which Mrs. Blake, with due pride as well as gratitude, replied by forwarding him a copy of the Song's of Innocence and Experience, which she described as, in her estimation, especially precious from having been 'Blake's own.' It is a very late example, the water-mark of the paper bearing date 1825; and certainly, as to harmony of colour and delicacy of execution, is not, throughout, equal to some of the early copies. But, as the leaves were evidently numbered by Blake himself, the figures being in the same colour as the engraved writing, it has been here followed,—thanks to the courtesy of its present owner, the Rev. Charles Foster,—in regard to the order of the Songs as reprinted in Vol. II.
A note to Mr. Swinburne's Critical Essay (pp. 81-83), contains the following interesting reminiscence of Mrs. Blake from the lips of Mr. Seymour Kirkup, who, as the reader will remember, was one of the few visitors to Blake's Exhibition in 1809. 'After Blake's death, a gift of £100 was sent to his widow by the Princess Sophia. Mrs. Blake sent back the money with all due thanks, not liking to take or keep what, as it seemed to her, she could dispense with, while many, to whom no chance or choice was given, might have been kept alive by the gift. One complaint only she was ever known to make during her husband's life, and that gently,—"Mr. Blake was so little with her, though in the body they were never separated; for he was incessantly away in Paradise,"—which would not seem to have been far off.'
Mr. Cary, the translator of Dante, also purchased a drawing—Oberon and Titania: and a gentleman in the far north, Mr. James Ferguson, an artist who whites from Tynemouth, took copies of three or four of the Engraved Books. Neither was Mrs. Blake wanting in efforts to help herself, so far as it lay within her own power to do so. She was an excellent saleswoman, and never committed the mistake of showing too many things at one time. Aided by Mr. Tatham, she also filled in, within Blake's lines, the colour of the Engraved
