This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
192
WILLIAM BLAKE

rather new pleasures, occupy my thoughts; new profits seem to arise before me so tempting that I have already involved myself in engagements that preclude all possibility of promising anything.' Does this refer to the success of Blair's Grave, which had just been published? He goes on: 'I have, however, the satisfaction to inform you that I have myself begun to print an account of my various inventions in Art, for which I have procured a publisher, and am determined to pursue the plan of publishing, that I may get printed without disarranging my time, which in future must alone be designing and painting.' To this project, which was never carried out, he refers again in the prospectus printed in anticipation of his exhibition, a copy of which, given to Ozias Humphreys, exists with the date May 15, 1809. A second prospectus is given by Gilchrist as follows:—

'Blake's Chaucer, the Canterbury Pilgrims. This Fresco Picture, representing Chaucer's Characters, painted by William Blake, as it is now submitted to the public.

'The designer proposes to engrave in a