Between
the spring of 1824 and July 1827, the month before he died, William Blake
regularly visited John Linnell and his family at their cottage, Collins Farm,
in Hampstead, missing the visits only when ill, which was an increasing problem
during his last year. [1] On Tuesday, 3 July 1827, Blake
thanked Linnell “for the Ten Pounds” he had just sent and informed him that his
“journey to Hampstead
on Sunday brought on a
relapse which is lasted till now. I find I am not so well as I thought I must
not go on in a youthful Style—however I am upon the mending hand to day &
hope soon to look as I did for I have been yellow accompanied by all the old
Symptoms.” [2] This news would not have surprised Linnell;
he knew that Blake often blamed the Hampstead air for bringing about his “old
Symptoms,” which included
fever and
stomach pains (BR 306; E 775). And, no doubt, since Blake's
health was the subject of 17 of his 19 extant personal letters to Linnell over
the last 29 months (Keynes 156-170), Linnell was accustomed to Blake's
optimistic and reassuring diagnoses. But Linnell must have suspected the worse. [3] Indeed,
from the summer of 1818, when the two artists met, to early 1825, there is no
record of personal letters, only business transactions, because they met
regularly, going to exhibitions, galleries, plays, and various social
gatherings (BR 256-310). The letters
were occasioned by Blake's illness, and when read together they reveal a
pattern of illness waxing and waning and a man more anxious about his work
being disrupted than his life ending. Linnell had already expressed serious
concern about Blake's health by the summer of 1826, when he had hoped to move
Blake to Hampstead so that he would be nearby (BR 338; Gilchrist 1: 350), and he did so again on 7 February 1827,
when he encouraged Blake to live at Cirencester Place (BR 338), an idea that Blake refused after much anxious reflection
(E 782). [4] Now,
with this new letter, despite Blake's optimism and good cheer, Linnell must have
been
alarmed, for the “old Symptoms” were accompanied by something
new and frightening: the yellowing of Blake's skin.
The
letter was Blake's last; he died six weeks later. The yellow skin signified
jaundice, a yellowish discoloration of tissue and bodily fluids with bile
pigment, which is caused by a variety of pathological conditions that interfere
with the normal processing of bile—the liquid secreted by the liver and stored
in the gall bladder. J. T. Smith and
Frederick Tatham both attributed Blake's death to “gall [i.e., bile] mixing with
the blood” (BR 475, 528); Mona Wilson
attributed it to “gall-stones” (297); and Sir Geoffrey Keynes, the esteemed
Blakean scholar who was also a respected fellow of the Royal College of
Surgeons of London, attributed it to “gallstones and inflammation of the gall
bladder” (156n1). Most recently, Aileen Ward attributed Blake's death to “a
ruptured gallbladder with attendant peritonitis” (15). The latter part of her
diagnosis, as we argue here, is probably incorrect, whereas the less detailed
diagnoses about the gallbladder are nearer the truth, in that they attribute
Blake's death to a problem in the liver and bile ducts. Recent improvements in our understanding of
the diseases of the biliary tract, however, allow a more precise speculation
regarding the cause of Blake's death. A
modern and more specific description of the cause might be liver failure due to
biliary cirrhosis. Cirrhosis is an
irreversible alteration of the liver architecture consisting of hepatic
fibrosis and areas of nodular regeneration (Wyngaarden, Smith, and Bennett
786). A variety of disease processes
can lead to cirrhosis. When it develops
due to obstruction in the biliary system, it is called biliary cirrhosis. A
review of the available information on Blake's illness and a close reading of
Blake's and his contemporaries' descriptions of his illness suggests that among
the currently recognized cause of biliary cirrhosis, the most likely is sclerosing cholangitis.
Ascertaining
the probable cause of Blake's death, while of significant biographical
importance in itself, can provide relevant information about the man as well as
his biographers, for it enables us to assess Frederick Tatham's account of
Blake's final illness being accompanied with “agonies of pain” and Ward's
recent challenge to the legend that Blake burst into song on his deathbed
(14-15). It also provides a clearer
picture of when and how Blake managed to produce his last paintings and
illuminated books despite a recurring illness that kept him bedridden for days
at a time. Of significant interest are reports that sclerosing cholangitis
might be caused or aggravated by chronic copper intoxication (LaRusso 901,
Weisner 204-5, Gross 277), raising the possibility that Blake died from a
lifetime exposure to copper, or, more specifically, to the fumes from the chemical
reaction of nitric acid and copper—the “corrosives” of his own “infernal
method.”
Sclerosing
cholangitis occurs most commonly in individuals with inflammatory bowel disease
(IBD), a chronic diarrheal disease (Sherlock 249, Shorter 311). Alexander Gilchrist, Blake's first
biographer, states that Blake “was a perpetual sufferer from intermittent
attacks of cold and dysentery” (1: 347).
The modern interpretation of a “cold” is an upper respiratory infection,
“an inflammatory condition of the mucous membranes of the respiratory organs,
accompanied by catarrh, hoarseness, and cough” (OED). In the eighteenth century, however, the term was more flexible,
referring also to “an indisposition of the body caused by exposure to cold”
(OED). Blake appears to have used the
term in both these senses. In a letter sent on 30 January 1803 from Felpham to
his brother James, Blake says “I have no Ague but have had a Cold this Winter”;
he also claimed that “the air tho warm is unhealthy” and acknowledging that “I
was really very ill when I wrote [Butts] the last time” (i.e., 10 January
1803). When he returned to London, he wrote Hayley of his “violent cold which
confind me to my bed 3 days & to my chamber a week” (E 725-26, 740). But in a letter to John Linnell on 1 February 1826,
Blake referred to a “cold in my stomach” (E
775), indicating a gastrointestinal illness.
Gastrointestinal “colds” and dysentery are consistent with the
speculation that Blake had IBD, a chronic (Gilchrist’s “perpetual”) diarrheal
disease characterized by exacerbations and remissions (Gilchrist’s
“intermittent”).
