21. His latest critic says of Blake: “His detachment from the ordinary currents of practical thought left to his mind an unspoiled and delightful simplicity which has perhaps never been matched in English poetry.” Simplicity-- the perfect simplicity of a child-- beautiful simplicity-- simple and childlike beauty,-- such is the chief note of the poetry of Blake. “Where he is successful, his work has the fresh perfume and perfect grace of a flower.” The most remarkable point about Blake is that, while living in an age when the poetry of Pope-- and that alone-- was everywhere paramount, his poems show not the smallest trace of Pope’s influence, but are absolutely original. His work, in fact, seems to be the first bright streak of the golden dawn that heralded the approach of the full and splendid daylight of the poetry of Wordsworth and Coleridge, of Shelley and Byron. His best-known poems are those from the ‘Songs of Innocence’-- such as +Piping down the valleys wild+; +The Lamb+; +The Tiger+, and others. Perhaps the most remarkable element in Blake’s poetry is the sweetness and naturalness of the rhythm. It seems careless, but it is always beautiful; it grows, it is not made; it is like a wild field-flower thrown up by Nature in a pleasant green field. Such are the rhythms in the poem entitled +Night+:-- “The sun descending in the west, The evening star does shine; The birds are silent in their nest, And I must seek for mine. The moon, like a flower In heaven’s high bower, With silent delight Sits and smiles on the night. “Farewell, green fields and happy grove, Where flocks have ta’en delight; Where lambs have nibbled, silent move The feet of angels bright: Unseen they pour blessing, And joy without ceasing, On each bud and blossom, On each sleeping bosom.” CHAPTER VIII. THE FIRST HALF OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 1. +New Ideas.+-- The end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century are alike remarkable for the new powers, new ideas, and new life thrown into society. The coming up of a high flood-tide of new forces seems to coincide with the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789, when the overthrow of the Bastille marked the downfall of the old ways of thinking and acting, and announced to the world of Europe and America that the old _régime_-- the ancient mode of governing-- was over. Wordsworth, then a lad of nineteen, was excited by the event almost beyond the bounds of self-control. He says in his “Excursion”-- “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very Heaven!”