Blake, in these mixed elements, and the extraordinary suggestiveness of his work and the freedom of his thought, seems nearer to us than others of his contemporaries. In his sense of the decorative treatment of the page, too, his work bears upon our purpose. In writing with his own hand and in his own character the text of his poems, he gained the great advantage which has been spoken of--of harmony between text and illustration. They become a harmonious whole, in complete relation. His woodcuts to Phillip's "Pastoral," though perhaps rough in themselves, show what a sense of colour he could convey, and of the effective use of white line. [Illustration: WILLIAM BLAKE. WOODCUT FROM PHILLIP'S "PASTORAL."] [Sidenote: EDWARD CALVERT.] Among the later friends and disciples of Blake, a kindred spirit must have been Edward Calvert, whose book illustrations are also decorations; the masses of black and white being effectively distributed, and they are full of poetic feeling, imagination, and sense of colour. I am indebted for the first knowledge of them to Mr. William Blake Richmond, whose father, Mr. George Richmond, was a friend of William Blake and Calvert, as well as of John Linnell and of Samuel Palmer, who carried on the traditions of this English poetic school to our own times; especially the latter, whose imaginative drawings--glowing sunsets over remote hill-tops, romantic landscapes, and pastoral sentiment--were marked features in the room of the Old Water Colour Society, up to his death in 1881. His etched illustrations to his edition of "The Eclogues of Virgil," are a fine series of beautifully designed and poetically conceived landscapes; but they are strictly a series of pictures printed separately from the text. Palmer himself, in the account of the work given by his son, when he was planning the work, wished that William Blake had been alive to have designed his woodcut headings to the "Eclogues."[3] [3] A memoir of Edward Calvert has since been published by his son, fully illustrated, and giving the little engravings just spoken of. They were engraved by Calvert himself, it appears, and I am indebted to his son, Mr. John Calvert, for permission to print them here. [Sidenote: THOMAS BEWICK.]