Nov. 5. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



435 



sieurs des miniatures du Tome iii. sont signees Godo- 

 fredi pictoris, 1.520. 



" Ce precieux manuscrit ne sera pas vendu ; 11 a ete 

 legue par M. de Bure au departement des Manuscrits 

 de la Bibliotheque Imperiale." 



WIIXIAM BLAKE. 



( Continued from p. 7 1 .) 



I venture to send you another Note regarding 

 William Blake, claiming for that humble indivi- 

 dual the honour of being the pioneer in the esta- 

 blishment of charity-schools in Britain, from which 

 department of our social system who can calculate 

 the benefits accrued, and constantly accruing, to 

 this country ! 



We look in vain through the Silver Drops of 

 William Blake for any record of an existing in- 

 stitution, such as he would have his " noble ladies" 

 rear at Highgate. Among the many incentives 

 he uses to prompt the charitable, we do not find 

 him holding up for their example any model 

 (unless it be " Old Sutton's brave hospital") ; in 

 all his amusing " Charity-school Sticks," his tone 

 is that of a man trying to persuade people that 

 the thing he proposes is feasible. " Some of 

 them," says the sanguine Blake, " have scarce 

 faith enough to believe in the success of this great 

 and good design. Nay, your brother Cornish 

 himself," continues he, in addressing one of his 

 ladies, although full of good works, " would have 

 persuaded me to lay it down" upon the ground of its 

 impracticability. The language of Blake is every- 

 whei'e advocating this " new way of charity." " If 

 it be new,'" says he to an objector, "the more's the 

 pity;" and, with reference to the possibility of 

 failure, he would thus shame them into liberality. 

 Speaking of his " fine, handsome, and well cloathed 

 boys ; not too fine, because they are the ladies' ! " 

 our enthusiast adds to this soft sawdur : 



" But now, if a year or two hence they should be 

 grown, which God forbid ! poor ragged, half-starved, 

 and no cloaths, country folks would say, who ride or 

 go that way, Were there not good ladies enough in 

 and about London to maintain one little school ? " 



Here then is prima facie evidence, I think, that 

 my subject, poor crazy William Blake, was the 

 originator of one of the greatest social improve- 

 ments of modern times. 



The charity-school movement had obtained a 

 strong hold upon the public mind early in the 

 past century ; but although I have sought for the 

 name of Blake through many books professing to 

 give an account of the early history of such in- 

 stitutions, I have not yet met with the slightest 

 allusion to him, his school, or his Silver Drops. 



The superficial inquirer into the history of 

 English cliarity-schools will be told that the 

 honour of the first erecting such, and caring for 



destitute children, is popularly considered due to 

 the parishes of St. Botulph, Aldgate, and St. Mar- 

 garet's, Westminster : and if he would farther 

 satisfy himself upon that point, he will see it 

 claimed by the first named; a slab in front of 

 their schools, adjoining the Royal Mint, bearing 

 an inscription to the purport that it was the first 

 Protestant charity-school, erected by voluntary 

 contributions in 1693. 



If it comes to the earliest London school for 

 poor children, perhaps the Catholics take the lead ; 

 for we find that it was part of the tactics of the 

 Jesuits, in the reign of James II., to promote their 

 design of subverting the Protestant religion by 

 infusing their Romish tenets into the minds of the 

 children of the poor by providing schools for them 

 in the Savoy and Westminster. 



Blake says, with reference to this movement : 

 " That the scheme he was engaged upon was a good 

 work, because it will in some measure stop the mouths 

 of Papists, who are prone to say, Where are your 

 works, and how few are your hospitals, and how small is 

 your charity, notwithstanding your great preaching?" 



A remarkable little book, and a very fit com- 

 panion for the Silver Drops of William Blake, to 

 which it bears a striking similarity, is the Pietas 

 Hallensis of Dr. Franck. In this, the German 

 divine relates, in a style which bears more than 

 an accidental resemblance to the work of the Covent 

 Garden Philanthropist, how, little by little, by 

 importunity and perseverance, he nursed his own 

 charitable plans, of a like kind, into full life and 

 vigour ; and both Drs. Woodward and Kennett 

 endorse and command the "miraculous footsteps 

 of Divine Providence" in the labours of Dr. 

 Franck. " Could we," says Dr. Kennett, " trace 

 the obscurer footsteps of our own charity-schools, 

 the finger of God would be as evidently in them." 

 Why the Bishop of Peterborough should be igno- 

 rant of these earlier efforts to the same end in his 

 own country, is somewhat marvellous. Franck 

 began his charitable work at Glaucha in 1698; 

 while Blake was labouring to establish his High- 

 gate School in 1685. That Franck should know 

 nothing about our pioneer in charitable education, 

 is probable enough ; but that the English divines 

 I have mentioned, with Wodrow, Gillies, and a 

 host of others, should be unaware that the pro- 

 ceedings at Halle were only the counterpart of 

 those done fourteen years before by Blake in 

 their own land, is certainly surprising, and affords 

 another proof of the proneness of Britons to extol 

 everything foreign to the neglect of what is native 

 and at their own doors. 



Perhaps some of your readers will think I over- 

 estimate the importance of the question, whether 

 the charity-school movement is of British or foreign 

 growth ; or whether the honour of its application 

 to the poor (for all charity-schools are not for 

 such) belongs to my subject William Blake, or 