Unfortunately,
with only nine known letters between 1 July 1806 and March 1825 (and only four
or five of these could be called personal), the documentary evidence necessary
to trace a pattern in his health during these years is absent. However, to
Henry Crabb Robinson, apparently on their first visit at the Aders on 10
December 1825, Blake spoke of “a bowel complaint which nearly killed him.” The cause, according to Blake, was Wordsworth's
“preface to the Excursion” (BR 325). [5] When Blake read the Excursion, published in 1814, is not known, but Flaxman had been
similarly offended by the same passage, as he told Robinson on 19 December
1814. As Bentley surmises, “it would not be surprising if Flaxman and Blake had
talked about the offensive passage” (BR
312n3). If so, then Blake's IBD may have been present this early. Blake
himself, though, seems to admit that his stomach colds were present even
earlier, while he was “young,” and that they had been precipitated not by
literature but by all points north of London. In his 1 February 1826 letter,
he
tells Linnell:
I
am forced to write because . . . I am again laid up by a cold in my stomach the
Hampstead Air as it always did. so I fear it always will do . . . I believe my Constitution to be a good one
but it has many peculiarities that no one but myself can know. When I was young
Hampstead Highgate Hornsea Muswell Hill & even Islington & all places
North of London always laid me up the day after & sometimes two or three
days with precisely the same Complaint & the same torment of the
Stomach. Easily removed but
excruciating while it lasts & enfeebling for some time after…. (E 775) [6]
What the 68 year-old Blake means by
“young” is uncertain, but a reasonable guess would be his twenties and
thirties, that is, in the 1780s and 1790s.
This would be consistent with Tatham’s statement that Blake “and his
Wife” went on very long walks “in his youth” (BR 527). Blake’s walks to
villages north of London may have continued to at least 1808, when Thomas Butts
appears to have moved from a house in Dalston to Fitzroy Square (Viscomi “Green
House” 12).
When
signs of IBD first began to reveal themselves is not known, but they appear to
have been chronic or “perpetual,” as Gilchrist says. If Blake suffered from IBD in his “youth,” then it was probably
still present at the end of his life, which would be consistent with Blake's
behavior, for, while he regularly speaks of his health improving and of his
ability to continue working, he also says he dare not leave the house. That it
was intermittent is evinced by Linnell's journal, which records his and Blake's
going to Lahee's, the City, and an exhibition in March, April, and May 1825 (BR 301).
If
Blake had IBD complicated by sclerosing cholangitis, the final stages of this
illness began about 29 months before his death, as indicated by Blake's undated
letter to Linnell, which appears to have been written in early March 1825,
making it the first extant personal letter to Linnell:
A
return of the old Shivering Fit came on this Morning as soon as I awaked &
I am now in Bed—Better & as I think almost well If I can possibly I will
be
at Mr Lahees tomorrow Morning. these attacks are too serious at the time to
permit me to be out of Bed. but they
go
off by rest which seems to be All that I want….(E 773) [7]
A
shivering fit is the nineteenth-century description of fever and chills
(Elliston 140), symptoms that can occur in individuals with IBD and
particularly in those with sclerosing cholangitis (Wyndgaarden, Smith, and
Bennett 701, Schiff 1312). Chills and
fever develop in about fifty percent of individuals with sclerosing cholangitis
(Schiff 1312). That the “old” symptoms
“returned” suggests that Blake experienced similar problems for some time,
reconfirming the chronic and intermittent nature of the illness.
In
his second letter to Linnell, Blake described his problem as “ague.” On 7 June
1825, he wrote that
on
account of this abominable Ague or whatever it is I am in Bed & at Work my
health I cannot speak of for if it was not for Cold weather I think I should
soon get about again . . . I can draw as well a Bed as Up & perhaps better
but I cannot Engrave I am going on with Dante & please myself. . . (E 773-74). [8]
In
the nineteenth century, “ague” was a term used to describe a feverish illness
with chills and sweating (Clutterbuck 756, Elliotson 140-141). [9] If
Catherine Blake's ague during the Felpham years is any evidence, this could be
a debilitating condition; nevertheless, Blake characteristically refused to
be disrupted and actually found work therapeutic. [10]
Blake
may have spent much of the summer of 1825 in bed; there are no documents extant
from July 1825 to prove or disprove this, but on 6 August 1825, Linnell received
a letter from Edward Thomas Daniell, who stated: “I am sorry to hear poor Mr
Blake is so unwell but hope he may recover, again to use [h]is pencil and
graver” (BR 301). Daniell got his
wish, for Linnell and Blake visited the Aders on that day. Clearly, the illness
continued to come and go, raising Blake's hopes only to disappoint him with
further relapses. In September, he may have visited Palmer in Shoreham (BR 302 and n2); in October, he visited
the Linnells at Hampstead at least twice. He wrote Mrs. Linnell on 11 October
to say “I hope to see you on Sunday morning as usual,” and he did so, on 16
October, as her journal for 18 October records: “Mr Blake came as usual” (BR 305). But on 10 November, Blake wrote
Linnell that
I
cannot get Well & am now in Bed but seem as if I should be better tomorrow
rest does me good—Pray take care of your health this wet weather & tho I
write do not venture out on such days as today has been. I hope a few more days
will bring us to a conclusion…. (E
774-75)
By
December, Blake's health appears to have improved substantially. On 10
December, he attended a dinner party at the Aders, where he met Robinson, who
paid him long visits on 17 and 24 December and 6 January 1826. But, as noted,
Blake told Linnell on 1 February 1826 that he was “again laid up by a cold in
[his] stomach,” supposedly because of “the Hampstead Air” (E 775). Seventeen days
later, Blake received Robinson for a morning chat (BR 321), and though Robinson makes no mention of Blake's health, it
seems that it was deteriorating. On 31 March 1826, Blake described his
condition:
I
have been very ill since I saw you but am again well enough to go on with my
work but not well enough to venture out. the Chill of the weather soon drives
me back into that shivering fit which must be avoided till the Cold is gone . .
