The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 78, April, 1864: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
History
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 78, April, 1864: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
We have not space to give a description, scarcely even a catalogue, of
Blake's numerous works. Wild, fragmentary, gorgeous dreams they are,
tangled in with strange allegoric words and designs, that throb with
their prisoned vitality. The energy, the might, the intensity of his
lines and figures it is impossible for words to convey. It is power in
the fiercest, most eager action,--fire and passion, the madness and the
stupor of despair, the frenzy of desire, the lurid depths of woe, that
thrill and rivet you even in the comparatively lifeless rendering of
this book. The mere titles of the poems give but a slight clue to their
character. Ideas are upheaved in a tossing surge of words. It is a
mystic, but lovely Utopia, into which "The Gates of Paradise" open. The
practical name of "America" very faintly foreshadows the Ossianic Titans
that glide across its pages, or the tricksy phantoms, the headlong
spectres, the tongues of flame, the folds and fangs of symbolic
serpents, that writhe and leap and dart and riot there. With a poem
named "Europe," we should scarcely expect for a frontispiece the Ancient
of Days, in unapproached grandeur, setting his "compass upon the face of
the Earth,"--a vision revealed to the designer at the top of his own
staircase.
Small favor and small notice these works secured from the public, which
found more edification in the drunken courtship and brutal squabbles of
"the First Gentleman of Europe" than in Songs of Innocence or Sculptures
for Eternity. The poet's own friends constituted his public, and
patronized him to the extent of their power. The volume of Songs he sold
for thirty shillings and two guineas. Afterwards, with the delicate and
loving design of helping the artist, who would receive help in no other
way, five and even ten guineas were paid, for which sum he could hardly
do enough, finishing off each picture like a miniature. One solitary
patron he had, Mr. Thomas Butts, who, buying his pictures for thirty
years, and turning his own house into "a perfect Blake Gallery, often
supplied the painter with his sole means of subsistence." May he have
his reward! Most pathetic is an anecdote related by Mr. H.C. Robinson,
who found himself one morning sole visitor at an Exhibition which Blake
had opened, on his own account, at his brother James's house. In view of
the fact that he had bought four copies of the Descriptive Catalogue,
Mr. Robinson inquired of James, the custodian, if he might not come
again free. "Oh, yes! _free as long an you live_!" was the reply of the
humble hosier, overjoyed at having so munificent a visitor, or a visitor
at all.
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