Page:The letters of William Blake (1906).djvu/34

pictures at one guinea each. This and one or two other commissions about the same time were sufficient to induce him once and for all to turn his attention seriously to the art of painting, and for the future to make engraving, which had until now been his principal pursuit, merely a means of earning bread. Thomas Butts remained ever a true friend to Blake, and became the purchaser, for small sums, of practically all his most important works from this date until about 1810, when sheer lack of room on his walls prevented him from being for the future anything more than an occasional buyer. He was an amiable, if somewhat commonplace individual, and if the letter to Blake, printed in the present collection, does not point to a very high level either of humour or intelligence, it shows him to have been greatly attached to his protégé and he has certainly earned the gratitude of all Blake-lovers in giving to the world, through his patronage, so many of the artist's greatest designs. He is above all to be commended for leaving Blake an entirely free hand in regard to the execution of all his commissions. Of the supreme benefit of this freedom, "his just right as an artist and as a man," Blake was ever most sensible, and his sincere thanks are gratefully recorded in one of his letters to his friend, where he says: "If any attempt should be made to