found itself accidentally in the midst of all the others, to which the name may be supposed to have more definitely belonged.
All that we know with certainty of James Blake, the father, is that he was a hosier ('of respectable trade and easy habits,' says Tatham; 'of fifty years' standing,' says Cunningham, at the time of his death), that he was a Dissenter (a Swedenborgian, or inclined to Swedenborgianism), and that he died in 1784 and was buried on July 4 in Bunhill Fields. The burial register says: 'July 4, 1784. Mr. James Blake from Soho Square in a grave, 13/6.' Of his wife Catherine all that we know is that she died in 1792, and was also buried in Bunhill Fields. The register says: 'Sept. 9, 1792. Catherine Blake; age 70; brought from St. James, Westminster. Grave 9 feet; E. & W. 16; N. & S. 42-48. 19/-.' Tatham says that 'even when a child, his mother beat him for running and saying that he saw the prophet Ezekiel under a tree in the fields.' At eight or ten he comes home from Peckham Rye saying that he has seen a tree filled with angels; and his father is going to beat him for telling a lie; but his mother
