In all the plates we find this strange accent laid on Nature, her awareness, her sombre fateful moods, her listening, and the long patience of her endless waiting. The oft-repeated motive of the shepherding of flocks is treated in no glib or merely idyllic manner, but has the sort of holy peace that befits that most ancient and most gentle of all the occupations of men. An appreciative critic has said anent these woodcuts, that they prove conclusively that "amid all drawbacks there exists a power in the work of the man of genius which no one but himself can utter fully." The truth of this remark must be felt by all Blake's admirers with double force and poignancy when they think regretfully of Blair's "Grave," wherein the designs, being engraved by another hand than the father of them, have lost some indefinable note of character belonging to Blake's personality. And now we come to the greatest series of engravings on a religious subject that have appeared since Albrecht Duerer. The inventions to "Job" are the crown of glorious achievement on the strenuous and austere life of the artist-poet, and of all his work there is nothing so perfect in the dramatic development of the subject, the broad, forceful yet delicate execution, and the poetic sensibility which animates the entire series. It appears that Blake's lifelong friend, Mr. Butts, bought from him a series of twenty-one water-colour drawings or "Inventions" from the Book of Job. (This set of drawings, be it remarked, together with twenty-two brilliant proof impressions on India paper of the engravings afterwards made from them, were sold to Mr. Quaritch on March 31st, 1903, at the sale of the Crewe collection of Blake's works, for the sum of L5,600.)