warranted, and gave him his dues, dwelling with gratitude on the fact that Hayley was at least a true "corporeal friend." The stress and strain connected with the trial had a bad effect on Blake's highly-sensitive nerves, and is painfully apparent in the writing of the time. The time at Felpham, and the period that succeeded on his return to London, have much light shed on them by the Note-book. The MS. book to which reference has been made was a sort of safety valve, which Blake kept ever at his elbow, and in which he wrote long dissertations on Art and Religion--the "Public Address," the "Vision of the Last Judgment," and many of the poems published under the title (which heads the Note-book itself) of "Ideas of Good and Evil." Along with, and interspersed with these connected and finished utterances, are splenetic epigrams, rude rather than humorous caricature couplets, little scraps of unconsidered verse written to illustrate some incident of the day, and drawings here, there, and everywhere. The MS. Note-book is a very intimate part of Blake. On its first page Messrs. Ellis and Yeats quote the inscription written by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who possessed it till his death: "I purchased this original MS. of Palmer, an attendant at the Antique Gallery of the British Museum, on the 30th April, 1849. Palmer knew Blake personally, and it was from the artist's wife that he had the present MS., which he sold me for 10_s._ Among the sketches are one or two profiles of Blake himself." Unfortunately it has now passed by purchase into the possession of a collector at Boston, U.S.A. I say unfortunately, because our own National Museum should have secured such a treasure, but its present owner courteously lent it for a prolonged period to Messrs. Ellis and Yeats, who have embodied the main part of it in their exhaustive and most interesting work. The Note-book was deeply studied by Gilchrist, and was one of Rossetti's dearest treasures, leaving its impress on his mind and work. The work Blake did during the Felpham period included the designs and engraving of animals to Hayley's "Ballads," some of the engravings for "The Life of Cowper," and, above all, the writing of two long prophetic books, the "Milton" and the "Jerusalem," which, however, he did not finish till he had returned to London. CHAPTER III THE PROCESSION OF THE PILGRIMS