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WILLIAM BLAKE

the air of Hampstead, which he said always made him ill; but he often went there to see Linnell, and loved the aspect from his cottage, and to sit and hear Mrs. Linnell sing Scotch songs, and would sometimes himself sing his own songs to tunes of his own making. The children loved him, and would watch for him as he came, generally on foot, and one of them says that she remembers 'the cold winter nights when Blake was wrapped up in an old shawl by Mrs. Linnell, and sent on his homeward way, with the servant, lantern in hand, lighting him across the heath to the main road.' It is Palmer's son who reports it, and he adds: 'It is a matter of regret that the record of these meetings and walks and conversations is so imperfect, for in the words of one of Blake's disciples, to walk with him was like "walking with the Prophet Isaiah."' Once when the Palmers were staying at Shoreham, the whole party went down into the country in a carrier's van drawn by eight horses: Calvert tells the story, with picturesque details of Blake's second-sight, and of the hunt with lanterns in Shoreham Castle after a ghost, who