University of Virginia Library

An ill-wisher once wrote that the "public reputation" of William Blake was largely "the reputation of eccentricity".[1] The libel had just enough truth in it to make it sting. Blake's professional success as an engraver depended on his securing the interest of the public or the enthusiasm of a publisher, and both tasks were conspicuously beyond his own unaided powers. His most ambitious undertakings, the illustrations to Young's Night Thoughts, Job and Dante, involving hundreds of drawings and engravings, were commercial failures. As a consequence, Blake depended very heavily upon his friends for his spiritual and physical well-being; from them he derived sporadic admiration and a relatively steady stream of commissions. Among the earliest of Blake's friends, and perhaps the most valuable, was John Flaxman, one of the greatest sculptors England has produced. For half a lifetime Flaxman found praise and patrons for his fiery friend, during the years when all Blake's greatest mature poetry was being written, from the Songs of Innocence to Jerusalem. Flaxman's bread-and-butter friendship was responsible for much of that margin of financial security Blake occasionally achieved, and for endless workaday commissions. Blake's gratitude for such practical help was shown in spiritual praise. In 1800 he wrote:

The friendship which inspired this enthusiasm was clearly a focal point in Blake's life; the record of that friendship is largely to be found in Flaxman's letters soliciting work for the engraver, and explaining his peculiarities to perplexed patrons. It is my purpose here to examine such records as have survived of the extent and effect of the relationship between William Blake and John Flaxman.

Soon after his apprenticeship ended in 1779, Blake met Flaxman[3] and immediately struck up a friendship with the young man who was just two years his senior. Flaxman soon showed the quality of his friendship by introducing Blake to an early patroness of his, Mrs. Mathew, a blue-stocking of thoroughly Gothic inclinations. Mrs. Mathew moved with a group of what Blake called "the Cunning-sures & the aim-at-yours",[4] and she encouraged ambitious young artists to come and perform at her literary evenings. Almost nothing is known of Mr. and Mrs. Mathew, but there can be no doubt that they had, in some respects, excellent taste and perception; in spite of Blake's continued indifference to the project, they with Flaxman introduced the poet to the public by printing his Poetical Sketches in 1783.[5] Though these scarcely made an impression for fifty years, they were, as Swinburne said, "not simply better than any man could do then; [but] better than all except the greatest have done since: better too than some still ranked among the greatest ever managed to do."[6] Few Cunning-sures have performed a greater service to literature.

Flaxman remained on close terms with Mrs. Mathew and her husband for the rest of his life, and his letters are full of his gratitude to them. Within a year or two of the publication of his Poetical Sketches Blake became alienated from Mrs. Mathew's cosy conversaziones. The pattern thus established was to repeat itself over and over; Flaxman introduced Blake to people of taste and liberality, and the poet could not suppress his opinions or temper sufficiently to keep his hard won patrons. It seems likely that Blake's marriage may have influenced his disagreement with the Mathews. Flaxman had been courting a girl named Nancy Denman in the early 1780s, but Miss Denman's father had opposed her marriage to a penniless sculptor of obscure prospects; clearly he felt that Miss Denman would be marrying beneath her. However, with the help of Mrs. Mathew, Flaxman's courtship prospered, and on June 23rd 1782 he and Miss Denman were married. During these same years Blake was courting the illiterate daughter of a market gardner named Catherine Boucher, and a legend has survived that Blake's father was opposed to the match, perhaps on the ground that Blake would be marrying beneath him. Just eleven weeks after the Flaxman's marriage, on August 18th 1782 Blake and Catherine Boucher were married, the bride signing her name with an X. It seems reasonable to suppose that Catherine Blake would have made a most anomalous figure in the sophisticated, highly literary gatherings of Mrs. Mathew.

