'If losing and obliterating the outline constitutes a Picture, Mr. B. will never be so foolish as to do one. Such art of losing the outlines is the art of Venice and Flanders ; it loses all character and leaves what some people call "expression" ; but this is a false notion of expression, . . . The great and golden rule of art as well as of life is this ; — That the more distinct, sharp, and wirey the boundary line, the more perfect the work of art, — and the less keen and sharp, The greater is the evidence of weak imitation, plagiarism, and bungling. Great inventors, in all ages, knew this.' Also Descriptive Catalogue, p. 54 : 'These pictures, among numerous others painted for experiment, were the result of temptations and perturbations, labouring to destroy Imaginative power, by means of that infernal machine called Chiaro Oscuro, in the hands of Venetian and Flemish Demons, whose enmity to the Painter himself, and to all Artists who study in the Florentine and Roman Schools, may be removed by an exhibition and exposure of their vile tricks.'
cxix
Great Men and Fools do often me inspire ;
But the Greater Fool, the Greater Liar.
MS. Book, p. 63 (reversed).Only in EY ii. 384.
1 me] we EY. 2 Fool] fools EY.
cxx
Having given great offence by writing in Prose, i
I'll write in Verse as soft as Bartolloze.
Some blush at what others can see no crime in ;
But nobody sees any harm in Rhyming.
MS. Book, p. 65. The rough draft of most of this piece occurs on p. 62, where the lines were composed in the following order, 5-8, 3, 4, 15-18, which Blake, interlineating ll. 1 and 1 between ll. 8 and 9 (or 4, 5 in the original draft), afterwards renumbered 1-12. Lines 13 and 14 are also an inter-lineation in the first draft. The verses were then transcribed on p. 65, with the couplet ll. 11, 12, added in a slightly changed form, from the first draft on p. 63, and the addition of 11. 19-22. Only in EY (' Memoir' i. 76).
1] Cp. Hunt's reference to Blake's Descriptive Catalogue, Examiner, no. 90, September 17, 1809.in Prose] EY omit in.4 But . . . Rhyming] But Nobody at all sees harm in Rhyming MS. Book 1st rdg. del. (p. 62).
