x PREFATORY MEMOIR.
of Blake to admiration and reverence, withou
slurring over those other considerations which
need to be plainly and fully set forth if we would
obtain any real idea of the man as he was,--of his
total unlikeness to his contemporaries, of his
amazing genius and noble performances in two
arts, of the height by which he transcended other
men, and the incapacity which he always evinced
for performing at all what others accomplish easily.
He could do vactly more than they, but he could
eldore do the like. By some unknown process,
he had soared to the top of a cloud-capped Alp
while they were.crouching in the valley: but to
reach a middle station on the mountain was what
they could readily manage step by step, while
Blake found that ordinary achievement impracti-
cable. He could not and he would not do it: the'
want of will, or rather the utter alienation of will,
the resolve to soar (which was natural to him),
and not to walk (which was unnatural and re-
pulsive), constituted, or counted in stead of, an
actual want of power. CoZd Blake think, and
embody his thoughts, like other men ? There are
instances in which he both could do so, and has
done it: but certain it is, regarding him in his
most characteristic moods, that mostly he would
not.. aud, in the case of so spacious, daring, and
intuitive a mind, so vivid, uncompromising, ex-
clusive, and peremptory a character, the aversion,
when it reached a certain height, amounted to
incapability. For "aversion" we might perhaps
substitute the word "perversity-." Blake was
the most perverse of mortals, except to his own
ideal, his own inspiration. To these he was loyal
beyond praise, and beyond words: to aught else