During these years Flaxman and Blake were struggling for success in the creative arts while supporting themselves by the most tedious journeyman labor, Flaxman by designing pottery for the Wedgwood firm and Blake by engraving for the booksellers after the designs of more successful artists. The great thing both of them wanted was commissions to display their creative talents for profit. Flaxman's genius was thoroughly adapted to the spirit of the times, and his tepid pseudoclassical designs were acclaimed by a steadily widening range of patrons. Blake's genius was more independent and perverse, and wealthy patrons tended to fight shy of him. Most of his life his patrons seem to have been motivated as much by friendship and pity as by their conviction of his transcendant genius, and Blake was a difficult man to be friends with. Many of his earliest commissions came to him, not because his reputation for ability had spread abroad, but because his friends assiduously introduced him to prospective customers. Flaxman probably did more in the way of finding engraving work than any other man in the dark days when Blake took his works to the desolate market and none came to buy.

Flaxman was at ease with the chisel, not the pen, and his syntax is often as perplexing as Blake's punctuation. However, he worked quietly and determinedly in Blake's interests for over thirty years, and in the letters that survive we can get occasional glimpses of the success of his efforts. The earliest reference to Blake is on June 18th 1783 when Flaxman reported to his bride Nancy that a young gentleman of their own age,

And on June 20th Nancy replied: "I rejoice for Blake."[8] The consequences of this were pleasant, and might have been far-reaching. On April 26th [1784] Flaxman wrote to "William Haley" (whose name he could not yet spell), Though this subscription never bore its intended fruit, Hawkins did many minor services for Blake, and years later Blake was still writing of "Our good and kind friend Hawkins" and "his former kindness to me".[10]

In 1787 Flaxman went to Italy to study classical statuary, a step which he said was "absolutely necessary to [his] improvement".[11] During the seven years he was abroad he probably wrote to Blake now and then, but Blake was never a reliable correspondent. On November 21st 1791 Nancy wrote to Mary Flaxman: "pray call on Mr Blake & beg of him to answer your Brothers Letter directly" [F.P., I, 56]. Evidently even this produced no satisfactory results, for on November 20th 1793 Nancy was still asking Mary Flaxman, "know you anything of Stothard or Blake?"[12]

At this time Flaxman was becoming more and more absorbed in the ideas of Emanuel Swedenborg. He was probably responsible for Blake's early interest in Swedenborg, and indirectly for Blake's presence at the meeting to organize the New Church in April 1789.[13] This is particularly significant, because it is the only religious group to which Blake is known to have belonged. Flaxman believed firmly in Swedenborg's ideas to the end of his life, though he was not a member of the church; Blake was disillusioned within a year of his joining. Flaxman's mind was pious and conventional, and the differences between the two men are well illustrated by a story Blake's friends were fond of telling.

Flaxman probably would not have approved of Blake's bitter couplet:

Soon after he returned from Rome in 1794, Flaxman began ascending the heights of popularity, and his commissions were reckoned in thousands of pounds. About this time Blake found himself a modest and reliable patron in Thomas Butts,[16] but during the last six years of the century he is not known to have made illustrations for more than a dozen or so books, and commissions were always welcome. He was particularly in need of work after his enormous undertaking for Edwards' edition of Young's Night Thoughts had failed in 1797 and 1798.[17] During these years Flaxman's old patron William Hayley was composing a poetic Essay on Sculpture, with a great display of classical erudition tending to prove that Phydias and Praxiteles had found a fitting successor in John Flaxman. By the end of 1799 the work was finished, and on December 21st Hayley sought Flaxman's advice, as he usually did, about engravings and engravers:

