“ Advertisement (MS. Book, p. 20) : * An example of the contrary arts is written us in the characters of Milton and Dryden as they are given in a poem signed with the name of Nat Lee, which perhaps he never wrote, and perhaps he wrote in a paroxysm of insanity, in which it is said that IMilton's poem is a rough, unfinished piece, and Dryden has finished it. Now let Dryden's Fall and Milton's Paradise be read, and I will assert that everybody of understanding must cry out shame on such niggling and poco-pen as Dryden has degraded Milton with. ”

“ Blake then added a slightly amended form of the lines beginning ' Who will exchange his own fireside,' and, at the head of the second column, the stanza ' O who would smile on the wintry seas,' the prefixed numbers 2, I, 3, added later, indicating a new but not very happy revision of the arrangement of the three last stanzas. These changes are manifestly for the worse. Blake seems to have lost his grip of the poem, and to have abandoned any further attempt at completion. In version C I print the poem as he left it. ”

“ Blake's MS. note in Reynolds' Discourses, p. [ii] : 'I consider Reynolds' Discourses to the Royal Academy as the Simulations of the Hypocrite who Smiles particularly where he means to Betray. His Praise of Rafael is like the Hysteric Smile of Revenge. His Softness & Candour, the hidden trap, & the poisoned feast. He praises Michael Angelo for Qualities which Michael Angelo abhorr'd : & He blames Rafael for the only Qualities which Rafael Valued. Whether Reynolds knew what he was doing, is nothing to me : the Mischief is just the Same whether a Man does it Ignorantly or Knowingly. ”

“ The MS. Book covers a period of at least twenty years of Blake's life. He first used it for sketches only, and when it had served this purpose, converted it into a note-book for poetry, and, still later, for prose. The sketches include two drawings of the figure of Nebuchadnezzar which Blake afterwards engraved in the undated Marriage of Heaven and Hell, all the designs for The Gates of Paradise (engraved 1793) , most of those for the Visions of the Daughters of Albion (engraved 1793) , and some for the Songs of Experience, Urizen, and America (all engraved 1794) . ”

“ In a letter to the latter dated November 1, 1860, he writes : 'A man (one Gilchrist, who lives next door to Carlyle, and is as near him in other respects as he can manage) wrote to me the other day, saying he was writing a life of Blake, and wanted to see my manuscript by that genius. ”

“ Rubens' light and shadow, or with Rembrandt's, or any thing Venetian or
Flemish. The Venetian and Flemish practice is broken lines, broken masses,
and broken colours. Mr. B.'s practice is unbroken lines, unbroken masses,
and unbroken colours. Their art is to lose form : his art is to find form and
to keep it. His arts are opposite to theirs in all things.' Also Notes in
Blake's copy of Reynolds' Works, p. xcviii : ' To Generalize is to be an Idiot.
To Particularize is the Alone Distinction of Merit. ”

“ If a tear or a smile Will a man beguile, If an amorous delay 5 Clouds a sunshiny day, If the step of a foot Smites the heart to its root,
Tis the marriage ring — 9 Makes each fairy a king.' So a fairy sung. From the leaves I sprung ; He leap'd from the spray ss To flee away ; But in my hat caught, He soon shall be taught. Let him laugh, let him cry, 17 He 's my butterfly ; For I've pulled out the sting Of the marriage ring.
MS. Book, p. 105. Title in pencil. Only in Swinb., pp. 142, 143, and EY,
iii. 96. Blake's first title (afterwards erased) was 'The Marriage Ring.'
Swinb. ”

“ Page:The poetical works of William Blake; a new and verbatim text from the manuscript engraved and letterpress originals (1905) .djvu/226 Rossetti MS, 1 8s the reasoning power in man, and the latter his imagination and emotion, supplies the clue to the meaning of this beautiful but obscure poem. The theme is identical with that of the later Prophetic Books, i.e. the separation of reason and emotion into two contrary and conflicting selves, and their reunion in a state of regained humanity and moral liberty, through self- annihilation achieved by the infinite tolerance and forgiveness of sin. ”

“ Fear to associate with Blake.
This Life is a Warfare against Evils ;
They heal the sick : he casts out devils.
Hayley, Flaxman, & Stothard are also in doubt5
Lest their Virtue should be put to the rout.
One grins, t'other spits, and in corners hides.
And all the Virtuous have shewn their backsides.
MS. Book, p. 37. EY ('Memoir' chap, vii) i. 81, with last couplet, i. 219. ”

“ He's a Blockhead who wants a proof of what he can't
Perceive ;
And he 's a fool who tries to make such a Blockhead
believe.
MS. Book, p. 28. DGR (' CoupL' viii) , WMR, EY ('Coupl.' x) , WBY ('Coupl.' II) .
lxii
Cr—— loves artists as he loves his Meat :
He loves the Art ; but 'tis the art to cheat. ”

