DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.31830#0030
part; he talked with them, as he always did in sympathetic com-
pany, with perfect simplicity and openness. It was on both sides
a happy familiarity of intercourse. Blake, on his Sundav visits
to the Linnells at Highgate, would call on his way from the Strand
(he now lived at Fountain Court) at Broad Street, Bloomsbury,
for Samuel Palmer; and the two, the old man nearing seventy
and the lad of twenty, would walk together through the lanes
and helds and up the hill to Hampstead Heath and Collins’ Farm,
where the Linnell children would run out to welcome them, and
Varley would be waiting to engage Blake in astrological discus-
sions. In the evening they would set forth again, with a lantern
to guide them to the road. At other times Blake would be found
at Brixton with the Calverts, pulling proofs on Calvert’s
printing-press or preparing materials for etching : one night a
pipkin containing the etching-ground cracked on the hre, and
the room was hlled with hames and smoke. And once at least,
after Palmer’s retirement to Shoreham had lured others of the
brotherhood to frequent sojourns in that secluded valley, Blake
journeyed down with the Calverts into Kent in the roomy
carrier’s van of antique shape, drawn by eight or ten horses with
hoops and bells, which started from Charing Cross and deposited
them at Shoreham on its way to Tunbridge Wells. It was
Blake’s last visit to the country, in the last year of his life, pro-
bably in the autumn of 1826; and we can imagine him happy in
this patriarchal mode of travel through the pleasant fields of
Kent, and happily seated in the chimney-corner on arrival,
opposite the elder Palmer, the old bookseller, who shared his
son’s retreat, with his youthful friends around him.
It was partly for reasons of health, partly to devote himself
in seclusion to imaginative art, that Palmer chose the retreat at
Shoreham where he was to spend seven years. . On his first visit
it was Frederick Tatham who accompanied him : but Calvert,
George Richmond, and Finch were often there for longer or
shorter times : Linnell also came down and sketched there; and
John Giles, the romantic stockbroker; and the young men, busy
with their drawings all the day, sat long into the night talking
and reading to each other, or went on midnight rambles in the
dark lanes singing Locke’s music to Macbeth or acting imaginary
scenes. A strange company of youths they were; and odd indeed
they seemed to the villagers, who christened them “ The
14
pany, with perfect simplicity and openness. It was on both sides
a happy familiarity of intercourse. Blake, on his Sundav visits
to the Linnells at Highgate, would call on his way from the Strand
(he now lived at Fountain Court) at Broad Street, Bloomsbury,
for Samuel Palmer; and the two, the old man nearing seventy
and the lad of twenty, would walk together through the lanes
and helds and up the hill to Hampstead Heath and Collins’ Farm,
where the Linnell children would run out to welcome them, and
Varley would be waiting to engage Blake in astrological discus-
sions. In the evening they would set forth again, with a lantern
to guide them to the road. At other times Blake would be found
at Brixton with the Calverts, pulling proofs on Calvert’s
printing-press or preparing materials for etching : one night a
pipkin containing the etching-ground cracked on the hre, and
the room was hlled with hames and smoke. And once at least,
after Palmer’s retirement to Shoreham had lured others of the
brotherhood to frequent sojourns in that secluded valley, Blake
journeyed down with the Calverts into Kent in the roomy
carrier’s van of antique shape, drawn by eight or ten horses with
hoops and bells, which started from Charing Cross and deposited
them at Shoreham on its way to Tunbridge Wells. It was
Blake’s last visit to the country, in the last year of his life, pro-
bably in the autumn of 1826; and we can imagine him happy in
this patriarchal mode of travel through the pleasant fields of
Kent, and happily seated in the chimney-corner on arrival,
opposite the elder Palmer, the old bookseller, who shared his
son’s retreat, with his youthful friends around him.
It was partly for reasons of health, partly to devote himself
in seclusion to imaginative art, that Palmer chose the retreat at
Shoreham where he was to spend seven years. . On his first visit
it was Frederick Tatham who accompanied him : but Calvert,
George Richmond, and Finch were often there for longer or
shorter times : Linnell also came down and sketched there; and
John Giles, the romantic stockbroker; and the young men, busy
with their drawings all the day, sat long into the night talking
and reading to each other, or went on midnight rambles in the
dark lanes singing Locke’s music to Macbeth or acting imaginary
scenes. A strange company of youths they were; and odd indeed
they seemed to the villagers, who christened them “ The
14