THE GRAVE 1

First posted Dec 2017 

In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

John 14:2

Henry Fuseli and William Blake were both 'corporeal' friends and spiritual friends: they enjoyed each others company and shared interests, but they also related with each other through the bond of a common spiritual sensitivity. Fuseli recognized in Blake's watercolor illustrations for Blair's The Grave the implications of what he was trying to communicate of everyman's spiritual journey. To enhance the message that Blake incorporated in his illustrations, Fuseli arranged the pictures in the order appropriate to carry Blake's message.

Fuseli:
"By the arrangement here made, the regular progression
of Man, from his first descent into the Vale of
Death, to his last admission into Life eternal, is
exhibited. These Designs, detached from the
Work they embellish, form of themselves a most
interesting Poem."

I. THE DESCENT OF CHRIST INTO THE GRAVE.
II. THE DESCENT OF MAN INTO THE VALE OF DEATH.
III. DEATH'S DOOR
IV. THE STRONG AND WICKED MAN DYING.
V. THE GOOD OLD MAN DYING.
VI. THE SOUL HOVERING OVER THE BODY.
VII. THE SOUL EXPLORING THE RECESSES OF THE GRAVE.
VIII. THE COUNSELLOR, KING, WARRIOR, MOTHER, AND CHILD.
IX. THE SKELETON RE-ANIMATED.
X. THE RE-UNION OF SOUL
XI. A FAMILY MEETING IN HEAVEN.
XII. THE LAST JUDGMENT.

To Blake the Door of Death marked entry into earthly life. Christ and Man alike enter the door of death to gain experience by living in a physical, mortal body. A man takes on an identity on earth suited to the tasks assigned to him. Although the man may experience himself as a body separated from his soul this is a misapprehension. The soul remains a presence which can be accessed whenever the body is prepared to receive it. In the Vale of Death are many mansions which the man may have occasion to explore as he seeks the truth which will remain when error is annihilated. When the trumpet sounds for a man he receives the transcending vision and his body of flesh is exchanged for a spiritual body suited for Eternity. Man is not alone in the Eternal Realm but reunited with the company of the redeemed in the fellowship of love. Error is annihilated and truth reigns when the Last Judgment separates the Eternal from the transient, the Infinite from restraints of space.

Cromek, the publisher, did not follow the order suggested by Fuseli but used a completely different order in the published book:

1 Title Page - The Grave - A Poem 
2 Christ Descending
3 The Meeting of a Family in Heaven
4 The Counselor, King, Warrior, Mother and Child in the Tomb
5 Death of the Strong Wicked Man
6 The Soul Hovering Over the Body reluctantly parting with Life
7 The Death of The Good Old Man
8 The Descent of Man into the Vale of Death
9 The Day of Judgment
10 The Soul Exploring the Recesses of the Grave
11 Death's Door
12 The Reunion of the Soul & the Body

The arrangement by Cromak follows the more common understanding of Death as the end of Life when the evil man is subject to punishment and the good man is rewarded in heaven by being rejoined by his soul from whom he was alienated on earth.

British Museum

Page 1

Cromak's arrangement

Schiavonetti's Engraving  

Fuseli's arrangement

Blake watercolor

BLAKE & SHELLEY

Yale Center for British Art

Jerusalem

Plate 40

Jerusalem, Plate 41 [46], (E 188)
"And Ely, Scribe of Los, whose pen no other hand
Dare touch! Oxford, immortal Bard! with eloquence Divine,
Divine, he wept over Albion: speaking the words of God
In mild perswasion: bringing leaves of the Tree of Life."

Jerusalem, Plate 40 [45], (E 188)

"O God descend! gather our brethren, deliver Jerusalem
But that we may omit no office of the friendly spirit
Oxford take thou these leaves of the Tree of Life: with eloquence
That thy immortal tongue inspires; present them to Albion:
Perhaps he may recieve them, offerd from thy loved hands.
So spoke, unheard by Albion, the merciful Son of Heaven
To those whose Western Gates were open, as they stood weeping
Around Albion: but Albion heard him not; obdurate! hard!
He frown'd on all his Friends, counting them enemies in his sorrow"

Blake never mentioned Shelly by name although "he must have known of the son-in-law of his friends William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft" and of Godwin's disapproval of his sixteen year old daughter's involvement with a man already married. 