Flaxman recommended Blake, and more or less undertook to supervise the progress of the engravings. On January 29th 1800 he reported: There was a particular urgency about this medallion engraving, because Hayley's illegitimate son Thomas, who had been apprenticed informally to Flaxman, was dying. On February 18th Hayley wrote: "I am vexed by a delay of our Friend Howards in regard to his medallion", and asked Samuel Rose to do what he could to hurry the drawing.[19] On February 25th he told Rose that the engraving of Demosthenes had arrived "& the sight of it has been a real Gratification to his [Tom's] affectionate Spirit— . . . —I yet hope the dear departing angel will see his own engraved portrait arrive before his own departure".[20] On March 7th Hayley wrote to Rose suggesting that his friend Davies enlarge his work by a volume on Greek poets, illustrated "by works of Grecian & Etruscan art" for which Tom could make outlines: On March 14th Hayley wrote again to Rose: By the 23rd he was getting quite anxious: He complained gently to Flaxman about the delay, and on March 26th Flaxman replied: Flaxman evidently urged Blake along,[24] and on April 2nd Hayley reported to Samuel Rose: Nothing could be done for some time, because Thomas and Hayley's friend Cowper died within a week of each other in April and May, and Hayley devoted his time to writing midnight epitaphs and planning biographies of his two great friends. After his son's funeral Hayley came to London, and while there, perhaps moved by Blake's eloquent letter of consolation, he seems to have invited the engraver to come to Felpham in July to work on his portrait of Tom. This casual invitation was to change profoundly Blake's subsequent life, perhaps to stifle the lyric impulse in him, but Flaxman (like Blake and Hayley) was for the moment concerned only with very ordinary matters; on July 5th he wrote to Hayley: On July 16th, after Blake had been at Felpham some time, Hayley replied:

Blake's visit evidently changed Hayley's early bad impression, for

during that July he gave Blake his son's copy of The Triumphs of Temper with a dedicatory poem, the first draft of which read:

Sublimely fanciful and kindly mild! Hayley seems to have been as mistaken about Blake as Blake was about Hayley.

In the beginning of August Hayley finally made up his mind to write the biography of Cowper which he had been considering for several months, and he invited Blake to come live in Felpham and work under his patronage, on engravings for the Cowper biography to begin with. With the approval of his friends in London, Blake arranged to move out in September. On August 19th Flaxman wrote to Hayley:

We may assume that this letter did not come to the attention of Blake, for it seems carefully calculated to rasp on his most delicate nerves, and there was no noteworthy explosion at this time. Flaxman's advice was well-meaning and most bitterly true—eighteenth-century taste would only tolerate Blake as a journeyman engraver—but Blake would not have appreciated having his ambitions blasted in this way. As time went by his friends tended more and more to discourage his bright visions of eternity and stress the bread-winning motif, and Blake became increasingly bitter and prickly. At this time, however, things seemed to be going well for him, and he was profusely grateful to Flaxman and everyone else. On September 12th 1800 he wrote to Flaxman:

Flaxman continued to turn patrons toward Blake, but his own tone became noticeably patronizing, the tone of a competent and successful middle-aged man addressing an impoverished friend from his aspiring youth. On October 7th 1801 Flaxman wrote on the back of his letter to Hayley:

On October 18th Hayley replied to Flaxman's letter:

And in his letter on the next page Blake identified the latest patron whom Flaxman had sent to him:

For his life of Cowper, Hayley wanted to use a portrait of Cowper by Romney, but he was deterred by Lady Hesketh's intense dislike of the picture, and Lady Hesketh had to be conciliated because she had many of the letters and poems upon which Hayley depended. To confirm himself in his opinion, therefore, Hayley asked Flaxman's advice; on January 18th 1802 he wrote in a postscript:

On the 25th Flaxman replied most satisfactorily:

Upon such authoritative confirmation, Blake and Hayley went ahead

confidently with the engraving, and at the end of his January 31st letter to Flaxman Hayley wrote:

In his next letters Hayley's interest had turned to the problem of a monument to Cowper which he wanted Flaxman to make. However, he himself had made a design for the monument, and on February 25th he explained that "our Friend Blake was so Kind as to make me some neat Copies of my design", which he enclosed.[34] On the same day Flaxman replied that "having therefore examined Mr: Blake's drawing for the Monument, repeatedly, I am of opinion, that altho' the emblems are very proper . . .", the design might with propriety be alterred, and he ended his letter "with love to Mr: Mrs: Blake in which Nancy unites to them & yourself".[35] As a consequence of this difference of opinion poor Blake was kept busy copying sketches to get support for Hayley's point of view. On March 24th Hayley again wrote to Flaxman: "I hope Blake's drawing express'd my Idea"; and at the end of his letter he added that "The Kind industrious Blake by my side unites in this Benediction & in every good wish to you & Nancy" [H.C., IX].

