abortive exhibition in Broad Street; and who was, in 1810, writing an account of the memorable man for the Patriotische Annalen of good Dr. Perthes, of Hamburg. Mr. Crabb Robinson, a gentleman who began life as a barrister, but who, throughout his career, cultivated the acquaintance of distinguished men of letters, had, during twenty years, heard much of Blake from Flaxman. The sculptor, if he did not go so far as to speak of him as an actual seer, was still further from joining in the ordinary derision of him as a madman. But it was not till 1825 that Mr. Crabb Robinson met the visionary man, at Mr. Aders' table in the company of Mr. Linnell. 'This was on the 10th December,' writes Mr. Robinson, in the very interesting Reminiscences (based on his Journals), with the sight of a portion of which I have been kindly favoured. His account of Blake is from a point of view widely different from those of the artist's enthusiastic young disciples, yet, in all essentials, corroborates them. Many of the extravagances and incoherences recorded as falling from Blake's lips at these interviews indicate, to one familiar with his habits of mind, that he was often, in the course of them, ruffled by his friendly but very logical and cool-headed interlocutor into extreme statements. He allowed himself to be drawn out pretty considerably, but not with closed eyes.
'. . . I was aware of his idiosyncrasies, and therefore I was, to a great degree, prepared for the sort of conversation which took place at and after dinner: an altogether unmethodical rhapsody on art, poetry, religion; he saying the most strange things in the most unemphatic manner, speaking of his visions as any man would of the most ordinary occurrence. He was then sixty-eight years of age. He had a broad pale face, a large full eye, with a benignant expression,—at the same time a look of languor, except when excited; and then he had an air of inspiration; but not such as, without previous acquaintance with him, or attending to what he said, would suggest the notion that he was insane.'
The italics are mine. Mr. Robinson, I should mention, was among those who thought Blake to have been an 'insane man