It seems likely that Blake must have been troubled by the life Shelley was living as young man. Shelley married a young woman and then left her to elope with the daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. Until Shelley's wife died by suicide the couple were unable to marry. Shelley's wealthy father cut off his son's financial support leading him to an accumulation of debts and an unorthodox style of living. Shelley's life was short but filled with writing poetry, cultivating friendships and accumilating experience through study and travel. He lived on an emotional razor's edge. Perhaps Blake sumised that Shelley burned too much of his creative energy before reaching his inate potential. 

Since Blake showed an avid interest in reading the poetry of his contemporaries, we may assume that he read the published work of Shelley and admired his talent and many of his sentiments. Foster Damon, in A Blake Dictionary, introduced the idea that Blake was referring to Shelley when he wrote in Jerusalem of the Bard of Oxford.

Damon wrote on Page 314: "The Bard of Oxford. Oxford, the Cathedral City, is also 'an imortal bard,' whose divine eloquence fails to cure Albion. This episode is evidently a tribute to Shelley. Of all the contemporary poets, none was closer to Blake in revolutionary fervor, poetic rapture, intense visualizing, and daring thought. He denounced the tyrant God, and called himself an athiest, although only Blake surpassed him in religious feeling and insight. Shelley not only preached free love but he practiced it, yet without being a libertine. He attacked the oppressors of the poor, the coruption the government. He was an overt fighting Reprobate."

Page 71: "Ely is the cathedral citys of Cambridgeshire; its university, where the clergy are trained, is Cambridge; the greatest man produced by Cambridge was the anticlerical Milton, 'Scribe of Los, whose pen no other hand dare touch' (J 46:6).  With parallel irony, Blake (in my opinion there was no alternative) identified Oxford with the poet expelled from Oxford for his atheism, the anticlerical Shelley, 'immortal Bard; with eloquence divine he wept over Albion, speaking the words of God in mild perswasion, bringing leaves of the Tree of Life.'"

Twice Blake used the word eloquence in writing of the Bard of Oxford. He used it also in his early poem In Imitation of Spenser to intimate that with eloquence the consciousness of negative conditions can be altered: specifically that hate and envy can be dispelled.

Poetical Sketches, (E 421)

"AN IMITATION OF SPEN[S]ER
And thou, Mercurius, that with winged brow
Dost mount aloft into the yielding sky,
And thro' Heav'n's halls thy airy flight dost throw,
Entering with holy feet to where on high
Jove weighs the counsel of futurity;
Then, laden with eternal fate, dost go
Down, like a falling star, from autumn sky,
And o'er the surface of the silent deep dost fly.

If thou arrivest at the sandy shore,
Where nought but envious hissing adders dwell,
Thy golden rod, thrown on the dusty floor,
Can charm to harmony with potent spell;
Such is sweet Eloquence, that does dispel
Envy and Hate, that thirst for human gore:
And cause in sweet society to dwell
Vile savage minds that lurk in lonely cell."

CATHEDRALS

British Museum

Jerusalem 

Copy A, Frontispiece

Los entering Gothic door

From A Blake Dictionary by S. Foster Damon

Blake choose the cities which he used to represent Cathedral Cities because they had associations which could carry symbolic meaning. They could be used to represent attempts to embody spiritual characteristics which could protect Albion from making destructive decisions.

The first mentioned, Selsey, no longer existed but had been destroyed by flooding caused by the encroaching ocean. Her neighbor Chichester became the seat of her bishop, and the location of the courtroom where Blake himself was acquitted of treason in 1804. Damon associated the next mentioned, Winchester, with William Hayley who was instramental in Blake's move to Felpham. Richard Warner of Bath was cited by Damon for his courageous anti-war sermon. Damon continued through Blake's list of churchs mentioning prominent men who were associated with them including John Milton for Ely of Cambridgeshire. Milton, a graduate of Cambridge, fit the title of "Scribe of Los, whose pen no other hand Dare touch!"

Jerusalem, Plate 36 [40],(E 182)

"And these the Twenty-four in whom the Divine Family    

Appear'd; and they were One in Him. A Human Vision!
Human Divine, Jesus the Saviour, blessed for ever and ever.

Selsey, true friend! who afterwards submitted to be devourd
By the waves of Despair, whose Emanation rose above
The flood, and was nam'd Chichester, lovely mild & gentle! Lo!   
Her lambs bleat to the sea-fowls cry, lamenting still for Albion.