. . if the weather should be warm I will endeavour to come to you before
Tuesday but much fear that my present tottering state will hold me some time
yet. (E 776)
Blake
sounds much as he did exactly one year earlier, when he first described his
condition as a “return of the old Shivering Fit,” but now he compounds his
description with the phrase “tottering state,” which reveals Blake's awareness
of himself as significantly weakening.
The
illness continued to wax and wane, but through it all Blake continued to work.
In April, he wrote Linnell: “I am still far from recoverd & dare not get
out in the cold air. Yet I lose nothing by it Dante goes on the better which
is
all I care about” (E 777). [11] On 12 May, Blake attended a party at
Robinson's, but on 19 May, he wrote Linnell to cancel his upcoming Sunday visit
to Hampstead because of the “shivering fits.” This time, though, he also
described “forcing sweats,” a nineteenth-century treatment for fever (Clutterbuck
760):
I
have had another desperate Shivring Fit. it came on yesterday afternoon after
as good a morning as I ever experienced.
It began by a gnawing Pain in the Stomach & soon spread. a deathly feel all over the limbs which
brings on the shivring fit when I am forced to go to bed where I contrive to
get into a little Perspiration which takes it quite away. It was night when it left me so I did not
get up but just as I was going to rise this morning the shivring fit attackd me
again & the pain with its accompanying deathly feel I got again into a
perspiration & was well but so much weakend that I am still in bed. (E 777)
There
are no letters from June, but Robinson paid Blake a visit on the 13th and found
him “as wild as ever” and confessing that “wives should be in common” (BR 548). The rest of the summer, though,
was miserable, as Blake's letters clearly reveal. On 2 July 1826, Blake
described progressive symptoms and signs of weakness:
I
also feel Myself weaker than I was aware, being not able as yet to sit up
longer than six hours at a time. & also feel the Cold too much to dare
venture beyond my present precincts. . . . But I get better & stronger
every day, tho weaker in muscle & bone than I supposed. . . . I intend to
bring . . . My Book of Drawings from Dante & one Plate shut up in the Book
. . . [but] I fear I could not go thro [the coach's “rumble”] So . . . conclude
another Week must pass before I dare Venture upon what I ardently desire—the
seeing you with your happy Family once again & that for a longer Period
than I had ever hoped in my health full hours. (E 778)
A letter written three days later,
on 5 July 1826, describes a remission:
I
am getting better every hour my Plan is diet only & if the Machine is
capable of it shall make an old man yet: I go on Just as If perfectly well
which indeed I am except in those paroxysms which I now believe will never more
return. (E 778) [12]
The
illness, which appeared to be in remission for at least 11 days, left him
weaker but hopeful. He writes on 14 July: “I am so much better that I have
hopes of fulfilling my expectation & desire of Visiting Hampstead I am
nevertheless very considerably weakend by the last severe attacks” (E 778). The relentless nature of his
illness led Blake, though hopeful, to obtain new medical advice, but his letter
from 16 July 1826 is the only mention of a specific therapy for his illness
apart from diet, rest, and forcing sweats:
I
have been ever since taking Dr Youngs Addition to Mr Finchams Practise with me
([It] <The Addition> is dandelion) In a Species of Delireum, & in
Pain too much for Thought It is now
passed as I hope…. (E 779) [13]
Dandelion
is a folk remedy used to stimulate the liver or to treat gallstones. The medicinal use of dandelion suggests that
a liver or biliary problem might have been diagnosed as the cause of Blake's
symptoms prior to the development of the jaundice.
Blake's
hopes for a visit were soon dashed by a new affliction. On 29 July 1826—about
one year before his death—he described the new symptom:
Just
as I had become Well. that is subdued
the disease. tho not its Efects Weakness &c Comes Another to hinder my
Progress calld The Piles which when to the degree I have had them are a most
sore plague & on a Weak Body truly afflictive. These Piles have now also as I hope run their Period. & I
begin to again feel returning Strength. on these accounts I cannot yet tell
when I can start for Hampstead like a young Lark without feathers. Two or Three
days may be suficient or not, all now will depend on my bones & sinews
Muscle I have none but a few days may do & have done miracles in the Case
of a Convalescent who prepares himself ardently for his return to Life &
its Business among his Friends. (E
780)
The
development of hemorrhoids (piles) suggests that the sclerosing cholangitis has
progressed to biliary cirrhosis. [14]
Blake's
optimistic diagnosis notwithstanding, he would never again return to his old
vigorous self. He did, however, feel strong enough to visit the Linnells the
following week. On 1 August, he informs Linnell that he will set out on
Thursday (3 August) in a
Cabriolet.
for tho getting better & stronger I am still incapable of riding in the
Stage & shall be I fear for some time being only bones & sinews All
strings & bobbins like a Weavers Loom. Walking to & from the Stage
would be to me impossible tho I seem well being entirely free from both pain
& from that Sickness to which there is no name. Thank God I feel no more of
it & have great hopes that the Disease is Gone. (E 780-81).
It
wasn't. But even with his illness in remission, Blake had lost much weight and
was left significantly weakened in body, though not in mind or inspiration. He
brought the Dante drawings and continued to work on them (BR 333). The use of a cabriolet—a two-wheeled, one-horse carriage
with two seats and a folding top—was certainly out of character, but apparently
necessary because it could provide door-to-door delivery and perhaps a more
comfortable ride than the “rumble” and bouncing of the larger stage he so
feared. In light of these concerns and
his condition, the speculation that Blake visited Edward Calvert in Brixton the
following month (BR 333) ought to
give pause—or did Blake make similar arrangements for transportation?
