CHAPTER XXXVI.
DECLINING HEALTH: DESIGNS TO DANTE. 1824—1827.
[ÆT. 67—70.]
While the Job was in progress, Blake had, among other work, assisted, from August to December, 1824, in engraving a portrait from his friend Linnell's hand, of Mr. Lowry, and perhaps in some other plates. It was during this period, also, Mr. Linnell introduced him to the knowledge of Dante, and commissioned a series of drawings from the Divina Commedia, to be hereafter engraved; justly thinking Blake 'the 'very man and the only' to illustrate the great mediaeval master of supernatural awe and terror. While still engaged over the engravings to Job, Blake set to work full of energy, sketching, while confined to bed by a sprained foot, the first outlines of the whole, or nearly the whole, of this new series, in a folio volume of a hundred pages, which Mr. Linnell had given him for the purpose. This was during the years 1824 to 1826. With characteristic fervour and activity of intellect, he, at sixty-seven years of age, applied himself to learning Italian, in order to read his author in the original. Helped by such command of Latin as he had, he taught himself the language in a few weeks; sufficiently, that is, to comprehend that difficult author substantially, if not grammatically: just as, earlier in life, he had taught himself something of Latin, French, and even Greek.