Submitting to be call'd the son of Los the terrible vision:
Winchester stood devoting himself for Albion: his tents
Outspread with abundant riches, and his Emanations
Submitting to be call'd Enitharmons daughters, and be born     
In vegetable mould: created by the Hammer and Loom
In Bowlahoola & Allamanda where the Dead wail night & day.

(I call them by their English names: English, the rough basement.
Los built the stubborn structure of the Language, acting against
Albions melancholy, who must else have been a Dumb despair.)   

Gloucester and Exeter and Salisbury and Bristol: and benevolent"

Jerusalem, Plate 41 [46], (E 188)

"Bath, mild Physician of Eternity, mysterious power
Whose springs are unsearchable & knowledg infinite.
Hereford, ancient Guardian of Wales, whose hands
Builded the mountain palaces of Eden, stupendous works!
Lincoln, Durham & Carlisle, Councellors of Los.            
And Ely, Scribe of Los, whose pen no other hand
Dare touch! Oxford, immortal Bard! with eloquence
Divine, he wept over Albion: speaking the words of God
In mild perswasion: bringing leaves of the Tree of Life.

Thou art in Error Albion, the Land of Ulro:               
One Error not remov'd, will destroy a human Soul
Repose in Beulahs night, till the Error is remov'd
Reason not on both sides. Repose upon our bosoms
Till the Plow of Jehovah, and the Harrow of Shaddai
Have passed over the Dead, to awake the Dead to Judgment.     
But Albion turn'd away refusing comfort.

Oxford trembled while he spoke, then fainted in the arms
Of Norwich, Peterboro, Rochester, Chester awful, Worcester,
Litchfield, Saint Davids, Landaff, Asaph, Bangor, Sodor,
Bowing their heads devoted: and the Furnaces of Los         
Began to rage, thundering loud the storms began to roar
Upon the Furnaces, and loud the Furnaces rebellow beneath

And these the Four in whom the twenty-four appear'd four-fold:
Verulam, London, York, Edinburgh, mourning one towards another"
Milton, Plate 36 [40], (E 137)
"My Vegetated portion was hurried from Lambeths shades
He set me down in Felphams Vale & prepard a beautiful
Cottage for me that in three years I might write all these Visions
To display Natures cruel holiness: the deceits of Natural Religion"
Jerusalem, Plate 34 [38], (E 180)
"Thus speaking; the Divine Family follow Albion:
I see them in the Vision of God upon my pleasant valleys.

I behold London; a Human awful wonder of God!
He says: Return, Albion, return! I give myself for thee:         
My Streets are my, Ideas of Imagination.
Awake Albion, awake! and let us awake up together.
My Houses are Thoughts: my Inhabitants; Affections,
The children of my thoughts, walking within my blood-vessels,
Shut from my nervous form which sleeps upon the verge of Beulah  
In dreams of darkness, while my vegetating blood in veiny pipes,
Rolls dreadful thro' the Furnaces of Los, and the Mills of Satan.
For Albions sake, and for Jerusalem thy Emanation
I give myself, and these my brethren give themselves for Albion.

So spoke London, immortal Guardian! I heard in Lambeths shades:  
In Felpham I heard and saw the Visions of Albion
I write in South Molton Street, what I both see and hear
In regions of Humanity, in Londons opening streets.

I see thee awful Parent Land in light, behold I see!
Verulam! Canterbury! venerable parent of men,                    
Generous immortal Guardian golden clad! for Cities
Are Men, fathers of multitudes, and Rivers & Mount[a]ins
Are also Men; every thing is Human, mighty! sublime!
In every bosom a Universe expands, as wings
Let down at will around, and call'd the Universal Tent.          
York, crown'd with loving kindness. Edinburgh, cloth'd
With fortitude as with a garment of immortal texture
Woven in looms of Eden, in spiritual deaths of mighty men" 
Jerusalem, Plate 96, (E 256)
"Do I sleep amidst danger to Friends! O my Cities & Counties
Do you sleep! rouze up! rouze up. Eternal Death is abroad

