Forms, elemental, electric, indicative of unknown forces and conditions of consciousness start from the pages. As in "Jerusalem," every page of writing is adorned, but the colour adds the necessary charm to the forceful designs. Plate 15 represents a muscular male--Michael Angelesque in its modelling--leaping upon a rock and seizing by the shoulders a languid old man. The young man is Milton, starting on his journey "to annihilate the selfhood of deceit and false forgiveness." The old man is Albion seated on the Rock of Ages, his legs immersed in the sea of Time and Space, his nerveless arms supported on the tables of the Law. Above them both, on a semi-circular plane of light, the Eternals are seen, passing in procession in a kind of ecstatic choric dance. Three play on instruments of music, while two others toss balls of light in joyous abandon. The rhythmic character of these dancers, their robes fetched out like clouds upon the wind, and the colour translucent and vivid as that of a border of April flowers, makes one think of the fair works with which Luca della Robbia has set the dark old streets of Florence, of which, as some one has poetically said, they would seem to be the "wall-flowers." The two other specially noteworthy plates are full-page designs, entitled respectively William and Robert. It is evident that they are the spiritual likenesses of Blake and that younger brother with whom he always maintained such close communion. A burning star emitting fountains of light falls beside each brother, while their bodies thrown backwards, and their faces skywards, seem to indicate the abandon of themselves to spiritual influences. The senses are not the limits put upon their perceptions. The Infinite spirit, the "Poetic Genius," thrills through their entire beings as the sunshine through a dewdrop. Let not the profane smile when they learn that the star is in reality Milton! For it is written, "so Milton's shadow fell Precipitant loud thundering into the sea of Time and Space." Then first I saw him in the zenith as a falling star, Descending perpendicular, swift as the swallow or swift, And on my left foot falling on the tarsus, enter'd there. So there can be no doubt as to what the star symbolizes in the design. The articulation, the tense nervous drawing of these two figures is remarkable, even for Blake, and the light throbbing with rainbow hues, and the intense darkness, against which it is contrasted, are boldly handled, while the weird colouring of the dead Robert, whose skin has the tone and lustre of gun metal, conduce to make these two designs of great imaginative appeal. Space has only allowed me to call attention to the most remarkable of the plates in this and the other "Prophetic Books," but enough has been said to indicate the extraordinary range of their expression. [Illustration: COLOUR-PRINTED PLATE FROM "MILTON: A POEM IN TWO BOOKS." 1804]