Look, too, on those splendid illustrations of the Gothic poets by the eccentric, or, as Evelyn would call him, the half-mad Fuseli. Look on the wild pencillings of Blake, another poet painter, and you will be assured that they were ghost-seers. An intimate friend of Blake, himself a reader of the stars, has told me the strangest tales of his visions. In one of his reveries he witnessed the whole ceremony of a fairy’s funeral, which he peopled with mourners and mutes, and described with high poetic beauty. He was engaged, in one of these moods, in painting King Edward I., who was sitting to him for his picture. While they were conversing, Wallace suddenly presented himself on the field, and by this uncourteous intrusion marred the studies of the painter for that day. EV. A most unhappy comparison, Astrophel. The difference between Shakspere and Blake is _antipodean_. Blake was a visionary, and thought his fancies real—he was mad. Shakspere was a philosopher, and knew all his fancy was but imagination, however real might be the facts he wrought from. Ben Jonson told Drummond that he lay awake one whole night, gazing in mute admiration on his great toe; surrounding which, in miniature, appeared the inhabitants of Rome, and Carthage, and Tartary, and Turkey; but he also was aware of the illusion. CAST. My most gracious smile is yours, Evelyn, for this honour to my sweet Shakspere. I pray you accord the same to the spectral visions of a poet, in whose beautiful Aminta each line is a breath of inspiration—the day-dreams of the elegant Tasso. Listen.