On consideration I incline to think that the best way to summarise the art of Blake from its most superficial to its most subtle phase would be simply to take one quick characteristic picture and discuss it fully; first its title and subject, then its look and shape, then its main principles and implications. Let us take as a good working example the weird picture which is reproduced on one of the pages of Gilchrist's "Life of Blake."
Now the obvious, prompt, and popular view of Blake is very well represented by the mere title of the picture. The first thing any ordinary person will notice about it is that it is called "The Ghost of a Flea"; and the ordinary person will be very justifiably amused. This is the first fact about William Blake—that he is a joke; and it is a fact by no means to be despised. Simply considered as a puzzle or parlour game, Blake is extraordinarily entertaining. I have known many cultivated families made happy on winter evenings by trying to understand the poem called "The Mental Traveller," or wondering what can be the significance of the stanza that runs:
