BLAKE, WILu...tm (1757-1827 ) . An English engraver and poet. He was born in London No vember 28, 1757. In 1789 lie published Songs of innocence, followed in 1794 by Songs of Expe rience, showing the two contrary states of the human soul, with about 60 etchings, remarkable for their peculiar and original manner. The poems were equally singular, but many of them exhibited true pathos. Some marginal designs for Young's Night Thoughts, executed by Blake, were greatly admired by Flaxman. Blake lived in the full belief that be held converse with the spirits of the departed great—with Moses, Homer, Ver gil, Dante, and Milton. He published numerous etchings, chiefly of religious and eognate sub jects, among the best of which are his Inven tions to the Book of Job, and the illustrations of Blair's Grace. He died (August 12, 1827) in poverty and obscurity, with the conviction that he was a martyr to poetic art. The influence of
Michelangelo is traceable in his art; but the imagination which produced his bold and often curious designs was peculiarly Blake's own, while in his diction, though at times almost ir rational, he was, according to Swinburne, "the single Englishman of supreme and simple poetic genius of his time," and Charles Lamb regarded him as one of the most extraordinary persons of the age. The facts of Blake's early life are re corded in a book, now rare, written by Dr. kin, A Father's Memoirs of his Child (1806). Consult: Gilchrist, Life and Works of William Blake (2d ed. London, ISSO) ; Swinburne, 'Wil liam Blake: A Critical Essay (London, 1868); Poetical Works of William Blake, ed. W. M. Rossetti (London, 1874) ; and Works, edited with lithographs of the illustrated "Prophetic Books," and memoir and interpretation, Ellis and Yeats (London, 1893).