During most of the rest of the spring Blake's and Hayley's energies were expended on a series of Ballads about Animals which Hayley wrote and gave to Blake to illustrate and sell, one at a time, for his own profit.[36] Hayley peddled the Ballads indefatigably among his friends, but though everyone liked the Ballads themselves, there were some elementary criticisms of the engravings: that the babies weren't pretty enough, that the ladies lacked feminine grace. Hayley sent a heavy consignment of Ballads for Flaxman to market in London, at the same time asking for encouragement about the quality of the engravings. Flaxman's reply of June 27th was most encouraging; not only had he sold more copies than most of Hayley's Ballad-mongers, but he praised Blake's work as well:

As 1802 wore on Hayley began to discover that he knew what was good for Blake better than Blake did, and the realization began to obsess Blake that Hayley was an interfering busybody. Relations between the two men became strained, and Hayley's references to Blake in his letters became perfunctory or disappeared completely. Flaxman was unaffected, however, and on August 14th, just before he left for Paris, he sent "love to Mr: Mrs: Blake & Yourself in which Mrs: F unites" [F.H.]. He added a postscript to his letter to Hayley of November 2nd: "Pray give our love to Mr. & Mrs: Blake" [B.M., 37,538, f 4]; and in her letter of December 10th Nancy asked Hayley to "give our Love to the good Cottagers—"[38] On December 16th, Hayley added a P.S. to his letter to Nancy: "poor Mrs Blake has suffer'd most severely from Rheumatism but she is reviving—They return yr good wishes—" [H.C., IX]. On March 21st 1803 Flaxman wrote to say, "I hope you & your Household with Mr: & Mrs: Blake have escaped the Influenza".[39]

By January 1803 Blake had had his fill of Hayley. On the 30th of that month he wrote to his brother James:

It was probably not until some time later that Blake made his feelings clear to his friends and to Hayley, but on April 25th he asked his patron Butts to "Congratulate me on my return to London, with the full approbation of Mr Hayley & with Promise—". Hayley evidently wrote to Flaxman about these complaints, for on May 28th Flaxman replied: "your account of Mr: & Mrs: Blake's having suffered so much from a damp Situation concerns me, I earnestly hope what they propose is for the best, you have allways acted with the same bounty & Kindness by them as you do by all."[40]

Gradually the breach between Hayley and Blake widened; Blake began to demand rights Hayley had never heard of, and Hayley did not know how to react. He continued to do his best for Blake, however. On August 7th 1803 he wrote to Flaxman about the drawings Flaxman's sister-in-law, Maria Denman, had made for Hayley's depressing poem entitled Triumphs of Temper:

On August 24th Flaxman replied:

This curious letter seems almost designed to influence Hayley against Blake. In particular, the comments on Blake's ability to engrave after Romney may have encouraged Hayley to give most of the plates for this biography to other engravers.

It took a treason trial to restore good relations between the two men. Hayley does not seem to have told Flaxman that about two weeks before the date of the last letter Blake had removed an objectionable soldier from his garden, and had been promptly charged with treason and sedition. In the subsequent disagreeable proceedings Hayley stood by Blake nobly, went bail for him, testified as to his loyal character, and paid his lawyer. Thereafter Blake remembered pretty consistently that, however silly Hayley's ideas and poems were, there could be no doubt that he meant well. To show his gratitude, Blake did a great deal of research for Hayley's biography of Romney during the next few years, largely under the direction, or with the advice, of Flaxman.

On January 2nd 1804, shortly before Blake's trial, Flaxman wrote to Hayley:

Flaxman remained faithful to Blake's interests, and continued to look for work for him, while Blake continued to cause difficulty by his casual approach to business. On January 4th Prince Hoare wrote to Flaxman:

Of all the occasions of Blake's tardiness, however, this delay is perhaps most understandable, for it was in the very next week that his trial for treason took place in Chichester. Blake was acquitted amid the cheers of the crowded courtroom, and Hayley had a celebratory banquet afterwards. On his return to London, Blake wrote immediately, on January 14th, to thank Hayley for all his kindness; and he continued: On May 1st Flaxman expressed his gratitude for all Hayley had done:

Evidently Blake and Hayley were still haggling over money. Blake, as we have seen, had been promised the engravings to Hayley's biography of Romney, but Hayley began to think it would be better to have someone else do them, and he suggested to Flaxman that Caroline Watson might be a good choice. Flaxman was obviously distressed at this change, and made it clear to Hayley that he wanted no part of the new arrangement.

