Inscriptions by Blake for His Designs | G. E. Bentley, Jr. | Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly

First published July 2014
Updated October 2014 (list of additions)

Inscriptions by Blake for His Designs

By G. E. Bentley, Jr.

G. E. Bentley, Jr. (gbentley@chass.utoronto.ca) published William Blake in the Desolate Market (McGill–Queen’s University Press, 2014) and added 550 pages to the online “Sale Catalogues of Blake’s Works, 1791-2014.”

Editors’ note:
Wherever possible we have included a link to the design. In some cases the inscription is not visible on the image, e.g., if the writing is on the verso or the image has been cropped to the design.

Blake often wrote inscriptions on his designs, but only the most important have been recorded in comprehensive editions of his writings.Geoffrey Keynes, ed., The Writings of William Blake (London: Nonesuch Press, 1925 ff.), David V. Erdman, ed., The Poetry and Prose of William Blake (Garden City: Doubleday, 1965 ff.), and G. E. Bentley, Jr., ed., William Blake’s Writings (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978) 1323-45 (notes on 1735-42). Many are also recorded in Bentley, Blake Books (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977) 210-21. Note that this essay does not include marginalia in books, which are quite fully recorded (e.g., William Blake’s Writings 1349-518), or Blake’s descriptions of designs in his letters (e.g., the account of “The Last Judgment” in his letter of 18 Jan. 1808 [copied twice]). A good many seem never to have been recorded in editions of Blake’s writings or in concordances of them. Some are brief titles, such as “Pestilence” and “Nimrod.” Some are part of the design, such as “MENE TEK,” “ΠAPIS,” and “Elizabeth Rex.” Often they identify the scene illustrated, as in the separate descriptions of the designs for the poems of Gray and Milton. A few are in Greek, Hebrew, Italian, or Latin.

Occasionally, what is not written is as interesting as what is written. Thus in Blake’s transcription of Genesis, he twice omitted “and God saw that it was good” (1.18, 25), and in “the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him” (4.15), he omitted “lest any finding him should kill him.”

Because these inscriptions are little known, it seems worthwhile to record here as many of them as possible. The information derives chiefly from Martin Butlin, The Paintings and Drawings of William Blake (1981). For inscriptions within the drawing, the source is Butlin vol. 2: Plates; for inscriptions outside the picture, the source is Butlin vol. 1: Text. The numbers within angle brackets and the dates derive from Butlin.

The visionary heads were drawn chiefly in the Folio Blake-Varley Sketchbook, the Large Blake-Varley Sketchbook, and the Small Blake-Varley Sketchbook.Until the rediscovery of the Large Blake-Varley Sketchbook, the Small Blake-Varley Sketchbook was known merely as the Blake-Varley Sketchbook. The first and third have been broken up, but the drawings are recorded in Butlin. The Large Blake-Varley Sketchbook survives pretty much intact, but it was rediscovered only in 1989, too late for Butlin.The inscriptions in the Large Blake-Varley Sketchbook are recorded in the Christie’s (London) catalogue of 21 March 1989 and in Bentley, Blake Books Supplement (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995) 179-180.

Blake’s transcriptions of Milton for his six designs for On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity (Butts set, 1815) and “the artist’s descriptions” of the Butts series of designs for Comus (1815) have not been traced since their sales at Sotheby’s, 26 March 1852, lot 147, and Foster’s, 29 June 1853, lot 98. The “descriptive Paper” which, according to her letter of 4 August 1829, Catherine Blake delivered to Lord Egremont with Blake’s “Picture of Spenser’s Fairy Queen,” has also disappeared.

Indirect Inscriptions

The titles of the works that Blake exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1780 <#60>, 1784 <#187-88>, 1785 <#155-57, 160>, 1799 <#424>, 1800 <#416>, and 1808 <#438, 500, 642>, at his own exhibition in 1809-10 <#69, 438, 456, 495, 500, 649, 651, 653, 655, 657-61, 663-64>, and at the exhibition of the Associated Painters in Water-Colours in 1812 <#649, 651, 653> were clearly supplied by Blake (those for his own exhibition in his Descriptive Catalogue [1809]).

Blake’s biblical watercolors for Butts often had extensive inscriptions on the mounts in a copperplate hand. However, they cannot have been written by the Blakes, for the inscriptions are on cards of a type not produced before 1846.Joyce H. Townsend, Robin Hamlyn, and John Anderson, “The Presentation of Blake’s Paintings,” William Blake: The Painter at Work, ed. Joyce H. Townsend (London: Tate Publishing, 2003) 168.

The extensive inscriptions on Blake’s engravings for Illustrations of the Book of Job (1826) are included, though most of them are quotations from the Bible.

The titles of the designs (1805) for Robert Blair, The Grave (1808),See Bentley, Blake Records, 2nd ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004) 217-18. are likely to have derived at least in part from Blake.

John Varley’s inscriptions on the visionary heads that he watched Blake draw in 1819 almost certainly derived from what Blake told him at the time and are listed here as if Blake had made them.I except “These are heads he used to see of deceased worthies in vision” (Five Visionary Heads of Women [1819-20] <#765>) because it does not seem to quote Blake. Note that A Fiend <#762>, Herod <#706>, Pindar as He Stood a Conqueror in the Olympic Games <#710>, and The Task-Master Whom Moses Slew in Egypt are known chiefly or entirely from descriptions of them by Varley to Cunningham ¶38. See, for instance, Varley’s tracing of The Egyptian Taskmaster Killed by Moses <#696A>: Seen in a Vision by W^m Blake & Drawn while the Same remained Before him. My Self J. Varley being Present. in his Front room first floor No. 3 Fountain Court near Exeter Change. The authority of the inscriptions by John Linnell apparently derives from Varley, for Linnell was not present when the drawings were made. However, he seems to have copied Varley very carefully. For instance, his long inscription on the replica of Wat Tyler <#738> is exactly like that of Varley <#737>. I have therefore included the Linnell inscriptions almost as if they were Blake’s.

Blake’s Hebrew

1. Detail of Blake’s letter to his brother, 30 Jan. 1803. Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection, Library of Congress.

In his letter to his brother James of 30 January 1803, Blake wrote “am now learning my Hebrew אבג‎,”In A Concordance to the Writings of William Blake, ed. David V. Erdman et al. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967) 1: 903, this is given as “AM NOW LEARNING MY HEBREW (ALEPH BETH GIMMEL).” and he wrote Hebrew inscriptions on a dozen of his surviving pictures. However, he never learned the Hebrew script very well, and his formation of letters was sometimes “scrambled,” with the letters erratically formed, creating ambiguity in their interpretation.Abraham Samuel Shiff, “Blake’s Hebrew Calligraphy,” Blake 46.2 (fall 2012): 34 pars. The Hebrew on Blake’s “Laocoön” and Milton pl. 15 is not recorded in my essay because it is regularly given in editions of Blake’s writings. For other essays about Blake’s Hebrew, see Arnold Cheskin, “The Echoing Greenhorn: Blake as Hebraist,” Blake 12.3 (winter 1978-79): 178-83; Sheila A. Spector, “Blake as an Eighteenth-Century Hebraist,” Blake and His Bibles, ed. David V. Erdman (West Cornwall, CT: Locust Hill Press, 1990) 179-229; Spector, “Blake’s Graphic Use of Hebrew,” Blake 37.2 (fall 2003): 63-79; Spector, “Hebraic Etymologies of Proper Names in Blake’s Myth,” Philological Quarterly 67 (1988): 345-63 (“it seems likely that Blake used Parkhurst’s Hebrew and English Lexicon” [1762; 4th ed. 1799]); Menachem Wecker, “Did William Blake Know Hebrew?” Jewish Daily Forward 11 Dec. 2009 (“Blake had not even mastered the letter alef”).

Words in Blake’s Design Inscriptions Not in Blake ConcordancesMany of the arcane words newly recorded here, such as Balder, Cynthea, Hampton, Hoders, Mona, Rinda, and Sigtryg, derive from Blake’s quotations of the authors he is illustrating, such as Gray and Milton. The list omits words in Hebrew.

These inscriptions add a significant number of words to Blake’s known vocabulary.Blake’s writings are recorded in Erdman, A Concordance (2 vols.), and his conversations in Bentley, William Blake’s Conversations: A Compilation, Concordance, and Rhetorical Analysis (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2008). Neither records words in Hebrew.

