A great many people seemed willing to incur the expense, and the discomfort of prolonged queueing, to see the big Blake exhibition at the Tate.* Some, no doubt, were expert even in the most rebarbative of the Prophetic Books. Others perhaps only remembered some poems and some stimulating aphorisms glorifying Desire ('the whole creation will appear infinite and holy . . . This will come to pass by an improvement of sensual enjoyment') or insulting Joshua Reynolds ('This Man was Hired to Depress Art'). A few may have been excited by the promise addressed to Christians at the top of one of the Jerusalem plates:

I give you the end of a golden string,
Only wind it into a ball;
It will lead you in at Heavens gate,
Built in Jerusalems wall.

LRB 14 December 2000 | PDF Download