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PREFACE
It was when Mr. Sampson's edition of Blake came into my hands in the winter of 1905 that the idea of writing a book on Blake first presented itself to me. From a boy he had been one of my favourite poets, and I had heard a great deal about him from Mr. Yeats as long ago as 1893, the year in which he and Mr. Ellis brought out their vast cyclopaedia, The Works of William Blake, Poetic, Symbolic, and Critical. From that time to this Blake has never been out of my mind, but I have always hesitated to write down anything on a subject so great in itself, and already handled by great poets. Things have been written about Blake by Rossetti which no one will ever surpass; and in Mr. Swinburne's book Blake himself seems to
