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William Blake's
Letters to George Cumberland Although the focus of this web site is on the family known as Man there are times when it takes a turn down a collateral side track. In this instance in Generation Three the brothers Henry, John, and James shared a first cousin, George Cumberland, whose mother Eliza Cumberland (nee Balchen) was the sister of Mary Balchen who married John Man. Because the relationship between George Cumberland and William Blake is of general interest, the following letters from William Blake to George Cumberland have been transcribed.
Dear Sir I congratulate you not on any atchievement. because I know that the Genius that produces these Designs can execute them in any manner notwithstanding the pretended Philosophy which teaches that Execution is the power of One & Invention of Another--Locke says it i[s the] same faculty that Invents Judges, & I say he who can Invent can Execute. As to laying on the Wax it is as follows Take a cake of Virgins wax ([if it can be found] [if such be] I dont know what animal produces it) & stroke it regularly over the surface of a warm Plate. (the Plate must be warm enough to melt the Wax as it passes over) then immediately draw a feather over it & you will get all even surface which when cold will recieve any impression minutely Note The danger is in not covering the Plate All Over Now You will I hope shew all the family of Antique Borers, that Peace & Plenty & Domestic Happiness is the Source of Sublime Art, & prove to the Abstract Philosophers--that Enjoyment & not Abstinence is the food of Intellect. Yours sincerely WILL BLAKE Health to Mr Cumberland & Family The pressure necessary to roll off the lines is the same as when you print, or not quite so great. I have not been able to send a proof of the bath tho I have done the corrections my paper not being in order. ___________________________________ Letter No. 2 [To George Cumberland] Lambeth 23 Decembr 1796 a Merry Christmas Dear Cumberland I have lately had some pricks of conscience on account of not acknowledging your friendship to me [before] immediately on the reciet of your. beautiful book. I have likewise had by me all the summer 6 Plates which you desired me to get made for you. they have laid on my shelf. without speaking to tell me whose they were or that they were [there] at all & it was some time (when I found them) before I could divine whence they came or whither they were bound or whether they were to lie there to eternity. I have now sent them to you to be transmuted, thou real Alchymist!Go on Go on. such works as yours Nature & Providence the Eternal Parents demand from their children how few produce them in such perfection how Nature smiles on them. how Providence rewards them. How all your Brethren say, The sound of his harp & his flute heard from his secret forest chears us to the labours of life. & we plow & reap forgetting our labour Let us see you sometimes as well as sometimes hear from you & let us often See your Works Compliments to Mr Cumberland & Family Yours in head & heart WILL BLAKE _____________________________________ Letter No. 3 [To] Mr [George] Cumberland, Bishopsgate, Windsor Great Park Hercules Buildings, Lambeth. Augst 26. 1799 Dear CumberlandI ought long ago to have written to you to thank you for your kind recommendation to Dr Trusler which tho it has faild of success is not the less to be rememberd by me with Gratitude- I have made him a Drawing in my best manner he has sent it back with a Letter full of Criticisms in which he says it accords not with his Intentions which are to Reject all Fancy from his Work. How far he Expects to please I cannot tell. But as I cannot paint Dirty rags & old Shoes where I ought to place Naked Beauty or simple ornament. I despair of Ever pleasing one Class of Men--Unfortunately our authors of books are among this Class how soon we Shall have a change for the better I cannot Prophecy. Dr Trusler says "Your Fancy from what I have seen of it. & I have see variety at Mr. Cumberlands seems to be in the other world or the World of Spirits. which accords not with my Intentions. Which whilst living in This World Wish to follow the Nature of it" I could not help Smiling at the difference between the doctrines of Dr Trusler & those of Christ. But however for his own sake I am sorry that a Man should be so enamourd of Rowlandsons caricatures as to call them copies from life &manners or fit Things for a Clergyman to write upon Pray let me intreat you to persevere in your Designing it is the only source of Pleasure all your other pleasures depend upon It. It is the Tree Your Pleasures are the Fruit. Your Inventions of Intellectual Visions are the Stamina of every thing you value. Go