you, hypocrites! Even murder, which the Courts of Justice (more merciful than the Church) are whispered to allow, is not done in passion, but in cool-blooded design and intention.

Many suppose that before the Creation all was solitude and chaos. This is the most pernicious idea that can enter the mind, as it takes away all sublimity from the Bible, and limits all existence to creation and chaos-to the time and space fixed by the corporeal vegetative eye, and leaves the man who entertains such an idea the habitation. of unbelieving demons. Eternity exists, and all things in eternity, independent of creation, which was an act of mercy. I have represented those who are in eternity by some in a cloud, within the rainbow that surrounds the throne. They merely appear as in a cloud when anything of creation, redemption, or judgment, is the subject of contemplation, though their whole contemplation is concerning these things. The reason they so appear is the humiliation of the reason and doubting selfhood, and the giving all up to inspiration. By this it will be seen that I do not consider either the just, or the wicked, to be in a supreme state, but to be, every one of them, states of the sleep which the soul may fall into in its deadly dreams of good and evil, when it leaves Paradise following the Serpent.

Many persons, such as Paine and Voltaire, with some of the ancient Greeks, say: 'We will not converse concerning good and evil; we will live in Paradise and Liberty.' You may do so in spirit, but not in the mortal body, as you pretend, till after a Last Judgment. For in Paradise they have no corporeal and mortal body: that originated with the Fall and was called Death, and cannot be removed but by a Last Judgment. While we are in the world of mortality, we must suffer the whole Creation groans to be delivered.

There will always be as many hypocrites born as honest men, and they will always have superior power in mortal things. You cannot have liberty in this world without what you call moral virtue,

and you cannot have moral virtue without the subjection of that half of the human race who hate what you call moral virtue.

The nature of hatred and envy, and of all the mischiefs in the world, is here depicted. No one envies or hates one of his own party; even the devils love one another in their own way. They torment one another for other reasons than hate or envy: these are only employed against the just. Neither can Seth envy Noah, or Elijah envy Abraham; but they may both of them envy the success of Satan, or of Og, or Moloch. The horse never envies the peacock, nor the sheep the goat; but they envy a rival in life and existence, whose ways and means exceed their own. Let him be of what class of animals he will, a dog will envy a cat who is pampered at the expense of his own comfort, as I have often seen. The Bible never tells us that devils torment one another through envy; it is through this that they torment the just. But for what do they torment one another? I answer: For the coercive laws of hell, moral hypocrisy. They torment a hypocrite when he is discovered-they punish a failure in the tormentor who has suffered the subject of his torture to escape. In Hell, all is self-righteousness; there is no such thing there as forgiveness of sin. He who does forgive sin is crucified as an abetter of criminals, and he who performs works of mercy, in any shape whatever, is punished and, if possible, destroyed-not through envy, or hatred, or malice, but through self-righteousness, that thinks it does God service, which god is Satan. They do not envy one another they contemn or despise one another. Forgiveness of sin is only at the judgment-seat of Jesus the Saviour, where the accuser is cast out, not because he sins, but because he torments the just, and makes them do what he condemns as sin, and what he knows is opposite to their own identity.

It is not because angels are holier than men or devils that makes them angels, but because they do not expect holiness from one another, but from God only.

The player is a liar when he says: Angels are happier than men, because they are better.' Angels are happier than men and devils, because they are not always prying after good and evil in one another, and eating the tree of knowledge for Satan's gratification.

The Last Judgment is an overwhelming of bad art and science. Mental things are alone real: what is called corporeal nobody knows of; its dwelling-place is a fallacy, and its existence an imposture. Where is the existence out of mind, or thought ?-where is it but in the mind of a fool. Some people flatter themselves that there will be no Last Judgment, and that bad art will be adopted and mixed with good art that error or experiment will make a part of truth; and they boast that it is its foundation. These people flatter themselves; I will not flatter them. Error is created, truth is eternal. Error or creation will be burned up, and then, and not till then, truth or eternity will appear. It is burned up the moment men cease to ⚫ behold it. I assert, for myself, that I do not behold the outward creation, and that to me it is hindrance and not action. What!' it will be questioned; 'when the sun rises, do you not see a round disc of fire, somewhat like a guinea?' Oh! no, no! I see an innumerable company of the heavenly host, crying: 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty!' I question not my corporeal eye, any more than I would question a window concerning a sight. I look through it, and not with it.

The Last Judgment [will be] when all those are cast away who trouble religion with questioning concerning good and evil, or eating of the tree of those knowledges or reasonings which hinder the vision of God, turning all into a consuming fire. When imagination, art, and science, and all intellectual gifts, all the gifts of the Holy Ghost, are looked upon as of no use, and only contention remains to man; then the Last Judgment begins, and its vision is seen by the eye of every one according to the situation he holds.

APPENDIX.

LETTERS FROM BLAKE

ANNOTATED CATALOGUE OF BLAKE'S PICTURES AND DRAWINGS.

LIST, WITH OCCASIONAL NOTES, OF BLAKE'S
ENGRAVINGS AND WRITINGS.

[The ten following Letters were written by Blake, during his residence at Felpham, to his friend and patron Mr. Butts, whose grandson, Captain Butts, kindly permits their publication here. They did not come to hand until after the foregoing Biography was in type, and they could not, therefore, be inserted in their natural place, where they would have so incalculably enhanced the interest of the narrative: a narrative,—the reader will forgive me for pointing out,-which, drawn as it was from the scantiest materials, will yet be found to harmonize, both in letter and spirit, with the tenor of these new-found documents, though the broad daylight they let in upon the undercurrents of Blake's life at that period never greeted the eyes to which it would have been so precious. The first of these letters is almost word for word the same as one addressed to Flaxman, already quoted; but, being brief, to mar the completeness of the series by withdrawing it seemed a pity.-ED. Life.]