On this memoir the late Mr. Henry Crabb Robinson founded a notice of Blake as an artist and poet, which was translated into German by a certain Dr. Julius, and appeared in the first (and only) number of the second volume of the Vaterländisches Museum (Hamburg) in 1811.[1] The extracts were given in both languages, and included: "To the Muses," "The Piper," "Holy Thursday," "The Tiger," "The Garden of Love," and a few passages from the Prophetical Books.
The next notice of Blake's poetry was by Allan Cunningham in his "Lives of the Painters," in 1830.[2] His praise, however, is rather half-hearted and lukewarm, and the dozen pieces he printed as specimens, he could not refrain from touching up here and there to suit his fancy.
In a recent volume the author of "Modern Painters" thus speaks of Blake's poetry:—
"The impression that his drawings once made is fast, and justly, fading away, though they are not without noble merit. But his poems have much more than merit; they are written with absolute sincerity, with infinite tenderness, and though in the manner of them diseased and wild, are in verity the words of a great and wise mind, disturbed but not deceived, by its sickness; nay,