Acts [book of the Bible]
affrightest
Agnes
Agrippa [Cornelius]
Amor
Animae
Arthur [Prince]
Assasinator
baffled
Balder
Bertand de Gourdon
bewitched
Blandy [Miss]
Blood [Colonel]
Bothwell
Brownrigg [Mother]
Bruce [Robert, King of Scotland]
Buckingham [Duke of]
Cassibelane
Cato
centry [for “sentry”]
chastening
che
churchway
Coeur de Lion [Richard I]
Conqueror
continueth
Cornelius Agrippa
Cozens
Cumea
Cynthea
Cythereas
Daniel
darkeneth
Day [family name]
decyph[ers]
despitefully
Edward 2d
Eloise
Empress Maud
Endor
endureth
eschewed
Essex [Countess of]
exalteth
Falconberg
Faulconberg the Bastard
fleeth
Games [Olympic]
Gatherer [tax]
girt
givest
Glendower [Owen]
ΓΝΩΘΙ [Σ]ΕΑΥΤΟΝ [Greek for “know thyself”]
Gorgon
Gourdon [Bertand de]
Hammerer [Donald the]
Hampton
haply
Harold [King]
Hastings [Battle of]
Hayes [Catherine]
heeds
Henry 2d [King of England]
Henry the 5^th
Hoders
homeward
Hood [Robin]
Hotspur
Hyperions
inentrate
INRI
Isabella [Queen]
Joan [Pope]
killeth
kindred
lago del cor
Lais [courtesan of Corinth]
lasciate
laureate
lieth
lifteth
listlessness
lubbers
Lucy [Sir Robert]
LXII [62]
Margaret
Mary Queen of Scots
Matthew
Maud [Empress]
MENE TEK
mew’d
mindful
Mona [son of]
The Monk [novel by Lewis]
Monmouth [Geoffrey of]
Narcissa
Nicholas
Nixion [Tom]
observeth
oftentimes
ogni
Olympia
omni[a]
opposeth
Orien
Overbury
ΠAPIS [Greek for Paris]
penury
percieveth
Perkin Warbeck
persecutor
Pisistratus
Pleiades
Pliable [in Pilgrim’s Progress]
plods
provideth
purr’d
putteth
Rex
Rinda
Robin Hood
Rowena
rubbers [in cards]
Sabeans
St Nicholas Church
saith
Savage [Richard]
scarest
scattereth
sceptre
Scots [Mary Queen of]
Selima
sendeth
Sheppard [Jack]
Sigtryg
sinnest
slumberings
speranza
spied
spreadings
tabby
Task [Cowper’s poem]
triumphing [noun]
unveil
upstairs
Uz
Vanity Fair [in Pilgrim’s Progress]
VICI [conquered]
vincit
voi
Vortigern
Wallace [William]Wallace appears elsewhere only in Blake’s conversations.
Warbeck [Perkin]
watering
wearieth
withstood
worketh
Xantippe wife of Socrates
Xtian

For Hebrew words and characters,Early examples of faux Hebrew may be seen in Enoch Walked with God (1780-85) (#146)—on a scroll are four indecipherable lines, which are a little like Hebrew but are “only meaningless squiggles” (Dena Taylor, “Emanations of the Divine: Kabbalistic Elements in the Poetry and Designs of William Blake,” Toronto PhD [1983] 191)—and The Children of Israel Receiving the Ten Commandments from Moses (1780-85) (#114)—on the scroll(?) are meaningless squiggles in place of the commandments (Taylor 191). see the following inscriptions:
Watercolor for Young, Night Thoughts, Night IX, p. 17 (1795-96)
Engraving for Young, Night Thoughts (1797), p. 63
Sealing the Stone and Setting a Watch (1800-03)
Christ Nailed to the Cross: The Third Hour (1800-03)
Hebrew Characters Using the Human Form (1803)
Job’s Evil Dreams (1805-06)
“Enoch” (1807)
Job (1826) pl. 1
Job (1826) pl. 3
“Laocoön” (?1826)

Omissions

Blake’s signatures on drawings and engravings, such as “Blake sc”, “Fresco W Blake inv” (variants in <#299, 317, 326, 667, 669, 673-74, 750, 806>), “HELL [or ‘Hell’] Canto [number]”,“HELL Canto [number]” appears on Dante designs <#812 1-10, 12-13, 15-41, 43-53, 55-67, 69>. Variants are “p-g Canto [number]” <#812 70-89>, “PAR [or ‘Par’] Canto [number]” <#812 92, 98>, and “Canto [number]” <#812 68, 96>. “Type by W Blake 1812”,“The Chaining of Orc,” separate plate <Essick XVII*>. “WB”, “W Blake”, “W. BLAKE fecit” <#807>, “W Blake inven [or ‘inventor’]” <#119, 126, 803>, “W Blake pinx” <#377-78>, “W^ṃ Blake” <#758>, “William Blake”, monogram “WB inv”, and numbers (including solitary dates). Inscriptions on his apprentice drawings <#1-47> are probably not by Blake. Some (e.g., <#6>) were certainly added after the drawings were made.

Manuscript annotations of “Engraved” or “Engraved reversed” on the drawings (e.g., <#330 151, 153>) for Young’s Night Thoughts, because they do not seem to be by Blake.

Meaningless squiggles of writing on A Young Woman Reclining on a Couch, Writing in a Book (1780-85) <#147>, on the tombstone in the watercolor for Young’s Night Thoughts, Night III, p. 21 (1795-96) <#330 96>, in the palm-sized book held in the angel’s left hand in “And the Angel Which I Saw Lifted Up His Hand to Heaven” (1805) <#518>, and elsewhere.

Engraved text on Blake’s commercial prints, which was presumably supplied by the publisher and sometimes transcribed by a professional writing engraver, as in “Moore & C^ọ^’s Manufactory & Warehouse” advertisement (1797-98).For the full inscription, including identification of “Common Carpet Loom,” “Persia & Turkey Carpet Loom,” and “Stocking Frame,” see Essick XII and fig. 23. The Longman accounts for “Blake’s Hesiod” record “Jeffreys Writing” (BR[2] 772-73) to Blake’s thirty-seven plates. Blake almost certainly inscribed the writing on the plates for George Cumberland’s Thoughts on Outline (1796), including both imprints and titles (some in Greek), but presumably he was merely following Cumberland’s directions or designs. Blake etched the whole text of Hayley’s Little Tom the Sailor (1800).

Inscriptions on designs in Blake’s Notebook (1785-1805), Vala or The Four Zoas (?1796-?1807), and Upcott’s autograph album (1826), as well as those printed in his works in illuminated printing, which are recorded in Bentley, William Blake’s Writings.

Corrigenda to Poetical Sketches (1783)Poetical Sketches corrigenda are given in notes to WBW 750, 752-53, 755, 757-59, 761, 763, 766-68, 770-71, 782-83, 787. and Descriptive Catalogue (1809).Corrigenda to the Descriptive Catalogue are given in WBW 826n, 861n.

Abbreviations

BR(2)	G. E. Bentley, Jr., Blake Records, 2nd ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004)
Essick	Robert N. Essick, The Separate Plates of William Blake: A Catalogue (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983)
WBW	William Blake’s Writings, ed. G. E. Bentley, Jr., 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978)

Symbols

#	Martin Butlin, The Paintings and Drawings of William Blake (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), vol. 1, drawing number
*	Transcription based on the source indicated, usually Butlin vol. 2

Inscriptions on Blake’s Designs in Chronological Order

“Magna Charta”
“Charta”

The Making of Magna Charta (1779) (Robert N. Essick) <#62*>

“Lord have m^er on us”“LORD [H]AVE MERC[Y] ON US” appears on the door of Europe pl. 10.
“The plague”

Pestilence, Probably the Great Plague of London (1779-80) (private collection) <#184*>

“Death of Earl Goodwin”

Royal Academy catalogue (1780) (picture in the collection of the British Museum) <#60*, WBW 1741>

“The spirit of a just man newly departed appearing to his mourning family”

The Spirit of a Just Man Newly Departed Appearing to His Mourning Family (1780-85) (Royal Collection, Windsor Castle) <#135*>

“Hell beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming—Isaiah”Blake’s later design of the same subject is described in the Butts-Blake debtor-creditor account as “Hell beneath is moved for thee &^c from Isaiah” (BR[2] 764).

