Raphael, with a grand action of the upraised arms, and his dispread wings meeting at the tips in a noble ogee curve, is narrating the great creative acts, or possibly cautioning Adam against his impending danger; he listens in awe. The natural chairs, table, and cups, formed by the vegetation, are ingeniously managed. In the distance is an extensive landscape, with numerous animals; the Tree of Life at the summit, with fruit glowing like illumination-lamps, or the jewel-fruit of Aladdin; the serpent is coiled up its trunk, lying fearfully in wait.
(g) *Eve eating the forbidden Fruit. Book IX.
Wonderful exceedingly. Eve, again most beautiful, eats out of the jaws of the serpent the fruit which he presents to her. Other fruits hang from the branches, glowing (as in the preceding design) with ruddy luminousness. The trunk of the tree is cramped with huge parasitic thorn-stems, which reach down along the ground, as it were the roots of the tree itself. Ghastly forked lightning plays round Eve, lurid and menacing. At the other (left) side of the tree stands Adam, as in a distinct plane of the composition. He is yet guiltless and unconscious of the evil; round him too play the forked lightnings, chain-like, but less angry in colour. The storm-sky blackens as the doom culminates.
(h) *Michael foretelling the Crucifixion to Adam:—
The law that is against thee and the sins
Of all mankind, with Him there crucified.'—Book XII.
Christ on the cross is visibly brought before Adam, who stands adoring—very fine in form. At the foot of the cross lie two human figures, one of which is possibly 'the Law,' and some bestial heads symbolising 'the Sins,' or Vices it may be presumed. The Serpent is twined there also, his crest set beneath the foot of Christ. At the bottom of the composition Eve is sleeping; a beautiful, grand, rich form. The Archangel, in this and the succeeding design, is unfortunately a failure; a kind of over-handsome classic warrior. Blake has tried hard to hit the mark, but somehow the inspiration would not come.
(i) *Adam and Eve taken by Michael out of Eden.—Book XII.
Adam's first step out of Eden stumbles upon a thorn—admirably thought of: a thistle is beside it. Both he and Eve look with scared revulsion upon the serpent, wondrously treacherous, crawling and accursed, yet with malice gratified. Above this group are seen four red-bearded angels, represented as of the middle age of man, upon blood-red horses, and with flames; while a huge wreath of crimson fire, like a funereal pall, wind-shaken, flaps over the head of Michael.
91. 1808.—Jacob's Ladder. [Butts.] See pp. 264, Vol. I., and 161, Vol. II.
92. 1808.—The Angels hovering over the Body of Jesus in the Sepulchre. See pp. 264, Vol. I., and 161, Vol. II.
93. 1808.—*The Canterbury Pilgrimage, from Chaucer—'Sir Jeffrey Chaucer and the nine-and-twenty Pilgrims on their
