charming sister[1] with a holy kiss, and I with old Neptune bestow my embraces there also for yourself. I commend you to the protection of your Guard,[2] and am, dear sir, yours most cordially and faithfully.
15.
To Thomas Butts.
Felpham, 2nd October 1800.
Friend of Religion and Order,—I thank you for your very beautiful and encouraging verses, which I account a crown of laurels, and I also thank you for your reprehension of follies by me fostered. Your prediction will, I hope, be fulfilled in me, and in future I am the determined advocate of religion and humility—the two bands of society. Having been so full of the business of settling the sticks and feathers of my nest, I have not got any forwarder with "The Three Maries"[3] or with any other of your commissions; but hope, now I have commenced a new life of industry, to do credit to that new life by improved works. Receive from me
- ↑ Catherine.
- ↑ An allusion to the opening paragraph of the letter, which, commenting upon Blake's apostrophe: "Dear friend of my angels," states the writer's uncertainty as to the nature of the angels.—" On the whole ... I have considered you more immediately under the protection of the black-guard."
- ↑ See note 3, iii. p. 118.