The King of Babylon in Hell (1780-85) (Royal Collection, Windsor Castle) <#145*>

“Behold your King”

Samuel Presenting Saul to the People (1780-85) (British Museum) <#117*, WBW 1323>

“My sister thinks that this is the one that will do. I can’t be a judge, because I never saw the children Cozens. I intend the girl to be putting on the boy’s Hat, it seems they think the Boy looks handsomest when he has his hat on. The Hat shou’d be dispos’d in a careless manner & as near to the Boy’s manner of wearing it as possible”
“Recd of Mr. Cousins one half of a subscription, June 11, 1783”The attribution of the drawing to Blake and the inscription derive from the Sotheby’s catalogue of 1-2 July 1915, lot 371. If the author is Blake, “my sister” is Catherine Elizabeth Blake (1764–1841), who would have been nineteen in 1783, and the subscription could be to Stothard’s “Zephyrus and Flora” or “Calisto,” engraved by Blake and published by Parker & Blake, 17 Dec. 1784. The date suggests that the children are not those of “Mr. Cosens, owner of the Mill at Felpham,” mentioned in Blake’s “Memorandum” (1803) of his quarrel with Scolfield (BR[2] 162).

The Children Cozens (or Cousins) (1783) (untraced since 1915) <#143*>

“The witch of Endor raising the Spirit of Samuel”

The Witch of Endor Raising the Spirit of Samuel (1783) (New York Public Library) <#144*>

“War unchained by an angel, Fire, Pestilence, and Famine following”

Royal Academy catalogue (1784) (picture untraced since 1784) <#187, WBW 1741>

“A breach in a city, the morning after a battle”

Royal Academy catalogue (1784) (picture untraced since 1784) <#188,Joseph Viscomi, “A Breach in a City the Morning after the Battle: Lost or Found?” Blake 28.2 (fall 1994): 44-61, argues that Butlin #188 is the same as Butlin #191 (Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill). WBW 1741>

“Joseph’s brethren bowing before him”

Royal Academy catalogue (1785) (picture in the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum) <#155, WBW 1741>

“Joseph ordering Simeon to be bound”

Royal Academy catalogue (1785) (picture in the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum) <#156, WBW 1741>

“Joseph making himself known to his brethren”

Royal Academy catalogue (1785) (picture in the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum) <#157, WBW 1741>

“The Bard, from Gray”

Royal Academy catalogue (1785) (picture untraced since 1785) <#160, WBW 1741>

“DANIEL”

Daniel (1785) (British Museum) <#167*>

“The Reposing Traveller”

Aminadab, Called “The Reposing Traveller” (1785) (British Museum) <#170^v*>

“ΓΝΩΘΙ [Σ]ΕΑΥΤΟΝ”Greek for “know thyself,” which appears in Blake’s engraving but not on Fuseli’s preliminary drawing (reproduced in Robert N. Essick, William Blake’s Commercial Book Illustrations [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991] pl. 60).

Frontispiece engraved by Blake after Fuseli for J. C. Lavater, Aphorisms on Man (1788)

“Is all joy forbidden”

Is All Joy Forbidden (1790-93) (British Museum) <#222*, WBW 1323>

“The Bible of Hell, in Nocturnal Visions collected. Vol. I. Lambeth.”

Layout for Title Page, “The Bible of Hell” (1790-93) (untraced since 1876) <#221^v*, WBW 1323>

“Pestilence”

Pestilence (1790-95) (private collection) <#190^r*>

“Every prospect smiled”

Drawn but not engraved for Mary Wollstonecraft, Original Stories (1791) (Library of Congress) <#244 1*>

“God sent for Him”

Drawn but not engraved for Mary Wollstonecraft, Original Stories (1791) (Library of Congress) <#244 2*>

“How delighted the old bird will be”

Drawn but not engraved for Mary Wollstonecraft, Original Stories (1791) (Library of Congress) <#244 3*>

“She turned her eyes on her cruel master”Only drawings that were not engraved bear titles by Blake; the others <#244 4, 6-10> (<#244 10> not engraved) have no inscription by Blake.

Drawn but not engraved for Mary Wollstonecraft, Original Stories (1791) (Library of Congress) <#244 5*>

“CUMEA”

Copy (c. 1793) of Michelangelo’s design on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (not in Butlin); reproduced in Sotheby’s catalogue of 28 Nov. 2002, lot 236.

“THE AMERICAN WAR”
“Angels to be very small as small as the letters that they may not interfere with the subject at bottom—which is to be in a stormy sky & rain separated from the angels by Clouds”

Sketch for a Title Page, Probably First Idea for “America” (1793) (British Museum) <#223A^r*>

“Father & Mother I return From flames of fire tried[?] & pure & white”

“Father and Mother, I Return,” Perhaps for “The Gates of Paradise” (1793) (Library of Congress) <#202^v*, WBW 1323>

“How I pity”

“How I Pity,” Perhaps for “The Gates of Paradise” (1793) (British Museum) <#204*, WBW 1323>

“For Children The Gates of HELL”

“For Children: The Gates of Hell”: Design for an Unpublished Title Page (1793) (Fitzwilliam Museum) <#205^r*, WBW 1323>

“Edward & Elenor”

“Edward & Elenor,” separate plate (1793) (British Library; British Museum) <Essick IV*, WBW 1741>

“Our End is come”

“The Accusers of Theft Adultery Murder,” separate plate, first state (1793) (Bodleian) <Essick VIII*, WBW 162>

“Birth of a Daisy”

Visions (B) pl. 3 (1793) (British Museum) <WBW 102n>

“Evening Clouds”

Visions (B) pl. 10 (1793) (British Museum) <WBW 115n>

“Pity”, “Doubt”, “Dissipation”, “Weariness”, “Luxury”, “Idleness”, “Suicide[?]”, “Indolence”, “Rage”, “Despair”, “Reason[?]”, “Deceit”, “Discontent”, “Joy” | “Avarice”, “Listlessness”, “Study”, “Cruelty”, “Distress”, “Severity”, “Oppression”, “Misery”, “Mischief”, “Protection”

Various Personifications, a Death Bed and Other Drawings (1793-94) (Houghton Library, Harvard) <#214^r-v*>

“When the senses are shaken And the soul is driven to madness”The inscriptions (recorded in an 1891 exhibition catalogue) are on an impression printed in intaglio (now untraced); they are not visible on the color-printed impressions in the British Museum and the US National Gallery of Art.
“Page 56”

“The Accusers of Theft Adultery Murder,” separate plate, second state (1793-96) (British Museum; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC) <Essick VIII*, WBW 162>

“The Dead … do …”

The Dead Bad-Doers (1794-96) (Robert N. Essick) <#232^r*>

“Elohim creating Adam”

Elohim Creating Adam, color print (1795) (Tate) <#289*, WBW 1741>

“God speaking to Adam”

God Judging Adam, color print (1795) (Tate) <#294*, WBW 1741>

“The Good and Evil Angels”

The Good and Evil Angels Struggling for Possession of a Child, color print (1795) (Tate) <#323*>

“The House of Death Milton”

The House of Death, color print (1795) (Tate) <#320*, WBW 1741>

“Lamech and his two Wives”

Lamech and His Two Wives, color print (1795) (Tate) <#297*, WBW 1741>

“Nebuchadnezzar”

Nebuchadnezzar, color print (1795) (Tate) <#301*, WBW 1741>

“Newton”

Newton, color print (1795) (Tate; Lutheran Church of America, Philadelphia) <#306-07*, WBW 1741>

“Pity from Shakespeare’s Macbeth”

Pity, color print (1795) (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) <#311*>

“Nimrod”

Nimrod or “Let Loose the Dogs of War” (1795) (Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City) <#331*>

“THE CHRISTIAN TRIUMPH”

Watercolor for Young, Night Thoughts, Night IV, title page (1795-96) (British Museum) <#330 1^r-v>, originally intended as the frontispiece for all the designs. It was engraved (1797) as “The | Christian | Triumph.”

“MENE TEK”“MENE MENE TEKEL UPHARSIN” was the mysterious inscription on the wall at Belshazzar’s feast (Daniel 5.25).

Watercolor for Young, Night Thoughts, Night II, p. 27 (1795-96) (British Museum) <#330 60>, engraving (1797), p. 33, representing the writing on the wall at Belshazzar’s feast; note that the inscription is in roman characters, not Hebrew.

“PLATO de Animae Immortale-tate — —”
“Cicero de Nat: Deor”
“Aristot: Respub:”
“Plutarchi Chaer: Op”
“Lock[e] on human under[standing]”

Watercolor for Young, Night Thoughts, Night V, p. 44 (1795-96) (British Museum) <#330 199>; the inscriptions are on spines of books.