By
his own account, in letters and to Robinson on 7 December, Blake had been “very
ill during the Summer” of 1826, and when Robinson told him of Flaxman's recent
death, Blake said: “I thought I should have gone first” (BR 337). The fall held no improvement. No letters or documents from
the fall of 1826 (September, October, and November) are extant, but a letter to
Linnell from Edward Denny on 20 November regarding the Job engravings acknowledges Linnell's concern for Blake's health:
“I am very sorry to hear that Mr Blake has been in danger, and sincerely hope
that he is now in perfect health” (Keynes 165). The serious deterioration of
Blake's health was now apparent to himself and his friends. Indeed, the last
year of his illness was a great physical challenge for Blake. Tatham writes:
About
a year before he died he was seized with a species of Ague, (as it was then
termed[)], of which he was alternately better & worse. He was at times very ill but rallied and all
had hopes of him, indeed such was his energy that even then, tho' sometimes
confined to his Bed, he sat up Drawing his most stupendous Works. (BR
527)
Gilchrist
comments that during the last year of his illness, Blake was “suffering from
diarrhoea, or, perhaps, dysentery” (1: 353).
As noted, Blake described himself as emaciated—“only bones and sinews
All strings and bobbins like a Weavers Loom”—in his letter to Linnell on 1
August 1826, one year before he died. Emaciation is a feature of sclerosing
cholangitis, and weight loss develops in up to seventy-nine percent of
individuals with this disease (Sherlock 250).
The
long, final illness seemed to offer Blake little respite. To an invitation from Mrs. Aders, Blake
responded on 29 December 1826:
.
. . the least thing brings on the symptoms of the original complaint. he does not dare to leave his room by any
means. he had another desperate attack
of the Aguish trembling last night & is certain that at present any venture
to go out must be of bad perhaps of fatal consequence. (E
781)
Although
his body was broken, his spirit never flagged.
In response to Linnell's request (on 7 February 1827) that he move to
Cirencester Place, Blake wrote that he was
getting
better every Morning but slowly. as I am still feeble & tottering. tho all
the Symptoms of my complaint seem almost gone as the fine weather is very
beneficial & comfortable to me I go on as I think improving my Engavings of
Dante more & more & shall soon get Proofs. . . .
I
have Thought & Thought of the Removal. & cannot get my Mind out of a
State of terrible fear at such a step. the more I think the more I feel terror
at what I wishd at first & thought it a thing of benefit & Good hope
you will attribute it to its right Cause Intellectual Peculiarity that must be
Myself alone shut up in Myself or Reduced to Nothing. . . . (E 782)
In
refusing to move nearer Linnell, Blake seems more anxious about his work than
his health. He also seems to want to reassure Linnell. A few days later, he
walked to Cirencester Place carrying four large Dante plates, ostensibly “to
prevent the trouble of [Linnell's] Coming thro Curiosity to see what I was
about,” and stated that he was “getting better or [he] could not have Come at
all” (E 782). The next letter, on 15
March, notes that he had received a letter from Cumberland, that Tatham senior
paid him a visit, and that he was “getting on with the [Dante] Engravings,” but
it does not mention his health (E
782).
He
did not respond to Cumberland, who evidently posted his letter 5 March (BR 340), until 12 April 1827, writing
his longest extant letter in over 20 years, one which reflects remarkably
Blake's awareness of his mortality and his tenacious belief in the imagination:
I
have been very near the Gates of Death & have returned very weak & an
Old Man feeble and tottering, but not in Spirit & Life not in The Real Man
The Imagination which Liveth for Ever.
In that I am stronger & stronger as this Foolish Body decays. (E 783)
During
these days, Blake “was frequently bolstered up in his bed” to work (Gilchrist
1: 359). But he must have had relatively long periods out of bed as well, since
engraving the Dante plates required a table or work-bench, as did Cumberland's
calling card, which he assured Cumberland he would “do as soon as Possible,”
using his poor health as an excuse for the delay: “when you Consider that I
have been reduced to a Skeleton from which I am slowly recovering you will I
hope have Patience with me” (E 784).
And
Blake continued to print a few illuminated books. As he told Cumberland: “I am
now Printing a Set of the Songs of Innocence & Experience for a Friend at
Ten Guineas which I cannot do under Six Months consistent with my other Work,
so that I have little hope of doing any more of such things” (E 784). Nevertheless, Blake enclosed a
list of books he was willing to reprint and their prices. The copy of Songs was probably copy X, which Thomas
G. Wainwright had ordered in February 1827 through Linnell (BR 339). Blake was working on it
“consistent with . . . other work,” which probably included copy I of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, also
for Wainwright, and the Dante drawings and engravings. Blake did not list Marriage or mention the Dante
engravings, but he mentioned Jerusalem,
“the Last Work [he] produced,” observing that to print and finish it like the
one he had (i.e., Jerusalem copy E)
would “Cost [in] Time the amount of Twenty Guineas” (E 784). Though “reduced to a Skeleton,” Blake visited the
connoisseur and collector William Young Ottley with Linnell five days after
writing Cumberland, on 17 April, in the hopes of securing a commission. The
following week, on 25 April, he thanked Linnell “for the prospect of Mr Ottleys
advantageous acquaintance,” and assured him that he is “going on better Every
day . . . in hea[l]th & in Work,” but also admits that he goes
on
without daring to count on Futurity. which I cannot do without Doubt & Fear
that ruins Activity & are the greatest hurt to an Artist such as I am . . .
. I am too much attachd to Dante to think much of any thing else . . . [and]
count myself sufficiently Paid If I live as I now do & only fear that I may
be unlucky to my friends . . . . (E 784)
Ottley came through, commissioning
copy F of Jerusalem, a monochrome
copy for which he paid £5 5s.0d.
Linnell records receiving this payment and giving the money to Mrs.
