Our first glimpse of Blake in Society we owe to John Thomas Smith, Keeper of the Prints at the British Museum and frequent visitor at Mrs Mathew's. He says in his _Book for a Rainy Day_: "At Mrs Mathew's most agreeable conversaziones I first met the late William Blake, the artist, to whom she and Mr Flaxman had been truly kind. There I have often heard him read and sing several of his poems. He was listened to by the company with profound silence, and allowed by most of the visitors to possess original and extraordinary merit." That is a pleasant picture. Would that we had been there! But as time went on several things became clear to Blake and likewise to the company, only their interpretation of the situation differed. Mrs Blake proved a touchstone to the other ladies. They of course could see at once that she was not a lady, but that they must be kind to her. She, not having read Mrs Chapone on the improvement of the mind or practised the elegancies, was quite unable to imitate their manners and catch their tone. She was throughout a simple, direct, noble woman set down in the midst of an artificial society, and she was made to suffer accordingly. These things sank deep into Blake, to reappear again as poems in his _Ideas of Good and Evil_. Many times he himself felt the same discomfort both at Mrs Mathew's and later at Mr Hayley's. The words he puts into Mary's (Catherine's) lips he speaks in his own person in lines that he afterwards addressed to Flaxman: "Oh, why was I born with a different face? Why was I not born like this envious race? Why did Heaven adorn me with bountiful hand, And then set me down in an envious land?" Still Blake was "allowed by most of the visitors to possess original and extraordinary merit." The songs he sang were inspired by his reading of the Elizabethans, whom the Blues could appreciate. The _Poetical Sketches_ came within the purview of professed admirers of Ben Jonson and Spenser; and therefore Mrs Mathew could genuinely agree with Flaxman that it was worth helping Blake to get them published. The _Poetical Sketches_ were gathered together and printed at the expense of Flaxman and the Mathews, Mr Mathew himself writing an apologetic _Advertisement_ which would save his skin and lack of discernment if the pieces were unapproved by the great Public. Since it is short, I will quote it entire: