Page:William Blake (Symons).djvu/61

 Rh taken by the Prophetic Books. It has been suggested that some of Blake's mystical names, and his 'fiend in a cloud,' came from Ossian; and Ossian is very evident in the metrical prose of such pieces as 'Samson,' and even in some of the imagery ('Their helmed youth and aged warriors in dust together lie, and Desolation spreads his wings over the land of Palestine'). But the influence of Chatterton seems not less evident, an influence which could hardly have found its way to Blake before the year 1777. In the fifth chapter of the fantastic Island in the Moon (probably written about 1784) there is a long discussion on Chatterton, while in the seventh chapter he is again discussed in company with Homer, Shakespeare, and Milton. As late as 1826 Blake wrote on the margin of Wordsworth's preface to the Lyrical Ballads: 'I believe both Macpherson and Chatterton that what they say is ancient is so,' and on another page, 'I own myself an admirer of Ossian equally with any poet whatever, of Rowley and Chatterton also.' Whether it be influence or affinity, it is hard to say, but if the 'Mad Song' of Blake