and paint-pot to label every new
development, and fancy that in so doing they have abundantly answered
every reasonable inquiry concerning cause, character, and consequence.

When William Blake flashed across the path of English polite society,
society was confounded. It had never had to do with such an apparition
before, and was at its wits' end. But some Daniel was found wise enough
to come to judgment, and pronounce the poet-painter mad; whereupon
society at once composed itself, and went on its way rejoicing.

There are a few persons, however, who are not disposed to let this
verdict stand unchallenged. Mr. Arthur Gilchrist, late a barrister of
the Middle Temple, a man, therefore, who must have been accustomed to
weigh evidence, and who would not have been likely to decide upon
insufficient grounds, wrote a life of Mr. Blake, in which he strenuously
and ably opposed the theory of insanity. From this book, chiefly, we
propose to lay before our readers a slight sketch of the life of a man
who, whether sane or insane, was one of the most remarkable productions
of his own or of any age.

One word, in the beginning, regarding the book before us. The death of
its author, while as yet but seven chapters of his work had been
printed, would preclude severe criticism, even if the spirit and purpose
with which he entered upon his undertaking, and which he sustained to
its close, did not dispose us to look leniently upon imperfections of
detail. Possessing that first requisite of a biographer, thorough
sympathy with his subject, he did not fall into the opposite error of
indiscriminate panegyric. Looking at life from the standpoint of the
"madman," he saw how fancies could not only appear, but be, facts; and
then, crossing over, he looked at the madman from the world's
standpoint, and saw how these soul-born facts could seem not merely
fancies, but the wild vagaries of a crazed brain. For the warmth with
which he espoused an unpopular cause, for the skill with which he set
facts in their true light, for the ability which he brought to the
defence of a man whom the world had agreed to condemn, for the noble
persistence with which he forced attention to genius that had hitherto
received little but neglect, we cannot too earnestly express our
gratitude. But the greater our admiration of material excellence, the
greater is our regret for superficial defects. The continued oversight
of the author would doubtless have removed many