So Albion spoke & threw himself into the Furnaces of affliction 
All was a Vision, all a Dream: the Furnaces became
Fountains of Living Waters Howing from the Humanity Divine
And all the Cities of Albion rose from their Slumbers, and All
The Sons & Daughters of Albion on soft clouds Waking from Sleep
Soon all around remote the Heavens burnt with flaming fires    
And Urizen & Luvah & Tharmas & Urthona arose into
Albions Bosom: Then Albion stood before Jesus in the Clouds
Of Heaven Fourfold among the Visions of God in Eternity
Plate 97
Awake! Awake Jerusalem! O lovely Emanation of Albion
Awake and overspread all Nations as in Ancient Time
For lo! the Night of Death is past and the Eternal Day
Appears upon our Hills: Awake Jerusalem, and come away

So spake the Vision of Albion & in him so spake in my hearing   
The Universal Father. Then Albion stretchd his hand into Infinitude."   
  
Blake's twenty-eight Cathedral Cities

1 Chichester - "lovely mild & gentle"

2 Winchester - "devoting himself for Albion"

3 Gloucester

4 Exeter

5 Salisbury

6 Bristol

7 Bath - "best and worst in Heaven and Hell"

8 Hereford, "ancient Guardian of Wales"

9 Lincoln

10 Durham

11 Carlisle

12 Ely - "Scribe of Los, whose pen no other hand Dare touch!"

13 Oxford - "trembled while he spoke, then fainted in the arms"

14 Norwich

15 Peterboro

16 Rochester

17 Chester

18 Worcester

19 Litchfield 

20 Saint Davids 

21 Landaff

22 Asaph

23 Bangor 

24 Sodor, "Bowing their heads devoted"

25 Edinburgh 

26 Verulam (Canterbury) 

27 London 

28 York 

    Church of England cathedrals

English Cathedrals

FRIENDS OF ALBION

A Blake Dictionary

S Foster Damon

Cathedral Cities

Society of Antiquaries

William Blake’s drawings of Westminster Abbey

                            Countess Aveline tomb

In Jerusalem Blake intoduced the 28 catherdal cities when Albion had turned away from the Divine Vision. Albion was the symbol Blake used to represent Britain, his beloved homeland which was enduring multiple threats including war and famine. Within Britain were her Cathedral Cities, remnats of her past attempts at providing spiritual sustenance to sustain her when threats arose. Each City was associated with individuals and events from current or past history.

Jerusalem, Plate 35 [39], (E 181)

"Los was the friend of Albion who most lov'd him. In Cambridgeshire
His eternal station, he is the twenty-eighth, & is four-fold.
Seeing Albion had turn'd his back against the Divine Vision,
Los said to Albion, Whither fleest thou? Albion reply'd.         

I die! I go to Eternal Death! the shades of death
Hover within me & beneath, and spreading themselves outside
Like rocky clouds, build me a gloomy monument of woe:
Will none accompany me in my death? or be a Ransom for me
In that dark Valley? I have girded round my cloke, and on my feet

Bound these black shoes of death, & on my hands, death's iron gloves:
God hath forsaken me, & my friends are become a burden
A weariness to me, & the human footstep is a terror to me.

Los answerd, troubled: and his soul was rent in twain:
Must the Wise die for an Atonement? does Mercy endure Atonement? 
No! It is Moral Severity, & destroys Mercy in its Victim.
So speaking, not yet infected with the Error & Illusion,

Jerusalem, Plate 36 [40], (E 181)
"Los shudder'd at beholding Albion, for his disease
Arose upon him pale and ghastly: and he call'd around
The Friends of Albion: trembling at the sight of Eternal Death
The four appear'd with their Emanations in fiery
Chariots: black their fires roll beholding Albions house of Eternity               
Damp couch the flames beneath and silent, sick, stand shuddering
Before the Porch of sixteen pillars: weeping every one
Descended and fell down upon their knees round Albions knees,
Swearing the Oath of God! with awful voice of thunders round
Upon the hills & valleys, and the cloudy Oath roll'd far and wide

Albion is sick! said every Valley, every mournful Hill 

And every River: our brother Albion is sick to death." 

