little boy to have had that greatest of all blessings, a strong imagination, a clear idea, and a determinate vision of things in his own mind.' It is in the lengthy dedication of the book to Thomas Johnes, the translator of Froissart, that Dr. Malkin gives the very interesting personal account of Blake which is reprinted on p. 307 below.
It is not certain whether Blake had ever known little Thomas Malkin, and it would be interesting to know whether it was through any actual influence of his that the child had come to his curious invention of an imaginary country. He drew the map of this country, peopled with names (Nobblede and Bobblobb, Punchpeach and Closetha) scarcely more preposterous than the names which Blake was just then discovering for his own spiritual regions, wrote its chronicles, and even made music for it. The child was born in 1795 and died in 1802, and Blake had been at Felpham since September 1800; but, if they had met before that date, there was quite time for Blake's influence to have shown itself. In 1799 the astonishing child 'could read, without hesitation, any English book. He