“IMMORTALITY decyph[ers] MAN”

Watercolor for Young, Night Thoughts, Night VII, p. 26 (1795-96) (British Museum) <#330 298>; the inscription is on a tablet held by a winged figure.

“X Command^tṣ”

Watercolor for Young, Night Thoughts, Night VII, p. 61 (1795-96) (British Museum) <#330 333>; the inscription is on Moses’s tablets of the law.

“MYSTERY”

Watercolor for Young, Night Thoughts, Night VIII, title page (1795-96) (British Museum) <#330 345>; the inscription is on the forehead of the Whore of Babylon.

“VICI”

Watercolor for Young, Night Thoughts, Night VIII, p. 57 (1795-96) (British Museum) <#330 403>; the line illustrates “And when he falls, writes VICI on his Shield.”

“Night”
“Thoughts”

Watercolor for Young, Night Thoughts, Night VIII, p. 69 (1795-96) (British Museum) <#330 415>; the words are on a book being torn in half, “Night” on one, “Thoughts” on the other, with fingers obscuring the letters.

“HERE LIETH THOMAS DAY AGED 100 YEAR”

Watercolor for Young, Night Thoughts, Night IX, p. 6 (1795-96) (British Museum) <#330 424, WBW 1742>; the inscription is on a tombstone.

Hebrew for “as time, after strife”

Watercolor for Young, Night Thoughts, Night IX, p. 17 (1795-96) (British Museum) <#330 435>, translated here by Abraham Samuel Shiff, “Blake’s Hebrew Calligraphy,” Blake 46.2 (fall 2012): pars. 4-6; the words are on a book. The line starred is “Awful Eternity! offended Queen!”

“End of the night thoughts”

Watercolor for Young, Night Thoughts, Night IX, p. 119 (1795-96) (British Museum) <#330 537>

“A Breach in A City the Morning after the Battle”

A Breach in a City, the Morning after the Battle (1795-1800) (Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) <#191>See note 21, above.

“‘The Book of my Remembrance’”

Urizen pl. 5 in Small Book of Designs (B) (1796) (Beinecke Library, Yale) <WBW 247n>

“‘Death & Hell’” | “‘Teem with Life’”

Marriage pl. 11 in Small Book of Designs (B) (1796) (Princeton University Library) <WBW 85n>

“‘Does the Soul labour thus’” | “‘In Caverns of The Grave’”

Urizen pl. 10 in Small Book of Designs (B) (1796) (Beinecke Library, Yale) <WBW 253n>

“‘Doth God take care of These’”The inscriptions on the newly discovered prints for Small Book of Designs (B) are given in Martin Butlin and Robin Hamlyn, “Tate Britain Reveals Nine New Blakes and Thirteen New Lines of Verse,” Blake 42.2 (fall 2008): 52-72.

Thel pl. 7 in Small Book of Designs (B) (1796) (Tate)

“‘Eternally I labour on’”

Urizen pl. 9 in Small Book of Designs (B) (1796) (Princeton University Library) <WBW 253n>

“‘Every thing is an attempt’” | “‘To be Human’”

Urizen pl. 11 in Small Book of Designs (B) (1796) (Tate)

“‘Fearless tho in pain’” | “‘I travel on’”

Urizen pl. 23 in Small Book of Designs (B) (1796) (Tate)

“‘A Flaming Sword’” | “‘Revolving every way’”

Marriage pl. 14 in Small Book of Designs (B) (1796) (National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC) <WBW 88n>

“The floods overwhelmed me”

Urizen pl. 12 in Small Book of Designs (B) (1796) (Tate)

“I labour upwards into | futurity”

Urizen pl. 12For discussion of which impression of Urizen pl. 12 was part of Small Book (B), see Butlin and Hamlyn 55 and Bentley, “William Blake and His Circle, 2008,” Blake 43.1 (summer 2009): 12n22. in Small Book of Designs (B) (1796) (Morgan Library) <WBW 244n>

“‘Frozen doors to mock’” | “‘The World: while they within torments up lock.’”

Urizen pl. 22 in Small Book of Designs (B) (1796) (Robert N. Essick) <WBW 271n>

“‘I sought Pleasure & found Pain’” | “‘Unutterable’”

Urizen pl. 7 in Small Book of Designs (B) (1796) (Tate)

“‘Is the Female death’” | “‘Become new Life’”

Urizen pl. 19 in Small Book of Designs (B) (1796) (Tate)

“O flames of furious desire”The pencil inscription on the verso is not in Blake’s hand, but it may have been transcribed from a Blake inscription.

Urizen pl. 3 in Small Book of Designs (B) (1796) (Keynes Family Trust) <WBW 241n>

“‘O revolving serpent’” | “‘O the Ocean of Time & Space’”

Marriage pl. 20 in Small Book of Designs (B) (1796) (Robert N. Essick)

“‘Teach these Souls to Fly’”

Urizen pl. 2 in Small Book of Designs (B) (1796) (Tate) <WBW 240n>

“‘Vegetating in fibres of Blood’”

Urizen pl. 17 in Small Book of Designs (B) (1796) (Tate)

“‘Wait Sisters’” | “‘Tho all is Lost’”

Visions pl. 10 in Small Book of Designs (B) (1796) (Keynes Family Trust)

“‘Which is the Way’” | “‘The Right or the Left’”

Urizen pl. 1 in Small Book of Designs (B) (1796) (Keynes Family Trust) <WBW 239n>

“‘Who shall set’” | “‘The Prisoners free’”

Marriage pl. 16 in Small Book of Designs (B) (1796) (Tate)

“NIGHT THE FIRST | — | ON LIFE | … | DEATH | And | IMMORTALITY | ——”

“TIME | — | DEATH | —— FRIENDSH | ——”

“NIGHT | THE | THIRD, | NARCISSA.”

Young, Night Thoughts (1797), Night III, title page

2. Young, Night Thoughts (1797), colored copy Q, p. 63 (see enlargement of the Hebrew). Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. B1978.43.1405.

Hebrew characters on a scroll (see illus. 2)

Young, Night Thoughts (1797), p. 63, illustrating “This KING OF TERRORS is the PRINCE OF PEACE”; some of the Hebrew characters are reversed, others are “scrambled” or a “graffiti-like emulation of Hebrew” (Abraham Samuel Shiff, “Blake’s Hebrew Calligraphy,” Blake 46.2 [fall 2012]: par. 3). On the corresponding drawing <#330 108> the lines on the scroll are meaningless. According to Shiff (par. 8), probably Blake was “not in command of the Hebrew alphabet in 1797.”

“Ode on the Spring
Design
1	The Pindaric Genius recieving his Lyre
2	Gray writing his Poems
3	The Purple Year awaking from the Roots of Nature & The Hours suckling their Flowery Infants
4	‘With me the Muse shall sit & think At ease reclind in rustic state’
5	‘Brush’d by the hand of rough Mischance Or chilld by Age’
6	Summer Flies reproaching the Poet

Around the Springs of Gray my wild root weaves
Traveller repose & Dream among my leaves.
	—Will. Blake”

Watercolor (1797) for Poems by Mr. Gray, a New Edition (London: J. Murray, 1790) (Yale Center for British Art) <#335 2*, WBW 1324>. The words within single quotation marks are quoted from Gray’s poem.

“Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat
Design.
1	‘Midst the tide Two Angel forms were seen to glide’
2.	‘Demurest of the Tabby Kind’
3	‘The pensive Selima Her ears of Jet & Emrald Eyes She saw & purr’d applause’
4.	‘Still had she gazd but midst the tide Two Angel forms were seen to glide. The hapless nymph with wonder saw A Whisker first & then a Claw &^c’
5.	‘Malignant Fate sat by & smild The slippery verge her feet beguild She tumbled headlong in’
6.	‘Nine times emerging from the flood ‘She mew’d to every watry God’”

Watercolor (1797) for Poems by Mr. Gray (1790) (Yale Center for British Art) <#335 8*, WBW 1324-25>

“Ode on a distant prospect of Eton College
Design
1	Windsor terrace, a Boy contemplating a distant view of Eton College.
2.	A Boy flying a Kite
3	Two Boys wandering in the woods by Eton College. The Shade of Henry the Sixth is seen among the trees. ‘Henrys holy shade.’ line 4
4.	‘Say Father Thames for thou hast seen Full many a sprightly race Who foremost &^c’
5.	‘The captive linnet’ ‘The rolling circle’ ‘murmuring labours’ &^c
6.	‘Yet see how all around them wait The vultures of the Mind’
7.	‘Ambition this shall tempt to rise Then whirl the wretch from high’ &^c
Design
8.	‘Lo in the Vale of Years beneath The painful family of Death’
9.	‘Where Ignorance is bliss Tis folly to be wise’
10	Boys playing at Top.”

