Page:Life of William Blake, Gilchrist.djvu/366

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CHAPTER XXVIII.

JOHN VARLEY AND THE VISIONARY HEADS. 1818—1820.
[ÆT. 61—63.]

I have mentioned John Varley as one in the new circle to which Mr. Linnell introduced Blake. Under Varley's roof, Linnell had lived, for a year, as pupil; with William Hunt, a since famous name, as comrade.

John Varley, one of the founders of the New School of Water-Colour Painting, a landscape designer of much delicacy and grace, was otherwise a remarkable man, of very pronounced character and eccentricities; a professional Astrologer in the nineteenth century, among other things, and a sincere one; earnestly practising judicial Astrology as an Art, and taking his regular fees of those who consulted him. He was the author of more than one memorable nativity and prediction;