ake's claim to the title of poet, the setting in which
they were given to the world proved that he was also something more. For
the full development of his artistic powers we have to wait till a later
date, but here at least he exhibits a just and original understanding of
the sources of decorative beauty. Each page of these poems is a study of
design, full of invention, and often wrought with the utmost delicacy of
workmanship. The artist retained to the end this feeling for decorative
effect; but as time went on, he considerably enlarged the imaginative
scope of his work, and decoration then became the condition rather than
the aim of his labour.

Notwithstanding the distinct and precious qualities of this volume, it
attracted but slight attention, a fact perhaps not very wonderful, when
the system of publication is taken into account. Blake, however,
proceeded with other work of the same kind. The same year he published
_The Book of Thel_, more decidedly mystic in its poetry, but scarcely
less beautiful as a piece of illumination; _The Marriage of Heaven and
Hell_ followed in 1790; and in 1793 there are added _The Gates of
Paradise_, _The Vision of the Daughters of Albion_, and some other
"Prophetic Books." It becomes abundantly clear on reaching this point in
his career that Blake's utterances cannot be judged by ordinary rules.
The _Songs of Experience_, put forth in 1794 as a companion to the
earlier _Songs of Innocence_, are for the most part intelligible and
coherent, but in these intervening works of prophecy, as they were
called by the author, we get the first public expression of that phase
of his character and of his genius upon which a charge of insanity has
been founded. The question whether Blake was or was not mad seems likely
to remain in dispute, but there can be no doubt whatever that he was at
different periods of his life under the influence of illusions for which
there are no outward facts to account, and that much of what he wrote is
so far wanting in the quality of sanity as to be without a logical
coherence. On the other hand, it is equally clear that no madness
imputed to Blake could equal that which would be involved in the
rejection of his work on this ground. The greatness of Blake's mind is
even better established than its frailty, and in considering the work
that he has left we must remember that it is by the sublimity of his
genius, and not by any mental defect, that he is most clearly
di