In 1789 his Songs of Innocence appeared, poems on the happiness of childhood, each having its accompanying scene interwoven with the song. In 1794 this was followed by Songs of Experience. It was about this time in a vision his brother Robert communicated to him the secret of a new process of engraving on copper. Blake ever kept the secret, and no one has produced anything to equal in delicacy and elegance the little prints which he issued, some four inches high by three inches wide. The unfortunate poverty of Blake confined him to copper plates of small dimensions, and his works are limited to the cabinet and the portfolio of the collector.
Blake illustrated Young's "Night Thoughts," to the delight of Flaxman, but some of the designs alarmed the fastidious readers of the good doctor, who were somewhat startled to find trembling nudities in the margin of that pious work. Flaxman introduced Blake to Hayley, the poet, and we reproduce a medallion portrait which Blake lovingly engraved in stipple of the young poet. (Opposite p. 196.)
Blake's cottage at Felpham, near Bognor, gave him three of the happiest years of his life. By the seashore he dreamed dreams and conjured up visions the like of which no man has yet committed to paper. His allegorical pictures of The Spiritual Form of Pitt guiding Behemoth and the Spiritual Form of Nelson guiding Leviathan are compositions of extraordinary power and weirdly compelling interest. The former is in the National Gallery.
He conceived a hundred illustrations to Dante's Divina Commedia. This was during 1824-1826, when
