And there was Blake--"artist, genius, mystic, or madman?" "Probably all," thought Robinson, one of his warmest admirers; for he had admirers, and some of them were eminent. Coleridge knew him, and talked finely about him. Wordsworth thought he had "in him the elements of poetry much more than either Byron or Scott." Lamb liked his poems. Hazlitt said of them, "They are beautiful, and only too deep for the vulgar." His genius as an artist was praised by Flaxman and Fuseli. His countenance is described as "Socratic," with "an expression of great sweetness;" "when animated he had about him an air of inspiration." Though in great poverty, he was ever a gentleman; with genuine dignity and independence, he scorned all presents. He wrote songs, composed music, and painted, at the same time he pursued his business as an engraver. Among his friends he gave out that his pictures were copied from great works revealed to him, and that his lessons in art were given him by celestial tongues. When he spoke of his "visions," it was in the ordinary unemphatic tones in which we speak of every-day matters. He conversed familiarly with the spirits of Homer, Moses, Pindar, Dante, Shakespeare, Voltaire, Sir William Wallace, Milton, and other illustrious dead, giving repeatedly their very words in their conversations. Sometimes, too, he wrangled with demons. His books (and his MSS. are immense in quantity) are dictations from the spirits. He possessed, it was said, the highest and most exalted powers of the mind, but not the lower. "He could fly, but he could not walk; he had genius and inspiration, without the prosaic balance-wheel of common sense." In poetry, it was observed, he most enjoyed the parts which to others are most obscure. His wife Katherine, good soul, believed in him, and was invaluable to him. She was ever sitting by his side, or assisting him at the press. "You know, dear," she said, believingly, "the first time you saw God was when you were four years old, and he put his head to the window, and set you a-screaming." Both believed that his pictures were veritable visions transferred to the canvas or the plate. Sixteen of his mystical designs are illustrations of "The Gates of Paradise," one hundred of "Jerusalem," and twenty-seven "singular, but powerful drawings" disclose the mysteries of hell. He wrote to Flaxman, addressing him as "Dear Sculptor of Eternity," and saying, in his strange, wild way, "In my brain are studies and chambers filled with books and pictures of old, which I wrote and painted in ages of eternity, before my mortal life; and these works are the delight and study of archangels." A friend said to him, "You express yourself as Socrates used to do. What resemblance do you suppose there is between your spirit and his?" "The same as between our countenances," he answered. After a pause he added, "I was Socrates;" and then, as if correcting himself, said, "a sort of brother. I must have had conversations with him.