Blake on 11 August (Keynes 149, BR
594)—one day before Blake died, and one day after Linnell had visited Blake and
recorded in his journal that he was “Not expected to live” (BR 341). Apparently, Blake was either
too weak or perhaps not awake to make the business transaction, as he normally
did. [15]
There
are no extant letters from Blake in May and June, and perhaps that is a good
sign, pointing to the period in which he printed Jerusalem and finished Wainwright's commissions. He did feel
healthy enough to visit Hampstead at the end of June—the visit that Blake
believed “brought on a relapse” and the jaundice that he described on 3 July
1827. Blake was bedridden during his last days. According to Tatham, “In August he gradually grew worse &
required much more of his Wife's attention, indeed he was decaying fast; his
patience during his agonies of pain is described to have been exemplary” (BR 528). By 10 August, he was completely bedridden. According to
Gilchrist, “his illness was not violent, but a gradual and gentle failure of
physical powers, which no wise affected the mind. The speedy end was not
foreseen by his friends.” When it came, on 12 August, Blake “lay chaunting
Songs to Melodies, both the inspiration of the moment . . . . To the pious
Songs followed, about six in the summer evening, a calm and painless withdrawl
of breath; the exact moment almost unperceived by his wife, who sat by his side
(Gilchrist 1: 360-61). The first
obituary, published on 18 August 1827 in the Literary Gazette (and republished five times with minor variations;
see BR 350n1), reported that Blake
“died as he had lived, piously, cheerfully, talking calmly, and finally
resigning himself to his eternal rest like an infant to its sleep” (BR 355). [16]
Needless
to say, these various accounts of Blake's last days raise more questions than
they answer. Was Blake's final illness as nonviolent and its culmination as
peaceful as Gilchrist and the obituary notice suggest, or was it, as Tatham
states, accompanied with “agonies of pain,” with only the last hours peaceful,
when his “spirit departed like the sighing of a gentle breeze” (BR 528)? Did he find the energy and inspiration one last time to compose
and sing melodies just before dying?
Tatham's
and Gilchrist's descriptions are probably both correct, though they are of
different stages of the illness. And both biographers are almost certainly
incorrect about the deathbed scene. As noted, Linnell visited Blake two days
before he died and knew that he was “Not expected to live.” From this journal
entry and her belief that Blake died from a ruptured gallbladder (15), Ward
infers that Blake was probably in a semi-comatose state (14). If correct—and we
think it is, though not for the reasons Ward gives—that condition alone casts
suspicion on the legend that Blake burst into song on his deathbed. In a
provocative article examining the effect that stereotypes and archetypes of
artists and heroes have had on Blake biographers (including Carlyle's idea of
the artist-as-hero on his disciple, Gilchrist), Ward challenges the legend is a
version of the “myth of the death of the hero” (14). She traces its various
forms—through Richmond, Smith, Cunningham, Tatham, and Gilchrist—to the same
source, Catherine Blake, who, Ward argues, may have been the only witness, despite
Richmond's description of an unidentified person standing by not withstanding
(14 and n28). Ward is particularly
suspicious of Tatham, as a person and biographer. At a full page, Tatham's
conflation of other deathbed accounts “pulled out all the stops,” with Blake
coloring a print of the Ancient of Days, then sketching a portrait of
Catherine, then singing Hallelujahs and songs of joy “loudly & with true
extatic energy” (BR 528), and then
suggesting to Catherine that Tatham ought to manage her affairs, to which Ward
responds: “This of a man dying of a ruptured gallbladder with attendant
peritonitis!” (15).
While
her skepticism of Tatham’s account for medical reasons is justified, Ward’s
unreferenced diagnosis is mistaken and actually contradicts her claim that
Blake was semi-comatose during his last few days. After the gallbladder
ruptures, the bacteria in the gallbladder spill out into the abdominal cavity
and cause peritonitis (the inflamation or infection of the membrane lining the
walls of the abdominal cavity). Neither a ruptured gall bladder nor peritonitis
accounts for the piles or the emaciation, but both would be very painful.
Untreated, the patient develops septic shock, blood pressure falls, blood
perfusion to the brain decreases, and unconsciousness (coma) intervenes for
several hours, not days, prior to death.
Blake
likely died of complications due to biliary cirrhosis possibly caused by
sclerosing cholangitis, and not a ruptured gallbladder with peritonitis. If we
return to the obituary notice, we can discern a few important but overlooked
clues about Blake's final illness supporting this hypothesis. The notice states
that Blake’s:
.
. . . ancles frightfully swelled, his chest [was] disordered, old age striding
on, his wants increased, but not his miserable means and appliances: even yet
was his eye undimmed, the fire of his imagination unquenched, and the
preternatural never-resting activity of his mind unflagging. (BR
349)
The
swollen ankles and the disordered chest were likely due to fluid retention in
the legs and lungs, respectively, a common terminal event which occurs in
individuals with liver failure from any cause. The disordered chest suggests
breathing difficulties likely due to pulmonary edema. Blake was 69 years old
with old coronary arteries and old lungs (perhaps abnormal from the etching
fumes), and he probably developed the pulmonary edema slowly over weeks or
months, likely adjusting his activities and sleeping position to accommodate
the fluid accumulating in his lungs. A semi-comatose state is consistent with
this diagnosis, and it would likely have set in a day or two before Blake died,
which is also consistent with Linnell’s comments on 10 August. If this were
Blake’s condition, then it is unlikely that he awoke in his last hours with the
energy to color, draw, sing, and talk. Far more likely, he entered “his eternal
rest like an infant to its sleep,” and, while asleep, experienced “a calm and
painless withdrawal of breath.” A believable scenario is that Blake went to sleep,
his breathing slowed, an episode of apnea developed, and he never breathed
again. Alternately, Blake went to sleep, his breathing slowed, his blood oxygen
level decreased, he experienced a heart attack, and he never woke up.
