Blake says: 'The manner in which my character has been blasted these thirty years, both as an artist and as a man, may be seen particularly in a Sunday paper called the Examiner, published in Beaufort's Buildings; the manner in which I have rooted out the nest of villains will be seen in a poem concerning my three years' Herculean labours at Felpham, which I shall soon publish.' Even if this is meant for Jerusalem, as it may well be, Blake is far from saying that he has referred in the poem to these particular attacks: 'the nest of villains' has undoubtedly a much broader meaning, and groups together all the attacks of thirty years, public or private, of which the Examiner is but quoted as a recent example.
The chief reason for supposing that Jerusalem may not have been published till after the exhibition of 1809, is to be found in a passage in the Descriptive Catalogue which seems to summarise the main subject of the poem, though it is quite possible that it may refer to some MS. now lost. The picture of the Ancient Britons, says Blake, represents three men who 'were originally
