Page:Works of William Blake; poetic, symbolic, and critical (1893) Volume 2.djvu/276

262 the Satanic Luvah, the Naturalistic Satan, the fire of vegetative generation and decay, and so forth.

To a certain degree the character of the mild "Satan" in "Milton," who seemed a brother while he was "murdering the just," was partly suggested by Hayley with his depressing action on Blake's art, afterwards forgotten and forgiven in view of his assistance at the trial for treason. But the furious Satan is Blake's own "Spectre," always States are "combinations of individuals," and another constituent of the complex Satan will be found in Blake's notes to Sir Joshua Reynolds's Discourses. The suggestion is explained in the chapter on I Make's critical opinions where the notes are printed entire. Without them the full meaning of the myth of Satan and Palamabron in the early pages of "Milton" cannot be understood.

In "Milton" it is easy to see that page 4 is an interpolation of late date, and that from p. 25 to the end of Book I. all was engraved after the matter up to the end of p. 24 had been done and laid aside. Much of Book II. is earlier than these pages. The very long page 35 seems to be of their period, and to indicate a desire to force in more matter than in a twelve-book poem would be required on a page, though the subject of it recalls Felpham days, and it was probably written at Felpham before the engraving of the work began. The same may be said of pp. 37, 39 and 40, while the hasty and poor illustration on p. 41 seems also a late engraving. In fact, all the remainder of the poem after 35, except 36, and the illustration on 38, is evidently printed after the change of plan.

In "Milton" Canaan, 1st and 2nd, appear to be used with the same significance as Cainan 1st and 2nd. But it would be unfair to Blake to take this for granted, as in the Bible Canaan, always the fourth son of Ham, or his land, is used in two senses, a broader and a narrower, and cannot be taken as equivalent to Cainan I., son of Enos, and Cainan II., son of Arphaxad, any more than the term Canaanite applied to Simon Zelotes in Matth. vi. 4, and Mark vii. 26, means that he was an Old Testament character.