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 240 being a Baptist, had become an 'angel' of the Irvingite Church. He is supposed to have destroyed the whole of the manuscripts and drawings in his possession on account of religious scruples; and in the life of Calvert by his son we read: 'Edward Calvert, fearing some fatal dénouement, went to Tatham and implored him to reconsider the matter and spare the good man's precious work; notwithstanding which, blocks, plates, drawings, and MSS., I understand, were destroyed.'

Such is the received story, but is it strictly true? Did Tatham really destroy these manuscripts for religious reasons, or did he keep them and surreptitiously sell them for reasons of quite another kind? In the Rossetti Papers there is a letter from Tatham to Mr. W. M. Rossetti, dated Nov. 6, 1862, in which he says: 'I have sold Mr. Blake's works for thirty years'; and a footnote to Dr. Garnett's monograph on Blake in the The Portfolio of 1895 relates a visit from Tatham which took place about 1860. Dr. Garnett told me that Tatham had said, without giving any explanation, that he had destroyed some of Blake's