were not arrived at by vision or revelation, for the good Varley was a most unspiritual personage, the very antipodes of seer or anchorite, big, sanguine, jovial, and everlastingly in the claws of the bailiffs. Astrology, therefore, a study which, with all its fascination for an imaginative mind, requires nothing but observation and calculation, was the only occult science open to him; for magic, although a diabolical pursuit, occasionally demands an amount of fasting inconvenient even for a saint. Varley would have wished to go further, and finding the perception of visions inconsistent with his own corporeal and spiritual constitution, was delighted to make the acquaintance of one who to this end needed but to open his eyes. He speedily developed the practical idea that Blake should depict the spiritual entities which he beheld. Blake forthwith set to work, and ere long the portfolios of Varley and Linnell were enriched with those ghosts of fleas, portraits of Edward the Third, and men who built the pyramids, which are better known to many than anything he ever did, and are assuredly no mean examples of his imaginative power. "All," says Gilchrist, "are marked by a decisive portrait-like character, and are evidently literal portraits of what Blake's imaginative eye beheld."[1] This is corroborated by the account of Varley, who says, "On hearing of this spiritual apparition of a Flea, I asked him if he could draw for me the resemblance of what he saw. He instantly said, 'I see him now before me.' I therefore gave him a paper and a pencil, with which he drew the portrait of which a facsimile is given in this number [of Varley's Zodiacal Physiognomy]. I felt convinced by his mode of proceeding that he had a real image before him; for he left off and began on another part of the paper to make a separate drawing of the mouth of the Flea, which the spirit having opened he was prevented from proceeding with the first sketch till he had closed it." It was "an idea with the force of a sensation," as Peacock's philosopher classifies the apparition in Nightmare Abbey. Shelley, who also saw visions, has enriched his note-books with similar delineations of imaginary figures, generally vague and careless, but sometimes very Blake-like. One of Linnell's most spirited studies from life, engraved in Story's biography, represents Blake and Varley in discussion.
- ↑ Not always without assistance from the eyes of others; for the portrait of Edward the First is clearly a reminiscence of that which in Blake's time adorned Goldsmith's History.
