came to an end, and for a short time he studied in the Antique School at the newly founded Royal Academy under Moser, the first keeper. In the Life of Reynolds which prefaces the 1798 edition of the Discourses, Moser is spoken of as one who 'might in every sense be called the Father of the present race of Artists.' Blake has written against this in his copy: 'I was once looking over the prints from Raphael and Michael Angelo in the Library of the Royal Academy. Moser came to me and said, "You should not study these old hard, stiff, and dry unfinished works of art. Stay a little, and I will show you what you should study." He then went and took down Le Bran's and Rubens' Galleries. How did I secretly rage. I also spoke my mind. I said to Moser, "These things that you call finished are not even begun: how can they then be finished? The man who does not know the beginning never can know the end of art.'" Malkin tells us that Blake 'professed drawing from life always to have been hateful to him; and speaks of it as looking more like death, or smelling of mortality. Yet still he drew a