Hence,
Gilchrist's description of a peaceful death is probably accurate, whereas
Tatham's phrase “agonies of pain” describes not the last days but much of the
last year of Blake’s life, particularly the weeks and months leading to the
final days. Blake's “gnawing Pain in the Stomach” (19 May 1826), “paroxysms” (5
July 1826), “Species of Delireum,” and “Pain too much for Thought” (16 July
1826) are not what killed him; they are the “old Symptoms” he talks about six
months before he died and which accompany IBD or sclerosing cholangitis, or
both (see Table).
Pulmonary
edema was probably the final or absolute cause of death, but it resulted from
liver failure due to biliary cirrhosis, itself probably caused by sclerosing
cholangitis. But what caused the sclerosing cholangitis?
As
we have seen, with the exception of Wordsworth's offending passages, Blake
appears consistently to have blamed his poor health, both in youth and old age,
on the northern air. But Tatham gave another, even more peculiar, cause. He
states that “it has been supposed that [Blake's] Excessive labour without the
exercise he used formerly to take, (having relinquished the habit of taking
very long Walks) brought on the complaint which afterwards consumed him” (BR 527). Tatham appears to confuse
effects with cause, since Blake postponed his relatively long walks to
Hampstead only when physically incapable of making it. Moreover, what Tatham means by “very long
Walks” is not clear. He states that
in
his youth [Blake] and his wife would start in the Morning early, & walk out
20 miles & dine at some pretty & sequestered Inn & would return the
same day home having travelled 40 miles. Mrs Blake would do this without
excessive fatigue. Blake has been known to walk 50 Miles in the day, but being
told by some Physician, that such long walks were injurious, he discontinued
them, & went so far to the other extreme, that it has been said he remained
in the House, so long that [it] was considered far from extraordinary his days
were shortened. (BR 527).
As
noted, by “youth” Tatham seems to refer to the same period Blake spoke of in
1826, when Blake recalled that “When [he] was young Hampstead Highgate Hornsea
Muswell Hill & even Islington & all places North of London always laid
me up the day after . . . [with] the same Complaint & the same torment of
the Stomach.” All of these locales,
though, are well within a 20-mile radius of Blake’s home. While it is apparent that he enjoyed long
walks for most of his life, it seems unlikely that Blake, who boasted that he
“never suspended his Labours on Copper for a single day” (E 568), would have ever made a “habit” of walking 40 or more miles
in a day, which translates, minimally, into 10 to 14 hours of hiking. Even the young Wordsworth, an exceptionally
strong walker, covered 20-25 miles per day on his Tintern Abbey tour (Hayden
78). Tatham probably exaggerates the length, if not also the frequency, of
Blake’s hikes, exaggerating perhaps not as much as in the deathbed scene but
for the same reason, to present Blake as transcending normal physical as well
as mental limitations.
Tatham’s
implication that Blake had discontinued long walks late in his life is clearly
refuted by Blake’s trips to Hampstead. So is his implication that Blake
“remained in the House, so long that [it] was considered far from extraordinary
his days were shortened.” Tatham clearly places Blake’s housebound period close
to his death, which suggests that he may have wanted to hide the fact that
Blake regularly visited Linnell, from whom Tatham was estranged. Smith is presumably referring to the same
period in Blake's life, though he does not date it, when he states: “so
steadfastly attentive was he to his beloved tasks, that for the space of two
years he had never once been out of his house; and his application was often so
incessant, that in the middle of the night, he would, after thinking deeply
upon a particular subject, leap from his bed and write for two hours or more” (BR 475). The idea of Blake staying
indoors for two years is, as Bentley notes, an unconfirmed “extraordinary
story,” which, if true, may have occurred in “1813-14, when almost nothing is
known about Blake” (BR 475n2). But it
seems more plausible that Smith is alluding to the same period that Tatham
describes. Smith's description of
Blake's writing process echoes Blake's own version of it as told to Robinson,
18 February 1826 (BR 322), and this
too suggests that he had old Blake in mind.
If so, Smith uncharacteristically exaggerated, or perhaps merely
misunderstood Mrs. Blake's summary of Blake's last two years, when long walks
to Hampstead were seriously curtailed but work was not. To a widowed care-taker
and a biographer, perhaps Blake appeared housebound relative to his earlier
peripatetic and social self.
As
causes of Blake’s illness, we can rule out the air of London's northern
villages and the combination of excessive work and lack of exercise. We cannot
rule out Blake's profession as an engraver, however, because of the theoretical
connection between sclerosing cholangitis and copper intoxication. As noted,
Blake confirmed his considerable exposure to copper, stating in 1809 that he
had never “during a Period of Forty Years . . . suspended his Labours on Copper
for a single day” (E 568). This claim
is somewhat hyperbolic, since Blake did not take up engraving until 1772 and
appears to have had a hiatus in 1799 (E
704). But given that some of the Jerusalem
plates may be as late as c. 1820 and that 22 plates of the Book of Job, the Laocoön,
and the seven incomplete Dante engravings were executed between 1823 and 1827,
it is no exaggeration to say that Blake was exposed to copper for 55 of his 69
years. But surely, other engravers were exposed to copper for extensive periods
as well. In the absence of epidemiological studies on nineteenth-century engravers
and data on their livers and death, is this theoretical connection worth
pursuing? We believe it is, because it will provide the grounds for further
research on Blake’s death and because it will illuminate where and how Blake
differed from his fellow engravers. [17]
On
August 4 1772, at 14 years of age, Blake began his seven year apprenticeship
to
the engraver James Basire (BR 9). [18] Like
all others of his craft, he learned all the stages of engraving and, because
during this period original and reproductive engravings began as
etchings, executed in a technique known as “mixed-method,” Blake learned all
the steps of etching as well. He learned to draw for the printmakers, to cut
plates out of sheets of copper, prepare the plates to accept etching grounds,
to transfer drawings onto plates, to make inks and stop-out varnishes, to use
and
sharpen diversely shaped burins and needles, to prepare paper for printing, and
to use a rolling press. And he learned how to mix, dilute, and use nitric acid.