Jerusalem, Plate 44 [30], (E 193)

"And Los prayed and said. O Divine Saviour arise
Upon the Mountains of Albion as in ancient time. Behold!
The Cities of Albion seek thy face, London groans in pain
From Hill to Hill & the Thames laments along the Valleys
The little Villages of Middlesex & Surrey hunger & thirst        
The Twenty-eight Cities of Albion stretch their hands to thee:
Because of the Opressors of Albion in every City & Village:
They mock at the Labourers limbs!"
From Larry's post Church 8:
"Bear in mind that 27 is a super sinister number; Frye described it as "the cube of thee, the supreme aggravation of three". A happier constellation of 28 (a composite of the complete numbers four and seven) occurs in Jerusalem where England's cathedral cities are called the Friends of Albion. With this image Blake  recognized that in spite of all its sins the church had exercised a beneficent influence upon the course of history. Blake habitually picked one of these cities to be represented an important historical personage.

       For example Ely, the cathedral city of Cambridgeshire, stands for Milton, the greatest man produced by Cambridge. Verulam, an ancient name for Canterbury, represents Francis Bacon , one of Blake's chief devils. Professor Erdman informed us that Bath represents Rev. Richard Warner, a courageous minister who preached against war in 1804, when to do such a thing bordered on sedition. Blake's admiration for Warner led to the prominence which he gave Bath in the second chapter of Jerusalem."

GOTHIC

Yale Center for British Art

Jerusalem

Plate 84

Blake uses the word Gothic to refer to more than a period of time or a particular style, just as he uses Art to refer to more than a particular type of expression. By associating Gothic with 'Living Form', 'eternal Esistence', 'true Art' and with 'Any Age' he expand the meaning of Gothic beyond the traditional meaning. He relates Gothic to Urthona and to Imagination.  

Blake had intense exposure to Gothic architecture in Westminster Abbey when he was apprenticed to James Basire who specialized in engravings for the Society of Antiquaries. Blake was assigned the task of making drawings of Gothic monuments. As noted in Prophet against Empire "Tapestries were removed in Westminster Abbey so that Blake could copy the hidden Gothic portraits of King Sebert and Henry III." Blake was present to make sketches when the tomb of Edward I was opened to examine the body. Blake's drawings were used by his master in making engravings for publication. 

But to Blake Gothic became a symbol for what he aimed for in communicating his philosophy of Art. Gothic was was to him not only living but life-giving. Through Gothic he was able to:

"To see a World in a Grain of Sand 

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower 

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour" (Auguries of Innocence, E 490)

On Virgil, (E 270)

 "Mathematic Form is Eternal in the Reasoning Memory.  Living
Form is Eternal Existence.

 Grecian is Mathematic Form
  Gothic is Living Form"

Descriptive Catalogue, (E 544)

"Poetry as it exists
now on earth, in the various remains of ancient authors, Music as
it exists in old tunes or melodies, Painting and Sculpture as it
exists in the remains of Antiquity and in the works of more
modern genius, is Inspiration, and cannot be surpassed; it is
perfect and eternal.  Milton, Shakspeare, Michael Angelo, Rafael,
the finest specimens of Ancient Sculpture and Painting, and
Architecture, Gothic, Grecian, Hindoo and Egyptian, are the
extent of the human mind.  The human mind cannot go beyond the
gift of God, the Holy Ghost.  To suppose that Art can go beyond
the finest specimens of Art that are now in the world, is not
knowing what Art is; it is being blind to the gifts of the
spirit."

Vision of the Last Judgment, (E 559)

"Multitudes are seen ascending from the Green
fields of the blessed in which a Gothic Church is representative
of true Art Calld Gothic in All Ages"

Annotations to Reynolds,(E 649)

 "What does this mean "Would have been" one of the first
Painters of his Age" Albert Durer Is! Not would
have been! Besides. let them look at Gothic Figures & Gothic
Buildings, & not talk of Dark Ages or of Any Age! Ages are All
Equal.  But Genius is Always Above The Age" 

Inscriptions and Notes, (E 671)

William Blake: engraving (revised and inscribed ca 1809-10)

"JOSEPH of Arimathea among The Rocks of Albion Engraved by W Blake 1773 from an old Italian Drawing This is One of the Gothic Artists who Built the Cathedrals in what we call the Dark Ages Wandering about in sheep skins & goat skins of whom the World was not worthy such were the Christians in all Ages Michael Angelo Pinxit" William Blake: [on a proof of the early state of the plate] "Engraved when I was a beginner at Basires from a drawing by
Salviati after Michael Angelo"

---

Jerusalem, Plate 37

Blake's Pieta

Christ and Albion

Michelangelo's Pieta