IT was when Mr. Sampson's edition of Blake came into my hands in the winter of 1905 that the idea of writing a book on Blake first presented itself to me. From a boy he had been one of my favourite poets, and I had heard a great deal about him from Mr. Yeats as long ago as 1893, the year in which he and Mr. Ellis brought out their vast cyclopaedia, T he Works of William Blake, Poetic, Symbolic, and Critical. From that time to this Blake has never been out of my mind, but I have always hesitated to write down anything on a subject so great in itself, and already handled by great poets. Things have been written about Blake by Rossetti which no one will ever surpass; and in Mr. Swinburne's book Blake himself seems to.
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