Some hours after, Mr. Astley, who had been out during the incident related, called on Blake, and stormed and raved at what he called his interference. At first Blake was as angry as Astley, his blood was up, and there seemed every prospect of a very violent quarrel. But suddenly, in the midst of his anger, Blake remembered that the amelioration of the boy's condition was his first object, and, quickly changing his tactics, he so worked on the higher moral nature which Astley evidently possessed, that he completely won him over to his views, and the two men parted--friends. Ever after, however, as Messrs. Ellis and Yeats point out, the chain remained with Blake as the symbol of cruel oppression and slavery, and we shall see him using it in his designs again and again as such.
[Illustration: PRINTED AND COLOURED PLATE FROM "SONGS OF INNOCENCE," 1789]
In 1790 he produced the "Songs of Innocence," printed and published, as well as designed, engraved, and composed by himself. In the long and romantic history of art, nothing is more strange than the story of how this little book came into being. Blake was unknown to the world and had no credit with publishers, nor had he the wherewithal to publish at his own expense the poems which he had written and called "Songs of Innocence." Yet he greatly desired to see them set forth in a book with appropriate and significant designs. But how was this to be accomplished? He pondered the matter long, till at last light and leading came. In the silence of one midnight his dead brother Robert appeared to him and instructed him as to the method--an entirely original one--which he should use. The very next day, Blake being urgent to begin his work, his wife went out early with half-a-crown (all the money they had in the world), and laid out one and tenpence on the necessary material. And in faith and gladness, relying on that mystical power in himself which took and used his hand and eye and brain almost without his will, he began to make the first of his lovely engraved and painted books. This is the alpha of a long series of engraved books which issued from his hand at intervals for some years. While in Poland Street he wrote, but did not publish till long after, the "Ghost of Abel," in 1789 the "Book of Thel," in 1790 the "Marriage of Heaven and Hell," and in 1791 a poem, the first of a projected series of seven books, called "The French Revolution."