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Notes
Allan Cunningham, The Lives of the Most Eminent British Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (1830), II, 188.
Poems from the Manuscript are quoted in Volume II, pp. 88-104, from texts prepared by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
Harvey's undated catalogue was quoted from a small fragment (since lost) by Sir Geoffrey Keynes ("Blake's Library", Times Literary Supplement, November 6th 1959, p. 648); a larger fragment of the Harvey catalogue is to be found in the Anderdon Collection in the British Museum Print Room, under "Blake".
Songs of Innocence and Experience, with Other Poems [ed. R.H. Shepherd], London (B.M. Pickering), 1866; in his anonymous preface Shepherd says the poems "are printed from Blake's own manuscript, now in the possession of the Publisher" (p. vii).
The Poetical Works of William Blake, ed. John Sampson (1905), p. 267, followed by Sir Geoffrey Keynes (The Complete Writings of William Blake [1957], p. 907) and most other scholars.
"William Blake as a Private Publisher", Bulletin of the New York Public Library, LXI (1957), 550. Three weeks later, on April 25th, Blake told Thomas Butts: "The Reason the Ballads have been suspended is the pressure of other business, but they will go on again soon." (All Blake's writings are quoted from the Keynes text above.)
Geoffrey Keynes, Bibliotheca Bibliographici (1964), item 500. Sir Geoffrey kindly indicated for me where Blake's version differs from that in the London Magazine. According to The Plays & Poems of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, ed. R.C. Rhodes (1928) III, 239-240, the song appeared in a pantomime called Fortunatus first acted on January 3rd 1780; it was printed in The Lady's Magazine (Supplement for 1779), The London Magazine (February 1780, p. 87), Songs in the Glorious First of June (1794), Songs in Cape Vincent (1797), The Vocal Miscellany (1820), and The Beauties of Sheridan (1834). Blake's version, probably written down from memory, differs in many minor respects from that in The London Magazine, as is clear below where the London Magazine text is indicated within Blake's version in brackets:
And chilling mists hang o'er the dark [darken'd] main,
When [Then] sailors think of their far distant home
And of those friends they ne'er must [may] see again:
But when the fight's begun,
And standing at your gun [Each serving at his gun],
Should any thought of them come o'er your [our] mind,
Think only [We think but] should the day be won
How 'twould ['twill] chear their hearts to hear,
That their own [old] companion he was one.
Or, my friend, should [my lad if] you a Mistress kind
Have left on shore, some pretty girl & [and] true,
Who every night does [many a night doth] listen to the wind,
And sighs [wakes] to think how it may fare with you:
But [O! when the fight's begun,
And standing at your gun [Each serving at his gun],
Should any thought of her come o'er your mind,
Think only should the day be won,
How 'twill chear her heart to hear
That her own true sailor he was one.
Reproduced and discussed in G. Keynes, Engravings by William Blake: The Separate Plates, Dublin, 1956, no. xviii.
The sketch of Catherine, now in the Tate Gallery, is reproduced in Blake's Pencil Drawings: Second Series, ed. G. Keynes, London, 1956, plate x.
The "Dante" sketch in the Pierpont Morgan Library is reproduced in Blake's Pencil Drawings: Second Series, plate lvi. The printed "ast" on the verso of course does not show in the reproduction.
The sketches are described in The Blake Collection of W. Graham Robertson, ed. K. Preston, London, 1952, pp. 196-197, along with another sheet with sketches of the same subject. Mr George Goyder, who now owns both sheets of sketches, informed me of the catchwords on the first and told me further that the second sheet has a catchword which has been obliterated and is unreadable. Both sheets are about 10 13/16 x 5¼, which corresponds closely with the height of the Ballads page (11¾") and the width between the columns of poetry (about 5½").
The watermark in Blake's letter in the Boston Public Library was kindly reported to me by Ellen M. Oldham.
Blake made drawings on more printed sheets of paper which I have not yet been able to identify. A drawing of "Satan" of about 1823 (reproduced in Blake's Pencil Drawings: Second Series, ed. G. Keynes [1956], plate xiv) shows, in the right margin upside down, the letters "ath:" which correspond closely to nothing in the 1802 Ballads, in the 1783 Poetical Sketches or in the 1797 Night Thoughts.
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