When Blake was twenty-six years of age, he married Catherine Boutcher, who lived near his father's house, and was noticed by Blake for the whiteness of her hands, the brightness of her eyes, and a slim and handsome shape, corresponding with his own notions of sylphs and naiads. His marriage proved a mutually happy one. She had not learned to write, but Blake instructed his "beloved," as he most frequently called her, and allowed her till the last moments of his practice to take off his proof impressions and print his works, which she did most carefully, and ever delighted in the task; nay, she became a draughtswoman. And as a convincing proof that she and her husband were born for each other's comfort, she not only cheerfully entered into his views, but, what is curious, possessed a similar power of imbibing ideas, and produced drawings equally original, and in some respects, interesting. She almost rivalled him in all things, save in the power of seeing visions of any individual living or dead, whenever he chose to see them. Yet, she joined him in other extravagances. The painter and Mrs. Blake one day received a guest in their arbour in a state of nakedness, to whom they calmly declared that they were Adam and Eve! In his thirtieth year, Blake annotated the Aphorisms of Lavater, and illustrated his own poems, _The Songs of Innocence and of Experience_. These, with the illustrations to _Blair's Grave_, to the _Book of Job_, and the plate of the _Canterbury Pilgrimage_--are the works of Blake by which he is best known. He was his own printer and publisher. His deceased brother and pupil, Robert Blake, disclosed to him in a dream by what manner of process his purpose could be brought to pass and the last half-crown he possessed was spent by Mrs. Blake to procure the materials. Their manner of manipulation was revealed to him by "Joseph, the sacred carpenter." One of the most touching and popular of _The Songs of Innocence_ was "The Chimney Sweeper:" "When my mother died I was very young And my father sold me while yet my tongue Could scarcely cry--weep! weep! weep! So your chimneys I clean and in soot I sleep. "There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head That curl'd like a lamb's back, was shaved; so I said, Hush, Tom, never mind it, for when your head's bare, You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair. "And so he was quiet--and on that very night, As Tommy was sleeping, he had such a sight; There thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack, Were all of them locked up in coffins of black; "And by came an Angel, who had a bright key, He opened the coffins and set them all free; Then down a green vale, leaping, laughing they run, And wash in a river, and shine like the sun.