designing, he had often an aversion to resuming his graver, or to being troubled about money matters. It put him out very much when Mrs. Blake referred to the financial topic, or found herself constrained to announce, 'The money is going, Mr, Blake.' 'Oh, d—— the money!' he would shout; it's always the money!' Her method of hinting at the odious subject became, in consequence, a very quiet and expressive one. She would set before him at dinner just what there was in the house, without any comment until, finally, the empty platter had to make its appearance: which hard fact effectually reminded him it was time to go to his engraving for a while. At that, when fully embarked again, he was not unhappy; work being his natural element.
As every slightest anecdote of Blake has its degree of personal value, I may give the following one. A historical painter of the class endlessly industrious yet for ever unknown, was one day pointing out to a visitor some favourite specimen of hopeless hugeness, and said: 'Mr. Blake once paid me a high compliment on that picture. It was on the last occasion when the old gentleman visited me, and his words were, "Ah! that is what I have been trying to do all my life—to paint round and never could."' This may be taken as an instance of the courteous care with which Blake would find some agreeable word for an inoffensive inferior in Art. Had such a charge been brought against himself by an aggressor, how instant a spark would have been struck from him!
Allan Cunningham has talked of Blake's living on a crust. But, in these latter years he, for the most part, lived on good, though simple fare. His wife was an excellent cook—a talent which helped to fill out Blake's waistcoat a little, as he grew old. She could even prepare a made dish, when need be. As there was no servant, he fetched the porter for dinner himself, from the house at the corner of the Strand. Once, pot of porter in hand, he espied coming along a dignitary of Art—that highly respectable man, William Collins, R.A., whom he had met in society a few
