LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 179
a year he considers as impolitic, and that a hand- some general edition of your works would be more productive. He likewise objects to any periodical mode of publishing any of your works, as he thinks it somewhat derogatory, as well as unprofitable. I must now express my thanks for your generous manner of proposing the Ballads to him on my account, and inform you of his advice concerning them; and he thinks that they should be published all together in a volume the size of the small edition of the Triumphs of Temper, with six or seven plates[1]. That one thousand copies should be the first edition, and, if we choose, we might add to the number of plates in a second edition. And he will go equal shares with me in the expense and the profits, and that Seagrave is to be the printer. That we must consider all that has been printed as lost, and begin anew, unless we can apply some of the plates to the new edition. I consider myself as only put in trust with this work, and that the copyright is for ever yours. I therefore beg that you will not suffer it to be injured by my ignorance, or that it should in any way be separated from the
- ↑ Ballads, by William Hayley, Esq., founded on Anecdotes relating to Animals, with Prints designed and engraved by William Blake. Chichester: printed by J. Seagrave, for Richard Phillips, Bridge Street, Blackfriars, London, 1805: contains five plates, all by Blake. For the quarto edition, which has different plates, see note i, p. 112.
