not on the other. The sword has a golden hilt; but no plough has golden handles. There is such a thing as a sword of state; there is no such thing as a scythe of state. Men come to court wearing imitation swords; few men come to court wearing imitation flails. It is fascinating to reflect how fantastic a story might be written upon this hint by Blake. But Blake does not write the story; he only gives the hint, and that so hurriedly that even as a hint it may hardly be understood.

Most of Blake's quarrels were trivial, and some were little short of discreditable. But in his quarrel with Cromek and Stothard he does really stand as the champion of all that is heroic and ideal, as against all that is worldly and insincere. The celebrated Stothard was at this time in the height of his earlier success; he occupied somewhat the same relation to art and society that has been occupied within our own time by Frederic Leighton. He was, like Leighton, an accomplished draughtsman, a man of slight but genuine poetic feeling, an artist who thor