Hayley must have replied promptly, for on June 16th Flaxman wrote again:

Hayley replied immediately:

Obviously both Flaxman and Hayley had learned to treat Blake with some delicacy. On August 2nd Flaxman replied tardily:

This pious protestation of innocence is particularly interesting in view of Flaxman's sponsorship of Cromek, who later cheated Blake so brazenly.

In his letter of November 7th 1804 Flaxman endeavored to soothe Hayley's ruffled feelings while still standing clear of the fray himself.

That Flaxman regarded Blake highly in this period is shown in the repetition of such encomia as that "Blake was the greatest man in the country, and that there would come a time when his works would be invaluable."[51] He continued to solicit work for Blake, and on August 12th 1805 he wrote to Hayley: And one Sunday in September Nancy wrote to her husband that a "Mr T" had been near death, but With the aid of all this friendly assistance Blake should have been flourishing.

Flaxman wrote to Hayley on October 18th that

It is interesting to note that this information (particularly the pious purpose) seems to come from Cromek, and that Blake is clearly to be the engraver. Four weeks later, on November 14th, Flaxman told Hayley: On December 1st Flaxman reported to Hayley that Perhaps Flaxman mentioned to Blake the disadvantages of his abstracted habits and his eccentricity. Whatever the cause, a noticeable cooling in Flaxman's references to Blake took place about this time. In his letter to Hayley of two weeks later, on December 17th, Flaxman made an extraordinary request: It must have been a considerable breach that prevented Flaxman from just walking round to see Blake, instead of using such a devious method.

This quarrel seems to have followed the pattern of most of Blake's breaches with his friends. It probably began with the friend advising Blake that his temporal and financial interests would be served if he would conform a bit more, as in Flaxman's letter to Hayley above. This, of course, Blake deeply resented, and vented his anger in violent words and bitter epigrams. Usually he decided that his critics were both stupid and jealous. Of Flaxman he wrote:

and On Nancy he wrote: And on Flaxman and Stothard: Though Blake's denunciations are a trifle shrill, it is likely that Fuseli was not the only one who found Blake "damned good to steal from".

Partly because of this breach, Hayley and Flaxman turned to other engravers when they knew of work for which Blake might have been qualified. However, they liked to help him when they could. On March 11th 1808 Flaxman wrote to Hayley:

And on May 4th he reported further It is likely that part of Blake's bitterness was due to the fact that Flaxman seems to have taken the part of Stothard and Cromek in the acrid dispute over the Chaucer painting.

Flaxman did not stop working in Blake's interests, however. On August 19th 1814 he replied to John Bischoff's enquiry about having an engraving made from one of Flaxman's monuments for Dr. T.H. Whitaker's history of Leeds (published as Loides and Elmete in 1816):

Blake did not get this commission. The last reference from these letters exhibits the relationship of Blake and Flaxman in perhaps its most characteristic light. In July 1816 Nancy wrote to her husband: Nothing further is known of this quarrel, but it was obviously just one of many that littered the history of Blake's friendships. Evidently, however, the Flaxmans continued to put up with Blake's odd humors, for in an uncolored copy of the Songs of Innocence is the inscription "Mrs Flaxman April 1817".[61] This is the last evidence of personal contact between Blake and the Flaxmans, but we may assume that the relationship continued in its old uneven channel until Flaxman's death, eight months before Blake's, in 1826.

Blake was a passionate intense little man, and, as this correspondence shows, it was not easy to be friends with him. In a moment of anger and bitterness Blake once wrote:

It is likely that during the forty-six years he knew Blake Flaxman would have felt the justice of this with great vividness. Blake also wrote: Blake's friends probably lamented that it was so often necessary to persuade Blake to come down from his far mountains to jostle in the street.