IX
Nothing is known of Blake's life between 1809, the date of his exhibition, and 1818, when he met the chief friend and helper of his later years, John Linnell. Everything leads us to believe that those nine years were years of poverty and neglect. Between 1815 and 1817 we find him doing engraver's task-work for Flaxman's Hesiod, and for articles, probably written by Flaxman, on Armour and Sculpture in Rees's Encyclopædia. Gilchrist tells a story, on the authority of Tatham, of Blake copying the cast of the Laocoon among the students at the Royal Academy, and of Fuseli, then the keeper, coming up with the just and pleasant remark that it was they who should learn of him, not he of them. The Milton and the Jerusalem, both dated 1804, were printed at some time during this period. Gilchrist suggests that the reason why Blake issued
