Originally published in Howitt's Journal (William & Mary Howitt) vol.2 #47 (20 Nov 1847).
Our illustration for this present week is one of the twelve "Inventions," as he called them, by which William Blake illustrated Blair's "Grave." It is the Death of the Good Old Man. The words are these:
Behold him in the eventide of life,
A life well spent, whose early care it was
His riper years should not upbraid his green:
By unperceived degrees he wears away;
Yet, like the sun, seems larger at his setting.
Oh, how he longs
To have his passport signed and be dismissed!
'Tis done? and now he's happy? the glad soul
Has not a wish uucrowned.
A word or two must now be said of William Blake, who, as a poet and artist, was one of the most spiritual-minded and original men that ever lived. Of his poetry, we shall take another opportunity of speaking. We now see him as the man and the artist. He was a friend of Flaxman and Fuseli, and in many respects his genius was kindred to theirs. By profession he was an engraver, but he was too unworldly to make much money by it. "Were I to love money," he said, "I should lose all power of thought. Desire of gain deadens the genius of man. My business is not to gather geld, but to make glorious shapes, expressing god-like sentiments." Thus his days were devoted to engraving, and his evenings to making designs and paintings, which he illustrated by original poems.
At six-and-twenty he married an excellent young woman, of humble connections, by name Katharine Boucher, who made him a noble wife. The beginning of their courtship is curious. He was one evening in company, and was describing the wrongs he had suffered from some capricious lady, when she said to him, "From my soul I pity you." "Do you?" said Blake. "Then I love you:" "and I love you," she responded, and so their courtship commenced.
Blake was a believer in the intercourse of departed spirits with the living, and therefore believed that the spirit of his brother revealed to him the best means of engraving his designs. In this manner he illustrated his "Songs of Innocence and Experience," his "Gates of Paradise," the "Books of Thel and Urizen," which works are now, not only from their extraordinary power and originality, but from their great scarcity, bought up at high prices. He illustrated Young's Night's Thoughts, Blair's Grave, and the Book of Job. This last, as a whole, is the noblest of his works. It was in subjects of this kind that Blake excelled. The grand simplicity of the Scriptures was in accordance with his imagination; and he was too devout to attempt more than a literal embodying of the majestic scenes which they portrayed.
Old age came on; and the little popularity that he had enjoyed was leaving him, and in its stead came poverty; but he was cheerful even in his poverty,—paid his debts, and continued manly and independent to the last. In the year 1828, he was living at No. 3, Fountain-court, Strand. He was then seventy-one, and his only home a garret. Let us look at his death-bed scene, which is as simply sublime as any of his own pictures.
"I glory," said he, "in dying: I have no grief but in leaving you, Katharine; we have lived happy, and we have lived long: we have been ever together, but we shall be divided soon. Why should I fear death? I do not fear it. I have endeavoured to live as Christ commands, and I have sought to worship truly in mine own house, when I was not seen of men. He grew weaker and weaker; he could no longer sit upright, and was laid in his bed with no one to watch over him but his wife and she herself was old and feeble.
He had painted a picture which he called "The Ancient of Days," and it was such a favourite with him, that three days before his death he sat bolstered up in his bed, and tinted it with his choicest colours and in his happiest style. He touched and retouched it, held it at arms' length, and then, putting it from him, exclaimed, "There, that will do! I cannot mend it." He saw his wife in tears—she felt that this was to be the last of his works. "Stay, Kate," cried Blake; "keep just as you are; I will draw your portrait, for you have ever been an angel tome." She obeyed, and the dying artist made a fine likeness.
On his death-bed, he lay chaunting songs, and the verses and music were both the offspring of the moment. He lamented that he could no longer commit these "inspirations," as he called them, to paper. "Kate," said he, "I am a changing man; I used to rise and write down my thoughts, whether it rained, snowed, or shone, and you arose, too, and sate beside me—this can be so no longer."
He died on the 12th of August, 1828.
William Blake was of low stature and slender make, with a high pallid forehead, and eyes large, dark, and expressive. His temper was quick, and when moved, he spoke with an indignant eloquence which commanded respect. His voice, in general, was low and musical, his manners gentle and unassuming; his conversation, a singular mixture of knowledge and enthusiasm; his whole life one of labour and privation.