"Give pensions to the learned pig,
Or the hare playing on a tabor;
Anglus can never see perfection
But in the journeyman's labour," -


he wrote in one of those rough-hewn and bitter epigrams of his. Yet
the work that was then so lukewarmly received--if, indeed, it can be
said to have been received at all--is at present far more sought
after than Stothard's, and the prices now given for the "Songs of
Innocence and Experience," the "Inventions to the Book of Job," and
even "The Grave," would have brought affluence to the struggling
artist, who (as Cromek taunted him) was frequently "reduced so low
as to be obliged to live on half a guinea a week." Not that this
was entirely the fault of his contemporaries. Blake was a
visionary, and an untuneable man; and, like others who work for the
select public of all ages, he could not always escape the
consequence that the select public of his own, however willing, were
scarcely numerous enough to support him. His most individual works
are the "Songs of Innocence," 1789, and the "Songs of Experience,"
1794. These, afterwards united in one volume, were unique in their
method of production; indeed, they do not perhaps strictly come
within the category of what is generally understood to be
copperplate engraving. The drawings were outlined and the songs
written upon the metal with some liquid that resisted the action of
acid, and the remainder of the surface of the plate was eaten away
with aqua-fortis, leaving the design in bold relief, like a rude
stereotype. This was then printed off in the predominant tone--
blue, brown, or yellow, as the case might be--and delicately tinted