“ Dryden, in rhyme, cries ' Milton only plann'd : ' 5 Every Fool shook his bells throughout the land. Tom Cooke cut Hogarth down with his clean graving: Thousands of connoisseurs with joy ran raving. Thus, Hayley on his Toilette seeing the sope, 9 Cries ' Homer is very much improv'd by Pope.' Some say I've given great Provision to my foes, And that now I lead my false friends by the nose. Flaxman and Stothard, smelling a sweet savour, 13 Cry ' Blakefied drawing spoils painter and Engraver ”

“ To make out the parts is the wise man's aim,
But to loose them the Fool makes his foolish Game.
Cp. Advertisement (MS. Book, p. 55) : 'I allow that there is such a thing as
high-finished ignorance, as there may be a fool or a knave in an embroidered
coat ' ; also, Blake's notes to Reynolds' Discourses, p. xlvii : ' I was once
looking over the Prints from Rafael & Michael Angelo in the Library of the
Royal Academy. Moser came to me cfe said, " You should not study these
old Hard, Stiff, & Dry Unfinish'd Works of Art. Stay a little, & I will shew
you what you should Study." ”

“ Blake's Descriptive Catalogue, pp. 63, 64. No. xv, ' Ruth a drawing' : 'If losing and obliterating the outline constitutes a Picture, Mr. B. will never be so foolish as to do one. Such art of losing the outlines is the art of Venice and Flanders ; it loses all character and leaves what some people call "expression" ”

“ All Nature was degraded.
The King dropped a Tear into the Queen's Ear,
And all his Pictures Faded.'
xlvii
1You don't believe — I won't attempt to make ye :
You are asleep — I won't attempt to wake ye.
Sleep on ! Sleep on ! while in your pleasant dreams
Of Reason you may drink of Life's clear streams.
5Reason and Newton, they are quite two things ;
For so the Swallow & the Sparrow sings.
⁠MS. Book, p. 21, the two stanzas separated by a sketch. Printed among 'Couplets and Fragments' (xv) by WMR as a single stanza with title ' Reason,' and by EY (xvii) without title. ”

“ With soft repentant moan I see the break of day.' The correction of ' morning ' to ' Mercy ' conveys a meaning to the poem entirely lacking in the received text. The marks of an erasure in D, G. Rossetti's transcript of ' all that is of any value ' in the MS. Book show that he had at first written some other word— probably the right one— before 'morning.' The word 'Morning' in the title may have misled him into supposing that the same word was repeated in 1. 4 of the song, ' Morning '
and 'Mercy' being somewhat alike in Blake's handwriting.
xliv
Terror in the house does roar ”

“ On pp. 3 and 2 is the fine poem 'My spectre around me night and day,' which, as Swinburne points out, embodies precisely the same theme as Jerusalem (1804) . On p. 12 are the lines 'Each man is in his spectre's power,' and the long poem 'I saw a monk of Charlemaine,' both of which were afterwards engraved as part of Jeru- salem. On p. 21 begins the series of epigrams which may be dated from the end of Blake's stay at Felpham to the year 1809; they relate to his differences with Hayley, Cromek, Stothard, and Hunt, and were obviously written down, animnm solvere, without view to publication. ”

“ Underneath my mirtle lie ;
Like to dung upon the ground,
Underneath my mirtle bound.
9Oft my mirtle sigh'd in vain
To behold my heavy chain :
Oft my father saw us sigh,
And laugh'd at our simplicity.
13So I smote him, & his gore
Stain'd the roots my mirtle bore.
But the time of youth is fled,
And grey hairs are on my head.
⁠MS. Book, p. 111. DGR and WMR omit this version ; Swinb., pp. 137, 138, quotes stanzas i and 3. EY (Notes to the Poetical Sketches, Songs, &c.) iii. 94 ; WBY (Notes) , p. 245. Cp. with this poem the fuller form of ' Infant Sorrow ' (MS. Book x) . ”

“ The earliest dated entry in the MS. Book is the note on p. 10, 'I say I shan't live five years. And if I live one it will be a Wonder. June 1793 ' ; the latest, on p. 59, is an extract ' From Bell's Weekly Messenger, Aug. 4th, 1811.'
A few of the poems in the Rossetti MS., such as 'Fayette,' were left in an unfinished state, while others have elsewhere received Blake's revision. The lines beginning 'Three virgins at the break of day' appear in a more perfect form in the Pickering MS., where I print them with the readings from the MS. Book in footnotes. ”

“ Learn to Design from Rafael, and to
Execute from Rubens I '
p. 126. ' Can any Man be Such a fool as to believe that Rafael & Michael
Angelo were Incapable of the meer Language of Art, & That Such Idiots as
Rubens, Correggio, & Titian knew how to Execute what they could not
Think or Invent.'
p. 167. ' He who Admires Rafael, Must admire Rafael's Execution. He
who does not admire Rafael's Execution, Cannot Admire Rafael.'
xcvi
Learn the laborious stumble of a Fool ! ”