Watercolor (1797) for Poems by Mr. Gray (1790) (Yale Center for British Art) <#335 14*, WBW 1325-26>

“A Long Story
Design
1.	A circular Dance
2.	Fairies riding on Flies
3.	‘An Ancient Pile of Bui[l]ding which Employd the power of Fairy hands’
4.	‘The Seals & Maces dancd before him’
5.	‘A brace of warriors’
6.	‘Bewitchd the children of the Peasants’
7.	‘Upstairs in a whirlwind rattle’
8.	‘Out of the window whisk they flew’
9.	‘At the Chapel door stand centry’
10.	‘A sudden fit of ague shook him’
11.	‘My Lady rose & with a grace She smild & bid him come to dinner’
12.	‘Guard us from long winded lubbers That to Eternity would sing And keep my Lady from her rubbers’”

Watercolor (1797) for Poems by Mr. Gray (1790) (Yale Center for British Art) <#335 22*, WBW 1326>

“Elizabeth Rex”

Watercolor (1797) for Poems by Mr. Gray (1790) (Yale Center for British Art) <#335 26*>; the inscription is on a seal.

“Ode to Adversity
Design
1.	A Widower & children
2.	Grief among the roots of trees
3.	‘Purple tyrant vainly groans’
4.	‘Stern rugged Nurse’ Virtue Nursd in the Lap of Adversity
5.	‘In thy Gorgon terrors clad Screaming horrors funeral cry Despair & Fell Disease & ghastly Poverty’
6.	‘Oh gently on thy suppliants head Dread Goddess lay thy chastening hand’”

Watercolor (1797) for Poems by Mr. Gray (1790) (Yale Center for British Art) <#335 36*, WBW 1326-27>

“The Progress of Poesy
1.	The Beginning of Poesy. The blind begging Bard
2.	Study
3.	‘The Laughing flowers that round them blow’ ‘Drink life & fragrance as they flow’
4.	‘Perching on the Scepterd hand Of Jove, thy magic lulls the featherd King’
5.	‘Cythereas Day.’
6.	‘Hyperions march they spy & glittering Shafts of war’
7.	‘Shaggy forms oer Ice built mountains roam’
8.	‘Alike they scorn the pomp of Tyrant power And coward Vice that revels in her chains’
9.	‘To him the mighty Mother did unveil Her awful Face’
10.	‘Dryden ‘Bright Eyd Fancy hovering o’er’
11.	‘Oft before his Infant eyes would run Such forms as glitter in the Muses ray’
12.	A Muse.”

Watercolor (1797) for Poems by Mr. Gray (1790) (Yale Center for British Art) <#335 42*, WBW 1327>

“The Bard
1.	A Welch Bard.
2.	The Slaughterd Bards, taken from the line ‘The famishd Eagle screams & passes by’ Page 98.
3.	The Bard weaving Edwards fate
4.	Edward & his Queen & Nobles astonishd at the Bards Song
5.	‘Hark how each Giant Oak & Desart Cave Sigh to the Torrents awful voice beneath’
6.	‘On yonder cliffs.’ ‘I see them Sit’
7.	‘Oer thy country hangs The scourge of heaven’
8.	The Whirlwind. ‘Hushd in grim repose’
9.	‘Fell thirst & Famine Scowl A baleful smile upon their baffled guest’
10.	The death of Edwards Queen Eleanor from this line ‘Half of thy heart we consecrate’
11.	Elizabeth. ‘Girt with many a Baron bold’
12.	Spenser Creating his Fairies.
13.	‘Headlong from the Mountains height Deep in the roaring tide he plungd to endless night’
14.	A poor Goatherd in Wales.—”

Watercolor (1797) for Poems by Mr. Gray (1790) (Yale Center for British Art) <#335 52*, WBW 1327-28>

“The Fatal Sisters
1.	The Three Fatal Sisters
2.	A Muse
3.	‘Sigtryg with the Silken beard’
4.	‘Persons of Horseback riding full speed toward a hill & seeming to Enter into it’
5.	‘Iron sleet of arrowy shower Hurtles in the darkend air’
6.	‘Shafts for shuttle dyed in gore Shoot the trembling cords along’
7.	‘We the reins to Slaughter give’
8.	The Fatal Sisters riding thro the Battle. They are calld in Some Northern poems ‘Choosers of the Slain’
9.	‘Hurry Hurry to the field’
10.	A Battle.”

Watercolor (1797) for Poems by Mr. Gray (1790) (Yale Center for British Art) <#335 66*, WBW 1328-29>

“The Descent of Odin.
1.	The Serpent who girds the Earth
2.	Spectres
3.	‘Him the Dog of Darkness spied’
4.	‘Right against the eastern gate By the moss grown Pile he sat.’
5.	The Prophetess Rising from her Grave
6.	‘Tis the Drink of Balder bold’
7.	‘A wondrous boy shall Rinda bear Who neer shall comb his raven hair Nor wash his visage in the stream Till he on Hoders corse shall smile’
8.	‘Ha! No traveller art thou King of Men I know thee Now’
9.	‘Hie thee hence’
10.	The Serpent & the Wolvish Dog—two terrors in the Northern Mythology”

Watercolor (1797) for Poems by Mr. Gray (1790) (Yale Center for British Art) <#335 78*, WBW 1329>

“The Triumphs of Owen
1.	A Standard bearer fainting in the routed battle
2.	A Festal board.
3.	The Bard singing Owens praise
4.	‘Dauntless on his native sands The Dragon son of Mona stands’
5.	‘Fear to Stop & Shame to fly’
6.	‘The liberal Man inviting the traveller into his house’”

Watercolor (1797) for Poems by Mr. Gray (1790) (Yale Center for British Art) <#335 86*, WBW 1329>

“Ode for Music.
1.	Fame.
2.	A bird singing
3.	A Genius driving away ‘Comus & his midnight crew’
4.	‘Milton struck the corded Shell Newtons self bends from his state sublime’
5.	‘I wood the gleam of Cynthia silver bright’ ‘Where willowy Comus lingers with delight’
6.	‘Great Edward with the lillies on his brow To hail the festal morning come’
7.	‘Leaning from her golden cloud The venerable Margaret’
8.	‘The Laureate wreathe’
9.	‘Nor fear the rocks nor seek the Shore’
10.	Fame.”

Watercolor (1797) for Poems by Mr. Gray (1790) (Yale Center for British Art) <#335 94*, WBW 1330>

“Epitaph
1.	The mourner at the tomb
2.	Her infant image here below Sits smiling on a Fathers woe”

Watercolor (1797) for Poems by Mr. Gray (1790) (Yale Center for British Art) <#335 102*, WBW 1330>

“Elegy
1.	The author writing
2.	Contemplation among Tombs
3.	‘The Plowman homeward plods his weary way And leaves the world to darkness & to me’
4.	‘For him no more the blazing hearth shall burn Nor children run to lisp their sires return’
5.	‘Oft did the Harvest to their sickle yield’
6.	‘Chill penury repressd their noble rage’
7.	‘Some Village Hampden that with dauntless breast The little Tyrant of his Fields withstood’
8.	‘Many a holy text around she strews’
9.	‘Some kindred spirit shall enquire thy fate Haply some hoary headed swain may say Oft &^c’
10.	‘Slow thro the Churchway path we saw him borne’
11.	A Shepherd reading the Epitaph
12	A Spirit conducted to Paradise”

Watercolor (1797) for Poems by Mr. Gray (1790) (Yale Center for British Art) <#335 106*, WBW 1330-31>

“DUST THOU ART. HERE LIETH Wm Blake Aged 10[ ]”

Watercolor (1797) for Poems by Mr. Gray (1790) (Yale Center for British Art) <#335 112*>

“The last supper: ‘Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me.’—Matt. chap. 26, ver. 21”

Royal Academy catalogue (1799) (picture in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC) <#424, WBW 1741>

“The loaves and fishes”

Royal Academy catalogue (1800) (picture in the collection of Robert N. Essick) <#416, WBW 1741>

“EPISTLES | to | John Flaxman | Sculptor”An allusion to William Hayley (Tom’s father), An Essay on Sculpture: In a Series of Epistles to John Flaxman, Esq. R.A. (1800).

