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LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE.
53
Dear Sir,—I congratulate you, not on any achievement, because I know that the genius that produces the designs can execute them in any manner, notwithstanding the pretended philosophy which teaches that execution is the power of one and invention of another.[3] Locke says it is the same faculty that invents judges, and I say he who can invent can execute.
- ↑ The letter is addressed to Bishopsgate, near Egham, Surrey. It is not known when Cumberland first became acquainted with Blake, but it is certain that he remained until the last the truest and most generous of friends. He was the means of introducing him to several of his best patrons, particularly John Linnell. He had a fine taste and a keen enthusiasm in regard to matters of art. He learned from Blake the art of engraving, and with his help published, in 1796, his Thoughts on Outline, embellished with twenty-four designs of classical subjects. He seems, later, to have resided at Bristol, and only to have seen Blake from time to time. Almost the last piece of work that Blake ever did was a message card for his friend, inscribed W. Blake inv. & sc. A. Æ, 70, 1827 (see note 3, p. 223).
- ↑ Blake moved to 13 Hercules Buildings, Lambeth, in 1793, and remained there until his departure to Felpham in 1800.
- ↑ "Invention," he points out elsewhere, "depends altogether upon execution or organisation; as that is right or wrong, so is the invention perfect or imperfect:"—"Execution is the chariot of genius"; and in the Public Address (see Gilchrist, 1880, vol. ii. p. 168): "Execution is only the result of invention."
