Page:Life of William Blake 2, Gilchrist.djvu/187

As the ignorant savage will sell his own wife
For a button, a bauble, a bead, or a knife, —
So the taught savage Englishman spends his whole fortune
On a smear or a squall to destroy picture or tune :
And I call upon Colonel Wardle
To give these rascals a dose of caudle.

All pictures that's painted with sense or with thought
Are painted by madmen, as sure as a groat ;
For the greater the fool, in the Art the more blest,
And when they are drunk they always paint best.
They never can Raphael it, Fuseli it, nor Blake it :
If they can't see an outline, pray how can they make it ?
All men have drawn outlines whenever they saw them ;
Madmen see outlines, and therefore they draw them.

4

Seeing a Rembrandt or Correggio,
Of crippled Harry I think and slobbering Joe ;
And then I question thus : Are artists' rules
To be drawn from the works of two manifest fools ?
Then God defend us from the Arts, I say;
For battle, murder, sudden death, let's pray.
Rather than be such a blind human fool,
I'd be an ass, a hog, a worm, a chair, a stool.

5
To English Connoisseurs.

You must agree that Rubens was a fool,
And yet you make him master of your school,
And give more money for his slobberings
Than you will give for Raphael's finest things.
I understood Christ was a carpenter,
And not a brewer's servant, my good Sir.