Thomas Alphonso Hayley (1800) (Yale Center for British Art) <#345*>; it is the title on a scroll.

“1^sṭ Samuel 28^tḥ ch: 12^tḥ to 21”

The Ghost of Samuel Appearing to Saul (1800) (National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC) <#458*>

“John XIX c. 23 & 24 v”

The Soldiers Casting Lots for Christ’s Garment (1800) (Fitzwilliam Museum) <#495*>

“Acts IX c. 6 v”

The Conversion of Saul (1800) (Huntington Library and Art Collections) <#506*>

“Agnes from the Novel of The Monk Designed & Painted by Catherine Blake & Presented by her in Gratitude & Friendship to M^rṣ Butts”

Catherine Blake, Agnes (1800) (Fitzwilliam Museum) <#C1*>

“Judg Ch. 16 v. 19”

Samson Subdued (1800-03) (Philadelphia Museum of Art) <#455*>

“II Samuel. XIV. c. 33 v.”

David Pardoning Absalom (1800-03) (Higgins Museum, Bedford) <#459*>

3. Sealing the Stone and Setting a Watch (1800-03) (see enlargement). Yale Center for British Art, Everett V. Meeks, B.A. 1901 Fund. B1979.12.703.

“Matthew XXVII c 66v”
Hebrew on the headband of the priest beside the ladder and on the bottom of the robe of the man speaking to the priestSee the textual transcription and editors’ notes for this watercolor in the William Blake Archive. (see illus. 3)

Sealing the Stone and Setting a Watch (1800-03) (Yale Center for British Art) <#499*>; the inscription in copperplate “Sealing the Stone & setting a Watch” is not by Blake (see note 4).

“Mark ch: 16^th: v. 6^th:”

The Three Maries at the Sepulchre (1800-03) (Fitzwilliam Museum) <#503*>

“INRI”
“Luke XXIII c. 42 v”

Christ Crucified between the Two Thieves (1800-03) (Fogg Museum, Harvard) <#494*>; “INRI” (on the wood above Christ’s head) stands for “Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum” (“Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews”).

“INRI”For its meaning, see Christ Crucified between the Two Thieves (1800-03), above.
Hebrew for “I [am] the Lord”

Christ Nailed to the Cross: The Third Hour (1800-03) (Morgan Library) <#496*>; Hebrew on the headband of the priest above Christ and on the hem of the priest’s robe over his left wrist. According to Abraham Samuel Shiff (“Blake’s Hebrew Calligraphy,” Blake 46.2 [fall 2012]: par. 12), the letters on the robe have no biblical authority.

“Acts xxviii c 4 v”

St. Paul Shaking Off the Viper (1800-03) (private collection) <#509*>

“HOLY | BIBLE” (on book spine)
“THE | TASK” (on book spine)
“WILLIAM COWPER | &^c”

Hayley’s First Idea for Cowper’s Monument (1802) (Houghton Library, Harvard; Fitzwilliam Museum) <#355*, 356*>

“THE | TASK” (on book spine)
“HOLY | BIBLE” (on book spine)
“WILLIAM COWPER | &^c”

Hayley’s Second Idea for Cowper’s Monument, inscribed below “The Monument of Cowper | in the Church of East Dereham | Designed by W^m Hayley” (1802) (Princeton University Library) <#357*>

“in St Nicholas Church Dereham”
“Cowper’s Monument in Dereham Church”

Hayley’s Second Idea for Cowper’s Monument, Replica (1802) (Beinecke Library, Yale) <#358*>

“Gen: ch: 3^rd: v. 21^st:”

The Angel of the Divine Presence Clothing Adam and Eve with Coats of Skins (1803) (Fitzwilliam Museum) <#436*>

Hebrew alphabet figures

Hebrew Characters Using the Human Form (1803) (Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester) <#199^v>

“Judges XI c 35 v”

Jephthah Met by His Daughter (1803) (Philadelphia Museum of Art) <#450*>

“Psalm LXXXV. 10. V”

Mercy and Truth Are Met Together, Righteousness and Peace Have Kissed Each Other (1803) (Victoria & Albert Museum) <#463*>

“Gen: ch: 39^tḥ v 17^tḥ & 18”

Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife (1803-05) (Yale Center for British Art) <#439*>

“Job XL. C 1 to 4 v.”

Job Confessing His Presumption to God Who Answers from the Whirlwind (1803-05) (National Gallery of Scotland) <#461*>

“Matt^w: ch: 4^tḥ v. 11^th:”

The Third Temptation (1803-05) (Victoria & Albert Museum) <#476*>

“Luke 10 ch: v 41^st: & 42”According to Butlin, the inscription is on a mount that has been removed.

Christ in the House of Martha and Mary (1803-05) (Victoria & Albert Museum) <#489*>

“Acts I c. 9 & 10 v”

The Ascension (1803-05) (Fitzwilliam Museum) <#505*>

“Acts XVIII c. 6 v”

St. Paul and the Viper (1803-05) (Britten–Pears Foundation) <#510*>

“Rev^ns: ch: 12^th: v 4^th:”

The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun (1803-05) (Brooklyn Museum) <#519*>

“Ezekiel”
“I take away from thee the Desire of thine Eyes, Ezekiel xxiv C 16”

“Ezekiel,” separate plate, second state (1804) (British Museum; Fitzwilliam Museum) <Essick VI*, WBW 1741>

“Albion rose from where he labourd at the Mill with Slaves
Giving himself for the Nations he danc’d the dance of Eternal Death”

“Albion Rose,” separate plate, second state (1804 or later) (British Museum; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC) <Essick VII*, WBW 314n>

“Journey of Life”

The Journey of Life (1804-07) (British Museum) <#572*, WBW 634n>

“Genesis II^ḍ c. 3^d v—”

God Blessing the Seventh Day (1805) (private collection) <#434*>

“Genesis XXVIII c. 12v”

Jacob’s Dream (1805) (British Museum) <#438*>

“Exod: ch: 2^nd v. 7^tḥ & 8^tḥ”

The Finding of Moses (1805) (Victoria & Albert Museum) <#440*>

“Visions of Eternity”

Visions of Eternity (1805) (British Museum) <#444^v*, WBW 1323>

“Matt. 25 Ch. v. 9”

The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins (1805) (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) <#478*>

“Mark XIV c 26 v”

The Hymn of Christ and the Apostles (1805) (private collection) <#490*>

“Luke ch: 23^rd v. 53^rd”

The Entombment (1805) (Tate) <#498*>

“Exod: C XXV. v 20”

Christ in the Sepulchre, Guarded by Angels (1805) (Victoria & Albert Museum) <#500*>

“Mat^w: ch: 28^th: v. 2^nḍ”

The Angel Rolling the Stone Away from the Sepulchre (1805) (Victoria & Albert Museum) <#501*>

“Rev: c xxii v 1 & 2”

The River of Life (1805) (Tate) <#525*>

“INRI”For its meaning, see Christ Crucified between the Two Thieves (1800-03), above.

The Crucifixion: “Behold Thy Mother” (1805) (Tate) <#497*>; the inscription is on the wood above Christ’s head.

“Prone on the lowly grave—she drops—
Clings yet more closely to the senseless turf.
Nor heeds the passenger who looks that way”

The Widow Embracing Her Husband’s Grave for Blair’s Grave (1805) (Yale Center for British Art) <#633>; the inscription is on a mount. At least three tombstones in the design have illegible inscriptions, which may be mere squiggles.