“ EY (i. 208) print as a quatrain : —
'When a man marries a wife. He finds out whether Her elbows and knees are only Glued together.' The lines are certainly so divided in the MS., but the absence of initials in
the second and fourth, as well as the indentation, prove that Blake meant
them to form a couplet. ”

“ ROSSETTI MANUSCRIPT
i
1I told my love, I told my love,
I told her all my heart ;
Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears,
Ah ! she doth depart.
5Soon as she was gone from me,
A traveller came by.
Silently, invisibly —
O! was no deny.
⁠MS. Book, p. 115. Printed by DGR and later add. under the title 'Love's Secret.' Not in Swinb. ⁠All edd. print the first stanza deleted by Blake:—
'Never pain [seek del.] to tell thy love,
Love that never told can be;
For the gentle wind does move
Silently, invisibly.'
All edd. read seek for pain; WBY reads shall for can; all edd. ”

“ Deceit to secresy confin'd, 5 Lawful, cautious & refin'd ; To anything but interest blind. And forges fetters for the mind. MS. Book, written in pencil at top right-hand corners of pp. 107, 106. I print the two stanzas as one poem, their connexion being obvious, though not indicated by Blake himself. Not in DGR, WMR, or Swinb. EY and WBY (the latter with the title ' Freedom and Captivity ') print the first stanza and an altered version of the fragment by which it is immediately followed in the MS. (' There souls of men are bought & sold ') as a single poem. ”

“ Mr Cromek to Mr Stothard
Fortune favours the Brave, old proverbs say ;
But not with Money; that is not the way.
Turn back, turn back ; you travel all in vain ;
Turn through the iron gate down sneaking lane.
MS. Book, p. 31. Swinb. p. 53, EY i. 215, WHY ('Coupl.' 6) without
title. ”

“ Some blush at what others can see no crime in ;
But nobody sees any harm in Rhyming.
MS. Book, p. 65. The rough draft of most of this piece occurs on p. 62, where the lines were composed in the following order, 5-8, 3, 4, 15-18, which Blake, interlineating ll. 1 and 1 between ll. 8 and 9 (or 4, 5 in the original draft) , afterwards renumbered 1-12. Lines 13 and 14 are also an inter-lineation in the first draft. The verses were then transcribed on p. 65, with the couplet ll. 11, 12, added in a slightly changed form, from the first draft on p. 63, and the addition of 11. 19-22. ”

“ Cp. with this and other epigrams in the MS. Book on Flaxman and Hayley the verses written some eight years earlier : these interesting lines, which have not been previously printed, I owe to the courtesy of Mr. A. G. B. Russell.
' To my Dearest Friend John Flaxman these Lines:
I bless thee, O Father of Heaven and Earth ! ”

“ Great inventors, in all ages, knew this.' Also Descriptive Catalogue, p. 54 : 'These pictures, among numerous others painted for experiment, were the result of temptations and perturbations, labouring to destroy Imaginative power, by means of that infernal machine called Chiaro Oscuro, in the hands of Venetian and Flemish Demons, whose enmity to the Painter himself, and to all Artists who study in the Florentine and Roman Schools, may be removed by an exhibition and exposure of their vile tricks.'
cxix
Great Men and Fools do often me inspire ”

“ Mr. Swinburne (pp. 278, 279) prints with commentary the two rejected stanzas 'Thou hast parted from my side,' and 'When my love did first begin,' and stanzas 8-14, transposing the position of 11 and 12, which he thinks Blake must have so numbered 'by some evident slip of mind or pen.' In vol. ii, pp. 37-41, Messrs. Ellis and Yeats print fourteen stanzas with S3'mbolic 'interpretation.' They conclude with the note: 'The text of the poem here is reprinted from the Aldine edition, the present editors not having seen the MS.' ”

“ Only in WMR (' Coupl.' xix) with title ' Blake's Friends.'
9 atrocious] most wicked MS. Book 1st rdg. del.⁠12 man] one WMR.⁠11, 12] Cp. Notes to Reynolds' Discourses, p. 5 : 'Reynolds' Opinion was That Genius May be Taught, & that all Pretence to Inspiration is a Lie & a Deceit, to say the least of it. For if it is a Deceit the whole Bible is Madness. This Opinion originates in the Greeks calling the Muse [s] Daughters of Memory.
'The Enquiry in England is not whether a Man has Talents & Genius! ”

“ If you play a Game of Chance, Know, before you begin,
If you are benevolent You will never win.
⁠MS. Book, p. 47. ⁠Only in EY i. 224, printed as a quatrain.
cxi
The only Man that e'er I knew
Who did not make me almost spew
Was Fuseli: he was both Turk and Jew —
And so, dear Christian Friends, how do you do?
⁠MS. Book, p. 50. These hnes are written over an erasure, with the title 'William Cowper, Esqre.' which probably belonged to the deleted passage. WMR ('Epig.' xv) with title 'Fuseli,' EY i. 225. ”