By the time he invented relief-etching in 1788, he had over 16 years of
experience in engraving and etching. This means 16 years of handling copper and
being exposed to the fumes from the chemical reaction of nitric acid and
copper. Other engravers were exposed to these fumes as well, and in normal
etching—if done correctly—the fumes were weak. Their potential for harm,
however, increased substantially with relief etching.
In
standard practice, the hand-hammered copper plate is prepared for engraving by
being first planed to a smooth surface with water and charcoal, pumice stones,
and metal burnishers. It is then
polished with a tightly rolled piece of felt using oil as the lubricant. The plate is then cleaned of oily residue by
being thoroughly rubbed with whiting or breadcrumbs mixed with water. The “degreased” plate can now accept an
etching ground, an acid-resistant mixture of wax and resins melted onto the
plate and spread into a thin film. The
design’s outline is transferred onto this covering ground and then scratched
through with a needle. The metal
beneath the ground is now exposed and can be etched with acid. The purpose of the etch is to place the
lines lightly into the plate to facilitate the engraver’s burin. In the seventeenth-century, the ground was
very hard and the acid was vinegar-based, and needle used to cut lines had an
oval tip that could cut lines that swelled like those cut with burins. The plate was etched by being placed on an
easel or through and having acid poured over it (illus. 1). 
These materials and etching technique,
however, were long out of fashion when Blake began to learn the trade. They were replaced with a softer, more
supple ground and pointed etching needles, with true nitric acid, and with a
new way of applying the acid. Plates
were diked with wax to hold acid, which was poured on its surface (illus.
2). 
This new method required that the
plate be watched carefully while being etched, because nitric acid cuts
laterally as well as vertically, which means that it can cut under lines and
thereby ruin fine line work or hatching.
Nitric Acid can also ruin the design by coarsening lines or pitting or
lifting (“foulbiting”) parts of the etching ground. To prevent these effects, an etcher or assistant passed a feather
over the design to release the gas bubbles or “the froth or scum, which gather
upon…strokes of hatchings whilst the water performs its operation (Sculptura 91; Faithorne 35). Even in pure etchings, like caricature
prints or aquatints, the amount of copper exposed to nitric acid was relatively
minimal (illus. 3, 4a, 4b), and the acid was diluted at least three to one and
carefully regulated. Depending on the
acid’s strength and the etcher’s objective, the plate would have remained in
acid continuously for 15 to 40 minutes.
 |
 |
 |
Like
his contemporaries, Blake would have been exposed to copper particles and dust
that were released into the air by cutting plates from sheets and from
preparing plates by planing, burnishing, an polishing. These amounts, like those from etching plates
in the normal manner, were probably negligible. Blake’s exposure to copper dust and fumes, however, as well as to
nitric oxide and dioxide, increased enormously when he etched plates in relief. Blake’s technique required a stronger acid
and a much longer bite, upwards of eight hours or more, while still requiring a fairly constant check. Furthermore, because only the lines of the
design are covered in an acid-resistant ground, the amount of copper exposed to
the acid was many times that of normal etching (illus. 5, 6a, 6b). The more metal acid bites, the hotter and
more active it becomes and thus the greater the chance of foulbiting. Blake’s “corrosives,” or “corroding fire,”
lay on the walled-in plate about “half a finger’s breadth all over” (Faithorne
33), turned blue, and bubbled along the relief lines. This kind of active bite would have prevented the plate “from
being seen” (Dossie 2: 166). Given the
amount of metal exposed, the bite must have been very active, probably enough
to have become cloudy and emitted must higher than usual amounts of nitric
oxide and dioxide, “which in hell” may be “salutary and medicinal,” but on
earth are potentially hazardous. Blake
may be alluding to such fiery biting when asserts that “melting apparent surfaces
away, and displaying the infinite which was hid” characterized “printing in the
infernal method” (E 39). To prevent his plates from being pockmarked
by the strong acid, Blake may have added sal ammoniac to his nitric, which “has
the peculiar property of causing the aquafortis to bite more directly downwards
and less laterally” (Fielding 212).
Nitric diluted with sulphuric acid (“oil of vitriol”) 10 parts to one,
and then five parts water to two parts acid, makes “an aquafortis that will
consume the copper more keenly and cleanly than a purer spirit of nitre,
without leaving any roughness or frosted appearance in the lines” (Dossie 2:
150). But none of these additives
eliminates the need to feather the plate while it is being etched. Blake appears to allude to feathering plates
in the “Printing house in Hell,” where this stage—and, metonymically,
etching—occurs in the third chamber: “Eagles with wings and feathers of
air…caused the inside of the cave to be infinite” (E 40). But a constant watch
and careful feathering could also have been disadvantageous to Blake’s health,
for it meant inhaling noxious fumes for hours at a time (illus. 2).
 |
 |
 |
That
Blake singled out the etching stage of his new technique in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell suggests
that he knew he was working without precedent.
He certainly was working in homes with poor ventilation (see
illustrations in BR 560 and 562, and
Keynes plate 23). His plates required a new kind of etch, which Blake could
have perfected only through trial and error, learning “what is enough” by
knowing “what is more than enough” (Marriage
plate 9). Blake's “infernal method” assured excessive exposure to the noxious
fumes produced by the chemical reaction between nitric acid and copper. This exposure was not continuous, but it was
intense for brief periods; hence, supposing that it may have weakened his
immune system and contributed to his IBD seems reasonable. [19]
Between 1788 and 1790, Blake etched All Religions are One, There is No Natural Religion, Songs of Innocence, The Book of Thel, and The
Marriage of Heaven and Hell plus three or four separate plates for a total
of about 100 plates. [20] After a two year hiatus, Blake
executed Visions
of the Daughters of Albion, America,
a Prophecy, Europe, a Prophecy, The Book of Urizen, and The Song of Los between 1793 and 1795
for a total of 84 mostly large plates. [21] Blake appears to have etched plates in
batches; he did not have to wait till all the plates of a book were executed,
nor did he need to etch one plate at a time as soon as it was executed
(Viscomi, “Evolution,” forthcoming). Etching plates in groups greatly increased
Blake's exposure to the copper and noxious fumes released by a strong and long
etch.
