Page:William Blake (Symons).djvu/251

 Rh of genius; whilst the latter is but a piece of smooth, tame mechanism.'

Blake lived at South Molton Street for seventeen years. In 1821, 'on his landlord's leaving off business, and retiring to France,' says Linnell, he removed to Fountain Court, in the Strand, where he took the first floor of 'a private house kept by Mr. Banes, whose wife was a sister of Mrs. Blake.' Linnell tells us that he was at this time 'in want of employment,' and, he says, 'before I knew his distress he had sold all his collection of old prints to Messrs. Colnaghi and Co.' Through Linnell's efforts, a donation of £25 was about the same time sent to him from the Royal Academy.

Fountain Court (the name is still perpetuated on a metal slab) was called so until 1883, when the name was changed to Southampton Buildings. It has all been pulled down and rebuilt, but I remember it fifteen years ago, when there were lodging-houses in it, by the side of the stage-door of Terry's Theatre. It was a narrow slit between the Strand and the river, and, when I knew it, was dark and comfortless, a blind alley. Gilchrist describes the two rooms on the