iii
When France got free, Europe, 'twixt fools & Knaves,
Were Savage first to France, & after— Slaves.
Reynolds, vol. i, p. ciii. Suggested by the following footnote in Malone's
memoir of Reynolds prefixed to the Discourses: — 'How justly may we
apply the immediately following lines of the same great Poet to those
demagogues among us, who since the era above mentioned, have not only on
all occasions gratuitously pleaded the cause of the enemies of their country
with the zeal of fee'd advocates, but by every other mode incessantly
endeavoured to debase and assimilate this free and happy country to the
model of the ferocious and enslaved Republick of France ! —
- "These Adam-wits, too fortunately free,
- Began to dream they wanted liberty ;
- And when no rule, no precedent was found
- Of MEN, by laws less circumscribed and bound,
- They led their wild desires to woods and caves,
- And thought that all but savages were slaves." '
This couplet is printed only by EY ii. 323.
iv
When Sr Joshua Reynolds died
All Nature was degraded ;
The King drop'd a tear into the Queen's Ear,
And all his Pictures Faded.
Reynolds, vol. i, p. cix, below the account of Reynolds' death. Only
in Gil. i. 259 and EY ii. 323. Cf. MS. Book xlvi.
3 The . . . Ear] Gil. prints as two lines.
v
When Nations grow Old, the Arts grow Cold,
And Commerce settles on every Tree ;
And the Poor & the Old can live upon Gold,
For all are Born Poor, Aged Sixty-three.
Reynolds, vol. i, p. [iv], beneath Reynolds' dedicatory letter to the
Members of the Royal Academy and following Blake's prose comment : —
'The Rich Men of England form themselves into a society to Sell & Not to
SAMPSON Y
