my conviction that all is come from the spiritual world for good and not for evil.
Give me your advice in my perilous adventure. Burn what I have peevishly written about any friend. I have been very much degraded and injuriously treated; but if it all arise from my own fault, I ought to blame myself,
O why was I born with a different face?
Why was I not born like the rest of my race?
When I look, each one starts; when I speak, I offend;
Then I'm silent and passive, and lose every friend.
Then my verse I dishonour, my pictures despise;
My person degrade, and my temper chastise;
And the pen is my terror, the pencil my shame;
All my talents I bury, and dead is my fame.
I am either too low or too highly priz'd;
When elate I am envied, when meek I'm despised.
The sequel forcibly reminds us we are here in the times of 'the good old king,' not in those of Victoria. The soldier and 'his mate' made their charge on oath before a magistrate, and Blake had to stand his trial for high treason at the next Quarter Sessions.
Hayley, full of zeal for the artist, whose extraordinary entanglement 'pressed not a little on his mind and heart,' engaged as defendant's counsel, his friend, Samuel Rose, another name familiar to the reader of Cowper's correspondence as that of the enthusiastic young Scotchman, who, at twenty-two, had introduced himself to the shy recluse, winning a large share of the poet's regard and favour. Now in his thirtieth year, he had been about eight years at the
