BITS OF BIOGRAPHY. 245 



that, being unable to refer to what he has narrated on the subject, I 

 am in danger " of repeating upon him." But this shall not daunt me. 



Blake was not the victim of a mere optical delusion. He firmly 

 believed in what he seemed to see. He had no doubt but that the 

 spectre of Edward the Third frequently visited him. He painted 

 the monarch, in oil, at three sittings. Bruce would now and then 

 call to converse with him. He recognized at a glance the ghost of 

 any great personage the moment it appeared. He had no doubt of 

 its identity. His friend Marc Antony had not sent in his card : no 

 one had announced him : yet he knew the Roman, and named him 

 at first sight. 



About midnight the illustrious dead used to drop in upon him : 

 sometimes their visits were short, but, frequently, as protracted as 

 he could wish. I have been present on these occasions. One night, while 

 we were engaged in criticising his own extravagant, yet occasionally 

 sublime illustrations of the book of Job, engraved by himself, he sud- 

 denly exclaimed, " Good God ! here's Edward the Third !" " Where?" 

 " On the other side of the table : you can't see him, but I do ; it's his 

 first visit." " How do you know him ?" " My spirit knows him 

 how I cannot tell." " How does he look ?" " Stern, calm, implacable ; 

 yet still happy. I have hitherto seen his profile only, he now turns 

 his pale face towards me. What rude grandeur in those lineaments !" 

 " Can you ask him a question ?" " Of course I can ; we have been 

 talking all this time, not with our tongues, but with some more 

 subtle, some undefined, some telegraphic organ ; we look and we are 

 understood. Language to spirits is useless." " Tell him that you 

 should like to know what he thinks of the butcheries of which he 

 was guilty while in the flesh/' " I have, while you have been 

 speaking." <e What says his majesty ?" " Briefly this : that what 

 you and I call carnage is a trifle unworthy of notice ; that destroying 

 five thousand men is doing them no real injury ; that, their important 

 part being immortal, it is merely removing them from one state of 

 existence to another ; that mortality is a frail tenement, of which the 

 sooner they get quit the better, and that he who helps them out of it 

 is entitled to their gratitude. For, what is being hewn down to the 

 chine to be compared with the felicity of getting released from a 

 dreary and frail frame ?" " His doctrines are detestable, and I abhor 

 him." " He bends the battlement of his brow upon you ; and if you 

 say another word, will vanish. Be quiet, while I take a sketch of 

 him." 



His widow, an estimable woman, saw Blake frequently after his. 

 decease : he used to come and sit with her two or three hours every 

 day. These hallowed visitations were her only comforts. He took 

 his chair and talked to her, just as he would have done had he been 

 alive : he advised with her as to the best mode of selling his engra- 

 vings. She knew that he was in the grave ; but she felt satisfied 

 that his spirit visited, condoled, and directed her. When he had 

 been dead a twelvemonth, the devoted and affectionate relict would 

 acquiesce in nothing " until she had had an opportunity of consulting 

 Mr. Blake." 



