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heard of its maker, and who would buy it for his sake as well as for its own. A little way

from the picture-store is a sort of rat-hole alley-way leading from the Strand, and called Fountain Court. There are a great many such courts in London; one sees a dark passageway not much larger than a man's body, and going in through an arch he comes out into a little court, closed all about, and occupied by dingy houses. In this dismal Fountain Court, which looked as if it had never heard of even a pail of water, was a house which I went to look at, because in it had lived once William Blake. Some old clothes were hanging out of the windows, and some slatternly women and children were about. It was no doubt a little cleaner looking when William Blake and his wife lived there, and from the window of one of these two rooms they could get a glimpse of the river and hills beyond, but it never could have been a very bright or cheerful spot. I fear that most people living there would become like the place stupid and indifferent to anything higher or better than a pipe and a glass of beer.

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Here, however, William Blake lived, and painted pictures, and wrote poems, and his pictures became more wonderful as he grew older.

He painted what he saw about him. Fountain Court, and people going through it with mugs of beer in their hands? No, for he was not looking at such sights much. When he was a little boy, he came home one day and told his mother that he had seen a tree filled with angels, bright angelic wings bespangling every bough, like stars; and again, going out into the fields, where the hay-makers were at work, he saw them raking hay, and amid them were bright angels walking. We sometimes say, especially in hymns, that with the eye of faith we may see the heavenly country and the spirits that dwell there, but our eyes are nevertheless looking hard at the ground or the bricks about us. Now Blake had this eye of faith, and so clear was it that he constantly seemed to be seeing beautiful or terrible spirits, when others saw nothing but muddy London streets, and so what he saw he painted.

There were some around him who cared for these things, but most people could not see what he saw, and they blamed him for being so foolish. He did not mind them. He said that God was showing him these wonderful sights, and it would not be right if he were to turn away and look at what other men cared about, even though he could then paint pictures which

men would admire, and give him great sums

of money for.

self,

Once he wrote about him

"The Angel who presided at my birth

Said: 'Little creature, formed of joy and mirth, Go love without the help of anything on earth."" But when any listened to him, or spoke, who felt as he did, they loved him more than they could tell. They were few who cared for him and his work, but he said: "I see the face of my Heavenly Father: He lays His hand upon my head, and gives a blessing to all my work.”

You who have

When he drew a face, he was thinking of what the man had suffered and enjoyed, and how much he had thought of those things which would last forever, and how little of what was soon to pass away. He drew many pictures of the life of Job. read the Book of Job in the Bible know that it is wonderful and deep, and that it has not much to say about the destruction of Job's house, and the disease which wasted Job; but a great deal concerning God, and the stars which he made, and man's soul, more wonderful than the stars. So Blake, as if he had been with Job and his friends, put into pictures what they felt, and the pictures are only less glorious than the words which we can read.

Besides painting what he saw, Blake wrote down what he heard, and some very strange things he wrote, for his ear was like a musical instrument out of tune in some of its notes; when these were struck there was a discord, and we can make out no tune; but some of the notes were clear, and when these were struck, a beautiful sound went out, which Blake caught in words and sang for us. Whatever was simple and truthful and lovely went to his heart; and he was not easily deceived by outside appearances, but knew how to see a heart that could be touched, even when most would think the owner of it a hard and hateful man; if there was anything worth loving, he was quite sure to love it, because he knew that Here are some lines of his upon

God did too.

THE CHIMNEY-SWEEPER.

When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry, "'weep, 'weep! 'weep, 'weep!"
So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.

There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head, That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved; so I said, "Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head's bare, You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair."

And so he was quiet, and that very night,

As Tom was a sleeping, ie had such a sight:

That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack, Were all of them lock'd up in coffins of black.

And by came an angel who had a bright key,
And he opened the coffins and set them all free;
Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing, they run,
And wash in a river, and shine in the sun.

Then naked and white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds and sport in the wind;
And the angel told Tom, "If he'd be a good boy,
He'd have God for his father, and never want joy."

And so Tom awoke, and we rose in the dark,

And got, with our bags and our brushes, to work; Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm, So, if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.

Here is another, which is called

THE LITTLE BLACK BOY.

My mother bore me in the Southern wild,
And I am black, but oh, my soul is white;
White as an angel is the English child,
But I am black, as if bereaved of light.

My mother taught me underneath a tree,
And sitting down before the heat of day,
She took me on her lap and kissèd me,

And, pointing to the East, began to say:

*Look on the rising sun, there God does live,
And gives His light, and gives His heat away;
And flowers, and trees, and beasts, and men receive
Comfort in morning, joy in the noonday.

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