incoherent and incomprehensible may be
found passages of great force, tenderness, and beauty. The concluding
verses of the Preface to "Milton" we quote, as shadowing forth his great
moral purpose, and as revealing also the luminous heart of the cloud
that so often turns to us only its gray and obscure exterior:--

"And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountain green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?

"And did the countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark, Satanic hills?

"Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!

"I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land."

The same lofty aim is elsewhere expressed in the line,--

"I touch the heavens as an instrument to glorify the Lord!"

Our rapidly diminishing space warns us to be brief, and we can only
glance at a few of the remaining incidents of this outwardly calm, yet
inwardly eventful life. In an evil hour--though to it we owe the
"Illustrations to Blair's Grave"--he fell into the hands of Cromek, the
shrewd Yorkshire publisher, and was tenderly entreated, as a dove in the
talons of a kite. The famous letter of Cromek to Blake is one of the
finest examples on record of long-headed worldliness bearing down upon
wrong-headed genius. Though clutching the palm in this case, and in some
others, it is satisfactory to know that Cromek's clever turns led to no
other end than poverty; and nothing worse than poverty had Blake, with
all his simplicity, to encounter. But Blake, in his poverty, had meat to
eat which the wily publisher knew not of.

In the wake of this failure followed another. Blake had been engaged to
make twenty drawings to illustrate Ambrose Philips's "Virgil's
Pastorals" for schoolboys. The publishers saw them, and stood aghast,
declaring he must do no more. The engravers received them with derision,
and pronounced sentence, "This will never do." Encouraged, however, by
the favorable opinion of a few artists who saw them, the publishers
admitted, with an apology, the seventeen which had already been
executed, and gave the remaining three into more docile hands. Of the
two hundred and thirty cuts, the namby-pambyis