on if not for your own sake yet for ours who love & admire your works. but above all For the Sake of the Arts. Do not throw aside for any long time the honour intended you by Nature to revive the Greek workmanship. I study your outlines as usual just as if they were antiques. As to Myself about whom you are so kindly Interested. I live by Miracle. I am Painting small Pictures from the Bible. For as to Engraving in which art I cannot reproach myself with any neglect yet I am laid by in a corner as if I did not Exist & Since my Youngs Night Thoughts have been publishd Even Johnson & Fuseli have discarded my Graver. But as I know that He who Works & has his health cannot starve. I laugh at Fortune & Go on & on. I think I foresee better Things than I have ever seen. My Work pleases my employer & I have an order for Fifty small Pictures at One Guinea each which is Something better than mere copying after another artist. But above all I feel myself happy & contented let what will come having passed now near twenty years in ups & downs I am used to them & perhaps a little practise in them may turn out to benefit. It is now Exactly Twenty years since I was upon the ocean of business & Tho I laugh at Fortune I am perswaded that She Alone is the Governor of Worldly Riches. & when it is Fit She will call on me till then I wait with Patience in hopes that She is busied among my Friends. With Mine & My Wifes best compliments to Mr Cumberland I remain Yours sincerely WILLm BLAKE __________________________________________ Letter No 4. [To] Mr [George] Cumberland, Bishopsgate, Windsor Great Park 13 Hercules Buildings, Lambeth, 2 July 1800 Dear Cumberland I have to congratulate you on your plan for a National Gallery being put into Execution. All your wishes shall in due time be fulfilled the immense flood of Grecian light & glory which is coming on Europe will more than realize our warmest wishes. Your honours will be unbounded when your plan shall be carried into Execution as it must be if England continues a Nation. I hear that it is now in the hands of Ministers That the King shews it great Countenance & Encouragement, that it will soon be up before Parliament & that it must be extended & enlarged to take in Originals both of Painting & Sculpture by considering Every valuable original that is brought into England or can be purchasd Abroad as its objects of Acquisition. Such is the Plan as I am told & such must be the plan if England wishes to continue at all worth notice as you have yourself observd only now we must possess Originals as well as France or be Nothing Excuse I intreat you my not returning Thanks at the proper moment for your kind present. No perswasion could make my stupid bead believe that it was proper for me to trouble you with a letter of meer Compliment & Expression of thanks. I begin to Emerge from a Deep pit of Melancholy, Melancholy without any real reason for it, a Disease which God keep you from & all good men. Our artists of all ranks praise your outlines & wish for more. Flaxman is very warm in your commendation & more and more of A Grecian. Mr Hayley has lately mentiond your Work on outline in Notes to [Epistles on Sculpture] an Essay on Sculpture in Six Epistles to John Flaxman, I have been too little among friends which I fear they will not Excuse & I know not how to [gi] apologize for. Poor Fuseli sore from the lash of Envious tongues praises you & dispraises with the same breath he is not naturally good natured but he is artificially very ill natured yet even from him I learn the Estimation you are held in among artists & connoisseurs. I am still Employd in making Designs & little Pictures with now & then an Engraving & find that in future to live will not be so difficult as it has been It is very Extraordinary that London in so few years from a City of meer Necessaries or at l[e]ast a commerce of the lowest order of luxuries should have become a City of Elegance in some degree & that its once stupid inhabitants should enter into an Emulation of Grecian manners. There are now I believe as many Booksellers as there are Butchers & as many Printshops as of any other trade We remember when a Print shop was a rare bird in London & I myself remember when I thought my pursuits of Art a kind of Criminal Dissipation & neglect of the main chance which I hid my face for not being able to abandon as a Passion which is forbidden by Law & Religion, but now it appears to be Law & Gospel too, at least I hear so from the few friends I have dared to visit in my stupid Melancholy. Excuse this communication of sentiments which I felt necessary to my repose at this time. I feel very strongly that I neglect my Duty to my Friends, but It is not want of Gratitude or Friendship but perhaps an Excess of both.
