William Blake, the Man. Charles Gardner

This book is an attempt to trace the mental and spiritual growth of William Blake as disclosed in his works. After meditating on these for some years an image of the man has risen in my mind. This I have tried to present with the aid of such biographical details as are to be found in Gilchrist’s Life. My warm thanks are due to Mr. and Mrs. Sydney Morse for permission to reproduce their beautiful Prayer of the Infant Jesus, and The Burial of Moses. The photographs were taken by Mr. Albert Hester. Also I must thank Mr. J. M. Dent for the two designs from an original and invaluable Job series in his possession. The rest of the illustrations are from the Print Room of the British Museum.

C. G.

William Blake was born on November 28th, 1757, at 28 Broad Street, Carnaby Market, Golden Square.

To-day a large house stands in Broad Street numbered 28, to which is attached a blue disk announcing that William Blake, Poet and Artist, was born there. The house looks old and shabby, and may well have stood a hundred years; but on inquiry one finds that it is a recent erection, and that of Blake’s actual house not one stone has been left upon another. One walks through Broad Street and its neighbouring streets hoping to see at least one group of buildings as Blake saw them. But all has changed, and except for a block of houses on one side of Golden Square, there is nothing to remind one of the sharp transitions that a few years can effect. Even the sounds have changed. From the doors and windows of Number 28 is heard day and night the whir of machinery ceaselessly at work to supply the inhabitants of Pall Mall and St. James’s with electric light. Carnaby Market has vanished, and its glowing colours have reappeared in Berwick Street, where fruits are displayed on public stalls, and where from time to time titled ladies are known to explore in search of a pair of boots, or some other indispensable article of clothing. Great ugly buildings—a brewery, an infirmary given up during the war to Belgian refugees, warehouses—afflict the eye at every turn; and through the open windows of the upper stories the social regenerator may detect the countless bent backs and expert fingers of tailor hands turning out perfect equipments for noblemen all over the country who come to Regent Street, Maddox Street, and Conduit Street to be measured and fitted and tried.

In Blake’s day the transitions in Broad Street were more clearly defined. It had been a fashionable quarter, and still retained a vivid memory of its past glory. The new buildings were shops of a good solid kind, which struck the eye like vivid green paint as they sprang up side by side with the older private houses that time had softened and mellowed.

Blake’s father was a hosier. His name was James, he was married to Catherine, and they had five children, William being the second. James was a dissenter, but, like so many dissenters, he liked such important functions as baptism, marriage,

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