REMINISCENCES OF BLAKE
Wilkinson, 'The Songs of Innocence,' other works &c already mentioned, to wh. I have to add the first two books of Young's Night Thoughts, & Allan Cumberland's Life of him, I now refer, & will confine myself to the memorandums I took of his conversation. I . . . for the first time dined in his company at the Aders'. . . .[1] He was then 68 years of age. He had a broad, pale fece, a large full eye with a benignant expression; at the same time a look of languor except when excited, & then he had an air of inspiration, but not such as without a previous acquaintance with him, or attending to what he said, would suggest the notion that he was insane. There was nothing wild about his look & though very ready to be drawn out to the assertion of his favourite ideas, yet with no warmth as if he wanted to make proselytes. Indeed one of the peculiar features of his scheme as far as it was consistent was indifference & a very extraordinary degree of tolerance & satisfaction with what had taken place, a sort of pious & humble optimism, not the scornful optimism of Candide. But at the same time that he was very ready to praise he seemed incapable of envy, as he was of discontent. He warmly praised some composition of Mrs Aders[2] . . . .
On the 17th I called on him in his house in Fountains Court in the Strand. The interview was a short one, & what I saw was more remarkable than what I heard. He was at work engraving in a small bedroom, light & looking out on a mean yard—everythg. in the room squalid, & indicating poverty except himself. And there was a natural gentility about, & an insensibility to the seeming poverty which quite removed the impression. Besides, his linen was clean, his hand white & his air quite unembarrassed when he begged me to sit down, as if he were in a palace. There was but one chair in the room
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