Let me hear
of your welfare. [To] George Cumberland 19 Decr 1808 Dear Cumberland I am very much obliged by your kind ardour in my cause & should immediately Engage in reviving my former pursuits of printing if I had not now so long been turned out of the old channel into a new one that it is impossible for me to return to it without destroying my present course New Vanities or 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 any thing. 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 & am determind to pursue the plan of publishing what I may get printed without disarranging my time which in future must [alone] be devoted to Designing & Painting [alone] when I have got my Work printed I will send it you first of any body in the mean time believe me to be Your Sincere friend WILL BLAKE __________________________________________ [To] George Cumberland Esqre, Culver Street, Bristol N 3 Fountain Court Strand 12 April 1827 Dear Cumberland I have been very near the Gates of Death & have returned very weak & an Old Man feeble & tottering, but not in Spirit & Life not in The Real Man The Imagination which Liveth for Ever. In that I am stronger & stronger as this Foolish Body decays. I thank you for the Pains you have taken with Poor Job. I know too well that a great majority of Englishmen are fond of The Indefinite which they Measure by Newtons Doctrine of the Fluxions of an Atom. A Thing that does not Exist. These are Politicians & think that Republican Art is Inimical to their Atom. For a Line or Lineament is not formed by Chance a Line is a Line in its Minutest Subdivision[s] Strait or Crooked It is Itself & Not Intermeasurable with or by any Thing Else Such is Job but since the French Revolution Englishmen are all Intermeasurable One by Another Certainly a happy state of Agreement to which I for One do not Agree. God keep me from the Divinity of Yes & No too The Yea Nay Creeping Jesus from supposing Up & Down to be the same Thing as all Experimentalists must suppose You are desirous I know to dispose of some of my Works & to make <them> Pleasin[g], I am obliged to you & to all who do so But having none remaining of all that I had Printed I cannot Print more Except at a great loss for at the time I printed those things I had a whole House to range in now I am shut up in a Corner therefore am forced to ask a Price for them that I scarce expect to get from a Stranger. I am now Printing a Set of the Songs of Innocence & Experience for a Friend at Ten Guineas which I cannot do under Six Months consistent with my other Work, so that I have little hope of doing any more of such things. The Last Work I produced is a Poem Entitled Jerusalem the Emanation of the Giant Albion, but find that to Print it will Cost my Time the amount of Twenty Guineas One I have Finishd It contains 100 Plates but it is not likely that I shall get a Customer for it. As you wish me to send you a list with the Prices of these things they are as follows Songs of Inn. Exp. 10. 10. 0 6. 6. 0 The Little Card I will do as soon as Possible but when you Consider that I have been reduced to a Skeleton from which I am slowly recovering you will I hope have Patience with me. Flaxman is Gone & we must All soon follow every one to his Own Eternal House Leaving the Delusive Goddess Nature & her Laws to get into Freedom from all Law of the Members into The Mind in which every one is King & Priest in his own House God Send it so on Earth as it is in Heaven I am Dear Sir Yours Affectionately WILLIAM BLAKE NEWLY DISCOVERED … Blake wrote to his long-standing friend and steadfast supporter of his work, George Cumberland . It is a letter that has only recently come to light, in which Blake speaks of being 'upon the verge of a happy alteration in my life'. But in the verses attached in a postscript we glimpse the inner sense of what the past decade in London has been like: Dear Generous Cumberland nobly solicitous for a Friends welfare. Behold me Whom your Friendship has Magnified: Rending the manacles of Londons dungeon dark. I have rent the black net & escap'd. See my Cottage at Felpham in joy Beams over the Sea, a bright light over France, but the Web & the Veil I have left Behind me at London resists every beam of light; hanging from heaven to Earth. Dropping with human gore. Lo! I have left it! I have torn it from my limbs. I shake my wings ready to take my flight! Pale, Ghastly pale: stands the City in fear.At Chichester, in the Quarter Sessions in January 1804, Blake was tried for sedition. The fears he had harboured in London were now realised.
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