VI
The first statement by Blake of his aims and principles in art is to be found in some letters to George Cumberland and to Dr. Trusler, contained in the Cumberland Papers in the British Museum. These letters were first printed by Dr. Garnett in the Hampstead Annual of 1903, but with many mistakes and omissions.[1] I have recopied from the originals the text of such letters as I quote. It appears that in the year 1799 Blake undertook, at the suggestion of Cumberland, to do some drawings for a book by Dr. Trusler, a sort of quack writer and publisher, who may be perhaps sufficiently defined by the quotation of the title of one of his books, which is The Way to be Rich and Respectable. On August 16, Blake writes to say: 'I find more and more that my Style of Designing is a Species by itself, and in this which I send you have
- ↑ They are now to be read in Mr. Russell's edition of The Letters of William Blake.