“DEATHS DOOR”

“Deaths Door,” separate plate (1805) (Robert N. Essick) <Essick XIII*>

“The Skeleton Re-animated [on the Sound of the Archangel’s Trumpet]” or
“A Skeleton discovering the first symptoms of re-animation”

Blair prospectus in Burns, Reliques (1808); “Of the Designs” in Blair’s Grave (1808); the design appears on the engraved title page in Blair’s Grave (1808)

“Christ Descending into the Grave [with the Keys of Death and Hell]” or
“The descent of Christ into the Grave”

First Blair prospectus (1805); Blair prospectus in Burns, Reliques (1808); “Of the Designs” in Blair’s Grave (1808); engraved plate in Blair’s Grave (1808)

“The [A] meeting of a Family in Heaven” or
“A Family Meeting in Heaven”

First Blair prospectus (1805); Blair prospectus in Burns, Reliques (1808); “Of the Designs” in Blair’s Grave (1808); engraved plate in Blair’s Grave (1808)

“The Counsellor, King, Warrior, Mother & Child in the Tomb”

First Blair prospectus (1805); Blair prospectus in Burns, Reliques (1808); “Of the Designs” in Blair’s Grave (1808); engraved plate in Blair’s Grave (1808)

“The strong and Wicked Man dying” or
“Death of the Strong Wicked Man”

First Blair prospectus (1805); Blair prospectus in Burns, Reliques (1808); “Of the Designs” in Blair’s Grave (1808); engraved plate in Blair’s Grave (1808)

“The Soul suspended over the Body, unwilling to part with Life” or
“The Soul reluctantly parting with the Body” or
“The Soul hovering over the Body [reluctantly parting with Life]”

First Blair prospectus (1805); Blair prospectus in Burns, Reliques (1808); “Of the Designs” in Blair’s Grave (1808); engraved plate in Blair’s Grave (1808)

“The Valley of Death” or
“The descent of Man into the Vale of Death”

First Blair prospectus (1805); Blair prospectus in Burns, Reliques (1808); “Of the Designs” in Blair’s Grave (1808); engraved plate in Blair’s Grave (1808)

“Death’s Door”

First Blair prospectus (1805); Blair prospectus in Burns, Reliques (1808); “Of the Designs” in Blair’s Grave (1808); engraved plate in Blair’s Grave (1808)

“The Re-union of Soul with the Body at the last Day” or
“The Reunion of the Soul & the Body”

First Blair prospectus (1805); Blair prospectus in Burns, Reliques (1808); “Of the Designs” in Blair’s Grave (1808); engraved plate in Blair’s Grave (1808)

“The Last Judgment” or
“The Day of Judgment”

First Blair prospectus (1805); Blair prospectus in Burns, Reliques (1808); “Of the Designs” in Blair’s Grave (1808); engraved plate in Blair’s Grave (1808)

“The Soul exploring the Caverns of Death” or
“The Soul exploring the recesses of the Grave”

First Blair prospectus (1805); Blair prospectus in Burns, Reliques (1808); “Of the Designs” in Blair’s Grave (1808); engraved plate in Blair’s Grave (1808)

“The good old Man dying” or
“The Death of The Good Old Man”

First Blair prospectus (1805); Blair prospectus in Burns, Reliques (1808); “Of the Designs” in Blair’s Grave (1808); engraved plate in Blair’s Grave (1808)

“Death pursuing the Soul through the Avenues of Life”

First Blair prospectus (1805) (drawing in the collection of Robert N. Essick)

“Friendship”Some titles of the watercolors sold in 2006 that were not engraved appear to bear no authority from Blake: “The Grave Personified” (Price), “While Surfeited upon thy Damask Cheek” (Anon.), “A Father and two children Beside an Open Grave” (Anon.), “Heaven’s Portals Wide Expand to Let Him In” (Essick), and “Our Time Is Fixed” (Anon.).

First Blair prospectus (1805) (drawing in the collection of Alan Parker)

“THE NEW TESTAMENT”

On the open book under the hand of the good old man, both in Blake’s sketch (1805) and in the engraved plate in Blair’s Grave (1808)

“Our Father which art in Heavn Hallowed be thy Name thy Will be”

Job and His Family (1805-06) (Morgan Library) <#550 1*>

Hebrew on the tablets of the Ten Commandments

Job’s Evil Dreams (1805-06) (Morgan Library) <#550 11*>; Hebrew inscriptions on the tablets of the law from Exodus 20.13: thou shalt not “kill,” “commit adultery,” or “steal.” According to Abraham Samuel Shiff (“Blake’s Hebrew Calligraphy,” Blake 46.2 [fall 2012]: pars. 13-21), the Hebrew has many errors. In the engraved version, in Job (1826) pl. “11,” there is no writing on the tablets.

“The Spirit of Nelson guiding Lev[i]athan in whose folds are entangled the nations of the ear[th]”

Sketch for “The Spiritual Form of Nelson Guiding Leviathan” (1805-09) (British Museum) <#650*>

“Theotormon Woven”

Theotormon Woven (1805-10) (Victoria & Albert Museum) <#575*>

“The Accusers of Theft Adultery Murder”
“A Scene in the Last Judgment Satans’ holy Trinity The Accuser The Judge & The Executioner”

“The Accusers of Theft Adultery Murder,” separate plate, third state (1805-10) (multiple impressions) <Essick VIII*, WBW 162>

“adam & Eve”

Sketch for “Satan Watching the Endearments of Adam and Eve” (1806) (Fitzwilliam Museum) <#532*, WBW 1741>

“as y[ou] Like I[t]”

Jacques and the Wounded Stag for Shakespeare, second folio (1806) (British Museum) <#547 1*>

“Richard 3^d”

Richard III and the Ghosts for Shakespeare, second folio (1806) (British Museum) <#547 2*>

“Julius C”

Brutus and Caesar’s Ghost for Shakespeare, second folio (1806) (British Museum) <#547 4*>

First reproduced among the watercolors for Blair’s Grave rediscovered in 2001 and offered at Sotheby’s (New York), 2 May 2006, lot 1; not in Butlin.

“A Series of Designs: Illustrative of The Grave, a Poem by Robert Blair. Invented & Drawn by William Blake 1806”

Second Alternative Design for Title Page: A Spirit Rising from the Tomb (1806) (Huntington Library and Art Collections) <#616*, WBW 1331>

“To the Queen”, plus, too faint now to read, Blake’s dedicatory poem to Blair’s Grave (1808)

Design for the Dedication to Blair’s “Grave” (1807) (British Museum) <#620*>

Hebrew for “Enoch”
Hebrew for “And Enoch walked with God” [Genesis 5.24]

“Enoch,” separate lithograph (1807) (four copies known) <Essick XV*, WBW 1741>;Copy B has an inscription by George Cumberland about making lithographs, which he had “of Blake” (see Essick XV and BR[2] 246-47). on the book on Enoch’s lap and on the page held by the man to his left.

“INRI”For its meaning, see Christ Crucified between the Two Thieves (1800-03), above.

Michael Foretells the Crucifixion (1807) (Huntington Library and Art Collections) <#529 11*>; the inscription is on the wood above Christ’s head.

“The Father indignant at the Fall—the Saviour. While the Evil Angels are driven, gently conducts our first parents out of Eden through a Guard of weeping Angels—Satan now awakes Sin, Death, & Hell, to celebrate with him the birth of war & Misery, while the Lion seizes the Bull, the Tyger the Horse, the Vulture and the Eagle contend for the Lamb”

The Fall of Man (1807) (Victoria & Albert Museum) <#641*, WBW 1332>

“Jacob’s Dream: Vide Genesis, chap. xxviii, ver. 12”

Royal Academy catalogue (1808) (picture in the collection of the British Museum) <#438, WBW 1741>

“Christ in the sepulchre, guarded by angels”

Royal Academy catalogue (1808) (picture in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum) <#500, WBW 1741>

“The Last Judgment”

Royal Academy catalogue (1808) (picture in the collection of the National Trust, Petworth House) <#642>

“The spiritual form of Nelson guiding Leviathan, in whose wreathings are infolded the Nations of the Earth”

Descriptive Catalogue (1809) (picture in the collection of the Tate) <#649>

“The spiritual form of Pitt, guiding Behemoth …”

Descriptive Catalogue (1809) (picture in the collection of the Tate) <#651>; the description was slightly altered in the exhibition of the Associated Painters in Water-Colours (1812) (WBW 829n).

