Page:Works of William Blake; poetic, symbolic, and critical (1893) Volume 2.djvu/275

 Rh their date. Thus, in 1803, he made a poem about these enemies. They included Titian, Rubens, and Hayley, as well as Sir Joshua Reynolds, all viewed as states and all included in "the state called Satan." Then in 1808 he added Leigh Hunt to them, and referred to the poem written in 1803 as being {by anticipation, though he does not think it necessary to explain this) an extirpation of the nest of villains of whom Leigh Hunt was one.

The exact point in the poem at which the idea of twelve books was abandoned must be left to conjecture, until more biographical material comes to light. The letter printed here after the postscript to the "Memoir" is of some help in the matter.

At the end of the facsimile some extra pages will be found which are reproduced from tracings of a copy in America in the Lennox Library. These were made some years ago for Mr. Muir, the able and enthusiastic facsimilist, some of whose reproductions in colour of Blake's works, already becoming scarce, are still in the hands of the publishers of the present work. We are indebted to Mr. Muir's courtesy for their appearance here. They are of great help for the explanations they contain of some of the symbols, — notably the harrow of Palamabron (on p. 3), called the Harrow of Shaddai (or the "Almighty"), and its linking together with the Plough of Rintrah on the first line of that page/ Fore here may be found the hint of a companion incident or vision, nowhere related in full? and only alluded ti in "Jerusalem," p. 93, l. 10.

The plough is one of the scarce symbols most difficult to trace in its fourfold meaning, as a comparison of other places where it is introduced will show. For example, Satan (reason) drives the team in Jerusalem," p. 33, l. 9. A physical symbol is suggested in "Jerusalem," p. 34, ll1. 12, 13, and the same occurs in "Vala" I, 124. The plough is distinguished from the harrow in tf Jerusalem," p. 46, l. 14 ; in p. 55, l. 39 (line 38 is mis-numbered 33), and ll. 54, 67 on the same page. On p. 57, ll. 2, 13, 14, 15 the symbol recurs, and in p. 63, l. 3, and p. 64, l. 30. These references are elsewhere referred to, but are collected here as important to "Milton," and the connection between Rintrah as the Reprobate in whom Ore lived again,