Table: Blake’s symptoms and the various diseases to which
they are related.
| Disease | Blake’s Symptoms | Comment |
Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) |
Abdominal Pain, |
|
Sclerosing cholangitis (SC) |
Abdominal pain, |
develops commonly in patients with IBD |
Biliary cirrhosis |
Piles, jaundice |
develops
commonly in patients with |
During
the first period of illuminated book production Blake was 31-33 years old, and
during the second he was 36-38. Is this, the Blake of the late 1780s and early
1790s, the “young” Blake who regularly experienced “the same Complaint &
the same torment of the Stomach” as the 68-year-old man reflecting on 1
February 1826? Perhaps to an old man it
is, and Tatham’s account of Blake’s long walks with his wife supports that
hypothesis. There is no documentary evidence to prove it, though. Neither of
the two personal letters extant before 1797 (E 699-700) mentions his health, and Blake claims on 11 December
1805 that he “was alive & in health & with the same Talents” in the
1790s, “the time of Boydell's Macklins Boyers & other Great Works” (E 766-67). On the other hand, “in
health” must be read in light of his saying that his “Constitution” was “a good
one” despite its having “many peculiarities,” like stomach cramps, that no one”
but himself could know (E 775).
Blake
may have experienced episodes of acute copper intoxication after intense
periods of etching, and some of Blake's symptoms—“the same Complaint & the
same torment of the Stomach” that laid him up “the day after & sometimes
[for] two or three days”—could fit with the delayed effects of acute copper
intoxication (see n17). It is tempting to speculate that Blake's walks to the
villages north of London were prompted by his need for fresh air after etching
plates in strong acid all day long for a week or more. It is tempting because
the symptoms of acute copper intoxication include nausea, vomiting, abdominal
pain, diarrhea, blood in the urine, and jaundice. Some of the symptoms (nausea,
vomiting, abdominal pain) develop in the first day, but others develop after
one (diarrhea, blood in urine) or even several days (jaundice).
Blake
took a long rest before etching relief plates again. The next two projects, Milton and Jerusalem, contain between them 50 mid-size and 100 large plates,
but they were done over a number of years. Both are dated 1804, but the former
was probably not finished until c. 1811 and the latter not until c. 1820
(Viscomi, Blake chap. 32, 34).
Cumberland, however, reported in the summer of 1807 that Blake had “engd 60
Plates of a new Prophecy!” (BR 187).
Is he referring to Jerusalem or a
mixture of the two books? Apparently, Blake had etched at least 60 plates of
one or both works in three years, which would have been a period of etching as
sustained as the previous two. After that, he appears not to have been in any
hurry to finish Jerusalem.
The
relatively vast amounts of copper exposed to acid in illuminated plates
differentiates Blake's technique from all others and subjected Blake to more
noxious fumes than any of his contemporary printmakers. Another difference
between Blake and other engravers is his late engraving style. The 22 plates
to
Job and the seven Dante plates are
pure engravings, which means that Blake worked directly into the metal without
the aid of preliminary etching. The Job
plates, contracted in March 1823 and finished in March 1826 (BR 277, 327), are all extensively
engraved, providing Blake with his most extended and sustained exposure to
copper in his last years and probably in more than a dozen years. Is it mere
coincidence that Blake's health began to decline while he was engraving
them? Could they have exacerbated the
illness that had lain dormant for years? Or were the Job and Dante engravings executed as pure engravings, without
preliminary etching, because Blake had made a connection between the noxious
fumes and his “old symptoms”? Was the choice of technique, in other words,
determined by Blake's desire to avoid etching or to emulate the style of the
“ancient” engravers whom he was then re-examining with Linnell? [22]
Summary
On
27 January 1804, Blake predicted to William Hayley that “if God blesses me with
health [I] doubt not yet to make a Figure in the Great Dance of Life that shall
amuse the Spectators in the Sky” (E
741). That he has done, and would have even if all he produced were those
“stupendous Works” of his last years, when his health had significantly
declined. The available evidence suggests that Blake might have had IBD, a
condition that commonly precedes sclerosing cholangitis and that he probably
died from biliary cirrhosis caused by sclerosing cholangitis. Chronic copper
intoxication is a theoretical cause or aggravating factor in the pathogenesis
of sclerosing cholangitis, raising the possibility that Blake died due to a
disease acquired during his years of relief-etching.
ILLUSTRATIONS
1. Etching the copper plate in a trough; detail. Encyclopedie, 1767.
2. Etching the copper plate diked in wax and feathering away gas bubbles; detail.
Encyclopedie, 1751-52.
3. Marriage plate 10 executed as an etching, 15.3 x 10.1 cm; the design cut
through the ground with a needle.
4a. Biting the facsimile etching of Marriage plate 10 in nitric acid and feathering
away gas bubbles.
4b. Facsimile of Marriage plate 10 as an etching, 15.3 x 10.1 cm, after bitten
in acid.
5. Facsimile of Marriage plate 10 as relief etching, 15.2 x 10 cm; pouring
acid onto diked plated.
6a. Facsimile of Marriage plate 10 as relief etching; feathering the plate
in the nitric acid bath to remove gas bubbles; detail.
6b. Facsimile of Marriage plate 10 as relief etching, 15.2 x 10
cm, after bitten in acid.
WORKS CITED
Anon. “Case Reports at St. Thomas Hospital,” Lancet 11 (1826): 534-??.