“Sir Jeffery Chaucer and the nine and twenty Pilgrims on their journey to Canterbury”

Descriptive Catalogue (1809) (picture in the collection of Pollok House, Glasgow) <#653>

“The Bard, from Gray”

Descriptive Catalogue (1809) (picture in the collection of the Tate) <#655>

“Grays Bard”

Sketches for “The Bard” (1809) (Philadelphia Museum of Art) <#656*>

“The Ancient Britons”

Descriptive Catalogue (1809) (picture untraced since 1809) <#657>

“A Spirit vaulting from a cloud to turn and wind a fiery Pegasus—Shakspeare”

Descriptive Catalogue (1809) (picture untraced since 1809) <#658>

“The Goats, an experiment Picture”

Descriptive Catalogue (1809) (picture untraced since 1809) <#659>

“The spiritual Preceptor, an experiment Picture”

Descriptive Catalogue (1809) (picture untraced since 1809) <#660>

“Satan calling up his Legions, from Milton’s Paradise Lost”

Descriptive Catalogue (1809) (picture in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum) <#661>

“The Bramins”

Descriptive Catalogue (1809) (picture untraced since 1809) <#663>

“The body of Abel found by Adam and Eve; Cain, who was about to bury it, fleeing from the face of his Parents”

Descriptive Catalogue (1809) (picture in the collection of the Fogg Museum, Harvard) <#664>

“The Soldiers casting lots for Christ’s Garment”

Descriptive Catalogue (1809) (picture in the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum) <#495>

“Jacob’s Ladder”

Descriptive Catalogue (1809) (picture in the collection of the British Museum) <#438>

“The Angels hovering over the Body of Jesus in the Sepulchre”

Descriptive Catalogue (1809) (1805) (picture in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum) <#500>

“Ruth”

Descriptive Catalogue (1809) (picture in the collection of the Southampton City Art Gallery) <#456>

“The Penance of Jane Shore in Saint Paul’s Church”

Descriptive Catalogue (1809) (picture in the collection of the Tate) <#69>

“CHAUCERS CANTERBURY PILGRIMS”, “Reeve”, “Chaucer”, “Clerk of Oxenford”, “Cook”, “Miller”, “Wife of Bath”, “Merchant”, “Parson”, “Man of Law”, “Plowman”, “Physician”, “Franklin”, “2 Citizens”, “Shipman”, “The Host”, “Sompnour”, “Manciple”, “Pardoner”, “Monk”, “Friar”, “a Citizen”, “Lady Abbeſs”, “Nun”, “3 Priests”, “Squires Yeoman”, “Knight”, “Squire”, “AMOR | VINCIT | OMNI[A]”“AMOR | VINCIT | OMNI[A]” (love conquers all) appears on the plaque or medallion on the rosary of the Lady Abbess in all states. It does not seem to be recorded in Essick, Separate Plates 60-89. It does not appear in the preliminary drawing in the British Museum. The words are quoted from Chaucer’s Prologue, as Essick reminds me.

“Chaucers Canterbury Pilgrims,” separate plate, first state (1810) (National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC) <Essick XVI>. Note (illus. 4) the medallion reading “AMOR | VINCIT | OMNI[A]” (the last letter of each word somewhat uncertain) on the rosary of the Lady Abbess, not previously recorded.

4. Detail of “Chaucers Canterbury Pilgrims” showing the “AMOR VINCIT OMNI[A]” inscription. This image is from an impression of the fourth state. Collection of Robert N. Essick.

“Job”
“What is Man That thou shouldest Try him Every Moment? Job vii C 17 & 18v”

“Job,” separate plate, second state (1810) (British Museum; Fitzwilliam Museum) <Essick V*, WBW 1741>

“Engraved when I was a beginner at Basires from a drawing by Salviati after Michael Angelo”

“Joseph of Arimathea among the Rocks of Albion,” manuscript (?1810) on separate plate, first state (1773) (Fitzwilliam Museum) <Essick I*>

“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”

“Joseph of Arimathea among the Rocks of Albion,” separate plate, second state (1810-20) (multiple impressions) <Essick I*, WBW 642>

“ΠAPIS”, i.e., “Paris”

The Judgment of Paris (1811) (British Museum) <#675*>; the inscription is in Greek, on the collar of Paris’s dog.

“Chaining of Orc”

The Chaining of Orc (1812) (British Museum) <#584*>

“Sir Jeoffrey Chaucer and Twenty-seven Pilgrims leaving the Tabarde Inn, in the Borough, on their Way to Canterbury, Morning”

Associated Painters in Water-Colours catalogue (1812) (picture in the collection of Pollok House, Glasgow) <#653>

“The Spiritual Form of Pitt”

Associated Painters in Water-Colours catalogue (1812) (picture in the collection of the Tate) <#651>

“The Spiritual Form of Nelson”

Associated Painters in Water-Colours catalogue (1812) (picture in the collection of the Tate) <#649>

“Mirth. Allegro”
“Heart easing Mirth …”Lacunae in the inscriptions from L’Allegro and Il Penseroso represent Blake’s extensive transcriptions from the poems, which may be found in, inter alia, WBW.
“These Personifications are all brought together in the First Design. Surrounding the Principal Figure which is Mirth herself”

Description of Mirth for L’Allegro (1816-20) (Morgan Library) <#543 1*, WBW 1332-33>

“… The Lark is an Angel on the Wing Dull Night starts from his Watch Tower on a Cloud. The Dawn with her dappled Horses arises above the Earth The Earth beneath awakes at the Larks Voice”

Description of Night Startled by the Lark for L’Allegro (1816-20) (Morgan Library) <#543 2*, WBW 1333>

“… The Great Sun is represented clothed in Flames Surrounded by the Clouds in their Liveries, in their various Offices at the Eastern Gate. Beneath in Small Figures Milton walking by Elms on Hillocks green The Plowman. The Milkmaid The Mower whetting his Scythe. & the Shepherd & his Lass under a Hawthorne in the dale”

Description of The Sun at His Eastern Gate for L’Allegro (1816-20) (Morgan Library) <#543 3*, WBW 1333-34>

“… In this design is Introduced
Mountains on whose barren breast The Labring Clouds do often rest Mountains Clouds Rivers Trees appear Humanized on the Sunshine Holiday. The Church Steeple with its merry bells The Clouds arise from the bosoms of Mountains While Two Angels Sound their Trumpets in the Heavens to announce the Sunshine Holiday”

Description of A Sunshine Holiday for L’Allegro (1816-20) (Morgan Library) <#543 4*, WBW 1334>

“… The Goblin crop full flings out of doors from his Laborious task dropping his Flail & Cream bowl yawning & stretching vanishes into the Sky. in which is Seen Queen Mab Eating the Junkets. The Sports of the Fairies are seen thro the Cottage where ‘She’ lays in Bed ‘pinchd & pulld’ by Fairies as they dance on the Bed the Cieling & the Floor & a Ghost pulls the Bed Clothes at her feet. ‘He’ is seen following the Friars Lantern towards the Convent”

Description of The Goblin for L’Allegro (1816-20) (Morgan Library) <#543 5*, WBW 1334-35>

“… The youthful Poet sleeping on a bank by the Haunted Stream by Sun Set sees in his dream the more bright Sun of Imagination. under the auspices of Shakespeare & Johnson. in which is Hymen at a Marriage & the Antique Pageantry attending it”

Description of The Youthful Poet’s Dream for L’Allegro (1816-20) (Morgan Library) <#543 6*, WBW 1335>

“Melancholy. Pensieroso … These Personifications are all brought together in this design surrounding the Principal Figure of Who is Melancholy herself”

Description of Melancholy for Il Penseroso (1816-20) (Morgan Library) <#543 7*, WBW 1335-36>

“… Milton in his Character of a Student at Cambridge Sees the Moon terrified as one led astray in the midst of her path thro heaven. The distant Steeple Seen across a wide water indicates the Sound of the Curfew Bell”

Description of The Wandering Moon for Il Penseroso (1816-20) (Morgan Library) <#543 8*, WBW 1336-37>

“… The Spirit of Plato unfolds his Worlds to Milton in Contemplation. The Three destinies sit on the Circles of Platos Heavens weaving the Thread of Mortal Life these Heavens are Venus Jupiter & Mars Hermes flies before as attending on the Heaven of Jupiter the Great Bear is seen in the Sky beneath Hermes & The Spirits of Fire Air Water & Earth Surround Miltons Chair”

Description of The Spirit of Plato for Il Penseroso (1816-20) (Morgan Library) <#543 9*, WBW 1337>

“… Milton led by Melancholy into the Groves away from the Suns flaring Beams who is seen in the Heavens throwing his darts & flames of fire The Spirits of the Trees on each side are Seen under the domination of Insects raised by the Suns heat”

Description of The Sun in His Wrath for Il Penseroso (1816-20) (Morgan Library) <#543 10*, WBW 1337>

“… Milton Sleeping on a Bank. Sleep descending with a Strange Mysterious dream upon his Wings of Scrolls & Nets & Webs unfolded by Spirits in the Air & in the Brook around Milton are Six Spirits or Fairies hovering on the air with Instruments of Music”

Description of Milton’s Mysterious Dream for Il Penseroso (1816-20) (Morgan Library) <#543 11*, WBW 1337-38>

“… Milton in his Old Age sitting in his Mossy Cell Contemplating the Constellations. Surrounded by the Spirits of the Herbs & Flowers. bursts forth into a rapturous Prophetic Strain”

Description of Milton in His Old Age for Il Penseroso (1816-20) (Morgan Library) <#543 12*, WBW 1338>

“Cornelius Agrippa”